What is it about the nature of frontier conflict that led historians to overlook it for so long?
Until recent decades, the history of frontier conflict, and to an extent, Indigenous history, had been absent on the pages of popular Australian history and history textbooks. The extent and nature of frontier conflict is a highly contested issue amongst historians, with varying, and sometimes polar historical viewpoints. Australian history, until the late 20th century, was focussed largely on the actions and lives of European white settlers. Indigenous responses to white settlement were often ascribed as feeble and unvaried, and many massacres of indigenous groups were ignored completely in history books.
Opposing this view of history and adding to the historiographical debate, in his ground-breaking monograph The Other Side of the Frontier (1981), Henry Reynolds recounts a history of violence between white settlers and Indigenous Australians. More notably, Reynolds describes the complex forms of resistance by the Australian Aborigines against the invading European settlers. Reynolds presents a “black armband” view of history which had been absent in previous hegemonic white Australian historical accounts. There are, however, several reasons for the general absence of Indigenous history before this publication.
Political motives may have led to the exclusion of frontier conflict in history. As Indigenous Australians were not counted on the Australian census until the referendum in 1967, this made way for the disregarding of indigenous beings, in the most part, from the history books. Moreover, it is difficult to assess both sides of the historical recounts of frontier conflict, as Indigenous societies often employed oral history to recount events. Many historians in the past had ignored oral history, particularly Indigenous oral history, and instead used the more “credible” white people’s accounts of history in written form.
Moreover, it is perhaps the shame associated with this history that has prevented it from being widely published and accepted until recent times. Reynolds presents the world with a “black armband” history, a history of shameful behaviour, including massacres, rape and displacement, that is more difficult for many people to accept in this young country. Conservative government, particularly under the leadership of John Howard in the 1990’s, chose to remember the more positive aspects of our history, rather than these more shameful memories.
Finally, to accept a history that so greatly opposes what generations of Australians had been taught is another reason why frontier conflict has been left bare. Reynolds’ proposition was largely revolutionary in the telling of the Indigenous perspective, and did not follow the traditional and accepted histories of Australia until that time. Thus, Frontier conflict had been overlooked by historians for so long because of its complex nature, difficulty in accessing information, shameful aura and its opposition of traditional histories of Australia
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| "Natives Attacking Shepherds' Hut," print by Samuel Calvert, c.1860's, As Henry Reynolds explains, Indigenous responses to white settlement were complex and varied. (Source: National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an8957159) |
