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Writing the History of Contact on the Central Coast of New South Wales

Version 2 2025-07-07, 00:35
Version 1 2025-06-27, 02:41
thesis
posted on 2025-07-07, 00:35 authored by Ryan Stewart

Australian poet Henry Kendall, after spending time living in the township of Gosford, commented in 1875 that the early history of the region had been 'to a considerable extent, forgotten by even its oldest European inhabitants.' This loss of early settler-colonial history is most keenly observed in the paucity of information that has survived concerning contact experiences between the First Peoples of the Central Coast and settler-colonists. This thesis examines the scattered and fragmentary settler-colonial documents and recollections of the contact period, and its violence, between 1823 and 1874, that were recorded and preserved in local histories. It examines how the construction of contact history in the Central Coast region was shaped by the prevailing euro-centric views of First Peoples in Australia's early colonial era. Specifically, it interrogates the settler-colonial belief that Australia's First Peoples were destined for extinction. In Kendall's words, First Peoples had 'dwindled away as all inferior races do after the appearance of the Caucasian.' In 1874, a First Nations man from the Central Coast, with the English name of Billy Fawkner, passed away. He was lasted by settler-colonists in the early 1870s. His designation as the 'last' of the First Nations peoples in the region is presented in this thesis as the foundation stone upon which settler-colonial local histories were made in the twentieth century. The first writers of such texts presented a version of local colonial history that lauded the settler-colonists for conquering the challenges of the region, including its first inhabitants. Framed by historicism, using decolonial, postcolonial and settler-colonial theories, and reading into the historical consciousness of key local history authors Charles Swancott, Frederick Charles Bennett and Edward Stinson, this thesis analyses how these local historians constructed their accounts of contact history. Using the work of archaeologist Patricia Vinnicombe, this study also explores how settler-colonists interacted with, and remembered, First Nations material culture as evidence for contact history. Challenging settler-colonial tropes about First Nations lasting and extinction, this thesis demonstrates how the work of First Nations academic Nerida Blair helped restore First Peoples of the Central Coast into the pages of local historical literature. First Peoples of the Central Coast survived the calamities of colonisation and remain strong and connected to Country today.

History

Year awarded

2025

Thesis category

  • Doctoral Degree

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Supervisors

Nancy Cushing, University of Newcastle Victoria Haskins, University of Newcastle

Language

  • en, English

College/Research Centre

College of Human & Social Futures

School

School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences

Open access

  • Open Access

Rights statement

Copyright 2025, Ryan Stewart.