Review: Fiona Foley's Biting the Clouds is a visceral look at opium and control on the colonial frontier
Review: Biting the Clouds: a Badtjala perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act by Fiona Foley, UQP In late 1897, the colonial Queensland parliament introduced the oddly named the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, joining colonial panic about Aboriginal people’s opium use with a new regime of protective governance. Concern about this — especially the use of charcoal opium, the toxic ash left in pipes — had been growing since the 1870s, and there was evidence opium was being used as payment for Aboriginal labour and...
Source: theconversation.com