A modern history of the Gugu Badhun people and their country

Abstract

The Gugu Badhun people are owners of the land of the upper Burdekin River of north Queensland. Dispossessed and then integrated into the pastoral industry, they later moved off country to engage with the mainstream economy and society, motivated especially by a desire to educate their children and secure well-paid employment. Their stories form the foundations of this history, which the Gugu Badhun themselves have requested to be written. The research was largely based on extended video and audio interviews of individual and family stories, supplemented by library, archival and literary research. The thesis traces the history of the Gugu Badhun from their first contact with European intruders, through their violent and non-violent relationships with colonists, the choices they made in raising their families, to their movement away from their country. Finally, it examines how continuing connection to family and country is now affirmed through regular visits to their ancestral lands.