At least 350 people attended the annual Appin Massacre Memorial Day event on April 19, which blended mourning with a celebration of survival.
Ann Madsen, the long-time activist and organiser, said the gathering is an opportunity to “pause, to acknowledge the truth of what took place, and to continue the shared work of healing and reconciliation”.
Appin, south of Sydney, is the site of one of the most notorious of the NSW colony’s massacres of First Nations people. At least 14 Dharawal men women and children were either shot or forced over a cliff to their deaths in the early hours of April 17, 1861.
This crime was committed by soldiers under the command of Captain Wallis. However, they were following NSW Military Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s orders.
The AMMD was established by Dharawal survivor descendents and others who believed the massacre should be marked. Those who were killed were not involved with the resistance to the colonial invasion. They were the Gandangara people, who had come down from the mountains to the Western Plains, because of serious drought.
Many of those who initiated the day were present. Uncle Raymond started with a smoking ceremony, which was followed by Kalan Nau playing the didgeridoo and a Welcome to Country by Aunty Glenda Chalker. Local councillors attended and the Mayors of Wollondilly, Campbelltown City and the Deputy Mayor of Camden also spoke.
No federal or state MP attended.
There was beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace and The Voice, sung in Dharawal. The young Wiritjiribin Dancers from Campbelltown also performed.
I attend each year also because I am campaigning to have the Appin Massacre, ordered by Macquarie, recorded on his statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park. His order instructs the military to take “natives” as prisoners of war and, if they resist, to kill them and hang them in trees to “strike fear into the hearts of other natives”.
Some of the longtime activists who initiated the important memorial include Uncle Ivan Wellington, Aunty Frances Bodkin, Sister Kerry McDermott as well as Gavin Andrews and Peter Jones.
[Stephen Langford is a member of Socialist Alliance.]
