A DAY TO FORGET?
AUSTRALIA Debates Should anniversary of the British landing Down Under be a national day of celebration or apology?
It is a day when many Australians remember the Scot hailed as the father of their nation.
On Saturday, January 26, the country celebrates Australia Day, the day when the British ships arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales in 1788 and the Union flag was raised Down Under for the first time. And on that day much of the country will salute the legacy of Lachlan Macquarie.
But to the country’s Aboriginal population and their supporters, it is Invasion Day and Macquarie is not a hero to remember but a man to forget. The Mull-born army officer would become the governor of New South Wales and, in 11 years from 1810, transformed the former penal colony. He has, until recently, been revered as a father of modern Australia, an enlightened humanitarian.
But his apparent achievements are under new scrutiny as campaigners demand his statues are removed, along with his name from the many rivers, streets, ports, harbours, banks, and universities named after him.
Historian Ben Wilkie believes atrocities committed by the arriving British, including Macquarie, against the Aboriginal people must be remembered. He said: “The Scots and the Irish migrants to the various New Worlds did very well for themselves, and in part this was because they participated in a system that, at best, was gargantuan theft – and, at worst, genocide.
“While Captain James Cook primarily laid the groundwork for British colonisation of Australia, Macquarie ordered reprisal attacks against Murningong and Gandagarra people near modern-day Sydney in April 1816. It was, in his own words, a war against Aboriginal Australians.”
Macquarie’s 1816 instructions for those attacks stated: “If they make the least show of resistance, you will fire upon and compel them to surrender, breaking and destroying the spears, clubs, and waddies of all those you take prisoners.
“Such natives as happen to be killed if grown up men, are to be hanged up on trees in conspicuous situations, to strike the survivors with the greater terror…
you will use every possible precaution to save the lives of the native women and children, but taking as many of them as you can prisoners.”
In what he called a mission to “rid the land of troublesome blacks”, Macquarie’s men, accompanied by Aboriginal trackers, also forced a group of native Dharawal men, women and children over a cliff near Appin in New South Wales, then shot and hung the survivors in trees to terrorise the other indigenous people. After this, heads were hacked off as trophies that ended up in the anatomy department at Edinburgh University. The heads were returned to Australia in 1991. He was also behind “Native Institutions”, which paved the way for Indigenous children to be forcibly taken from their families to adopt “Christian ideas and civilised ways”. Their forced removal of children into institutions continued until the 1970s in what indigenous Australians now describe as the “stolen generations”.
A new focus on once-neglected aspects of Australian history has encouraged towns like Fremantle and counties like Barebin to renounce January 26 as a date of celebration but there remain many who back the annual holiday, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The announcement came after a survey by Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs showed 71% wanted to keep January 26 as Australia Day.
However, campaign group Reconciliation Australia (RA) say it remains impossible for the day to serve as an inclusive national occasion as long as it is held on a date when some Australians celebrate while others grieve.
RA’S co-chair, professor Tom Calma, said: “It’s not about trying to lay guilt on individuals but it’s about trying to make sure that our future, our children and Australians generally, have an understanding of the history of Australia.
“Australia’s history didn’t start in 1788 – it goes on well beyond that. And there’s a lot to recognise and celebrate. But also there’s a lot in our history that’s very dark that we need to expose to ensure that these sort of atrocities never happen again.”
As for the legacy of Macquarie, Ben Wilkie, who is visiting research fellow at University of Glasgow and author of The Scots in Australia 1788-1938, believes that facing the history head on is the right thing to do for Scots and Australians alike.
“I think often that we learn nothing when we sweep the bad parts of our history under the carpet,” he said. “For example, plaques can be, and have been, added to existing monuments that explain the individual’s contribution to dispossession and colonisation.
“An information board or plaque added to Macquarie’s Mausoleum on Mull, for example, would be an important gesture to acknowledge that he was a significant figure in Australian history and that he played a role in the dispossession of indigenous Australians.
“Scots were some of the most active and enthusiastic participants in what has been described as “the greatest single period of land theft, cultural pillage, and casual genocide in world history”.
“And if Scotland is to move forward as a global nation, this history must be recognised.”
On Mull, where Macquarie’s mausoleum in Scotland describes him as the father of Australia, archivist Georgia Satchel said: “While the actions of an individual may be seen in a different light from one generation to the next, we still record those reactions, even if we now disagree with them.
“But we are concerned with presenting all the available material we have about historic figures and events so that people may draw their own conclusions.”