Uncovering the shameful: sexual violence on an Australian colonial frontier

Edited book (chapter)

Connors, Libby. 2017. "Uncovering the shameful: sexual violence on an Australian colonial frontier." Mason, Robert (ed.) Legacies of violence: rendering the unspeakable past in modern Australia. New York, United States. Berghahn Books. pp. 33-52

Authors
Chapter Title	Uncovering the shameful: sexual violence on an Australian colonial frontier
Book Chapter Category	Edited book (chapter)
ERA Publisher ID	1319
Book Title	Legacies of violence: rendering the unspeakable past in modern Australia
Author	Connors, Libby
Editors	Mason, Robert
Page Range	33-52
Chapter Number	2
Number of Pages	20
Year	2017
Publisher	Berghahn Books
Place of Publication	New York, United States
ISBN	9781785334368
	9781785334375
Web Address (URL)	http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/MasonLegacies#toc
Abstract	While Australian historians have long acknowledged sexual assault by white frontiersman as a causal factor in Aboriginal reprisals, precise information has been limited. Historians have had to elaborate from local rumours and oral history to explain what would otherwise be construed as unprovoked aggression. This chapter explores the vulnerability of Aboriginal women in frontier districts characterised by isolation and lack of oversight of male workmen. It discusses incidents of interracial sexual assault in official reports on the Moreton Bay frontier in the 1840s and how these assaults and other examples of white aggression were either ignored or cloaked in the letters and memoirs of leading settlers of the district. The crafting of settler stories by female family members was not always a sufficient screen for the violence of dispossession and the responses of two women from a leading settler family are also considered as part of this history of hidden violence.
Keywords	frontier violence, sexual assault, Aboriginal Australians
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020	450107. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history
	430302. Australian history
Public Notes	Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions.
Byline Affiliations	School of Arts and Communication
Institution of Origin	University of Southern Queensland

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