Encountering Aboriginal knowledge: Explorer narratives on north-east Queensland, 1770 to 1820

Abstract

In early August 1802, botanist Robert Brown had a problem. He had secured a bounty of plants while exploring Port Curtis, today's Queensland town of Gladstone on the coastal fringe of Australia's tropical north-east, when he and his party were attacked by some local Aboriginal people. Brown wrote that 'The attack was made with a war woop and discharge of stones: I was at this moment employ'd in putting specimens of Plants in paper and had scarcely time to collect my scatter'd paper boxes andc and make a hasty retreat.' Brown was accompanying Matthew Flinders on this survey of the region, having departed northwards from Port Jackson two weeks earlier. The plants had been collected and the task now was to package them securely, ready for the long journey back to the imperial centre. In this way, they became transformed from being parts of living ecosystems into botanical specimens for the enhancement of growing scientific and natural history collections.