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Conspiracy of Silence: Queensland's Frontier Killing Times by Raymond Evans, Timothy Bottoms
maree_k's review against another edition
5.0
Australia has a black history, and Queensland's history is the blackest of all. Timothy Bottom's meticulously researched book, Conspiracy of Silence, is a difficult book to read. It is devastating to be confronted, page by page, by what is essentially the genocide of Aboriginal peoples in the area of the Australian continent known as Queensland.
Bottoms provides the statistic that, conservatively, the figure of Aboriginal peoples killed in Queensland in the frontier wars is around 48,000. These men, women and children were killed because they were fighting for their own land, land that the Europeans stole from them. There are no words to describe the horror of these atrocities that led to this devastating figure. And yet the majority of Australians know virtually nothing about this recent history. There is a reason for this: Bottoms unpacks how the history of the frontier wars was buried in favour of the pioneer myth. This is a myth that continues to exist today despite the overwhelming amount of first hand, original evidence - letters, newspaper articles, reports - that details attacks including shootings, poisonings, rape, bashings and other horrific violence. The original sources quoted are brutal, as are the handed down stories that Bottoms quotes.
Many passages in the book are distressing to read. I had to put it down many, many times. But if Australia as a country is ever to make real change in "closing the gap" in life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples we must first, as a nation, recognise and accept the reality of this nation's recent brutal past.
An essential read.
Bottoms provides the statistic that, conservatively, the figure of Aboriginal peoples killed in Queensland in the frontier wars is around 48,000. These men, women and children were killed because they were fighting for their own land, land that the Europeans stole from them. There are no words to describe the horror of these atrocities that led to this devastating figure. And yet the majority of Australians know virtually nothing about this recent history. There is a reason for this: Bottoms unpacks how the history of the frontier wars was buried in favour of the pioneer myth. This is a myth that continues to exist today despite the overwhelming amount of first hand, original evidence - letters, newspaper articles, reports - that details attacks including shootings, poisonings, rape, bashings and other horrific violence. The original sources quoted are brutal, as are the handed down stories that Bottoms quotes.
Many passages in the book are distressing to read. I had to put it down many, many times. But if Australia as a country is ever to make real change in "closing the gap" in life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples we must first, as a nation, recognise and accept the reality of this nation's recent brutal past.
An essential read.
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