Naomi Parry Duncan on Musquito: The Real Story of a Legendary Colonial Warrior
- Allen & Unwin
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
We speak with Naomi Parry Duncan, the author of Musquito.
A&U: What first sparked your interest in Musquito, and why did you feel his story deserved a full-length biography?
NPD: I was asked to prepare an entry on him for the Australian Dictionary of Biography in 2003 and although I wrote a longer article about him in 2007, I felt there was more to say about this man and his astonishing life.
A&U: You have spent almost two decades researching this book. What kept drawing you back to Musquito's story over that time?
NPD: He’s a fascinating man, and he lived through a time of great change, in three of the most important settlements in what was then the Colony of New South Wales. I wanted to understand the worlds he experienced and the people around him.
A&U: Musquito has often been portrayed as a controversial figure. What misconceptions about him did you most want to challenge?
NPD: Musquito has been depicted in many different ways by people who have written about him, and this often depends on the writer’s point of view about Tasmanian Aboriginal people and people in general. People have called him diabolical and a criminal. An old trope is that he led Tasmanian Aboriginal people astray, beginning the war the colonists called ‘The Black War’. Some say he was a victim of partial British law. Others say he was a resistance fighter, a hero, and some go so far as to say he taught Tasmanians how to fight and was their leader. I wanted to show the whole of his life, in peace and war. I don’t believe he was ‘the leader’ of Tasmanian Aboriginal resistance, as much as he was part of it, because it is quite clear there was much more going on. And I don’t believe he was diabolical or a criminal.
A&U: For readers unfamiliar with Musquito, who was he and why is he such an important figure in Australian history?
NPD: The earliest histories of Tasmania mention Musquito. Those histories were often written for overseas audiences and considered the apparent destruction of Tasmanian Aboriginal life to be a point of narrative interest and an enduring question. Of course it remains an enduring question today, even as we now appreciate the cultural and physical survival of Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Many of those early writers laid the beginnings of the Black War at Musquito’s feet. He was also an important figure in legal history, because he and the Tasmanian Aboriginal man Black Jack were tried for murder in the newly created Supreme Court of Van Diemen’s Land, at the very beginning of the separation of the colonies of NSW and Tasmania. One of the early writers about Tasmania considered the trial was a most extraordinary precedent.
A&U: What surprised you most during your research? Was there a discovery that changed your understanding of Musquito or the period?
NPD: One of the things I changed my mind about with Musquito was whether he was the subject of a portrait called ‘Mousquéda ou Y-erran-gou-la-ga’ which was drawn in Sydney in 1802 by Nicolas Martin-Petit, a French naturalist on the visiting Baudin expedition. I once believed it was impossible to be certain, as there was another man in Port Jackson called Musquito by the colonists at that time. However I am certain now, and the portrait, which belongs to the Museum of Natural History in Le Havre, France, is on the cover of the book. It added a deeper layer to interactions between Aboriginal people and visitors from foreign shores.
A&U: This book draws extensively on primary sources. What were some of the biggest challenges in reconstructing Musquito's life from the historical record?
NPD: Even though Musquito is presented as speaking into the archival record on a number of occasions, those words are always filtered by the person writing the record – whether it is a newspaper editor or the author of a book. It is only possible to show how Musquito was seen by others, but we can infer his feelings from his actions and reactions, and by understanding what was going on around him.
A&U: Along the way, you uncovered connections between Musquito's story and your own family history. How did that personal discovery affect your approach to the book?
NPD: I knew I had ancestors who had been given convict grants in the Carlingford area, north-east of Parramatta, around the time Musquito was active there, so I tried to find out something about their lives and understand the ordinary people who lived in Musquito’s world, as well as the officers and governors who were making decisions about his life. I also had convict ancestors in Tasmania. It was not until I looked closely at where Musquito was at any given time that I realised he had a very direct effect on their lives, both as a figure of fear, but also as a physical threat to land they considered their property. I tried to be sympathetic to the shock they experienced, as well as the shocks in Musquito’s life.
A&U: How does Musquito's story help us better understand the broader history of colonisation and Aboriginal resistance in Australia?
NPD: I think Musquito’s story shows the very many ways Aboriginal people tried to get along with and live with the new arrivals, as well as how they asserted law on Country – the full spectrum from cooperation and even cohabitation to violent resistance. His story shows how entwined Aboriginal and colonial lives were in the period. Colonists were still greatly outnumbered by Aboriginal people at this time, and Aboriginal resistance was a clear and present danger.
A&U: Were there moments in the research that were particularly moving or confronting for you?
NPD: The most moving moment was seeing a death mask that had been cast from Black Jack’s face in the State Library of New South Wales. It showed how young and beautiful he was and its creation also exposed the collecting mindset of the surgeons and writers of the time – the bodies of Black Jack and Musquito were never laid in a grave, and we can assume the worst about what happened to them. This mask was, I think, collected by James Erskine Calder, a former surveyor of Tasmania who was one of the few nineteenth century historians who was sympathetic to Musquito.
A&U: As a historian, how do you balance rigorous scholarship with storytelling when writing for a general audience?
NPD: I think all stories need to be told well! It is vital to do the research thoroughly, and to tell people where you got your ideas so that readers, including Aboriginal people, family historians, and future scholars, will know how you drew your conclusions. I think part of the art of balancing rigour with story is to tell the reader why I’ve found something so interesting, and especially to talk about the places events happened and the forces weighing on events. One might glean a fact from a microfilm reader, but if you consider that fact in the landscape it relates to it becomes more resonant.
A&U: Why do you think Musquito's story resonates so strongly today?
NPD: Musquito was a survivor. He was incredibly resilient and he tried every which way to survive, and live his life. He saw incredible things, both wonderful and awful. It was a dramatic life.
A&U: What do you hope readers will take away from this book after they turn the final page?
NPD: I hope people realise how much ordinary Australian life is founded in this period of entwined lives and conflict. Aboriginal people fought for survival in many and varied ways but they also continued living their lives on Country and influenced and affected the colonists as much as the colonists affected them.
Musquito by Naomi Parry Duncan is available now from your bookstore of choice.
Musquito
by Naomi Parry Duncan
A vivid, compelling portrait of the intertwined lives of Aboriginal people and new arrivals in the fledgling colonies.
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