When a spectacular century-old green glass spearhead was unearthed on Rottnest Island by an Indigenous Studies student from the University of Western Australia, images were shared across the globe.
This photogenic glass artefact however tells a dark story that is often overlooked by visitors to the popular tourist destination today.
Between 1838 and 1931 Rottnest Island Prison held approximately 4000 Aboriginal men and boys from across WA, often in unspeakable conditions.
Professor Len Collard is a Chief Investigator with UWA's School of Indigenous Studies, and a Noongar elder. He has spent his life visiting Rottnest Island, and has unwittingly slept not a metre above the buried remains of his ancestors in an area considered to be Australia's largest known burial ground of Aboriginal people, and our largest deaths in custody site.
While the Prison site is now scheduled to be returned to the WA state government in 2018, the ways in which we come to remember the site’s complex history and manage the visitor experience remains in question.
