Map of massacres

After years of painstaking research, an online map marking the massacres of Aboriginal clans across Australia’s colonial frontier has launched.

More than 150 sites have been recorded along the east coast, where violent attacks on Aboriginal people took place for decades after the First Fleet arrived.

Historian and conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle Lyndall Ryan believes it will be one of the most comprehensive maps of the Frontier Wars ever produced.

“I think this project wanted to provide people with the evidence and finding the evidence has taken a long time,” Professor Ryan said.

“We’d like to hope that this is a preliminary map and more and more sites will be added over time.”

PHOTO: Professor Lyndall Ryan believes it will be one of the most comprehensive maps of the Frontier Wars ever produced.(Supplied: University of Newcastle)

Killings ‘designed not to be discovered’

Professor Ryan said finding sources to corroborate oral history of the massacres was difficult, because the killings were “designed not to be discovered”.

PHOTO: A printed proclamation issued by Governor George Arthur (1784-1854) attempted to explain equality under the law. It is incorrectly referred to as Governor Davey’s Proclamation to the Aborigines, 1816. (Supplied: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales)

Sites in Tasmania, Victoria and most sites in New South Wales and Queensland have been recorded, but Professor Ryan said much more work needed to done in other states.