'To infuse an universal terror': a reappraisal of the Coniston killings

Abstract

Australian history has of late entered a new phase of self-reflection, fuelled in part by Keith Windschuttle’s questioning the number of Aboriginal deaths as the result of frontier conflict.2 This revisionist view of frontier conflict has led to a re-examination of many events previously accepted as ‘truths’. One of these events, the Coniston killings of 1928 near Alice Springs, has almost universally been accepted as a massacre. Even Keith Windschuttle acknowledges that ‘Coniston deserves the label “massacre”’.3 This year marks the 75th since the tragic events at and around Coniston Station. In September 2003 a plaque was unveiled near Coniston, in honour of those who lost their lives during what is locally referred to as the ‘killing times’.