Böcker av Judy Campbell

In Invisible Invaders, Judy Campbell argues that epidemics of smallpox among Australian Aboriginals preceded European settlement.An epidemic of smallpox among Aboriginal people around the infant colony of Sydney in 1789 puzzled the British, for there had been no cases on the ships of the First Fleet. Where, then, did the epidemic come from?As explorers moved further inland, they witnessed other epidemics of smallpox, notably in the late 1820s and early 1830s and again in the 1860s and 1870s. They also encountered many pockmarked survivors of early epidemics.In Invisible Invaders, Judy Campbell argues that epidemics of smallpox among Australian Aboriginals preceded European settlement. She believes they originated in regular visits to the northern coast of Australia by Macassan fishermen from southern Sulawesi and nearby islands. They were searching for trepang, for which there was a profitable market in China.The Macassan fishermen usually visited during the monsoon season, and the local Indigenous people traded with them. Once the monsoon was over, these Aboriginals resumed their travels into the interior for food, social contact and ritual events, carrying small pox with them. Smallpox thus slowly moved across the continent, eventually reaching the south-east, where it was first recorded by Europeans.Judith Campbell's research on the incidence of smallpox and other diseases among Aboriginal people has extended over more than twenty years. Accumulating evidence from other disciplines supports her findings.

A rich memoir about exploring a family mystery, and how a search for truth can yield unexpected outcomes.Eight years after the death of her mother, Judy reviews her family relics, including the antique tea service that belonged to her mother's grandfather. Should she just sell the damn thing and buy new lounge furniture? It's tempting.But she stops to read the inscription etched into the solid silver tray. It honours this man around whom hangs a century-old mystery. Prickling with a strange resentment towards her widely loved mother, she embarks on a journey to uncover the truth behind the story of grandeur and ruin her mother had promised, but never wrote.The author's relentless research in dusty archives and neglected cemeteries across South Africa unravels an unexpected family history. The process draws her to revisit the darker corridors of her youth, and her sense of identity. She confronts the losses and complexities of her own life.The Silver Tea Service is a thought-provoking memoir of loss, redemption and belonging, of political injustices and the inescapable nuances of history in South Africa.