Sport, culture and ideology at the Brisbane Regatta (1848-73): Aboriginal-European relations in an emerging colonial city

Brisbane River is a serpentine river which follows you as you drive through the inner suburbs of Brisbane, a city linked to Moreton Bay via the river. In recent decades, the river has been 'rediscovered' by its citizens as a great cultural and social meeting place. We should not forget, however, that the Brisbane River was also a significant early meeting place for Aboriginal and European people in Queensland's colonial past. This article tells of one such meeting between Aboriginal people and European settlers: the annual Brisbane regatta. It demonstrates that through reflecting upon the ways in which colonists and Indigenous people worked, played and socialised along the riverbanks, the nature of British colonialism in its Queensland context can be more clearly understood