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History / Year 9 / Historical Knowledge and Understanding

Curriculum content descriptions

Experiences of non-Europeans in Australia prior to the 1900s (such as the Japanese, Chinese, South Sea Islanders, Afghans)  (ACDSEH089)

Elaborations
  • outlining the migration of Chinese to the goldfields in Australia in the nineteenth century and attitudes towards the Chinese as revealed in cartoons (for example, The Mongolian Octopus)
General capabilities
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
  • Intercultural understanding Intercultural understanding
  • Personal and social capability Personal and social capability
Cross-curriculum priorities
ScOT terms

Indentured workers,  Racial discrimination,  Discrimination,  Migrant labour,  Migration

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Video

Chinese Anzacs in World War I

Among the 420,000 Australians who served in World War I, 300 people were of Chinese descent. This was in spite of the introduction of the Commonwealth Defence Act in 1909, which stated that soldiers had to be of "substantially European origin". This 3-minute video explores the rules constraining enlistment and introduces ...

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Pacific Islander labourers outside slab-hut dwellings, late 1800s

This is a black-and-white photograph showing indentured Pacific Islanders and their families posing by their slab-hut homes, probably on a coastal Queensland sugar plantation. They are wearing Western-style clothes, with the women in long skirts and the men wearing jackets and trousers. The huts appear to have been constructed ...

Image

Pacific Islander labourers clearing land, c1895

This is a black-and-white photograph showing nine Pacific Islander men using picks and axes to clear undergrowth and small trees from a clearing in a thickly vegetated area at Farnborough in central Queensland. The men are bare-chested, hatless and barefoot, with some wearing sarong-like garments. A white man stands in ...

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Pacific Islanders arriving at Bundaberg, 1895

The black-and-white photograph shows Pacific Islander men and women arriving in the sugar port of Bundaberg after being recruited to work as indentured labourers on Queensland's sugar plantations. The posed shot shows more than 60 Pacific Islander men, women and boys and one European on the deck of a schooner at the dock. ...

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Pacific Island labourer recruiting ship 'Para', c1880

This is a drawing of the two-masted brigantine 'Para', probably completed by Master Mariner William Wawn during a successful five months voyage to the Solomon Islands in 1894. One of a series of sketches of his impressions of the islands in pencil, ink and watercolour, it shows the recruiting ship offshore at anchor, as ...

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Female emigrants bound for Australia, 1834

This hand-coloured lithograph, measuring 36.0 cm x 22.7 cm and consisting of seven panels of an original ten, depicts in cartoon form the deprivations suffered by single women migrating to Australia in the 1830s. Titled 'FEMALE EMIGRATION!', the scenes follow the story of the women leaving Britain, their rough crossing ...

Video

Examining Australia's Constitution

In this clip, reporter Stan Grant visits the National Archives of Australia to revisit the moment when Australia became a federation, on 1 January 1901. Stan examines the original Australian Constitution and reads out Section 127. What does it say? To try to understand why Indigenous people were so excluded, Stan considers ...

Video

Counted: Australian culture in the 1960s

What was Australia like in the 1960s? Why does reporter Stan Grant say that "change is coming" at this time, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? Choose one of the people mentioned in this video and do some research into their sporting, artistic or political achievements.

Video

The Australian Dream: Racism

This 10-minute clip explores the racism experienced by Indigenous footballers, Nicky Winmar, Gilbert McAdam, and Adam Goodes. Students learn of the racist insults and behaviours enacted on and off-field, and the effects of these on the players’ lives and sense of selves. The resource includes a transcript, suggested discussion ...

Video

ABC 7.30: Chinese ANZACs

When World War I broke out in 1914, the 'White Australia Policy' had been in place for 13 years. Despite this attempt at exclusion, many Chinese Australians chose to enlist and fight the war with their fellow countrymen. Do you think you would have done the same? Why/why not? Watch this 5-minute video to find out more about ...

Video

Benalla Migrant Camp

While many postwar immigrants were sent to Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre when they arrived in Australia, others lived at the smaller Benalla Migrant Camp. Like Bonegilla, Benalla is in north-east Victoria. Unlike at Bonegilla, however, many immigrants remained at Benalla for over a decade. Listen as Sabine ...

Video

Welcome to Bonegilla Migrant Camp

Following World War II, the Australian government was eager to increase the country’s population. The war reminded Australians that their small population would not withstand an enemy invasion. Further, a larger workforce was needed to develop the postwar economy. European people, many displaced by the war and the spread ...

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Pacific Islander women working in cane fields, c1890

This sepia photograph shows eight indentured Pacific Islander female labourers preparing to hoe weeds in rows of cane at Hambledon Mill, near Cairns in Queensland. The women and girls, some barefoot, stand at the edge of the cane, which is above head height. The foreground is bare soil and a thickly wooded hill rises in ...

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Pacific Islander workers on a coffee plantation, c1900

This black-and-white photograph shows indentured Pacific Islander labourers manually gathering coffee beans from lines of bushes on a Kuranda coffee plantation on the Atherton Tableland in Queensland. This image shows male, female and child labourers standing among the shoulder-high coffee bushes. The Pacific Islanders ...

Video

Stateline TAS: Aunty Ida West: Tasmanian Aboriginal Elder, 1995

This 3-minute clip explores challenges faced by Aboriginal people in the 20th century including the denial of culture and language. Students are introduced to Tasmanian woman Aunty Ida West and learn about her background and the life experiences that forged her as an activist, ambassador, and eventually a prominent Elder. ...

Video

Gold rush

Walk through the streets of 1850s Ballarat at Sovereign Hill and learn about how the discovery of gold shaped the development of this region. What were the three distinct but overlapping eras of gold mining in Ballarat? How do staff at Sovereign Hill know what life was like for people during this time? Find out how the ...

Video

Nexus: Holden, the 'all-Australian car'

What made Holden cars symbols of Australia during the 1950s, 60s and 70s? During this period, more than any other vehicle, the Holden came to reflect changing lifestyles in Australia, and helped to define for many what it meant to be 'Australian'. Find out the impact that generations of Holden vehicles have had on the lives ...

Video

The historical legacy of John Glover

English artist John Glover emigrated to Van Diemen's Land in 1831. He settled on a generous land grant called "Patterdale", near Deddington in northern Tasmania. Many of Glover’s artworks provide historical records of the people, plants and animals who lived in the area, as well as the changes wrought by European settlement.

Video

BTN: History of voting

Australia's first parliamentary election was in 1843. What was different about voting then? When and how did that change to resemble elections we have now? This 4-minute video explores three significant dates in Australia’s history of voting and the changes that occurred on those dates.

Video

Life As a Female Convict: Cascades Female Factory

The Cascades Female Factory was both a prison and a factory for female convicts in early Hobart. It was a place where convict women were forced to undertake labour in slave-like conditions to support the fledgling colony. Learn what life at the Female Factory was like for the inmates. What sort of work did the women do? ...