As Anzac Day approaches, campaigners want Australia's war
memorial to recognise the forgotten Aborigines killed by white
settlers
By Kathy Marks
Sunday, 19 April 2009
The Australian War Memorial, an imposing building on the shores
of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, honours the dead of two world
wars as well as other conflicts, including Korea, Malaysia and
Vietnam. But the
bloody and prolonged battles that accompanied white settlement of
Australia, and claimed at least 20,000 Aboriginal lives, rate
barely a mention.
More than 200 years after the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove,
white Australians are still struggling to come to terms with their
colonial past. Long erased from official accounts, the clashes and
massacres that took place on the frontier remain a contested area
of history, often replaced by more palatable stories of rugged
pioneers conquering an inhospitable land.
The descendants of the early white settlers served the British
Empire, and later Australia, overseas; their deeds are celebrated
in the War Memorial, and are recalled on 25 April, the anniversary
of the First World War campaign at Gallipoli. This year, though, as
Anzac Day approaches, there are demands for the memorial to
commemorate a less heroic aspect of military history: the dirty
wars fought on Australian soil.
A lithograph of British troops killing black warriors in 1838 at
the aptly named Slaughterhouse Creek is the only reference to those
wars in the monument's displays. Yet they raged across the
continent for nearly 150 years, the last recorded incident being at
Coniston, in the Northern Territory, where 70 Aborigines were shot
dead in 1928 by an official force, which was subsequently
exonerated.
Calls for proper recognition are supported by leading
historians, who note that the US and New Zealand, among others,
have faced up to their colonial-era atrocities. The Canadian War
Memorial includes displays on the violence committed by European
settlers against native peoples.
However, the Canberra monument's governing council insists that
the frontier conflicts do not belong within its walls. Bill Crews,
a council member, and president of the Returned and Services League
(RSL), says: "These events are principally a matter of social
history, and as such are more appropriately reflected in other
institutions, such as the National Museum."
Military historians disagree. John Connor, from the Australian
Defence Force Academy, has no doubt that war was waged in early
colonial times – even if it was undeclared and did not resemble a
traditional war, consisting of small-scale skirmishes between
Aborigines and soldiers or police.
British soldiers were despatched to the Hunter Valley and
Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, while Australian paramilitary
police were sent into action elsewhere. In Queensland, Aborigines
were "dispersed" and "pacified" by Native Mounted Police. In total,
an estimated 3,000 whites were killed.
Dr Connor says: "Military officers on the ground talked about
war, and if they're calling it a war, what else can you call it? On
the Aboriginal side, they remember it as a war, to defend their
land."
That definition, though, casts doubt on the legal and moral
basis of colonisation, he says. "If the British occupation of
Australia was fought over, it means the wealth of white Australians
comes from taking the land from indigenous Australians, and their
social problems, including low life expectancy, are because of the
dislocation of losing their land and lifestyle."
At least the subject is being discussed now. For nearly 100 years, the
frontier conflicts were ignored, forgotten or
denied. During the 19th century, urban Australians
knew and cared little about what was happening on the edges of
civilisation. For much of the 20th century, the clashes over land
were written out of the history books and were not taught in
schools.
Instead, the myth was forged, particularly after the Australian
colonies federated as an independent nation in 1901, of a bloodless
occupation, and a country that knew neither war nor revolution. The
late anthropologist William Stanner called it the "great Australian
silence". Henry Reynolds, an eminent historian, says: "The
foundation story was a heroic one, and the story was fatally
compromised if you put the Aborigines into it."
Rather than resisting the foreign invaders, Aborigines – with
the exception of a few "treacherous blacks" – meekly abandoned
their land, it was believed. Indeed, until the mid 20th century,
they were assumed to be a dying race, partly because of introduced
diseases.
A series of lectures by Stanner in 1968, entitled "After the
Dreaming", pierced the bubble of silence. But not until 1981, when
Professor Reynolds published The Other Side of the Frontier, did
the colonial-era wars begin to be widely discussed and accepted as
historical orthodoxy. His writings were cited by the High Court
judges who, in 1992, finally overthrew the legal fiction of terra
nullius – the idea that Australia was uninhabited when the British
arrived.
Even now, though, the subject remains controversial. One
well-known historian, Geoffrey Blainey, has criticised the "black
armband view of history". Another, Keith Windschuttle, has
challenged Professor Reynolds's estimate of the number of
Aboriginal deaths and his claims of a policy of deliberate
genocide.
The history wars are still being fought; meanwhile, the Anzac
legend – based on the bravery of Australian and New Zealand troops
at Gallipoli – is stronger than ever. Increasing numbers of young
people visit the Turkish peninsula where the Anzacs landed in 1915,
and where, despite heavy casualties and an eventual retreat,
Australia became a nation, it is said.
There are war memorials in almost every Australian town, but
only a handful of reminders of the brutal events close to home. A
monument to 28 Aborigines, mainly women and children, who were
massacred in 1838 at Myall Creek, in New South Wales, was put up
only in 2003.
In New
Zealand, the wars that accompanied colonisation are widely
recognised. However, the Maoris were far more numerous than the
Aborigines; they spoke the same language and came together to fight
formal battles. Aborigines were widely scattered, spoke nearly 300
languages and moved around in small family
groups.
The Australian frontier wars sit uneasily with the Anzac legend,
with its emphasis on service and sacrifice. Peter Stanley, who was
the War Memorial's chief historian for 27 years, describes them as
"guerrilla wars ... sordid and secret". "Those who say they don't
belong there are disregarding and diminishing the Aboriginal
understanding of history," says Dr Stanley, now director of the
Centre for Historical Research at the National Museum of Australia.
"The conflicts
begin in 1790 and continue until the 1920s. In between, if you look
at a map of Australia, you can plot literally dozens of fights,
with the largest taking place in New South Wales and Western
Australia in the 1830s and Queensland in the 1860s and
1870s.
"As the
frontier moves, the settlers encounter each Aboriginal people's
territory. The Aborigines kill some of their cattle, and
retribution occurs. At the same time, there's cultural degradation.
The conflicts precede the destruction of Aboriginal society, and
you can trace it across the continent."
A War Memorial spokesman says the frontier wars fall outside its
charter, which requires it to honour Australian troops killed
overseas. Others dispute that legal interpretation, and point out
that the charter had been changed to include the Boer Wars.
Professor Reynolds believes racism lies behind the governing
council's stance. "It's the idea that the Aborigines were not
worthy opponents, and therefore it wasn't really a war," he says.
"But it was a war of Aboriginal resistance, and it was amazingly
effective in some places: in Tasmania, 200 Europeans were
killed."
Bill Crews, the RSL president, denies the racism charge, noting
that the memorial honours Aboriginal servicemen who have fought for
Australia. Dr Stanley sees things differently. Recalling the
official apology by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, last year to
the "Stolen Generations", he says: "I don't think it's feasible, in
a post-apology Australia, to ignore that important part of our
history any longer."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7eubc