While William Dampier is lauded as the first Englishman to set foot in Australia, he published a popular book with a derogatory description of Aboriginal people that would influence the foundations of our nation.

“The inhabitants of this country are the miserabilist people in the world,” Dampier wrote in his 1697 book A New Voyage Around The World.

In describing how the Aboriginal people he met could not be induced to collect water for his ship, he said they instead “grinned like so many monkeys staring one upon another”.

Dampier’s first book shot him to fame and elevated his status from a pirate, likely to be jailed or hanged, to the commander of subsequent Royal Navy voyages of global exploration.