The Explorers' Monument is a monument located on The Esplanade in Fremantle

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

, Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. It is approximately six metres high, and consists of a head and shoulders statue of Maitland Brown

Maitland Brown

Maitland Brown was an explorer, politician and pastoralist in colonial Western Australia. He is best remembered as the leader of the La Grange expedition, which searched for and recovered the bodies of three white settlers murdered by Indigenous Australians, and subsequently killed a number of...

, sitting on granite pedestals on a granite base inset with plaques honouring three explorers, Frederick Panter

Frederick Panter

Frederick Kennedy Panter was a police officer, pastoralist and explorer in colonial Western Australia. While exploring in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1864, he was murdered by Australian Aborigines....

, James Harding

James Harding

James Harding was a pastoralist and explorer in colonial Western Australia. While exploring in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1864, he was murdered by Australian Aborigines....

 and William Goldwyer

William Goldwyer

William Goldwyer was a police officer and explorer in colonial Western Australia. While exploring in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1864, he was killed by Australian Aborigines....

. The monument was commissioned by C. J. Brockman, and the statue of Brown was sculpted by Pietro Porcelli

Pietro Porcelli

Pietro Giacomo Porcelli was an Italian-born sculptor responsible for many statues in Western Australia, including the Explorers' Monument, and those of C. Y. O'Connor and Alexander Forrest....

. Lady Forrest

Margaret Forrest

Lady Forrest , born Margaret Elvire Hamersley, was the wife of Sir John Forrest. Born in Le Havre, France, she was a member of the prominent and wealthy Hamersley family; her father was Edward Hamersley , and amongst her brothers were Edward Hamersley and Samuel Hamersley...

 unveiled the work in February 1913. Due to controversy about its presentation of settler/Aboriginal disputes it was altered in the 1990s.

Panter, Harding and Goldwyer were killed by Aboriginal people in 1864, while exploring in the Kimberley region of Western Australia

Kimberley region of Western Australia

The Kimberley is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory.The region...

. When the men failed to return, Brown was commissioned to lead the La Grange expedition

La Grange expedition

The La Grange expedition was a search expedition carried out in the vicinity of Lagrange Bay in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1865. Led by Maitland Brown, the expedition searched for three settlers who had failed to return from an earlier exploring expedition...

, which searched for the whereabouts of the missing men. Brown's search party found the men dead, having been speared to death, two of them evidently in their sleep. Shortly afterwards, a number of Aborigines were killed by Brown's party in a highly controversial incident that was reported by Brown as a battle brought on by an Aboriginal ambush, but which has often since been characterised as a punitive massacre of Aborigines by white settlers.

One of the original plaques on the pedestal reads as follows:

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY C. J. BROCKMAN as a fellow bush wanderer's tribute to the memory of PANTER, HARDING and GOLDWYER earliest explorers after Grey and Gregory of this "Terra Incognita"',attacked at night by treachorous natives were murdered at Boole Boola near Le Grange Bay on the 13 NOVEMBER 1864. also as an appreciative token of remembrance of MAITLAND BROWN one of the pioneer pastoralists and premier politicians of this state,intrepid leader of the government search and punitive party. His remains together with the sad relics of the ill fated three recovered at great risk and danger from lone wilds repose under a public monument in the East Perth Cemetery "LEST WE FORGET"

The Aboriginal communities have long held that the Explorer's Monument was a racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

work that presented a biased interpretation of the events at La Grange. In 1994, an attempt was made to redress this perceived bias by placing an additional plaque on the monument. The new plaque commemorates all Aboriginal people who died "during the invasion of their country", and reads as follows:

THIS PLAQUE WAS ERECTED BY PEOPLE WHO FOUND THE MONUMENT BEFORE YOU OFFENSIVE. THE MONUMENT DESCRIBED THE EVENTS AT La GRANGE FROM ONE PERSPECTIVE ONLY: THE VIEWPOINT OF THE WHITE 'SETTLERS' no mention is made of the right of aboriginal people to defend their land or of the history of provocation which led to the explorers' death. the 'punitive party' mentioned here ended in the deaths of somewhere around twenty aboriginal people the whites were well armed and equipped and none of their party was killed or wounded. this plaque is in memory of the aboriginal people killed at la grange. it also commemorates all other aboriginal people who died during the invasion of their country LEST WE FORGET MAPA JARRIYA-NYALAKU

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