Bottoms, Timothy: Massacre recollections Elder stories of Frontier Wars in FNQ

Timothy Bottoms

Massacre recollections Elder stories of Frontier Wars in FNQ‘, YouTube, 16 July 2019

North Queensland-based historian, Tim Bottoms, has posted this 13 minute video in which Aboriginal Elders recount specific instances of frontier violence. The late Kenny Jimmy from Kowanyama, as well as Jack Muriata (Girramay), David Lawrence (Girramay) and Bessie Jerry, and Jirrbal Elder, Willie Masina. Also Dr Ernie Grant (Girramay) and Willie Brim (Buluwanydji), recount Indigenous people being shot and the use of poisoning as they were in the way of the invaders’ economic viability.

Bottoms’ coda is worth repeating in full:

No Australian today is responsible for what happened on our colonial frontier. But we are responsible for not acknowledging what happened. If we do not, our integrity as a nation is flawed and we are shamed as a people for perpetuating a lie.

Other material by Tim Bottoms: his book Conspiracy of Silence on genocide in colonial Queensland (long extract); talk on the Myall Creek Massacre; a history of Cairns. The Honest History site has extensive material on the Frontier Wars and on massacres of Indigenous Australians. Use our Search engine with terms ‘massacres’ and ‘Frontier Wars’. See this especially.

See also two recent ABC programs on the Queensland Native Police, often used against their fellow Indigenous Australians: 2 July; 9 July. Plus a blog on that subject.

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