Bottoms, Tim --- "Book Review - Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination (3rd Ed.)" [1993] AboriginalLawB 61; (1993) 3(65) Aboriginal Law Bulletin

• Book Review-Race Relations In Colonial Queensland: A History Of Exclusion, Exploitation And Extermination (3rd Ed.)

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Book Review -

Race Relations in Colonial Queensland:
A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination (3rd Ed.)

by Raymond Evans, Kay Saunders and Kathryn Cronin

University of Queensland Press, St Lucia

1993, 456pp

Reviewed by Tim Bottoms

Geoffrey Blainey recently wrote

anyone who ranges over the 200 years of Australia's history, surveying the successes and failures, and trying to understand the obstacles that often stood in the way, cannot easily accept the gloomier summaries of that history which are now current. Some episodes were regrettable; there were many flaws and failures. And yet, on the whole, it stands out as one of the world's success stories.[1]

This interpretation flies in the face of the growing research base which began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In particular, Blainey chooses to ignore such well-researched work as Race Relations in Colonial Queensland by Evans, Saunders and Cronin, which was first published in 1975. The third edition has just been re-released, and still seems to carry very little weight with so-called eminent Australian historians such as Blainey.

It seems to be part of the great Australian tragedy of Australian History that the more unpalatable aspects of our past are 'glossed' over and reduced to unimportant side-lines. Evans succinctly observes "that the liberal historian finds the whole problem of racial violence an uncomfortable one and moves away from it with relief, for it does not fit easily within his tacit assumptions that the story of Australia is one of 'lucky', hopeful and relatively uninterrupted progress, that human decisions there arise from motives that are predominantly rational, and that human activities are governed, in the main, by legality and consensus".[2] It is on this basis that Race Relations in Colonial Queensland has so much to offer to the uninitiated. That is, the individual who has not crossed the thresh-hold of revisionist Australian History.

The book is divided into three sections, with Ray Evans covering nineteenth century treatment of Aborigines; Kay Saunders dealing with the Melanesians (Kanakas) and Kathryn Cronin the Chinese. Evans' contribution by far outweighs the others in volume, but not necessarily in value. In the 1993 Preface, Evans cites criticism from the reviewer, Gillian Cowlishaw, that this work seems "to be bereft of serious social analysis and simply to revel in the power to provoke a visceral 'shock' among uninitiated readers..." In one sense Cowlishaw is quite correct; the section on Aborigines, in particular, does reflect the outrage that anyone who comes across this information for the first time should rightly feel. Therefore in that context, it is a most appropriate source of massive evidence which demands the reader develop "a more realistic re-evaluation of the colonial past", even if one finds the overwhelming evidence a tad too much to handle. Needless to say that this could well be seen as indicative of the Aboriginal response to their treatment.

Saunders' coverage of Melanesian labour in north Queensland demonstrates a change in style to Evans, with a 'springier' writing style that enlightens one to the machinations of the government and people in nineteenth century Queensland. Saunders effectively argues the hypocrisy of the liberal government trying on the one hand to prevent Melanesians from living i n Queensland, because they wished to prevent a caste society, and yet on the other hand enacting legislation which effectively did just that.

Cronini s coverage of the treatment of the Chinese demonstrates a somewhat similar style to Saunders' with less severity than Evans' opening work. Nevertheless, she effectively verifies the violent attitude that White Australians had towards Asians. The overall impression seems to be that the history of Queensland, and by inference - the rest of the continent, is one of consistent oppression of non-Europeans. Both Cronin and Saunders give an effective insight to the degree of myopia of White Australia to the extent of racial violence in our colonial past.

The authors challenge the conservative white male historians, such as Blainey and Russell Ward, on the negligibility of violence on the frontier, as well as delve into the miserable treatment of non-Europeans. Australia has not been the peaceful egalitarian country it has been portrayed as.

Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination depicts a rather sorrowful and pathetic interpretation that White Australia has created of its own history, despite the realities of how White Australian society has actually behaved. The psychological background has previously been ignored. Evans, Saunders and Cronin delve into psychology and publications to provide a broader stage on which to try to understand the diversity of the development of ideas; and the contradiction between mateship and egalitarianism on the one hand, and keeping the Blacks, Melanesians and Chinese out of the democratic ideal on the other.

It would appear initially that Evans' coverage of Aborigines is heavy-handed and 'over-thetop'; however, the fact that Blainey has so recently dismissed the massive weight of evidence brought to light by subsequent historians, such as Henry Reynolds and Noel Loos, only confirms Evans' approach written nearly 20 years ago. The emphasis on shock and horror is valid, if only to try and combat this perversity. There can be no doubt that this pioneering work has indeed withstood the test of time, and is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the Australian psyche. This is a must, if we are ever going to come to terms with who we are as Australians.

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[1] Blainey, C, The Weekend Australian, May 1-2,1993, p16

[2] Evans, R., Saunders, K., and Cronin, K., Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination, University of Queensland Posse, 1993, p34.