ResistanceYear level: 9–10

R5489 'Whiteout (bleached and banished)', 2004. With permission of Darryl Pfitzner Milika. Reproduced courtesy of History Trust of South Australia. Artwork by Darryl Pfitzner Milika.

About the unit

Unit description

In this unit students explore some of the ways museums tell stories of resistance by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to British colonisation. Students investigate the profound change the arrival of British colonists caused to the lives of Indigenous Australians. Through comparing texts and perspectives, students develop an understanding of the term ‘resistance’ and of the ways these stories are told in museums. They complete research, sequencing and summarising tasks, as well as analysing, communicating and representing tasks, to demonstrate their understanding of source analysis and the history of colonisation in Australia.

Knowledge, understandings, skills, values

  • Students investigate the different forms of resistance Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have employed over time.
  • Students develop an understanding of the impact British colonisation had,and continues to have,on Indigenous people.
  • Students investigate the way museums tell stories.
  • Students develop skills and techniques to organise and classify information such as summarising information and sequencing text through time lines.
  • Students develop confidence in using web 2.0 tools to develop their understanding.

Focus questions

  • How did Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples react to the arrival of British colonists?
  • What does it mean to resist or use resistance?
  • What effectsdid the arrival of British colonists have on Indigenous people?

Internet sites

  • Online presentation tool:
  • Online mind-mapping tools such as or
  • Online poster-making tool:
  • National Museum of Australia website:

Software

  • Microsoft PowerPoint

Attached resources

The following learning resources referred to in the unit of work are available for you to modify, print and use in your own teaching and learning context.

Printable resources

  • Analysing a museum display
  • Bilin Bilin
  • Fanny Balbuk
  • Kamalyarrpa Japanangka
  • Yagan

PowerPoint

  • Resistance

Teaching the unit

Setting the scene

Resource

  • Resistance (PowerPoint)

Teaching and learning activities

Ask students to imagine the following scenario.

You wake up to find a foreign and more powerful group has come into your area. The intruders do not speak your language. They have a different religion and set of beliefs. They have different attitudes and values. They have different and superior weapons. Their way of living interferes with your use of the land and spiritual beliefs. They quickly outnumber you, and start to take over your land. You fear they will soon dominate you and change your way of life.

What do you do?

Ask students to work in pairs to list a few possible responses. Share the responses and briefly outline the main advantages and disadvantages of each possible action. You could tabulate the class responses in a table such asthe one below.

Possible action / Advantages / Disadvantages

After the possible actions have been shared, ask pairs to join with another pair, and select the action the group would take. Ask groups to classify the action they selected using the following criteria.

  • Opposition: actively or passively resisting the colonisers or invaders
  • Undermining: a subtler form of resistance in which youcooperate with the newcomers while maintaining your own traditional way of living as far as possible
  • Cooperating: going along with the colonisers or invaders
  • Collaborating: actively helping the occupying forces

Discuss themerits of the responsesdifferentgroups selected.

Use Resistance (PowerPoint) to provide students with the context for exploring this unit.

Extension activities

Ask students to use the internet to find examples of other groups of people who have resisted invaders or colonisers throughout history. Students can prepare brief PowerPoint presentations that explain who the resisters were and where, when and how the resistance occurred.

Investigating

Resources

  • National Museum of Australia’s ‘Resistance stories’exhibit: for ‘resistance stories’)
  • National Museum of Australia’s interactive virtual tour of its‘Resistancestories’exhibit: for ‘resistance virtual tour’)
  • National Museum of Australia’s frontier conflict module interactive ‘Bells Falls Gorge: an interactive investigation’: for ‘Bells Falls interactive investigation’)
  • Bilin Bilin (pages 9–10)
  • Fanny Balbuk (pages11–12)
  • Kamalyarrpa Japanangka (pages13–14)
  • Yagan (pages15–16)
  • Online poster-making tool:

Teaching and learning activities

Ask students to access and explore the National Museum of Australia’s interactive tour of its ‘Resistance stories’ exhibit. Students can individually explore the four stories in the exhibit and complete the four interactive activities.

~

Divide students into small research groups. Explain that their task will be to research one of the four cases studies presented in the National Museum of Australia’s ‘Resistance stories’exhibit. (Go to and search for ‘resistance stories’.)Students will need to select a case study, carefully explore the website and complete the activities on the relevant printable resource. Youcould allocate case studies or let groups self-select.

The case studies include:

  • Yagan (c1795–1833) in south-western Western Australia
  • Bilin Bilin (c1820–1901) in south-eastern Queensland
  • Fanny Balbuk (1840–1907) in south-western Western Australia
  • Kamalyarrpa Japanangka (or ‘Bullfrog’) and the 1928 Coniston Massacre in central Australia.

Extension activities

Students can explore another National Museum of Australia interactivetour and complete the activities. ‘Bells Falls Gorge: an interactive investigation’ examines Indigenous contact history and the way museums present history.

Assessment

Student groups present the findings of their investigation as a poster for assessment and display in the classroom. Students could use the online poster-making tool Glogster for this activity (

Drawing conclusions

Resources

  • Analysing a museum display (page 7)
  • National Museum of Australia’s online exhibitions:

Teaching and learning activities

Students visit a local museum to evaluate an exhibit using the criteria outlined in Analysing a museum display (page 7). Students could also undertake virtual field trips and evaluate online exhibitions such as the National Museum of Australia online exhibitions: Select‘Exhibitions’, ‘Online exhibitions’ and then the links:

  • Aboriginal breastplates
  • A different time: the expedition photographs of Herbert Basedow 1903–1928
  • Many rhymes, one rhythm: young Australian hip hop from the bush to the plains.

Communicating

Resources

  • Online presentation tool:
  • Analysing a museum display (pages 7–8)

Teaching and learning activities

Students review the museum displays they have evaluated and, using the criteria supplied in Analysing a museum display (pages 7–8), construct their own small display. Students should select a historical topic that is of interest to them and that is easy to research. This display could be paper-based, three-dimensional or virtual. If students are creating a virtual display, they could use software such as PowerPoint or online presentation tools such as Prezi (

Students use a report format to present their analytical findings and comment on the effectiveness of the National Museum of Australia’s ‘Resistance stories’ website display. Their report should comment on the content and arrangement of the display, the message being conveyed and the viewpoints explored.

Assessment

The students’ museum display and report on the National Museum of Australia’s ‘Resistance stories’exhibitwebsite can be used as a final assessment.

Writer:Angela Casey, National Museum of Australia

Some of the content in this unit of work draws on material jointly owned by National Museum of Australia and Ryebuck Media.

The material in this unit of work may contain links to internet sites maintained by entities not connected to Education Services Australia Ltdand which it does not control (‘Sites’).

Education Services Australia Ltd:

  • provides the links for ease of reference only and it does not sponsor, sanction or approve of any material contained on the Sites; and
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While the material in this unit of work is not remunerable under Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968, material on the Sites may be remunerable under Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968. It is your responsibility to read and comply with any copyright information, notices or conditions of use which apply to a Site.

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except where indicated otherwise

Resistance 1

Analysing a museum display

Name / Class / Date
Aspects to consider / The museum display
What is my initial impression of the display?
What does the display show (objects, stories, multimedia)?
Is the historical context clearly explained?
Is the significance of this display clearly displayed?
Is there a variety of evidence displayed?
Are the objects displayed authentic for that event or period?
Are the text descriptions clear and informative?
How is the display arranged?
Do the surroundings influence my impression of the display?

Analysing a museum display continued

Aspects to consider / The museum display
Is there a particular message being conveyed?
Is the nature of the event identified? (For example, am I told if it is controversial or contested? Should I be?)
Are various viewpoints clearly and fairly presented?
Do I know where the evidence has come from and what sort of evidence it is? How do I know?
Is it presenting a particular message to me, or is it allowing me to make my own judgements?
Is its purpose to present objects (neutral), or to explain (impartial), or to argue a particular view (partisan)?
At the end, do I feel that I really understand the situation?
What is my final judgement about the display?

Bilin Bilin

Name / Class / Date

Investigating Bilin Bilin’s story

Activity 1

Carefully look at the following sources. Provide a heading or caption for each source. For example, Source A might be ‘a descendant’s comment on Bilin Bilin’. Then cut the sources out and try to sequence them chronologically. Until you are certain your sequencing is correct, do not glue the sources – instead, number the back of each source. Once you have done this, move onto Activity 2. Later, come back and check that your sequencing is correct.

Source A

Look into the eyes of Bilin Bilin… they tell a story of the burden he was forced to bear when these intruders failed to respect his family and his land. The metal plate and the chains are symbols of this burden.

Ysola Best, Bilin Bilin’s great-great-granddaughter, 1993

Source B

Bilin Bilin’s breastplate reads ‘Jackey Jackey King of the Logan and Pimpana’.

Source C

Bilin Bilin’s descendants tell the story of how he used to bring honey and other food to a widowed settler who was raising a large family on her own.

Source D

Bilin Bilin learnt English and worked for the settlers, as workers were unlikely to be killed or removed. By doing so he was able to stay in his country and maintain traditions. Today Bilin Bilin’s descendants believe their living culture and identity are the result of hard decisions made by their ancestor.

Source E

In 1860, a detachment of Queensland police led by Lieutenant Wheeler shot dead members of the Yugambeh at Fassifern. In evidence, Wheeler asserted that the only punishment Aboriginal people accused of offences understood was ‘shooting them’.

Bilin Bilin continued

Activity 2

As a group, visit the National Museum of Australia’s website and explore Bilin Bilin’s story: for ‘Bilin Bilin’).

Carefully look at all of the links that tell us about Bilin Bilin and make notes on the information provided. Look at:

  • Bilin Bilin’s story
  • Map
  • Keendahn’s story
  • Family album
  • Yugambeh museum
  • Remembering Bilin Bilin
  • Objects
  • Landscape.

Make notes under the following headings.

  • Who was Bilin Bilin?
  • Where did the events take place?
  • Why was there a need for resistance?
  • What was the main type of resistance shown?
  • How successful was this resistance? Why?
  • How is Bilin Bilin remembered today?

Activity 3

Use the notes you made in Activity 2 toconstruct a mind map using either or

Activity 4

Check the chronological time line you sequenced in Activity 1. Is your sequencing correct? Do you need to add any other key events to it? Would your time line be improved by including some images from the ‘Resistance’ section of the National Museum of Australia website? Create a poster that incorporates the chronological sequence and the mind map you compiled in Activity 3. You could title your poster ‘Bilin Bilin’s story of resistance’. On the poster you must include a 100-word summary explaining what this case study tells you about one type of resistance reported. You could use an online poster-making tool such as Glogster for this task.

Fanny Balbuk

Name / Class / Date

Investigating Fanny Balbuk’s story

Activity 1

Carefully look at the following sources. Provide a heading or caption for each source. For example, Source A might be ‘changing use of land’. Then cut the sources out and try to sequence themchronologically. Until you are certain your sequencing is correct, do not glue the sources– instead, number the back of each source. Once you have done this, move onto Activity 2. Later, come back and check that your sequencing is correct.

Source A

When a house was built in the way, she broke its fence palings with her digging stick and charged up the steps and through the rooms.

The passing of the Aborigines: a lifetime spent among the natives of Australia, Daisy Bates CBE, 1938

Source B

Sharyn Egan is a Noongar artist and a descendant of Joobaitch, Fanny Balbuk’s uncle. Sharyn admires Fanny’s ‘courage and the fact she was not afraid to just be herself and damn the consequences’. Sharyn’s work deals with Noongar people’s sense of loss and displacement, and the trauma that is carried through the generations.

Source C

Settlers occupied and changed the land. Their actions disrupted Indigenous people’s lives. In the 1890s, Perth’s railway station was built on a swamp where Fanny Balbuk had gathered eggs and caught turtles and crayfish.

Source D

Fanny Balbuk’s cultural knowledge continues to be relevant to Noongar people today. Her memories and description of Noongar life in the Perth region were used in a Noongar Native Title claim over parts of the Perth metropolitan area.

Source E

To the end of her life she raged and stormed at the usurping of her beloved country.

The passing of the Aborigines: a lifetime spent among the natives of Australia, Daisy Bates CBE, 1938

Fanny Balbuk continued

Activity 2

As a group, visit the National Museum of Australia’s website and explore Fanny Balbuk’s story: for ‘Fanny Balbuk’).

Carefully look at all of the links that tell us about Fanny Balbuk, and make notes on the information provided. The first three links will be the most useful. Look at:

  • Fanny Balbuk’s story
  • Map
  • Fanny Balbuk’s legacy
  • Walyalup women weaving
  • Objects
  • Landscape.

Make notes under the following headings.

  • Who was Fanny Balbuk?
  • Where did the events take place?
  • Why was there a need for resistance?
  • What was the main type of resistance shown?
  • How successful was this resistance? Why?
  • How is Fanny Balbuk remembered today?

Activity 3

Use the notes you made in Activity 2 toconstruct a mind map using either or

Activity 4

Check the chronological time line you sequenced in Activity 1. Is your sequencing correct? Do you need to add any other key events to it? Would your time line be improved by including some images from the Resistance section of the National Museum of Australia website? Create a poster that incorporates the chronological sequence and the mind map you compiled in Activity 3. You could title your poster ‘Fanny Balbuk’s story of resistance’. On the poster, you must include a 100-word summary explaining what this case study tells you about one type of resistance. You could use an online poster-making tool such as Glogster for this task.

Kamalyarrpa Japanangka

Name / Class / Date

Investigating Kamalyarrpa Japanangka’s story

Activity 1

Carefully look at the following sources. Provide a heading or caption for each source. For example,Source A might be ‘Kamalyarrpa Japanangka’s life after the murder and massacre’. Then cut the sources out and try to sequence themchronologically. Until you are certain your sequencing is correct, do not glue the sources– instead, number the back of each source. Once you have done this move onto Activity 2. Later, come back and check that your sequencing is correct.

Source A

KamalyarrpaJapanangka (Bullfrog) was never caught or tried for Brooks’s murder. Three years later, anthropologists working in the area met Japanangka. They photographed him and collected his spearthrower without knowing of his involvement in Brooks’s killing.

Source B

The blacks saw me coming and threw a couple of spears at me. I jumped off my horse and fired four or five shots with my rifle. I do not know whether I hit them or not. I certainly tried.

Jack Saxby, ‘The findings of the board of inquiry into Coniston killings’, CRS A431, 1950/2768, part 2, folio 445, NAA, Canberra