Reclaiming the Silenced Past: A Postcolonial Reading of Sally Morgan’s My Place

Australia today is acknowledged as a multicultural and multiethnic democracy. However, its history of a quarter millennium ago is neither spotless nor unblemished. Numerous heterogeneous Aboriginals tribes inhabited this island region for about 40,000 years until 1788. Nonetheless, their proportion of the total population in Australia has decreased to approximately 3.8% now. The missing 96.2% of Aboriginal population needs to be accounted for. The predominant narrative, woven by white scholars with a predominant Eurocentric viewpoint, conveniently ignores such uncomfortable enquiries. It distorts Australian history and culture, glorifying the colonisers who hoisted the Union Jack on the native land in 1788. The indigenous Aboriginal tribes were portrayed as savage heathens in urgent need of reform, civilisation, culture, and religion. It was used as an alibi to displace, dispossess, subjugate and annihilate the numerous native tribes. A small number of Indigenous populations, who have successfully achieved upward social mobility assume the crucial role of advocating for their community by sharing their narrative, historical experiences, cultural heritage, the injustices they have endured and continue to face and how they envision a dignified future. In this context, the present paper is a reading of one such life-writing by an Aboriginal woman, My Place by Sally Morgan.