AustLit

'In our first article, Mark Finnane and Jonathan Richards write in response to the provocation of Henry Reynolds that leading figures in the history of colonial Australia – some honoured in the naming of universities, for example – should be held to account for their conduct. Investigating how one such figure – Samuel Griffith, Attorney-General 1874–78, Premier of Queensland 1883–88 and both Attorney-General and Premier 1890–93 – could be held morally responsible for his part in the violent dispossession of Aboriginal people, Finnane and Richards acknowledge the proximities between history writing and the more overtly political work of ‘truth telling’. They test the accusation that in both his political and legal offices, Griffith failed to condemn several well-publicised killings of Aboriginal people including those carried out by Native Police, thus with the apparent endorsement of the state. By examining a series of cases in which Griffith’s decisions and policies are documented, they portray Griffith as both ‘lawmaker’ and ‘war-maker’ – responsible for ‘policies and prosecutions that both harmed and protected Aboriginal subjects of the Crown’. The difficulties of bringing violence – both among and against Aboriginal people – under the rule of British law were not his alone. The ‘politics of memory’ will determine whether this singularly commemorated man will now be singularly condemned.' (Publication summary)