Full Story The Descendants: decoding a massacre
Aug 3, 2025
Sarah Collard, an Indigenous affairs reporter for Guardian Australia, dives deep into Australia’s colonial past, igniting crucial conversations about its dark history. She unpacks Major Logue's coded diaries, revealing chilling truths about the Bootenal Springs massacre. Collard emphasizes the painful yet necessary journey of truth-telling, as descendants of victims and perpetrators grapple with their family legacies. Through personal narratives, the importance of reconciliation and healing within the community shines through, challenging colonial silence.
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Settlers' Land Conflict Anecdote
- Early European settlers took vast lands from Yamatji people, sparking deadly conflicts over resources.
- Major Logue's coded diaries reveal he personally engaged in killings during this violent colonial expansion.
Normalized Colonial Violence
- Major Logue casually wrote about killing Aboriginal people as part of his daily activities.
- His diaries show colonial violence was normalized among settlers, hidden in coded language.
Colonial Silence Through Censorship
- Colonial diaries include coded sections to hide evidence of massacres from future scrutiny.
- Publishing only sanitized versions perpetuates colonial silence and obstructs full historical truth.