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Research exposes Australia’s violent past

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“I think we need to know what happened. We need to know more.”

That’s a statement from University of Newcastle historian Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan after her research team just uncovered more evidence of the violent frontier massacres of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

The new data contests the narrative of the country’s early colonial history, revealing the attacks during the spread of pastoral settlement did not wane as the decades passed.

Instead, they intensified, on an immense scale – creating lasting trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 

The research project, currently in its eighth year, estimates that more than 10,000 Indigenous people were killed in over 400 massacres. 

By contrast, it is estimated that 168 non-Aboriginal people were killed in 13 frontier massacres.

According to Professor Ryan, these events were very carefully planned.

“They weren’t an accident. They were designed to get Aboriginal people out of the way, whether it was to ‘teach them a lesson’, or to make them so timid that they were easier to employ,” she said.

“But clearly, I think the overall purpose was to reduce the population of Aboriginal people in Australia and keep them away from infrastructure such as telegraph lines and natural features like large water holes so that cattle and sheep would have ready access.”

Professor Ryan added the new evidence shows that “more massacres happened in the period 1860 to 1930 than in the period 1788 to 1860.”

“We find that the massacres are becoming better organised and there seems to be a more ruthless approach on the part of the perpetrators to the massacring of Aboriginal people,” she said. 

She suggests the perpetrators were learning much more about how Aboriginal people were living.

“The data is telling us that the massacres after 1860 are being carried out on an immense scale,” Professor Ryan explained.

“There’s more massacres and more Aboriginal people being killed. So, it’s taking us into a new trajectory of understanding the violent frontier.”

One example is a massacre that occurred in western Queensland around 1900.

The perpetrators targeted a ceremony of Aboriginal people and gathered several days beforehand and as the ceremony was ending, they ambushed and shot as many Aboriginal people as they could.

Another event in the Kimberley in the 1890s saw Aboriginal men captured and secured with neck chains. The men believed they were being taken out of town and along the way, it was decided the group would camp for the night.

“Even in their neck chains they were sent out to gather firewood,” Professor Ryan said.

“When they brought the firewood back, the perpetrators poured kerosene or some other fuel on the fire and threw the Aboriginal people into it. That’s a frightening massacre, and certainly one of the worst we’ve ever come across.

“So, they’re becoming better organised, they’re becoming more brutal, they’re becoming more frightening to read about, and I feel, more frightening for the survivors as well.”

The study believes a revolution in firearms and an increase in the number of armed colonists led to larger massacres after 1860. 

There was also a view that pastoralists and miners going into Northern Australia felt outnumbered by the surrounding Aboriginal people.

“They were more likely to shoot first and ask questions afterwards,” Professor Ryan said.

To identify these massacres, the team developed a template and a process to corroborate sources. 

They studied settler diaries, newspaper reports, Aboriginal evidence, and archives from State and Federal repositories. 

Their new online map and database record the locations and details of the individual massacres and the sources confirming evidence of the incidents.

It all makes up Stage Four of the project – it is hoped that in shedding light on the truth, this research can help in the path to reconciliation.

Genocidal massacres

The most significant discovery researchers made was the identification of 19 genocidal massacres, most occurring after 1860. 

The series of incidents were carried out over several weeks or months by the same group of perpetrators in reprisal for the Aboriginal killing of a colonist or colonists. The purpose was to kill every Aboriginal person in a region.

The research team, which has experts working on the ground in a number of states and territories, identified three massacres carried out in retaliation to the alleged Aboriginal killing of pastoralist ‘Big Johnny’ Durack in 1886. 

The killings took place over several weeks and crossed the Western Australian border into the Northern Territory. 

More than 220 Aboriginal people died, making it the largest massacre event in Western Australian history.

Several other genocidal massacres were also recorded in far West Queensland. 

In the Selwyn Ranges five took place in February 1879 after the killing of Bernard Molvo and three stockmen at Wonomo Waterhole. 

More than 100 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed.

The most recent genocidal massacre took place in the Northern Territory in 1928, when several hundred Warlpiri, Anmatyere and Kaytetye people were murdered for killing a dingo trapper.

The team continues to search for the truth

Professor Ryan said the violence of the frontier massacres created lasting trauma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.

She hopes the research project helps all Australians change their understanding of the past. 

“It’s clear that my generation has been protected from this kind of information,” she said. 

“When I do talk to people of my generation about these events, they’re looking at me in amazement, and shock and horror. Some people don’t want to know anymore, but many others do.

“I think we need to know what happened. We need to know more.”

To access the map, click here. 

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