'Some non-Indigenous Australians, like John Howard when prime minister, claim that Australians today cannot be held responsible for what happened to Indigenous Australians decades ago. That is not the point. The point is that Australians today, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, confront the trauma that has flowed from those past events and, together, Australians today need to deal with that trauma as it exists today. Guilt for those past events may not be inherited; responsibility for dealing with their effects is.' ('Why the Australian Frontier Wars are important: Defending Country repost', 11 November 2024)
The files of the Victorian Yoorrook Justice Commission are a treasure trove of truth-telling. (Earlier post.) They show forcefully that the Voice Referendum is not the end of the Reconciliation story.
One notable submission is 'Evidence on the legacy of historical frontier violence in Australia', dated 7 August 2024 and prepared by Associate Professor Julie Moschion, School of Economics, University of Queensland and ten other authors for the Historical Frontier Violence: drivers, legacy and the role of truth-telling project (HFV Project).
Supporting truth-telling with qualitative and quantitative evidence
The aim of [the HFV] project is to support truth-telling by providing qualitative and quantitative evidence on the legacy of a specific aspect of colonisation, historical frontier violence. While it is only one aspect of colonisation, it is important because it led to dispossession and splintering of communities, and was the genesis for further atrocities, including stolen generations. (submission, page 7)
First Nations outcomes today are framed by racially motivated historical violence: qualitative evidence
The submission contains qualitative material from interviews and focus groups with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Moree, NSW.
One Aboriginal participant said, 'It’s like the frontier wars are not over yet … Because Gomeroi Murris are very much aware of what happened. Our kids are indirectly a result of what happened, because quite frankly, back in those days, our kids wouldn’t exist. They’d just fucking kill them.' (page 8)
One non-Aboriginal participant said, 'I do agree we have to acknowledge the massacres and everything like that, but I hope that the child that breaks into my depot next week … does not get off because the fact is that in 1820 there was a massacre at Waterloo ... (page 9)
What these preliminary findings show [the authors say] is that historical violence and resultant racial segregation has created a complex environment where outcomes for Aboriginal community members today are not just linked but framed by racially motivated historical violence. (page 9)
First quantitative study of intergenerational impacts of colonial violence
'As far as we are aware', the authors go on, 'this is the first study that estimates the intergenerational impacts of colonial violence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' (page 10). They have estimated relationships between aggregate numbers of community massacres and massacre deaths and, first, individual child development outcomes and, secondly, individual 'No' votes in the Voice Referendum.
The authors' findings are contained in four graphs (Figures 1-4) and readers should go to the submission to view these. Key findings are quoted below:
These results [Figure 1] suggest that in their first year of full-time school, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in communities where massacres are recorded have lower developmental scores in all domains than Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in communities where massacres are not recorded. (page 11)
[domains = physical health & wellbeing; social competence; emotional maturity; language & cognitive skills (school-based); communication skill & general knowledge]
We also find that the difference in the developmental scores is larger in communities where there were 4 or more massacres compared to 1 to 3 (Figure 2). (page 11)
We estimate that in electoral divisions where massacres are recorded, the "no” vote was 4 percentage points higher than in electoral divisions where no massacres are recorded. In electoral divisions where 7 massacres or more are recorded, we find 7.6 percentage points less support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament compared to divisions where no massacres are recorded. (Figure 3; page 13)
[I]n every state where we can compare electoral division results with and without massacres within rural and remote, provincial and outer metropolitan regions, there is a consistently higher “no” vote in divisions where massacres are recorded compared to those where no massacres are recorded (Figure 4). (page 14)
Background to the study; future work
The submission comes from elements of the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and the ARC Life Course Centre of Excellence. (Full details are in the submission.) The work is supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council and draws upon the late Emerita Professor Lyndall Ryan's massacres work, historical data, and data on child development and Referendum voting.
Further work will link the experience of colonial violence to economic, health and personal safety outcomes, negative attitudes to Indigenous people, the establishment of missions and reserves, and the success of native title claims.
The findings and/or views reported are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Australian Department of Education, the Australian Government, the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Institute, Dilin Duwa, the Australian National University or the Life Course Centre.
Defending Country thanks: Professor Moschion for providing a copy of the submission; staff at Yoorrook for their assistance.
Picture credit: Detail of map of Queensland 1890, with the carve-up into counties indicating the extension of settlement into Indigenous Country (Wikimedia Commons; Queensland Government). Note the predominance of English names for the counties.
