Mapping The North
When my history of The North needed a title Mapping The North fitted the bill. European travellers used them to record where they had been and what they had found. Once settlers arrived, maps recorded the routes between settlements, the Courses of rivers, the location of farms, plantations and mineral deposits. They delineated regions and local government areas, electorates and boundaries, and indicated sea routes and railway lines. They provide vital information about how things were in the past, continue to be drawn in the present. While the means by which we present them may change will undoubtedly still be used for all those purposes in the future.
So, the site's centrepiece sets out to deliver a history of the region by focussing on the European exploration, settlement and development of North Queensland through the maps and other documents that charted the process. As such, a settler narrative should acknowledge the landscape those explorers and settlers encountered. It should also recognise the historical processes that brought the Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English, French and Australian travellers into the region. Those matters, along with the physical and human environment that the outsiders encountered, form the basis of Origins, Indigenes, and Antecedents.
Prelude: Tracing An Outline fits the pre-settlement exploration of the area into a global and continental perspective.
Six Voyages: Half a dozen maritime expeditions produce an outline of Queensland's northern coast.
Adding Detail: The European exploration of The North between 1788 and Queensland's Separation from New South Wales on 6 June 1859.
Northern Queensland: Following Separation, the settlement of the Kennedy Pastoral District begins filling in the blank spaces on the map of The North.
