Dancing with Strangers: Europeans and Australians at First Contact

by Inga Clendinnen

• ISBN13: 9780521616812
• ISBN10: 0521616816
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In January 1788, the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales, Australia and a thousand British men and women encountered the people who would be their new neighbors. Dancing with Strangers tells the story of what happened between the first British settlers of Australia and these Aborigines. Inga Clendinnen interprets the earliest written sources, and the reports, letters and journals of the first British settlers in Australia. She reconstructs the difficult path to friendship and conciliation pursued by Arthur Phillip and the local leader 'Bennelong' (Baneelon) that was ultimately destroyed by the assertion of profound cultural differences. A Prize-winning archaeologist, anthropologist and historian of ancient Mexican cultures, Inga Clendinnen has spent most of her teaching career at La Trobe University in Bundoora, Australia. Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan (Cambridge, 1989) and Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1995) are two of her best-known scholarly works; Tiger's Eye: A Memoir, (Scribner, 2001) describes her battle against liver cancer. Reading the Holocaust (Cambridge, 2002) explores World War II genocide from various perspectives.

Author Biography

Inga Clendinnen is Emeritus Scholar in History at La Trobe University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vi
Map	x
Introduction	1	(5)
Dancing with Strangers	6	(6)
Meeting the Informants	12	(7)
Governor Arthur Phillip	19	(18)
Captain John Hunter	37	(7)
Surgeon-General John White	44	(7)
Judge-Advocate David Collins	51	(6)
Watkin Tench, Captain-Lieutenant of Marines	57	(10)
Settling In	67	(16)
What the Australians Saw	83	(11)
Arabanoo	94	(8)
Enter Baneelon	102	(8)
Spearing the Governor	110	(23)
`Coming In'	133	(7)
House Guests	140	(12)
British Sexual Politics	152	(7)
Australian Sexual Politics	159	(9)
Boat Trip to Rose Hill	168	(4)
Headhunt	172	(10)
On Discipline	182	(9)
Potato Thieves	191	(9)
Expedition	200	(9)
Crime & Punishment: Boladeree	209	(10)
Barangaroo	219	(11)
Tench Goes Home	230	(8)
Phillip Goes Home	238	(5)
Collins Goes Home	243	(10)
Collins Reconsiders	253	(11)
Baneelon Returned	264	(9)
Bungaree	273	(7)
Enter Mrs Charles Meredith	280	(5)
Epilogue	285	(5)
Notes on Sources	290	(25)
Illustrations	315	(1)
Bibliography	316	(6)
Index	322