The Sydney Morning Herald Hope in a place of foul deeds Date: 10/06/2000 By TONY STEPHENS at Myall Creek To stand on this peaceful knoll, under the silvery green gums, where the only sounds are the butcher bird's song and the white cockatoo's squawk, is to wonder how such bloody, foul deeds ever poisoned the landscape. This is holy ground now, the Rev John Brown will say today. It was most unholy ground in 1838. On June 10 in that year of our Lord, a mob of white men hacked to death 28 Aborigines - old men, women and children - cut off their heads and threw the bodies on a fire. Today on this peaceful knoll, black and white Australians will gather for the unveiling of a memorial to those who were murdered. They will tread softly on the earth. Sue Blacklock, whose great-grandfather was a boy when he escaped the slaughter, will stand shoulder to shoulder with Des Blake, whose great-great grandfather was a young man among the slaughterers. "It will be an emotional day," Mrs Blacklock said yesterday. "I will be thinking of my people who died." She will be thinking, too, of John Munro, the boy who got away. Mr Blake said: "I will be thinking of Sue's people and of John Blake, who came here as a convict from Ireland. I will probably weep on Sue's shoulder." A plaque on the memorial stone - a 14-tonne granite rock - speaks of the "unprovoked but premeditated act". It has been set in place by Aboriginal and other Australians "as an act of reconciliation and acknowledgement of the truth of our shared history". Reconciliation has been a long time coming, but better 162 years late than never in a country where this kind of peace drops slowly on the land. Indigenous people such as Lyall Munro say reconciliation actually began at the end of 1838, when seven men were hanged for the murders at Myall Creek. Until then, killing of the first Australians was seen more as sport than crime. Historian Henry Reynolds has estimated that more than 20,000 Aborigines died in what he calls frontier wars. Several massacres took more lives than the 28 here, near what is now Inverell. Historian Roger Milliss says Major James Nunn led 30 troopers, plus stockmen, on a murderous campaign around the Gwydir in 1837-38. Up to 300 Aborigines might have died at Waterloo Creek, others at Slaughterhouse Creek. After the killers struck, Frederick Foot, a God-fearing landholder, rode a horse to Sydney to inform Governor Gipps, who carried British Government instructions to protect the Aborigines. Eleven men were acquitted, after the Herald and others campaigned against "lawless savages" and "black animals". Seven of the 11 were convicted on other charges. John Blake was among the four who went free, although his great-grandson said: "On the evidence he was as guilty as hell." Mr Blake will be joined today by Mrs Beaulah Adams, whose great-uncle was hanged, and by Nathan Blacklock, the prominent rugby league player, who is Sue's son. Mrs Adams wanted to shake hands with Mrs Blacklock but was taken in a clinging embrace. The mourners will make a commitment to honour the history of the past 60,000 years as well as the past two centuries, the glorious parts and the dishonourable parts. Nobody knows the names of the murdered. Mr Brown said: "The bodies were never buried, their spirits never sent home. This memorial carries the mourning we should have had 162 years ago." In Sydney today, marchers from four parks around Homebush will converge on Stadium Australia for a reconciliation ceremony at 1.30pm. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. -- ********************************** 'Click' to protect the rainforest: Make the Rainforest Site your homepage! http://www.therainforestsite.com/ ********************************** ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
