Looking for Blackfellas' Point: an Australian history of place

Abstract

Blackfellas' Point lies on the Towamba River in south-eastern New South Wales. As the river descends rapidly from its source on the Monaro plains, it winds its way through state forest, national park and farming land. Around twenty-five kilometres before it reaches the sea, just south of Eden, it passes through Towamba, the small village in which Mark McKenna now owns eight acres of land. Mark's land looks across the river to 'Blackfellas' Point', once an Aboriginal camping ground and meeting place. Looking for Blackfellas' Point is a history that begins by looking across the river to the arc of bush that is 'Blackfellas' Point. From there, Mark McKenna's gaze pans out - from the history of one place he knows intimately, to the history of one region and, ultimately, to the history of Australia's quest for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Looking For Blackfellas' Point is a history for every Australian who is interested in the story of settler-Australia's relations with Indigenous people - what happened between us, how we learnt to forget and, finally, how we came to confront the truth about our past and build a movement for reconciliation.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 105 citations exist upstream.