A Helpful Guide to Perth’s Problematic Statues AND WHERE TO FIND THEM Lillian Keenan
CONTENT WARNING: COLONISATION, MURDER, GENOCIDE OF INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS Throughout history statues have risen and fallen with societal values. In the United States, spurred on by the Black Lives Matter protests, many Confederate statues around the country have been toppled, hung, beheaded, drowned and defaced. Some local and state governments have acted. For example, on July the 1st the Mayor of Richmond, Virginia Levar Stoney called for the removal of all confederate statues in the city. The United Kingdom has also been reviewing links to its problematic heritage. In Manchester, Councillor Luthfur Rahman asked the public who they would like to see celebrated in future statues while previous ones are removed. Here in Australia we’ve been reflecting on our own shameful history and who we celebrate. In 2017, after Captain Cook’s statue was defaced in Sydney’s Hyde park Malcom Turnbull referred to this act as
1. Henry Camfield (1799-1872) - This statue is located on Great Eastern Highway in Burswood and was put up in 1992. Camfields statue represents the values of his time, hard work and the struggle to survive as a pioneer in a foreign environment. But nowadays we recognise his ‘hard work’ as colonisation. When he arrived in Australia (1829) he was ‘granted’ 5533 acres of stolen land which he named Burswood. Camfield attempted to farm almost starving three times due to poor knowledge of the land. This land would go on to become the Belmont race course, Perth Stadium, Crown and Burswood which features the Camfield pub. He became Government Resident in Albany where he established Annesfield schoolhouse in 1851. An institution where he and his wife ‘raised’ and indoctrinated more than 50 Aboriginal children into Christianity. During the school’s first 16 years 17 children died there. The statue of Henry Camfield glorifies the actions of settlers and hides their
a disturbing totalitarian act to obliterate Australian history. More recently, as people still call for the removal of the very same statue Scott Morrison inevitably responded, that there was no slavery in Australia. Fun fact, we have more statues of animals than women and indigenous people (Cowaramup I’m looking at you). Clearly, we would rather celebrate men who brutally colonised Australia than we would the rightful owners of this land. While the spotlight has been on the Eastern states monuments WA has plenty of statues commemorating colonial eras. But calls for their removal haven’t been as loud. I assume it’s because our statues aren’t as famous as James Cook and we just don’t know who we have in our own backyard. So, I’d like to provide a helpful guide to the statues around Perth. Without further ado, here is an alphabetical list of some of the most problematic statues in Perth and why.
atrocious acts. To make matters worse his statue is leaning against a shovel wiping sweat from his brow, to represent how hard he suffered to make a name for himself. In reality, Camfield failed to force foreign land into an English garden so he gave up and forced European standards onto stolen children.
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