Torres Strait: a history of colonial occupation and culture contact, 1864-1897

During his first visit to Torres Strait in 1888, the eminent anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon heard disturbing rumours about the activites of the Sydney-based beche-de-mer and pearl-shelling masters and their predominanly Pacific Islander crews, who had begun to exploit the Strait's abundant marine resources twenty-five years before. 'If anything can be retrieved about the contact of the white men and their South Sea crews with the natives it would make the most interesting and unsavoury reading. There can be little doubt that the events of this troublous period affected the natives very adversely in every way and that the ill effects persisted for a long time.' In recent decades an enormous scholarly effort has beed made to retrieve the history of interaction between Aboriginies and colonists on the Australian pastoral frontier. The same cannot be said for Torres Strait. Although a few excellent books have appeared, as yet none have explored the Torres Strait frontier in sufficient detail to allow a thorough survey of Hadden's "troublous" period. This book is an attempt to do just that. -- book cover