Shadowing Imperial Networks: Indigenous Mobility and Australia's Pacific Past

Abstract

From the vantage point of Sydney harbour, in Australia's first city, this article scans the Pacific horizons to observe traces of mobility that connected indigenous worlds throughout the Greater Pacific during the nineteenth century. While Australia's historical interaction with the Pacific has been shaped by networks of exploitation, these were shadowed by the autonomous movements of indigenous peoples throughout the region. In the absence of detailed archival records of individuals, port cities have emerged as critical sites for uncovering historical traces of such counter-imperial and subaltern networks. Sydney was located at the convergence of numerous paths taken by indigenous peoples from the Pacific and Australian colonies as they sought to resist, manage, or exploit emerging colonial settlements and trades. This article observes a handful of these arrivals and departures, when Sydney was both a destination and transit city, while reflecting on the significance such narratives might have for understanding Australia's place on the edge of Pacific history.