13 October 2021, photo View from Sims Island, Northern Territory with the Malay (Indonesian) fleet at the bay and the Indonesians whom Admiral King met in northern Australia. From the ‘Phillip Parker King album of drawings and engravings, 1802-1902’ collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.
Understanding Australia requires more than knowledge of the English language. Professor Adrian Vickers highlights the wealth of non-English sources and cross-cultural exchanges that can reorient our perspective on the Australian story.
In 1817 when early explorer Admiral Phillip Parker King set out from Port Jackson on an expedition to explore northern Australia, he took with him two letters of introduction: one in Malay and the other in Javanese.
Approximately 150 years later, Professor Fritz van Naerssen, then-Chair of Indonesian and Malayan Studies at the University of Sydney, translated the Javanese letter before it found its way into its present home in the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales. This is one of a vast set of non-English documents that date back to the early British colonisation of Australia.