Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: writing missionaries
- PART ONE THE MISSION STATEMENT
- PART TWO THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN INDIA
- PART THREE THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN POLYNESIA
- PART FOUR THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN AUSTRALIA
- 8 The Australian colonies and empire
- 9 Missionary writing in Australia
- Conclusion: missionary writing, the imperial archive and postcolonial politics
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN NINETEENTH-CHNTURY LITERATURE AND CULTURE
8 - The Australian colonies and empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: writing missionaries
- PART ONE THE MISSION STATEMENT
- PART TWO THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN INDIA
- PART THREE THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN POLYNESIA
- PART FOUR THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN AUSTRALIA
- 8 The Australian colonies and empire
- 9 Missionary writing in Australia
- Conclusion: missionary writing, the imperial archive and postcolonial politics
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN NINETEENTH-CHNTURY LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Summary
A ‘country of civilized thieves and savage natives’
It was the custom at this time for the Aborigines both male and female to parade the streets without a particle of clothing, and it struck me very forcibly, on my first landing in Sydney in 1817, to observe such scenes in the midst of what was called a civilized community, and when walking one day with some colonial Ladies, and meeting a mixed party of undressed natives of both sexes, no slight embarrassment was felt as to how dexterously to avoid the unseemly meeting, but this was speedily removed by their claiming old acquaintance privileges, and entering into a friendly conversation with our friends. It is astonishing how soon custom forms habits the most opposite to those esteemed in our native land.
Reverend Lancelot Edward Threlkeld's narrative of black and white encounters in the colonial settlement of Sydney establishes the tone and sentiment of his Reminiscences and introduces the central concerns of part four, focussing on the LMS in Australia. Threlkeld's evidence about settler–Aboriginal encounters, his discussion of the place and behaviour of white and black women, and his comments about the unique nature of colonial manners were issues critical to the work of the LMS in early Australian colonies. Threlkeld's obvious social embarrassment at the potential difficulties involved when white ‘colonial Ladies’ interact with naked Aboriginal men and women is suggestive of the nexus of racial, cultural, and sexual issues which colonial Australia presented to white colonists and to arbiters of propriety and cross-cultural encounters such as Threlkeld.
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- Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860 , pp. 167 - 179Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003