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The history wars is a term used in Australia to describe the public debate about the interpretation of the history of the European colonisation of Australia and the development of contemporary Australian society, particularly with regard to their impact on
Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
and
Torres Strait Islander Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped ...
peoples. The term "history wars" emerged in the late 1990s during the term of the Howard government, and the debate is ongoing. The term "history wars" largely refers to the extent to which the history of European colonisation post-1788 and government administration since federation in 1901 may be characterised as having been: * a relatively minor conflict between European settlers and
Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
, and generally lacking in events that might be termed "
invasion An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
", "
warfare War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
", "
guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...
", "
conquest Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms. Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...
" or "
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
", and generally marked instead by humane intent by government authorities, with damage to Indigenous Australians largely attributable to unintended factors (such as the unintentional spread of
infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...
s from Europe) rather than to malicious policies; or * an invasion marked by violent frontier conflicts and guerrilla warfare between European settlers and Aboriginal Australians involving numerous clashes between Aboriginal people and the new settlers as a result of the former's food gathering practices being at odds with new land-use practices based on agriculture and capitalism, a situation which has been argued to have evolved into a pan-Australian " genocide of Indigenous Australians", which continues to affect Aboriginal people today. The history wars also relates to broader themes concerning
national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
, as well as methodological questions concerning the historian and the craft of researching and writing history, including issues such as the value and reliability of written records (of the authorities and settlers) and the
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
(of the Indigenous Australians), along with the political or similar
ideological An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...
biases of those who interpret them. One theme is how British or multicultural Australian identity has been in history and today. At the same time the history wars were in play, professional history seemed in decline, and popular writers began reclaiming the field.


Outline

The term "history wars" refers to an ideological conflict over how to perceive
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
as a nation, framed largely by the respective visions of Labor Party Prime Minister
Paul Keating Paul John Keating (born 18 January 1944) is an Australian former politician and unionist who served as the 24th prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He previously serv ...
(1991–1996), who saw
race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...
as central to the nation's character and who gave new attention to Indigenous people's issues, and Liberal Prime Minister
John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
(1996–2007), who sought to re-establish a conservative view of Australia that valorised the nation's achievements and was grounded in "Judeo-Christian ethics, the progressive spirit of the enlightenment and the institutions and values of British culture". The conflict was played out largely in the popular media, books, and
think-tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental org ...
lectures. Commentators on the
political left Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
argued that Australia's national identity was linked to its treatment of Indigenous people and advocated making amends for past injustices on moral grounds, while those on the
political right Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, auth ...
argued that the left had exaggerated the harms done to Indigenous Australians, that stories of abuses of Indigenous people were undermining Australia's coherent identity, and that contemporary Australians did not feel responsible for abuses committed in the past. Much of the public controversy was related to the release of the government's report on the
Stolen Generations The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church miss ...
commissioned by Keating but released after Howard took office, titled ''
Bringing Them Home ''Bringing Them Home'' is the 1997 Australian ''Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families''. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to ...
''. In 1968 Professor W. E. H. "Bill" Stanner, an Australian
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
, coined the term the "Great Australian Silence" in a Boyer Lecture titled "After the Dreaming", where he argued that the writing of
Australian history The history of Australia is the story of the land and peoples of the continent of Australia. Aboriginal Australians, People first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and ...
was incomplete. He asserted that Australian national history as documented up to that point had largely been presented in a positive light, but that
Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
had been virtually ignored. He saw this as a structural and deliberate process to omit "several hundred thousand Aboriginal people who lived and died between 1788 and 1938 ... (who were but) ... negative facts of history and ... were in no way consequential for the modern period". A new strand of Australian
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
subsequently emerged which gave much greater attention to the negative experiences of Indigenous Australians during the British settlement of Australia. In the 1970s and 1980s, historians such as
Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...
and Henry Reynolds published work which they saw as correcting selective historiography that had misrepresented or ignored Indigenous Australian history. The historian
Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...
argued in the literary and political journal '' Quadrant'' in 1993 that the telling of Australian history had moved from an unduly positive rendition (the "Three Cheers View") to an unduly negative view (the " black armband") and Australian commentators and politicians have continued to debate this subject. Interpretations of Aboriginal history became part of the wider political debate sometimes called the '
culture wars A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal value ...
' during the tenure of the
Coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...
government from 1996 to 2007, with Prime Minister of Australia John Howard publicly championing the views of some of those associated with ''Quadrant''.
Robert Manne Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual. Background Robert Manne was born in Melbo ...
(November 2008)
"What is Rudd's Agenda?"
''
The Monthly ''The Monthly'' is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer ...
''.
This debate extended into a
controversy Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...
over the way history was presented in the
National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia, in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''National Muse ...
and in
high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
history curricula. It also migrated into the general Australian media, with regular opinion pieces being published in major
broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...
s such as ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'', ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' and ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
''.
Marcia Langton Marcia Lynne Langton (born 1951) is an Australian academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Regarded as one of Australia's top intellectuals, L ...
has referred to much of this wider debate as "war porn" and an "intellectual dead end".Langton M. Essay: Trapped in the aboriginal reality show. ''Griffith Review 2007'', 19:Re-imagining Australia. Two Australian prime ministers, Paul Keating and John Howard, were major participants in the "wars". According to the analysis for the Australian Parliamentary Library of Dr Mark McKenna, Howard believed that Keating portrayed Australia pre-
Whitlam Edward Gough Whitlam (11 July 191621 October 2014) was the 21st prime minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The longest-serving federal leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1967 to 1977, he was notable for being the he ...
in an unduly negative light; while Keating sought to distance the modern
Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the la ...
movement from its historical support for the Monarchy and the
White Australia policy The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...
by arguing that it was the Conservative Australian parties who had been barriers to national progress and excessively loyal to the British Empire. He accused Britain of having abandoned Australia during World War II. Keating was a staunch advocate of a symbolic apology to indigenous people for the misdeeds of past governments, and outlined his view of the origins and potential solutions to contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage in his
Redfern Park Speech The Redfern Park Speech, also known as the Redfern speech or Redfern address, was made on 10 December 1992 by the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, at Redfern Park, which is in Redfern, New South Wales, an inner city suburb of Sydne ...
(drafted with the assistance of historian
Don Watson Don Watson (born 1949) is an Australian author, screenwriter, former political adviser, and speechwriter. Early life Watson was born in 1949 at Warragul in the Gippsland region of Victoria, and grew up on a farm in nearby Korumburra. Academi ...
). In the aftermath of the 1997 ''Bringing Them Home'' report and the ensuing debate, which was highly acrimonious, Howard in 1999 passed a Parliamentary
Motion of Reconciliation The Motion of Reconciliation was a motion to the Australian Parliament introduced and passed on 26 August 1999. Drafted by Prime Minister John Howard in consultation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway, it dedicated the Parliament to the "caus ...
describing treatment of Aboriginal people as the "most blemished chapter" in Australian history, but he did not make a Parliamentary apology. Howard argued that an apology was inappropriate as it would imply "intergeneration guilt" and said that "practical" measures were a better response to contemporary Aboriginal disadvantage. Keating has argued for the eradication of remaining symbols linked to British origins: including deference for
ANZAC Day , image = Dawn service gnangarra 03.jpg , caption = Anzac Day Dawn Service at Kings Park, Western Australia, 25 April 2009, 94th anniversary. , observedby = Australia Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Cook Islands New ...
, the
Australian Flag The flag of Australia, also known as the Australian Blue Ensign, is based on the British Blue Ensign—a blue field with the Union Jack in the upper hoist quarter—augmented with a large white seven-pointed star (the Commonwealth Star) and a r ...
and the
Monarchy in Australia The monarchy of Australia is Australia's form of government embodied by the Australian sovereign and head of state. The Australian monarchy is a constitutional monarchy, modelled on the Westminster system of parliamentary government, while in ...
, while Howard was a supporter of these institutions. Unlike fellow Labor leaders and contemporaries,
Bob Hawke Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was an Australian politician and union organiser who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (A ...
and
Kim Beazley Kim Christian Beazley (born 14 December 1948) is an Australian former politician and diplomat. He was leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and leader of the opposition from 1996 to 2001 and 2005 to 2006, having previously been a cabinet ...
, Keating never traveled to
Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...
for ANZAC Day ceremonies. In 2008 he described those who gathered there as "misguided". In 2006, John Howard said in a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of ''Quadrant'' that "
political correctness ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
" was dead in Australia but: "we should not underestimate the degree to which the soft-left still holds sway, even dominance, especially in Australia's universities"; and in 2006, ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'' Political Editor
Peter Hartcher Peter Hartcher is an Australian journalist and the Political and International Editor of the ''Sydney Morning Herald''. He is also a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based foreign policy think tank. Career In 1981, while a stude ...
reported that Opposition foreign affairs spokesman
Kevin Rudd Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...
was entering the philosophical debate by arguing in response that "John Howard, is guilty of perpetrating 'a fraud' in his so-called culture wars ... designed not to make real change but to mask the damage inflicted by the Government's economic policies". The defeat of the Howard government in the Australian Federal election of 2007, and its replacement by the
Rudd Labor government ''Scardinius'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae commonly called rudds. Locally, the name "rudd" without any further qualifiers is also used for individual species, particularly the common rudd (''S. erythrophthalmus''). The ...
altered the dynamic of the debate. Rudd made an official apology to the '' Stolen Generation'' with bipartisan support. Like Keating, Rudd supported an Australian Republic, but in contrast to Keating, Rudd declared support for the
Australian flag The flag of Australia, also known as the Australian Blue Ensign, is based on the British Blue Ensign—a blue field with the Union Jack in the upper hoist quarter—augmented with a large white seven-pointed star (the Commonwealth Star) and a r ...
and supported the commemoration of
ANZAC Day , image = Dawn service gnangarra 03.jpg , caption = Anzac Day Dawn Service at Kings Park, Western Australia, 25 April 2009, 94th anniversary. , observedby = Australia Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Cook Islands New ...
and expressed admiration for Liberal Party founder
Robert Menzies The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...
. Following the change of government and the passage, with support from all parties, of a Parliamentary apology to indigenous Australians, Professor of Australian Studies Richard Nile argued: "the culture and history wars are over and with them should also go the adversarial nature of intellectual debate", a view contested by others, including conservative commentator
Janet Albrechtsen Janet Kim Albrechtsen (born 23 September 1966) is an Australian opinion columnist with ''The Australian.'' From 2005 until 2010, she was a member of the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia's public broadcaster. Early life ...
. However, an intention to re-engage in the history wars was indicated by then-Federal Opposition member Christopher Pyne.


History wars and culture wars

The "history wars" are widely viewed, by external observers and participants on both sides as similar to the "
culture war A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal value ...
" underway in the United States. William D. Rubinstein, writing for the conservative British
think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...
known as the
Social Affairs Unit The Social Affairs Unit is a right-leaning think tank in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1980 as an offshoot of the Institute of Economic Affairs, it publishes books on a variety of social issues. Its website notes that "many SAU supporters are inc ...
, refers to the history wars as "the Culture War down under". Participants in the debate including
Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
and
Robert Manne Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual. Background Robert Manne was born in Melbo ...
are frequently described as "culture warriors" for their respective points of view.


Topics


Black armband / white blindfold debate

The "black armband" debate concerns whether or not accounts of Australian history gravitate towards an overly negative or an overly positive point of view. The ''black armband view of
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
'' was a phrase first used by Australian historian
Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...
in his 1993 ''Sir John Latham Memorial Lecture'' to describe views of history which, he believed, posited that "much of re-multiculturalAustralian history had been a disgrace" and focused mainly on the treatment of minority groups (especially Aboriginal people). He contrasted this with the ''Three Cheers'' view, according to which "nearly everything that came after
he convict era He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
was believed to be pretty good". Blainey argued that both such accounts of Australian history were inaccurate, saying: "The Black Armband view of history might well represent the swing of the pendulum from a position that had been too favourable, too self-congratulatory, to an opposite extreme that is even more unreal and decidedly jaundiced." The lecture was subsequently published in the political and literary journal, '' Quadrant'',
Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...
, 'Drawing Up a Balance Sheet of Our History', in Quadrant, vol.37 ( 7–8), July/August 1993
which at the time was edited by academic and political scientist
Robert Manne Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual. Background Robert Manne was born in Melbo ...
and later by writer and historian
Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
, two of the leading "history warriors", albeit on opposing sides of the debate. The phrase then began to be used by some commentators
pejorative A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
ly to describe historians viewed as writing excessively critical Australian
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
"while wearing a black
armband An armband is a piece of material worn around the arm. They may be worn for pure ornamentation, or to mark the wearer as belonging to group, or as insignia having a certain rank, status, office or role, or being in a particular state or condit ...
" of "mourning and grieving, or
shame Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. Definition Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...
". New interpretations of Australia's history since 1788 were contested for focussing almost exclusively on official and unofficial
imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
,
exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour ** Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery ** Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment *Exploi ...
, ill-treatment,
colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 au ...
dispossession and
cultural genocide Cultural genocide or cultural cleansing is a concept which was proposed by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 as a component of genocide. Though the precise definition of ''cultural genocide'' remains contested, the Armenian Genocide Museum defines ...
and ignoring positive aspects of Australia's history. Historian
Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...
, author of the best-known history of Australia, was named by Blainey in his 1993 speech as having "done much to spread the gloomy view and also the compassionate view with his powerful prose and
Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
phrases". The Howard Government's responses to the question of how to recount Australian history were initially formulated in the context of former Labor prime minister Paul Keating's characterisation of the subject. John Howard argued in a 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture that the "balance sheet of Australian history" had come to be misrepresented: In 2009, Howard's successor
Kevin Rudd Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...
also called for moving away from a ''black-arm view'':
Stephen Muecke Stephen Muecke BA (Hons, Monash), Mes.L (Paris), PhD (UWA) FAHA is Emeritus Professor of Ethnography at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Adjunct Professor at the Nulungu Institute, University of Notre Dame, Broome. He studied l ...
, Professor of Ethnography at the
University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...
, contributed to the debate by arguing that black armband events bring people together in common remembrance and cited
Anzac Day , image = Dawn service gnangarra 03.jpg , caption = Anzac Day Dawn Service at Kings Park, Western Australia, 25 April 2009, 94th anniversary. , observedby = Australia Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Cook Islands New ...
as an example; while Aboriginal lawyer
Noel Pearson Noel or Noël may refer to: Christmas * , French for Christmas * Noel is another name for a Christmas carol Places * Noel, Missouri, United States, a city * Noel, Nova Scotia, Canada, a community * 1563 Noël, an asteroid *Mount Noel, Briti ...
argued that whilst there was much that is worth preserving in the cultural heritage of non-Aboriginal Australia, "To say that ordinary Australians who are part of the national community today do not have any connection with the shameful aspects of our past is at odds with our exhortations that they have connections to the prideful bits". The notion of the ''white blindfold'' view of
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
entered the debate as a pejorative counter-response to the notion of the "black armband school". Clark, Anna
The First Annual Dymphna Clark Lecture
, delivered at the
Manning Clark House The Manning Clark House, designed by Australian architect, Robin Boyd in 1952, is a house located at 11 Tasmania Circle, , a suburb of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. The house was built for Professor Manning Clark (1915 – 1991) ...
, 2 March 2002. See footnote 23 that cites
Ann Curthoys Ann Curthoys, (born 5 September 1945) is an Australian historian and academic. Early life and education Curthoys was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 5 September 1945, and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney. In 1 ...
, 'Mythologies', in Richard Nile d. The Australian Legend and Its Discontents, St. Lucia 2000, p. 12,16; and Ferrier, p. 42.
In his book ''Why Weren't We Told?'' in 1999, Henry Reynolds referred to Stanner's "Great Australian Silence", and to "a 'mental block' which prevented Australians from coming to terms with the past". He argued that the silence about Australia's history of frontier violence in much of the twentieth century stands in stark contrast with the openness with which violence was admitted and discussed in the nineteenth. Reynolds quotes many excerpts from the press, including an article in the ''
Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
Herald'' in Queensland written as late as 1907, by a "pioneer" who described his part in a massacre. Reynolds commented that violence against Aboriginals, far from being hushed up or denied, was openly talked about. The nature of the debate began to change in 1999 with the publication of a book ''Massacre Myth'' by journalist Rod Moran, who examined the 1926
Forrest River massacre The Forrest River massacre, or Oombulgurri massacre of June 1926, was a massacre of Indigenous Australian people by a group of law enforcement personnel and civilians in the wake of the killing of a pastoralist in the Kimberley region of Wester ...
in Western Australia. Moran concluded that the massacre was a myth inspired by the false claims of a missionary (possibly as a result of mental health issues). The principal historian of the Forrest River massacre, Neville Green, describes the massacre as probable but not able to be proven in court. Windschuttle said that reviewing Moran's book inspired his own examination of the wider historical record. Windschuttle argues that much of Australian Aboriginal history, particularly as written since the late 1970s, was based on the use of questionable or unreliable evidence and on deliberate misrepresentation and fabrication of historical evidence. He based his conclusions on his examination of the evidence cited in previous historical accounts and reported incidences of non-existent documents being cited, misquoting and misleadingly selective quoting from documents and of documents being cited as evidence that certain events took place when his examination concluded that they do not support those claims. Windschuttle reported his conclusions in a number of articles published in Quadrant and in 2002, he published a book, ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume 1, Van Diemen's Land 1803–1847'', which focussed on Tasmanian colonial history. Blainey argued in a 2003 book review of ''Fabrication'', that the number of instances where source documents do not support the claims made, and the fact that the divergences overwhelmingly tend to purport claims of violent conflict and massacres, indicate that this is not a matter of mere error but bias. The debate had therefore changed from an argument over whether there was an excessive focus on negative aspects of Australian history to one over to what extent, if at all, Australian Aboriginal history had been based on questionable evidence or had been falsified or fabricated and whether this had exaggerated the extent of violence against Aboriginal people. Particular historians and histories that are challenged include
Lyndall Ryan Lyndall Ryan, (born 1943) is an Australian academic and historian. She has held positions in Australian Studies and Women's Studies at Griffith University and Flinders University and was Foundation Professor of Australian Studies and Head of Sc ...
and Henry Reynolds and the histories of massacres, particularly in
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
but also elsewhere in Australia. Windschuttle's naming of historians whom he accused of misrepresentation and fabrication of the historical evidence, created considerable controversy and produced a range of responses including condemnation of as well as support for his work.


Genocide debate

The case for using the term "Australian genocide" rests on evidence from various sources that people argue proves some form of genocide. People cite the
list of massacres of Indigenous Australians Numerous clashes involving Indigenous people (on the continent "Australia") occurred during and after a wave of mass immigration of Europeans into the continent, which began in the late 18th century and lasted until the early 20th century. The ...
by white settlers, mainly in the 19th century. Others have pointed to the dramatic reduction in the Tasmanian Aboriginal population in the 19th century and the forced removal of generations of Aboriginal children from their parents during the 20th century as evidence of genocide. The evidence includes documentation of the wish, and sometimes intention, of a significant proportion of late 19th-century and early 20th-century white Australians to see the Aboriginal "race" eliminated. Documents include published letters to the editors of high-circulation newspapers. Certainly this was the case in Queensland, in terms of Indigenous people the most populated section of Australia and certainly the colony with the most violent frontier. In June 1866 Sir
Robert Herbert Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert, (12 June 1831 – 6 May 1905), was the first Premier of Queensland, Australia. At 28 years and 181 days of age, he was the youngest person ever to be elected premier of an Australian state. Early years Born ...
summing up his experience after little more than five years as the first Premier of this colony wrote: The "system", for which Herbert was among those personally responsible, was the "
Native Police Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command (usually) of at least one white officer, existed in various forms in all Australian mainland colonies during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentie ...
system" which allegedly went about "dispersing" any Indigenous groups thought to be a threat to law and order. This police force was poorly resourced, but used Aboriginal trackers to great effect when pursuing alleged criminals. Recently the first-ever attempt to scientifically calculate the number of Aboriginal people killed in encounters with the Native Police indicates that numbers may exceed 45,000.Evans, Raymond & Ørsted–Jensen, Robert: 'I Cannot Say the Numbers that Were Killed': Assessing Violent Mortality on the Queensland Frontier" (paper at AHA 9 July 2014 at University of Queensland) publisher Social Science Research Network The phrase "useless race" was expressed in Queensland, including in an 1877 editorial in ''
The Queenslander ''The Queenslander'' was the weekly summary and literary edition of the '' Brisbane Courier'', the leading journal in the colony—and later, federal state—of Queensland since the 1850s. ''The Queenslander'' was launched by the Brisbane New ...
'' (the weekly edition of the colony's main newspaper, the ''
Brisbane Courier ''The Courier-Mail'' is an Australian newspaper published in Brisbane. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner norther ...
''): "The desire for progressive advancement and substantial prosperity is, after all, stronger than sentimental dislike to the extinction of a savage and useless race". Classifying Aboriginal people as a useless or unimprovable race was common. Debating the native police and the frontier in public in 1880 in the columns of ''The Queenslander'', a prominent settler wrote: "And being a useless race, what does it matter what they suffer any more than the distinguished philanthropist who writes in this behalf cares for the wounded half-dead pigeon he tortures at his shooting matches?". Remarks which were followed up in October of that years by
Boyd Dunlop Morehead Boyd Dunlop Morehead (24 August 1843 – 30 October 1905) was a politician in Queensland, Australia. He was Premier of Queensland from November 1888 to June 1890. Early life Boyd Morehead was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the second son ...
, one of the leading landholders, manager of the Scottish Australian Investment Co.'s ''Bowen Downs'' in 1866–81 and a future Premier, could be heard making the following acknowledgement in a parliamentary speech, saying, yes settlers in the past did go After the introduction of the word "genocide" in the 1940s by
Raphael Lemkin Raphael Lemkin ( pl, Rafał Lemkin; 24 June 1900 – 28 August 1959) was a Polish lawyer who is best known for coining the term ''genocide'' and initiating the Genocide Convention, an interest spurred on after learning about the Armenian genocid ...
, Lemkin himself and most comparative scholars of genocide and many general historians, such as Robert Hughes,
Ward Churchill Ward LeRoy Churchill (born 1947) is an American author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1990 until 2007.
,
Leo Kuper Leo Kuper (20 November 1908 – 23 May 1994) was a South African sociologist specialising in the study of genocide. Early life and legal career Kuper was born to a Lithuanian Jewish family. His siblings included his sister Mary (d. 1948), who ...
and
Jared Diamond Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American geographer, historian, ornithologist, and author best known for his popular science books ''The Third Chimpanzee'' (1991); ''Guns, Germs, and Steel'' (1997, awarded a Pulitzer Prize); ...
, basing their analysis on previously published histories, present the extinction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as a textbook example of a genocide. The Australian historian of genocide, Ben Kiernan, in his recent history of the concept and practice, ''Blood and soil: a world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to Darfur'' (2007), treats the Australian evidence over the first century of colonisation as an example of genocide. Among scholars specialising in Australian history much recent debate has focused on whether indeed what happened to groups of Indigenous people, and especially the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, during the European colonisation of Australia can be classified as genocide. According to Mark Levene, most Australian experts are now "considerably more circumspect". In the specific instance of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, Henry Reynolds, who takes events in other regions of colonial Australia as marked by "genocidal moments", argues that the records show that British administrative policy in Tasmania was explicitly concerned to avoid extermination. However, in practice, the activities of British people on the ground led to virtual extinction. Tony Barta, John Docker and
Ann Curthoys Ann Curthoys, (born 5 September 1945) is an Australian historian and academic. Early life and education Curthoys was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 5 September 1945, and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney. In 1 ...
however emphasize Lemkin's linkage between colonialism and genocide. Barta, an Australian expert in German history, argued from Lemkin that, "there is no dispute that the basic fact of Australian history is the appropriation of the continent by an invading people and the dispossession, with ruthless destructiveness, of another". Docker argues that, "we ignore Lemkin's wide-ranging definition of genocide, inherently linked with colonialism, at our peril". Curthoys argues that the separation between international and local Australian approaches has been deleterious. While calling for "a more robust exchange between genocide and Tasmanian historical scholarship", her own view is that the Tasmanian instance constitutes a "case for genocide, though not of state planning, mass killing, or extinction". Much of the debate on whether European colonisation of Australia resulted in genocide, centres on whether "the term 'genocide' only applies to cases of deliberate mass killings of Aboriginal people by European settlers, or ... might also apply to instances in which many Aboriginal people were killed by the reckless or unintended actions and omissions of settlers". "Debates on Genocide – Part One", Commonwealth History Project Historians such as Tony Barta argue that for the victim group it matters little if they were wiped out as part of a planned attack. If a group is decimated as a result of
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
introduced to Australia by British settlers, or introduced European farming methods causing a group of Aboriginal people to starve to death, the result is, in his opinion, genocide.Tony Barta, "Relations of Genocide: Land and Lives in the Colonization of Australia", in ''Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death'', Isidor Wallimann & Michael N. Dobkowski (eds.), New York, Westport, Connecticut, London, Greenwood Press, 1987, pp. 237–251, cited in "Debates on Genocide – Part One", Commonwealth History Project Henry Reynolds points out that European colonists and their descendants frequently use expressions that included "extermination", "extinction", and "extirpation" when discussing the treatment of Aboriginal people during the colonial period, and as in his opinion genocide "can take many forms, not all of them violent"., cited in "Debates on Genocide – Part One", Commonwealth History Project. Janine Roberts has argued that genocide was Australian policy, even if only by omission. She notes that despite contemporary newspapers regularly decrying "the barbarous crop of exterminators", and "a system of native slaughter ... merciless and complete", the government contended that "no illegal acts were occurring", with the worst incidents being described as merely "indiscretions". The political scientist
Kenneth Minogue Kenneth Robert Minogue (September 11, 1930 – June 28, 2013), also known as Ken Minogue, was an Australian academic and political theorist. Long residing in the United Kingdom, Minogue was a prominent part of the intellectual life of British ...
and other historians such as
Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
disagree and think that no genocide took place. "Debates on Genocide – Part Two", Commonwealth History ProjectWindschuttle, Keith Minogue does not try to define genocide but argues that its use is an extreme manifestation of the guilt felt by modern Australian society about the past misconduct of their society to Aboriginal people. In his opinion its use reflects the process by which Australian society is trying to come to terms with its past wrongs and in doing this Australians are stretching the meaning of genocide to fit within this internal debate.Kenneth Minogue, ''Aborigines and Australian Apologetics'', Quadrant, (September 1998), pp. 11–20, cited in "Debates on Genocide – Part Two", Commonwealth History Project In the April 2008 edition of ''
The Monthly ''The Monthly'' is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer ...
'', David Day wrote further on the topic of genocide. He wrote that Lemkin considered genocide to encompass more than mass killings but also acts like "driv ngthe original inhabitants off the land ... confin ngthem in reserves, where policies of deliberate neglect may be used to reduce their numbers ... Tak ngIndigenous children to absorb them within their own midst ... assimilation to detach the people from their culture, language and religion, and often their names."


Controversy over smallpox in Australia

*NOTE that there is a long and continuing scholarly debate, involving historians and medical experts, about the nature and origin of the 1789 outbreak near Sydney, and to a lesser extent of two later outbreaks. Much of this debate is not directly relevant to the History Wars, and so the long account of it that used to be found in this section has been moved to a separate page on
Smallpox in Australia The History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia, was accompanied by epidemic diseases to which the original inhabitants had little resistance. Colds, influenzas, tuberculosis (TB), and measles were major killers. Such dis ...
. This section now deals selectively with parts of the debate that are relevant to the history wars. The arrival of
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
in Australia is of uncertain origin and is a major theme in the history wars. The lack of immunity among Aboriginal Australians to introduced diseases saw smallpox or some related disease inflict a devastating toll in 1789 upon the Aboriginal population near Sydney. This outbreak has been the most discussed of the introduced diseases that destroyed much of the Aboriginal population in the decades after British settlement of Australia began in 1788. Such diseases may have prevented Aborigines offering serious resistance to the British colonists; and also sometimes gave later colonists the illusion of entering an empty or unowned land. Unlike other major diseases, which produced fairly steady mortality, smallpox occurred during the colonial period in three major outbreaks, at longish intervals. Smallpox was first recorded by British observers in April 1789 some 16 months after the
First Fleet The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 ships that brought the first European and African settlers to Australia. It was made up of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command ...
had arrived, then again four decades later in 1830, and then in an extended outbreak in the 1860s which seems to have begun in Northern Australia, though it spread within some three years as far south as the Great Australian Bight. The historian Judy Campbell remarks, "between 1780 and 1870 smallpox itself was the major single cause of Aboriginal deaths. The consequences of Aboriginal smallpox are an integral part of modern Australian history." As important as the severity of the first outbreak in 1789 was its timing. It came when the
Eora The Eora (''Yura'') are an Aboriginal Australian people of New South Wales. Eora is the name given by the earliest European settlers to a group of Aboriginal people belonging to the clans along the coastal area of what is now known as the Sy ...
Aborigines were still so numerous that some historians believe they might have been able to destroy the new British colony. Though venereal disease and possibly other diseases struck first, smallpox was the first disease that is recorded as seriously lowering the population of Aborigines. Governor
Arthur Phillip Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Greenwich Hospital School from June 1751 unti ...
estimated that about half of the local Eora tribe had perished in some two or three months. One possible explanation of the 1789 outbreak (that smallpox was deliberately introduced to Australia by the British as a form of germ warfare against the Aborigines) would make it a central issue in the History Wars. Yet the nature and origin of the 1789 outbreak is far from clear. There is an unusual amount of disagreement, both between well-researched academic studies and also between the best secondary sources, extending even to whether the disease was truly smallpox. Broadly, there are three alternative explanations, for which appropriate scholarly evidence has been offered, of the 1789 outbreak (and perhaps also of the two later outbreaks). The first is that the disease was smallpox (Variola major or Variola minor), which was already present in the islands of what is today Indonesia; that the smallpox was transferred to northern Australia by Macassan trepangers and traders around 1780, and that it was then spread, largely along Aboriginal trading routes, to the south of Australia. The second is that the disease was not smallpox (which would normally have killed numerous Europeans) but chickenpox, a disease that rarely kills Europeans but can produce similar symptoms and create quite high mortality among populations that have no inherited immunity to it. In the case of the 1830 outbreak, there was active debate among the surgeons, at the time and for some decades after, as to whether the disease was smallpox or chickenpox. The third explanation is that the disease was indeed smallpox, and that it was brought to south-eastern Australia by European ships, very likely by the British
First Fleet The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 ships that brought the first European and African settlers to Australia. It was made up of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command ...
, and was then transferred either accidentally or deliberately into the Aboriginal population. All three explanations have their strong points, and their difficulties; and each has different implications for the History Wars debate. None of them necessarily frees the settlers from blame. A variant of the third scenario in which it is supposed that the British deliberately released smallpox near Sydney has become the favoured assumption on the radical Aboriginal website National Unity Government. and has been strongly promoted in recent years by the independent scholar Christopher Warren. However, this theory has some problems to solve. First is the question as to why no European colonists caught smallpox in 1789 (although two non-Europeans living in the colony caught it and died). There is also the problem of explaining how the perpetrators could know in advance that this would be the case, unless they were indifferent to the harm they might do to their own people. (Colin Tatz in his 2011 ''Genocide in Australia: By Accident or Design?'' rejects as absurd the notion that the British would have wished to infect their new colony with a disease they dreaded.) A further problem is to explain how the colonists were able to infect Aborigines with a disease that seems not to have existed among themselves. However, it has been argued that the practice of
variolation Variolation was the method of inoculation first used to immunize individuals against smallpox (''Variola'') with material taken from a patient or a recently variolated individual, in the hope that a mild, but protective, infection would result. Var ...
provides a solution to this. It is difficult to be certain how much the History Wars have influenced research into these theories. The issues involved certainly invite moral and political controversy, and may rouse partisan feelings. To believe that the success of the 1788 settlement in Sydney depended on an act of germ warfare would validate the intense sense of grievance felt by many Aborigines. As well, many non-Aborigines (especially on the Left of Australian politics) feel strongly that the injustices of the past now need to be fully and urgently recognised. Yet others, especially on the Right, may be embarrassed or horrified by such a story, and may feel that the reputation of pioneering ancestors needs to be rescued from an unfortunate fashion for national self-denigration. For this group, the most congenial theory might be that smallpox, after reaching Northern Australia via
Macassan Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan ...
traders in the 1780s moved inexorably on, mainly along Aboriginal trade routes, till it reached Sydney. They may also find the chickenpox theory acceptable, because, although it accepts that the First Fleet brought the epidemic, there would be no malice involved. (The chickenpox virus never leaves the body; so, it would have been carried to Australia unconsciously by colonists, some of whom later suffered a revival of the disease in the still-infectious form
shingles Shingles, also known as zoster or herpes zoster, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters in a localized area. Typically the rash occurs in a single, wide mark either on the left or right side of the body or face. ...
.) Much the same would apply to theories that smallpox was accidentally released from the surgeons’ variolation jars. The
History Wars The history wars is a term used in Australia to describe the public debate about the interpretation of the history of the European colonisation of Australia and the development of contemporary Australian society, particularly with regard to th ...
need not be the only fault-line in this debate. Professor John Carmody, for instance, has hinted that there may also be a “two cultures” fault-line at work between historians and medical scientists. Yet the History Wars element in the debate involves issues that are emotional for many Australians; and the “scanty data”, of which
Frank Fenner Frank John Fenner (21 December 1914 – 22 November 2010) was an Australian scientist with a distinguished career in the field of virology. His two greatest achievements are cited as overseeing the eradication of smallpox, and the attempted con ...
complained leave large scope for scenarios that support a preferred view. A fairly lengthy review of the “smallpox” debate by Robert Barnes in 2009 revealed (like Cumpston’s extensive earlier review in 1914) how often historians (including Barnes himself) have hesitated between opposing viewpoints. Summing up the debate in 2021, the historian Peter Dowling wrote in 2021 that: "no one author or theory has in the end prevailed over the others. The question of the origin of the 1789 smallpox epidemic among the Australian Aboriginal people has remained unresolved." Despite these uncertainties, the debate has been mainly a respectful and co-operative exchange between experts in differing disciplines, and it has occurred quite largely so far in academic publications rather than at media or tabloid level. Academics are not immune to ideologies or combativeness; but their professional work involves practicing (and teaching their students) methods of objective scholarly research. Hence, they are often wary of arousing passions or moralizing upon uncertain data. Some, like Carmody and Hunter, have warned explicitly that the History Wars may be a threat to impartial research. Those, like Butlin and Warren, who believe that the 1789 disease was smallpox, and perhaps deliberately released, have argued temperately, sometimes suggesting that this might have been the work of rogue elements rather than of the surgeons or of Governor Phillip. Conversely, those like Carmody and Hunter who believe the disease was in fact chickenpox have taken pains to make clear that they are not thereby seeking to minimize the huge pain and devastation suffered by Aborigines. An example is Barry Wright’s 1988 statement, “I believe ... that an introduced epidemic of chickenpox not smallpox swept through the tribes, its effects every bit as deadly as if it had been smallpox.” One of the few academics to strongly invoke the History Wars is the historian Craig Mear. In a 2008 article, whose main points he repeated in 2009 on ''Ockham’s Razor'', Mear accused some fellow historians of being over-eager to believe the
Macassan Makassar (, mak, ᨆᨀᨔᨑ, Mangkasara’, ) is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan ...
theory: Mear then severely criticized Campbell’s theories, claiming they were simply implausible because persons infected with smallpox are almost immediately incapacitated: Mear appears to be saying that the incubation period for smallpox, that is, the time between being exposed to another sufferer and the (usually abrupt) appearance of symptoms, is very short. But medical textbooks seem to disagree, saying it averages some 10-12 or 10-14 days. Mear’s claims were subsequently criticized by H. A. Willis, who, writing in the rightwing magazine Quadrant, defended Judy Campbell’s theory of overland transmission, and inverted the History Wars argument, claiming that "what keeps the European introduction idea going is the deep need of some members of our society for a foundation myth encapsulating a genocidal imperative in European settlement." Most historians steer wide of such potentially ad hominem debates, which means that some of the moral issues relevant to the History Wars have not been fully argued through. Many would agree that the British, once they resolved to establish the Sydney settlement, had at the least a duty of care not to expose the Aborigines to deadly diseases. Clearly their settlements did introduce these diseases, even if private whaling and sealing vessels from other nations may also have played a part. Books like Jarrad Diamond’s 1997 '' Guns, germs and steel'' or Krause and Trappe’s 201
''A short history of humanity''
have created a widespread awareness of how diseases that were almost harmless to Europeans were often deadly to isolated peoples. Yet, at the time, this was less understood; and even the
Germ theory of disease The germ theory of disease is the currently accepted scientific theory for many diseases. It states that microorganisms known as pathogens or "germs" can lead to disease. These small organisms, too small to be seen without magnification, invade h ...
was not commonly accepted. Also, even if the British had fully understood the reasons why isolated populations are vulnerable, they had in the 1780s no certain way of knowing how thinly-populated Australia’s inland regions were, and hence how isolated the southern Aborigines might be. British awareness of selective vulnerability to disease may also have been derived as much from recent colonies in south and east Asia, where it was often the Europeans, not the native inhabitants, who died in huge numbers from unfamiliar diseases. Even so, the British must have been aware that their ships would bring venereal and other diseases to the Aborigines. Against that, these diseases, and most others, would likely have reached the Aborigines in any case, with the increasing arrival of sealers and whalers of many nations to exploit the southern oceans. Some might also argue that if the British had not colonized Australia, other European nations would have done so, and hence the 1789 plague (and others) could at most have been delayed. Not all such hypothetical arguments tend to exculpate the British. It is often said that the number of Aborigines actually killed by British weapons was small or very small beside the number killed by diseases that the British fleets brought. However Governor Phillip’s clear instructions were to take possession of the land for the British Crown; and the early governors made numerous grants to settlers and ex-convicts of the “crown land” so obtained, thus turning Aboriginal hunting grounds into farming and grazing properties. If this had always been their intention, then the British were in effect committed to whatever level of lethal violence was necessary to make the Aborigines accept the loss of significant parts of their land. If, by accident, deaths from disease occurred first, and in such numbers as to leave little need for military violence, then it is possible to argue, as the historian Tony Barta does, that this accident merely spared the British the guilt of inflicting violence, not the guilt of intending it. Such moral arguments resemble some of those that occur in the genocide debate in the History Wars. Some academics are wary of over-emphasising the impact of diseases, for fear that the notion of unforeseeable epidemics may provide an easy way of excusing what happened to the Aborigines—as if it was the “germs, not these imperialists themselves, that were chiefly responsible for sweeping aside the indigenes”. Against this, there are defenders of Governor
Arthur Phillip Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Greenwich Hospital School from June 1751 unti ...
’s administration who maintain that Phillip tried conscientiously to follow his orders to “live in amity and kindness with them he Aborigines. Some would also argue that his belief that Britain’s literate culture, scientific technologies, and agricultural and administrative skills would create space, prosperity and an improved life for both races was not necessarily insincere, even if it was seriously misguided.


Stolen Generations debate

Despite the lengthy and detailed findings set out in the 1997 ''
Bringing Them Home ''Bringing Them Home'' is the 1997 Australian ''Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families''. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to ...
'' report into the Stolen Generation, which documented the removal of Aboriginal children from their families by Australian State and Federal government agencies and
church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...
missions, the nature and extent of the removals have been disputed within Australia, with some commentators questioning the findings contained in the report and asserting that the Stolen Generation has been exaggerated. Sir
Ronald Wilson Sir Ronald Darling Wilson, (23 August 192215 July 2005) was a distinguished Australian lawyer, judge and social activist serving on the High Court of Australia between 1979 and 1989 and as the President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportun ...
, former President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and a Commissioner on the Inquiry, has stated that none of the more than 500 witnesses who appeared before the Inquiry were cross-examined. This has been the basis of criticism by the
Coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...
Government and by the anthropologist Ron Brunton in a booklet published by the
Institute of Public Affairs The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is a conservative non-profit free market public policy think tankAbout the IPA
...
that was criticised in turn by the lawyer
Hal Wootten John Halden Wootten QC (19 December 1922 – 27 July 2021) was an Australian lawyer and legal academic and the founder of the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, of which he was the Foundation Chair and its inaugural Dean. Wootten se ...
. An Australian Federal Government submission has questioned the conduct of the Commission which produced the report, arguing that the Commission failed to critically appraise or test the claims on which it based the report and failed to distinguish between those separated from their families "with and without consent, and with and without good reason". Not only has the number of children removed from their parents been questioned, but also the intent and effects of the government policy. Some critics, such as columnist and social commentator
Andrew Bolt Andrew Bolt (born 26 September 1959) is an Australian right-wing social and political commentator. He has worked at the News Corp-owned newspaper company The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT) for many years, for both '' The Herald'' and its success ...
, have questioned the very existence of the Stolen Generation. Bolt stated that it is a "preposterous and obscene" myth and that there was actually no policy in any state or territory at any time for the systematic removal of "half-caste" Aboriginal children.
Robert Manne Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual. Background Robert Manne was born in Melbo ...
responded that Bolt did not address the documentary evidence demonstrating the existence of the Stolen Generations and that this is a clear case of
historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
denialism In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to denial, deny reality as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical expe ...
. Bolt then challenged Manne to produce ten cases in which the evidence justified the claim that children were "stolen" as opposed to having been removed for reasons such as neglect, abuse, abandonment, etc. He argued that Manne did not respond and that this was an indication of unreliability of the claim that there was policy of systematic removal. In reply, Manne stated that he supplied a documented list of 250 names Bolt stated that prior to a debate, Manne provided him with a list of 12 names that he was able to show during the debate was "a list of people abandoned, saved from abuse or voluntarily given up by their parents"; and that during the actual debate, Manne produced a list of 250 names without any details or documentation as to their circumstances. Bolt also stated that he was subsequently able to identify and ascertain the history of some of those on the list and was unable to find a case where there was evidence to justify the term "stolen". He stated that one of the names on the list of allegedly stolen children was 13-year-old Dolly, taken into the care of the State after being "found seven months pregnant and penniless, working for nothing on a station". The Bolt/Manne debate is a fair sample of the adversarial debating style in the area. There is focus on individual examples as evidence for or against the existence of a policy, and little or no analysis of other documentary evidence such as legislative databases showing how the legal basis for removal varied over time and between jurisdictions, or testimony from those who were called on to implement the policies, which was also recorded in the ''
Bringing Them Home ''Bringing Them Home'' is the 1997 Australian ''Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families''. The report marked a pivotal moment in the controversy that has come to ...
'' report. A recent review of legal cases claims it is difficult for Stolen Generation claimants to challenge what was written about their situation at the time of removal. The report also identified instances of official misrepresentation and deception, such as when caring and able parents were incorrectly described by Aboriginal Protection Officers as not being able to properly provide for their children, or when parents were told by government officials that their children had died, even though this was not the case. The new Australian Government elected in 2007 issued an apology similar to those that state governments had issued at or about the time of the ''Bringing Them Home'' report ten years earlier. On 13 February 2008,
Kevin Rudd Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...
, prime minister of Australia, moved a formal apology in the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
, which was moved concurrently by the Leader of the Government in the
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
. It passed unanimously in the House of Representatives on 13 March 2008. In the Senate, the leader of the
Australian Greens The Australian Greens, commonly known as The Greens, are a confederation of Green state and territory political parties in Australia. As of the 2022 federal election, the Greens are the third largest political party in Australia by vote and th ...
moved an amendment seeking to add compensation to the apology, which was defeated in a vote of 65 to 4, after which the motion was passed unanimously.


Media


Windschuttle's ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History''

The historian
Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
has disputed the
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
for the number of children in the Stolen Generations as well as the violence of European colonisation, arguing that left-wing scholars had exaggerated these events for their own political purposes. Windschuttle's 2002 book, ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803–1847'', focuses on the
Black War } The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British Empire, British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832. The conflict, fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides, claimed the lives of 600 ...
in Tasmania; he argues that there is credible evidence for the violent deaths of only 118 Tasmanian Aboriginal people, as having been directly killed by the British, although there were undoubtedly an unquantifiable number of other deaths for which no evidence exists. He argues that the Tasmanian Aboriginal population was devastated by a lethal cocktail of introduced diseases to which they had little or no resistance due to their isolation from the mainland and the rest of humanity for thousands of years. The deaths and infertility caused by these introduced diseases, combined with the deaths from what violent conflict there was, rapidly decimated the relatively small Aboriginal population. Windschuttle also examined the nature of those violent episodes that did occur and concluded that there is no credible evidence of warfare over territory. Windschuttle argues that the primary source of conflict between the British and the Aboriginal people was raids by Aboriginal people, often involving violent attacks on settlers, to acquire goods (such as blankets, metal implements and 'exotic' foods) from the British. With this and with a detailed examination of footnotes in and evidence cited by the earlier historical works, he criticises the claims by historians such as Henry Reynolds and Professor
Lyndall Ryan Lyndall Ryan, (born 1943) is an Australian academic and historian. She has held positions in Australian Studies and Women's Studies at Griffith University and Flinders University and was Foundation Professor of Australian Studies and Head of Sc ...
that there was a campaign of guerrilla warfare against British settlement. Particular historians and histories that are challenged include Henry Reynolds and the histories of
massacres A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
, particularly in
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
(such as in the Cape Grim massacre) but also elsewhere in Australia. Windschuttle's claims are based upon the argument that the 'orthodox' view of Australian history were founded on hearsay or the misleading use of evidence by historians. Windschuttle argues that, in order to advance the 'deliberate genocide' argument, Reynolds has misused source documentation, including that from British colonist sources, by quoting out of context. In particular, he accuses Reynolds of selectively quoting from responses to an 1830 survey in Tasmania in that Reynolds quoted only from those responses that could be construed as advocating "extermination", "extinction", and "extirpation" and failed to mention other responses to the survey, which indicated that a majority of respondents rejected genocide, were sympathetic to the plight of the Aboriginal people, feared that conflict arising from Aboriginal attacks upon settlers would result in the extinction of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people and advocated the adoption of courses of action to prevent this happening. Windschuttle's claims and research have been disputed by some historians. In ''Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History'', an anthology including contributions from Henry Reynolds and Professor
Lyndall Ryan Lyndall Ryan, (born 1943) is an Australian academic and historian. She has held positions in Australian Studies and Women's Studies at Griffith University and Flinders University and was Foundation Professor of Australian Studies and Head of Sc ...
, edited and introduced by
Robert Manne Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual. Background Robert Manne was born in Melbo ...
, professor of politics at
La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria an ...
, Manne argues that Windschuttle's arguments are "unpersuasive and unsupported either by independent research or even familiarity with the relevant secondary historical literature". Other academics including
Stephen Muecke Stephen Muecke BA (Hons, Monash), Mes.L (Paris), PhD (UWA) FAHA is Emeritus Professor of Ethnography at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Adjunct Professor at the Nulungu Institute, University of Notre Dame, Broome. He studied l ...
,
Marcia Langton Marcia Lynne Langton (born 1951) is an Australian academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Regarded as one of Australia's top intellectuals, L ...
, and
Heather Goodall Heather Goodall, is an Australian academic and historian. She is Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research and writing focuses on Indigenous and environmental history and intercolonial networks. Goodall graduated ...
also expressed concerns about Windschuttle's work. In "Contra Windschuttle", an article published in the conservative publication '' Quadrant'', S.G. Foster examined some of the evidence that Windschuttle presented on one issue, Stanner's notion of the "Great Australian Silence". In Foster's opinion, the evidence produced by Windschuttle did not prove his case that the "Great Australian Silence" was largely a myth. Windschuttle argues that, in the years prior to Stanner's 1968 Boyer lecture, Australian historians had not been silent on the Aboriginal people although, in most cases, the historians' "discussions were not to Stanner's taste" and the Aboriginal people "might not have been treated in the way Reynolds and his colleagues would have liked". Foster argues that Windschuttle is "merciless with those who get their facts wrong" and that the fact that Windschuttle has also made a mistake means that he did not meet the criteria that he used to assess 'orthodox historians' he was arguing against and whom he accused of deliberately and extensively misrepresenting, misquoting, exaggerating and fabricating evidence relating to the level and nature of violent conflict between Aboriginal people and white settlers. At the time of the publication of ''The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One'' it was announced that a second volume, to be published in 2003, would cover claims of frontier violence in New South Wales and Queensland, and a third, in 2004, would cover Western Australia. On 9 February 2008, however, it was announced that the second volume, anticipated to be published later in 2008, would be titled ''The Fabrication of Australian History, Volume 2: The "Stolen Generations"'' and would address the issue of the removal of Aboriginal children (the
Stolen Generations The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church miss ...
) from their families in the 20th century. The new volume was released in January 2010, now listed as ''Volume 3'', with a statement that Volumes 2 and 4 would appear later. Announcing the publication, Windschuttle claimed that the film ''
Rabbit-Proof Fence The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from th ...
'' had misrepresented the child removal at the centre of the story, and offered inaccurate accounts of Molly's journey as it was recounted by her daughter, Doris Pilkington. These claims were subsequently rejected by the makers of the film. , Volumes 2 and 4 have not appeared.


Stuart Macintyre's ''The History Wars''

In 2003, the Australian historians
Stuart Macintyre Stuart Forbes Macintyre (21 April 1947 – 22 November 2021) was an Australian historian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2008. He was voted one of Australia's most influential historians. Early lif ...
and Anna Clark published ''The History Wars''. This was a study of the background of, and arguments surrounding, recent developments in Australian historiography, and concluded that the History Wars had done damage to the nature of objective
Australian history The history of Australia is the story of the land and peoples of the continent of Australia. Aboriginal Australians, People first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and ...
. At the launch of his book, historian
Stuart Macintyre Stuart Forbes Macintyre (21 April 1947 – 22 November 2021) was an Australian historian, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2008. He was voted one of Australia's most influential historians. Early lif ...
emphasised the political dimension of these arguments and said the Australian debate took its cue from the
Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it be ...
controversy in the United States. The book was launched by former prime minister Paul Keating, who took the opportunity to criticise conservative views of Australian history, and those who hold them (such as the then–prime minister John Howard), saying that they suffered from "a failure of imagination", and said that ''The History Wars'' "rolls out the canvas of this debate". Macintyre's critics, such as Greg Melluish, lecturer at the
University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...
, responded to the book by declaring that Macintyre was a partisan history warrior himself, and that "its primary arguments are derived from the pro-Communist polemics of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
". Keith Windschuttle said that Macintyre attempted to "caricature the history debate". In a foreword to the book, former
Chief Justice of Australia The Chief Justice of Australia is the presiding Justice of the High Court of Australia and the highest-ranking judicial officer in the Commonwealth of Australia. The incumbent is Susan Kiefel, who is the first woman to hold the position. Co ...
Sir Anthony Mason said that the book was "a fascinating study of the recent endeavours to rewrite or reinterpret the history of European settlement in Australia".


Controversies


National Museum of Australia controversy

In 2001, writing in '' Quadrant'', a
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
magazine, historian
Keith Windschuttle Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
argued that the then-new
National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia, in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''National Muse ...
(NMA) was marred by
political correctness ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
and did not present a balanced view of the nation's history. In 2003, the Howard Government commissioned a review of the NMA. A potentially controversial issue was in assessing how well the NMA met the criterion that displays should "cover darker historical episodes, and with a gravity that opens the possibility of collective self-accounting. The role here is in helping the nation to examine fully its own past, and the dynamic of its history—with truthfulness, sobriety and balance. This extends into covering present-day controversial issues." While the report concluded that there was no systemic bias, it recommended that there be more recognition in the exhibits of European achievements. The report drew the ire of some historians in Australia, who claimed that it was a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government to politicise the museum and move it more towards a position which
Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...
called the 'three cheers' view of
Australian history The history of Australia is the story of the land and peoples of the continent of Australia. Aboriginal Australians, People first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and ...
, rather than the ' black armband' view. In 2006 columnist
Miranda Devine Miranda Devine (born 1 July 1961) is an Australian columnist and writer, now based in New York City. She hosted ''The Miranda Devine Show'' on Sydney radio station 2GB until it ended in 2015. She has written columns for Fairfax Media newspapers ...
described some of the
Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...
messages encoded on the external structure of the NMA, including "sorry" and "forgive us our genocide" and how they had been covered over by aluminium discs in 2001, and stated that under the new Director "what he calls the 'black T-shirt' view of
Australian culture The culture of Australia is primarily a Western culture, originally derived from Britain but also influenced by the unique geography of Australia and the cultural input of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and other Australian people. The Bri ...
" is being replaced by "systematically reworking the collections, with attention to 'scrupulous historical accuracy'". An example of the current approach at the NMA is the Bells Falls Gorge Interactive display, which presents Windschuttles's view of an alleged massacre alongside other views and contemporary documents and displays of weapons relating to colonial conflict around Bathurst in 1824 and invites visitors to make up their own minds.


University of New South Wales controversy

Publication in 2016 of "Indigenous Terminology" guidelines for the teaching and writing of history by the
University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...
created a brief media uproar. Amongst the advised language changes, they recommended "settlement" be replaced by "invasion", "colonisation" or "occupation". They also deemed that the generally accepted anthropological assumption that "Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for 40,000 years" should be dropped for "since the beginning of the Dreaming/s" as it "reflects the beliefs of many Indigenous Australians that they have always been in Australia, from the beginning of time" and because "many Indigenous Australians see this sort of measurement and quantifying as inappropriate". While some commentators considered the guidelines appropriate, others categorised them as political correctness that was an anathema to learning and scholarship.


Dark Emu

Attacks on Bruce Pascoe and his book
Dark Emu ''Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?'' is a 2014 non-fiction book by Bruce Pascoe. It reexamines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia, and cites evidence of pre-colonial agriculture, engineering and building constr ...
have curiously been interpreted by author Walter Marsh as a resumption of the history wars, despite the book demonstrating a “lack of true scholarship”, and being “littered with unsourced material".Sydney Morning Herald - June 12, 2021: Debunking Dark Emu
/ref>


See also

Australian topics * *
Welcome to country A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular Aborigina ...
* Marn Grook, subject of a debate often referred to as "
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
's history wars" *
Geographical renaming Geographical renaming is the changing of the name of a geographical feature or area. This can range from the change of a street name to a change to the name of a country. Some names are changed locally but the new names are not recognised by othe ...
* Settler colonialism in Australia Similar topics in other countries *
Black legend (Spain) The Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra española, link=no) is a theorised historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its ro ...
*
Critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
(United States) *
Historikerstreit The ''Historikerstreit'' (, "historians' dispute") was a dispute in the late 1980s in West Germany between conservative and left-of-center academics and other intellectuals about how to incorporate Nazi Germany and the Holocaust into German hist ...
(Germany) *
New Historians The New Historians ( he, ההיסטוריונים החדשים, ''HaHistoryonim HaChadashim'') are a loosely defined group of Israeli historians who have challenged traditional versions of Israeli history, including Israel's role in the 1948 Pal ...
(Israel)


Footnotes


References

* * * . Presented at the Asia-Pacific Economic & Business History conference. * * * * * * * Evans, Raymond & Ørsted–Jensen, Robert:
I Cannot Say the Numbers that Were Killed': Assessing Violent Mortality on the Queensland Frontier"
(paper at AHA 9 July 2014 at University of Queensland) publisher Social Science Research Network (SSRN) * * * * * * *


Further reading


Books

* Attwood, Bain (2005). ''Telling The Truth About Aboriginal History'', Melbourne. * Attwood, Bain & Foster, S.G. (2003). ''Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience'', Australian National Museum. 218 pages, * Connor, John (2002). ''The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838''. * Dawson, John (2004). ''Washout: On the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History''. Sydney. * Longo, Don. ''A Historian Against the Current: The Life and Work of Austin Gough'' ( Mile End, SA: Wakefield Press, 2021
online discussion
* Macintyre, Stuart with Clark, Anna (2004). ''The History Wars'', revised edition. Melbourne (first edition Melbourne 2003). , * Manne, Robert (ed.) (2003). ''Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History''. Melbourne. * Munro, Doug. ''History Wars: The Peter Ryan – Manning Clark Controversy'' (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021)
online free
also se
online discussion
* Ørsted-Jensen, Robert (2011). ''Frontier History Revisited – Colonial Queensland and the 'History War''', Brisbane. 284 pages ill. * * Taylor, Tony & Guyver, Robert (ed.) (2011). ''History Wars and the Classroom – Global Perspectives'', Charlotte, N.C. , ,


Articles

* * Evans, Raymond & Thorpe, Bill (Winter 2001) ''Indigenocide and the Massacre of Aboriginal History''. Overland (Melbourne). 163. pp. 21–39. * Evans, Raymond & Ørsted–Jensen, Robert (2014)
"'I Cannot Say the Numbers that Were Killed': Assessing Violent Mortality on the Queensland Frontier"
AHA 2014: The Australian Historical Association 33rd Annual Conference: Conflict in History. . * * Foster, S.G. (March 2003)
"Contra Windschuttle"
''Quadrant''. 47:3 * Francis, P. (2000). ''The Whole Truth...?''. ''The Journal of GEOS''. *
History Wars Special
in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' * In * * Warren, Christopher (2007). "Could First Fleet smallpox infect Aborigines? – A note", ''Aboriginal History'' 31, pp. 152–164. * * *


External links


David Veltman, "Telling Academic lives: An interview with Doug Munro and Don Longo" H-BIOGRAPHY Nov. 2021)
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:History Wars History of Indigenous Australians Case studies Political history of Australia Political controversies in Australia Ideological rivalry Historical controversies Indigenous Australian politics Historiography of Australia Political debates