With the Barossa Valley and Hahndorf still showing their influence today, South Australia was once the most German of the colonies. Now a new book is shedding light on the interactions of these early settlers with Indigenous Australians.
Edited by Flinders University's Professor Peter Monteath and Professor Matthew Fitzpatrick, with cultural advice from Kaurna and Narungga man Dennis O'Brien, An Indigenous South: German writers on colonial South Australia, offers a unique exploration into the role German settlers, missionaries, and anthropologists played in shaping colonial relations with Indigenous Australians.
"Australia's history is traditionally viewed through the lens of British colonisation, but this work uncovers a lesser-known aspect of South Australia's formation," says Professor Monteath, a professor of history and Vice President and Executive Dean of Flinders University's College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
"The Germans who arrived in South Australia in the 19th century were key figures in documenting Indigenous languages and cultures. Ironically, while participating in colonisation and contributing to the destruction of culture, they also played an unintended role in preserving them."
The book examines the entangled European and Indigenous histories in South Australia, particularly focusing on the Kaurna people, the original custodians of the land now known as Adelaide.
The Kaurna and other Indigenous peoples were systematically dispossessed and displaced, and the book reveals how Germans, though fewer in number than the British, played a significant role in this process.
It charts the course of German-Australian encounters from first contacts, through the ruptures and violence of a relentlessly expanding European presence and into the twentieth century.
As it documents the astounding cultural wealth and complexity of Indigenous peoples under siege, it also lays bare the grim logic of the forces driving their world towards destruction.
"This isn't an incontestable history of the First Nations of South Australia, but rather a collection of representations, and misrepresentations, of Indigenous people and their lives, as recorded by German migrants, scientists, missionaries and sojourners," says Professor Fitzpatrick, who specialises in international history, in particular German and European history.
"The majority of them had very little contact with or understanding of those they were describing and many of the descriptions are shockingly racist."
The authors say the book brings to light a largely forgotten aspect of South Australia's colonial past. By examining the interactions between Germans and Indigenous Australians, it paints a more complete picture of frontier relations in the 19th and early 20th centuries and demonstrates how Germans, through their writings and actions, influenced both the local colonial narrative and global understandings of race and empire.
"We hope this work will contribute to ongoing discussions about Australia's colonial legacy and foster a deeper understanding of the entangled histories that continue to shape the country today," says Professor Monteath.
An Indigenous South: German writers on colonial South Australia, Edited by Peter Monteath and Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, has been published by Wakefield Press. ISBN 9781923042353.
