In this talk, presented on Sunday 18 July, 2021, Dr Rachel Standfield discusses histories of early encounters between colonisers and Kulin peoples in Naarm/Melbourne, drawing from one of the early colonists who spent the most time with Kulin peoples, and was highly prolific in his writing, the Protector William Thomas. Look at some of the experiences that Kulin peoples faced in early Melbourne and some of the strategies that communities put in place to try to continue their cultural life on their own Country as Europeans began to arrive in greater and greater numbers.
Dr Rachel Standfield is a lecturer in the Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Melbourne. She is a non-Indigenous woman and a historian of Indigenous societies and colonial histories in Australia and New Zealand. Dr. Standfield works as a historical consultant and researcher for Melbourne’s Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Community and has also worked in public policy and supporting Indigenous activism for human rights. One of Dr. Standfield’s areas of research interest is cross-cultural relations in early Melbourne Melbourne during the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate period.