‘The queen gave us the land’: Aboriginal people, Queen Victoria and historical remembrance

Across Victoria and New South Wales, Aboriginal people claim that Crown land reserves set aside in the second half of the nineteenth century were granted or deeded to them by Queen Victoria. This paper spells out approaches to interpreting this longstanding oral tradition, with particular reference to documentation and discussion of it within mid twentieth century ethnography and in the context of activist research as part of the fledgling land rights campaign in the early 1970s. In addition to recognising the claim’s tenacity over time, the paper suggests that greater consideration of the specific contexts within which it had currency and circulated can generate new insights into its meanings and uses. This article has been peer-reviewed.