Abstract
This chapter investigates the controversy surrounding the 2005 unveiling of the statue of Robert Towns in Townsville, Australia. It shows how, and why, memory and counter-memory occupied the statue of Townsville’s eponym, providing an opportunity for South Sea Islander and Indigenous perspectives on the past to confront white-settler-oriented official memory. Towns, the founder of the Pacific Islander labour trade, lodges in Australian South Sea Islander oral memory as a kidnapping and slavery symbol. Islander memory of Towns is transcultural and transnational, travelling across borders into Australian Indigenous memory and to Vanuatu, where Towns is also deployed as a unifying emblem of colonialist exploitation. The Towns statue retains its vitality for Islander commemorations and encourages the expansion of Townsville’s public memory beyond its white settler origins.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
‘South Sea Islander’ is the term preferred by the community. Historically, the names Polynesians, Kanakas and Pacific Islanders have been loosely applied to Melanesians in Australia. Torres Strait Islanders, from the group of islands in the Strait between continental North Australia and Papua New Guinea, are Indigenous Australians and, in this chapter, will be designated Torres Strait Islanders, their preferred term.
References
Anderson, J. (2001). Monster or Man of Vision. Townsville Bulletin (TB), 2 June, 9.
Anderson, J. (2004). Hero or Villain? City Founder a Mystery to Most. Townsville Bulletin (TB), 29 May, 6.
Ashton, P., & Hamilton, P. (2008). Places of the Heart: Memorials, Public History and the State in Australia Since 1960. Public History Review, 15, 1–29.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2002). 2001 Census: Further Analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population Distribution, Media Release, 26 June.
Australian Human Rights Commission. (2003). Australian South Sea Islanders: A Century of Race Discrimination Under Australian Law. https://www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/publications/australian-south-sea-islanders-century-race-discrimination. Accessed 27 Jan 2019.
Bandler, F. (1993). Interviewed by Robin Hughes. Recorded 24 March 1993, Australian Biography Project, www.australianbiography.gov.au/bandler/interview1.html. Accessed 5 Jan 2019.
Banfield, E. (1906). Townsville Illustrated: Together with a Short Historical Sketch of the City from its Earliest Days. Townsville: G.H. Pritchard.
Barr, T. (2003). The First City of the North. TB, Centenary Supplement, 3 May, 2.
Basu, P. (2005). Roots- Tourism as Return Movement: Semantics and the Scottish Diaspora. In M. Harper (Ed.), Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1600–2000 (pp. 131–150). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Bélanger, A. (2002). Urban Space and Collective Memory: Analysing the Various Dimensions of the Production of Memory. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 11(1), 69–92.
Black, J. (1864). Letter, 21 November Cleveland Bay to Robert Towns. In W. J. Doherty (Ed.), The Townsville Book: A Complete Sketch of the History, Topography, and Prominent Early Settlers of Townsville (p. 33). Brisbane: Edwards, Dunlop.
Bodnar, J. (1992). Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriots in the Twentieth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brown, J. (2015). Interviewed by Rodney Sullivan and Robin Sullivan, 25 September.
Castle Hill Concept Plan. (2018). https://www.townsville.qld.gov.au/data/assets/pdf_file/0026/59804/Castle-hill-masterplan_w.pdf. Accessed 24 Jan 2019.
Census of Queensland. (1881). http://hccda.ada.edu.au/pages/QLD-1881-census_01-06_12. Accessed 18 Feb 2019.
Census of Australia. (1947). Vol. 1, Part III. Canberra: Commonwealth Statistician.
Chakrabarty, D. (2007). History and the Politics of Recognition. In K. Jenkins et al. (Eds.), Manifestos for History (pp. 77–87). London/New York: Routledge.
Clarke, D. (1913). Fifty Years in Townsville, 1863 to 1913: Half a Century’s Progress. In Townsville Bulletin Jubilee Souvenir, 1863–1913 (pp. 23–32). Townsville: North Queensland Newspaper Co..
Cook, J. (2014). In W. Wharton (Ed.), Cook’s Journal During his First Voyage Round the World, made in H.M. Bark Endeavour, 1768–7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conrad, S. (2003). Entangled Memories: Versions of the Past in Germany and Spain, 1945–2001. Journal of Contemporary History, 38, 85–99.
Corris, P. (1970). Pacific Island Labour Migrants in Queensland. Journal of Pacific History, 5(1), 43–64.
Crinson, M. (2005). Urban Memory: An Introduction. In M. Crinson (Ed.), Urban Memory: History and Amnesia in the Modern City (pp. xi–xx). New York: Routledge.
Davis, E. (2018). Email to Robin Sullivan, 18 December.
Docker, E. (1970). The Blackbirders: The Recruiting of South Seas Labour for Queensland, 1863–1907. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Docker, E. (1981). The Blackbirders: A Brutal Story of the Kanaka Slave Trade. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Du Feu, J. (2003). Towns’ Town, Script.
Erll, A. (2011). Travelling Memory. Parallax, 17(4), 4–18.
Estimates Committee G. (1996, 1997). Queensland Parliament. Transcript, 26 September 1996 and 19 June 1997, https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/global/search. Accessed 17 Feb 2019.
Evatt Foundation. (1991). Australian South Sea Islanders: A Report on the Current Status of Australian South Sea Islanders. Sydney: The Evatt Foundation.
Fleming, I. (2015). Interviewed by Rodney Sullivan and Robin Sullivan, 25 September.
Gibson-Wilde, D. (1984). Gateway to a Golden Land, Townsville to 1884. Townsville: History Department, James Cook University.
Grant, S. (2017, August 25). Between Catastrophe and Survival: The Real Journey Captain Cook Set us on, ABC News, http//www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-25/stan-grant-captain-cook-indigenous-culture-statues-history/8843172. Accessed 4 Aug 2019.
Griffin, H. (2014). Frontier Town: A History of Early Townsville and Hinterland, 1864–1884. Townsville: North Queensland History Preservation Society.
Gunderman, R. (2015). Should We Change the Name of Washington, DC Because He Owned Slaves? Newsweek.com/should-we-change-name-washington-because-heowned-slaves-367268. Accessed 27 Oct 2015.
Hamilton, P., & Ashton, P. (2001). On not Belonging: Memorials and Memory in Sydney. Public History Review, 1, 23–36.
Hawkins, J. (2015). Interviewed by Rodney Sullivan and Robin Sullivan, 15 October.
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC). (1993). The Call for Recognition: A Report on the Situation of Australian South Sea Islanders. Canberra: Australian Government Printing Service.
Hunt, D. (2006). Bye Bye Blackbirder: The Death of Ross Lewin. Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 19(5), 805–823.
Hunt, D. (2016). Robert Towns and the Pacific Labour Trade. Paper Presented to the 6th Biennial Conference of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies, James Cook University, Cairns, 1–4 April.
Johnson, A. (2018). Interviewed by Robin Sullivan, 18 and 19 August.
Kennedy, K. (2004). Robert Towns’ Townsville and the “Blackbirding” Controversy. Townsville: Townsville City Council.
King, G. (1940). “Bobbie” Towns. His Grave will Soon be in a Park. Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October, 9.
Lake, M. (2013). Colonial Australia and the Asia-Pacific Region. In A. Bashford & S. Macintyre (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Australia, Vol. 1: Indigenous and Colonial Australia (pp. 535–559). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lawson, S. (2016). Regionalism, Sub-regionalism and the Politics of Identity in Oceania. The Pacific Review, 29(3), 387–409.
Lester, A. (2017). Tracey Banivanua Mar 1974–2017. The Journal of Pacific History, 52(4), 518–523.
Lim, J. (2010). Victimhood Nationalism in Contested Memories: National Mourning and Global Accountability. In A. Assmann & S. Conrad (Eds.), Memory in the Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories (pp. 138–162). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lipsitz, G. (2001). Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Loos, N. (1982). Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-European Relations on the North Queensland Frontier, 1867–1897. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
Loos, N., & Mabo, K. (1996). Edward Koiki Mabo: His Life and Struggle for Land Rights. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.
Loughran, K., et al. (2016). Urban Spaces, City Cultures and Collective Memories. In L. Tota & T. Hagen (Eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies (pp. 193–204). New York: Routledge.
Mar, T. (2000). Bulimæn and Hard Work: Indenture, Identity and Complexity in Colonial North Queensland. PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Melbourne.
Maynard, J. (2018). I’m Captain Cooked: Aboriginal Perspectives on James Cook, 1770–2020. In J. Maynard et al. (Eds.), Cook and the Pacific (pp. 1–13). National Library of Australia: Canberra.
McCreery, C., & McKenzie, K. (2013). The Australian Colonies in a Maritime World. The Cambridge History of Australia, 1, 580–582.
Megarrity, L. (2006). White Queensland: The Queensland Government’s Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector, 1880–1901. Australian Journal of Politics and History, 52(1), 1–12.
Megarrity, L. (2018). Northern Dreams: The Politics of Northern Development in Australia. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Mercer, P. (1995). White Australia Defied: Pacific Islander Settlement in North Queensland. Townsville: Department of History and Politics, James Cook University.
Mihelj, S. (2013). Between Official and Vernacular Memory. In E. Keightley & M. Pickering (Eds.), Research Methods for Memory Studies (pp. 60–75). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Miller, K. (1990). Emigration, Capitalism and Ideology in Post-Famine Ireland. In R. Kearney (Ed.), Migrations: The Irish at Home and Abroad. Dublin: Wolfhound Press.
Moore, C. (1985). Kanaka: A History of Melanesian Mackay. Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies and University of Papua New Guinea Press.
Moore, C. (2000). Good-bye, Queensland, Good-bye White Australia, Good-Bye Christians: Australia’s South Sea Islander Community and Deportation. The New Federalist, 4 December, 22–29.
Moore, C. (2001). The South Sea Islanders of Mackay, Queensland, Australia. In J. Fitzpatrick (Ed.), Endangered People of Oceania: Struggles to Survive and Thrive (pp. 167–181). Westport: Greenwood Press.
Moore, C. (2015). Australian South Sea Islanders’ Narratives of Belonging. In F. Gounder (Ed.), Narrative and Identity Construction in the Pacific Islands. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Moore, C. (2016). Australian South Sea Islanders in Queensland, Stories from the Archives. 27 May, https://blogs.archives.qld.gov.au/2016/05/27/australian-south-sea-islanders-in-queensland/. Accessed 5 Jan 2019.
Mortison, D. (2005). Protestors go to Town Over Statue. TB, 19 May, 3.
Multicultural Affairs Queensland. (2018). Multicultural Diversity Figures. https://www.dlgrma.qld.gov.au/multicultural-affairs/multicultural-communities/multicultural-diversity-figures.html. Accessed 13 Mar 2019.
Olick, J., et al. (2011). Introduction. In J. Olick et al. (Eds.), The Collective Memory Reader (pp. 3–62). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Malley, B. (1996). Mooney Withdraws Security Guards from City Parks. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 21 June, 8.
Queensland Government. (2000). Australian South Sea Islander Recognition Statement. https://www.dlgrma.qld.gov.au/resources/multicultural/communities/assi-recognition-statement.pdf. Accessed 25 Aug 2019.
Queensland Government Gazette. 1866.
Queensland Parliamentary Debates. 1889.
Queensland State Library. Plantation Voices. www.slq.qld.gov.au/showcase/ASSI. Accessed 25 Aug 2019.
Reitmajer, E. (2003). New Play Delivers Answers on City Founder. TB, 23 September, 3.
Reynolds, H. (1982). The other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia. Townsville: History Department, James Cook University.
Reynolds, H. (2003). North of Capricorn: The Untold Story of Australia’s North. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Richards, J. (2010). Native Police. Queensland Historical Atlas. https://www.qhatlas.com.au/content/native-police. Accessed 20 Jan 2019.
Rothberg, M. (2009). Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rothberg, M. (2011). From Gaza to Warsaw: Mapping Multidirectional Memory. Criticism, 53(4), 523–548.
Rothberg, M. (2019). The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Schuman, H. et al. (2005). Elite revisionists and popular beliefs: Christopher Columbus, hero or villain? Public Opinion Quarterly, 69 (1), 2–29.
Sharrat, S. (2007). A Fitting Tribute. Mabo Sculpture Marks Memory of Native Title Legend. TB, 4 June, 6.
Shineberg, D. (1976). Towns, Robert (1794–1873). In B. Nairn (Ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography (Vol. 6, pp. 294–296). Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Smallwood, G. (2018). Interviewed by Robin Sullivan, 11 October.
Townsville City Council (TCCM). (1941; 1947; 2003; 2004; 2005; 2006). Minutes of Proceedings.
Turner, R. (2017). SBS. New Push for Day of Recognition on 25th Anniversary of Mabo Victory. https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/nitv-news/article/2017/06/05/townsville-celebrates-mabo-day-amid-calls-national-public-holiday. Accessed 31 Jan 2019.
Warner, W. (1959). The Living and the Dead: A Study of the Symbolic Life of Americans. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Wilson, A. (2007). Honouring Koiki. Koori Mail (Lismore), 20 June, 11.
Wilson, A. (2013). Protesters Want Statue Removed. Koori Mail, 25 September, 7.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sullivan, R., Sullivan, R. (2020). Contested Memory in an Eponymous City: The Robert Towns Statue in Townsville, Australia. In: Marschall, S. (eds) Public Memory in the Context of Transnational Migration and Displacement. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41329-3_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41329-3_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41328-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41329-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)