July Member’s Meeting

Friday  2  July 7.30 pm

Dr Skye Krichauff

Understanding positive relations between Aboriginal people and settlers in the Adelaide district in the early colonial years  

In this presentation, Dr Krichauff will analyse the nature and extent of early cross-cultural relations in the Adelaide district. Historical records indicate that from 1836-1839, relations between the Aboriginal people of the Adelaide Plains (the Tarndanya) and the colonists were, on the whole, positive. Local people initially welcomed Europeans onto their Country and none lost their lives through violent confrontations with Europeans. The colonial experience was diverse, and Dr Krichauff will outline factors requiring consideration when evaluating variations between Aboriginal-settler relations in the Adelaide region and those of other districts. In doing so, she will illustrate the agency of the Tarndanya, and the adaptability of their culture. 

Dr Skye Krichauff is an ethno-historian who is interested in colonial cross-cultural relations, the relationship between history and memory, and how societies live with historical injustices (in particular how Australians live with the enduring legacies of colonialism). She has convened courses on Australian history, colonial history and Aboriginal-settler history at Flinders University, worked as a history researcher for an Aboriginal Community organisation and as an expert historian for South Australian Native Title Services. She is currently employed at the University of Adelaide as an Australian Research Council Fellow on the linkage project ‘Reconciling with the Frontier’. Skye is also the President of the History Council of South Australia and joint-editor of the journal Studies in Oral History.