So That We Remember — July
Explore Australia's violent historical past in this monthly newsletter.
What happened in July in Australia’s past
Welcome to the 'So That We Remember's monthly update on its daily journey into history — an educational source on the violent dispossession of Australia’s Indigenous people, documented over a 365-day calendar.
Each month, I will seek to pen reflections pertinent to the website’s entries and, where possible, send an update on our latest entries, as we review a full year of entries featured on sothatweremember.com.au.
Let’s explore July…
STWR Newsletter – July, 2023
Periodically we seek to include further excerpts selected from recently published research relating to the focus of So That We Remember. Three publications have come into view. Coincidentally all three are written by Professors. They, and their publications, respectively are:
* Emeritus Professor Henry Reynolds, UTRUTH-TELLING -History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021.
* Professor Kate Auty, O’LEARY OF THE UNDERWORLD - The untold story of the Forrest River Massacre, La Trobe University Press with Black Inc, Collingwood, 2023.
* Professor Sarah Maddison, THE COLONIAL FANTASY - Why White Australia Can’t Solve Black Problems, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2019
I have just received permission also from UWA Publishing to cite excerpts from Dr Chris Owens’ book entitled ‘Every Mother’s Son is Guilty’ – Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, UWA Publishing, Perth, 2016. The title is a quote from a police witness on being questioned by Commissioner George Wood in 1927 in West Australia as regards the high arrest rate of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region in the 1920s.
Henry Reynolds’ book is particularly pertinent, not only to the contents of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, but also as a contribution to the process of “truth-telling” that is particularly needful given the forthcoming referendum on an Indigenous Voice to the Australian Parliament.
The Indigenous people who produced the Uluru Statement explicitly called for a process of “truth-telling” throughout Australia. In the current discussion of the Voice proposal the recurring instances of disinformation propagated through various media and political spokespersons, sadly, indicates that there is a definite need for a public commitment to seeking and telling the truth. Reynolds’ book is to be commended to those who aspire to be genuine truth-seekers.
Kate Auty’s book, published earlier this year, takes the reader through the nefarious and devious ways in which the truth about the Forrest River massacre in Western Australia in 1926 was subverted. The book’s title, and contents, focuses not only on the massacre, but on the way key perpetrators lied their way through courtrooms and commissions so that justice was denied. According to Auty a key character in that sorry and tragic chapter of Australian history was Bernard O’Leary.
Examples of her study can be found by accessing the excerpts that have now been posted on sothatweremember.com.au at 18 April, 12 June, 9, 10 August and particularly 11 August.
Sarah Maddison’s research is summarised in the sub-title of her book Why White Australia Can’t Solve Black Problems. The page of Contents in the book lists experiences and issues that will come under increasing scrutiny as Australia is challenged further to face its past and its present. The list reads:
* Recognition *Self-Determination. *Representation * Land
* Intervention. * Incarceration * Closing the gap * Reconciliation
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Grief
The theme of “Grief”, noted in the last section of the June STWR Newsletter, is broached again in a historical context in the entry for 2 July. There historian Nicholas Clements cites sources in Tasmania from 1830, such as from a report in the Colonial Times and from a letter written by a settler named William Barnes. They document both the violent and callous treatment of Indigenous men and women, and the lack of any grief over the tragic abuse and taking of lives.
Clements quotes Barnes’ words from the latter’s letter written on 10 March, 1830:
‘... the killing of from two to twenty blacks blacks is spoken of without the least remorse’.
Sadly, excerpts posted on the website So That We Remember for the following dates in July underline this refrain. Note the entries for 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11 July to scan just the early pages of that month’s entries.
Subsequent excerpts remind the readers that women and children also bore the brunt of violent measures taken against Indigenous clans. Excerpts noting the abuse of indigenous women can be found in the entries for July 7 and 12. Many excerpts posted on So That We Remember reinforce this picture of what, in anodyne terms, can be referred to as “collateral damage”. Euphemisms are sometimes the only surviving words when carnage occurs.
Modern Australia has a varied history. But it also has a haunted history. Remembrance of some of the reality of that history can also stir grief.
Ray Barraclough – 1 July, 2023
All artwork featured on the website is by Glenn Loughrey.
Until next month... if you have any feedback or thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them. Just send me a tweet here or via LinkedIn here, or make an enquiry via the website.
~ Ray Barraclough
Creator, Editor & Curator, So That We Remember
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