The dark story behind 'Fraser Island', and why we will never call it that again.

In mid-2023, the world’s largest sand island had its traditional name formally reinstated. 

The World Heritage-listed site, nestled off Queensland’s south-east coast, would no longer be referred to as Fraser Island. It was, once again, K’gari. But to the Butchulla people, the traditional owners and custodians of the island, it has always been so.

The name (pronounced Gurrie) is derived from the island’s creation story, passed down orally by generations of Butchulla people. It tells of Princess K’gari, a white spirit who was sent down from the sky to help create the landscape and waters of the region. 

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Yet almost 200 years ago, this beautiful, ancient story was ignored and replaced by a contemporary narrative that occurred over just seven weeks in 1836. One involving a shipwreck, a fearful Englishwoman, and the deadly, far-reaching consequences of her story.

The dark story of Eliza Fraser

On May 21, 1836, an English vessel named Stirling Castle struck a reef off Australia’s north-east coast.

The ship, which was on route from Sydney to Singapore, was captained by James Fraser and carried 18 people aboard, including Fraser’s wife, Eliza.

With hope lost for the Stirling Castle, the 11 survivors of the wreck clambered into lifeboats and ventured south. One group came ashore at the Tweed River; the other, which included the Frasers, landed on the sandy shores of K’gari.

There they traded with and lived among the Butchulla people. 

Several Stirling Castle men died on K’gari, including Captain James Fraser. Eliza, though, was among the survivors later rescued and returned to Sydney, where her tale garnered her significant attention — and money. Clothes were donated to her and a substantial sum was fundraised on her behalf.

Eliza’s account of her time on K’gari was published in books and newspapers in Australia and abroad, with each report more sensationalised than the last. The story was a popular one in colonial society: a helpless white mother held captive for 52 days by (as Eliza herself described them) “savage monsters”.

In her 1837 account, titled Narrative of the Capture, Sufferings and Miraculous Escape of Mrs Eliza Fraser, she wrote:

“The natural savage disposition of the natives, rendered it probable that they never had much intercourse with any of the civilised race… There was indeed something in the appearance of those savage islanders, that was, to me, truly frightful.

“It was in a small, filthy cabin that I was compelled to take my abode, and with no other society than that of half a dozen or more of the detestable wretches…I was almost daily in the habit of the most harsh and cruel treatment; being seldom allowed sufficient food to satisfy the cravings of nature; and that of a quality not to be eaten under any other circumstances than bordering on starvation!”

No doubt Eliza was traumatised by her experience. She endured a shipwreck, the loss of a baby during her time in the lifeboat, the death of her husband, and the separation from her other children whom she’d left in care of a Presbyterian minister for the duration of the voyage.

And there was clearly an element of cultural shock colouring her perspective. Eliza thought, for example, that the mix of animal fat and ash that the Butchulla women smeared on her skin was a method of cruelty and humiliation, when it was in fact designed to soothe her sunburn. And what she described as “hard labour” – such as cutting firewood, fetching water, fishing and minding a baby – were the routine tasks expected of women in the community, and especially of an outsider who was being fed, sheltered and cared for. 

But much of Eliza’s tale was pure fiction. Some reports of her story described the Butchulla as cannibals, rapists, and brutes. There were varying accounts of her husband’s death, too. Most had him fatally speared by a Butchulla man, while others claimed he simply succumbed to illness or starvation.

Regardless, the island was later named in his honour: Fraser Island.

It’s unclear which falsehoods came from Eliza and which from the various authors of her story. But Eliza did demonstrate a capacity for deception upon her return to England. There she leveraged her tale and presented herself to authorities as a penniless, single widow in need of money. An inquiry revealed she had in fact remarried to another ship’s captain on her journey home from Australia.

Regardless of their source, the myths spun and the stereotypes stoked by Eliza’s popular tale contributed to a narrative of Australia’s Indigenous people as a barbarous, inferior race; a narrative that conveniently justified the massacre of Aboriginal people and the colonisation of Aboriginal land.

“Her name has been reclaimed.”

The formal reclamation of the island’s name in 2023 was celebrated as a step toward recognition of that damage and acknowledgement of the Butchulla people’s ancestral ties to K’gari.

The process began back in 2011 when the Bligh Government added K’gari as an alternative name for Fraser Island to the Queensland Place Names Register. In 2017, Queensland’s Environment Department renamed the Great Sandy National Park area of the island as K'gari, and four years later UNESCO formally adopted the name for the island’s entry on the World Heritage List.

The ceremony on June 7, held by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation, was the next step.

The Premier said she was proud the Government could play a role in officially reinstating K’gari’s traditional name.

“We will continue to recognise Indigenous languages through place names, in the spirit of truth-telling and reconciliation as we walk the Path to Treaty,” she said.

“While steps like this can’t change the wrongs of the past, it goes a long way to building a future where all Queenslanders value, trust, and respect each other.

“This always was and always will be Butchulla Country.”

Chair of the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation, Gayle Minniecon said, “It was through disrespect to the Butchulla people that her name, K’gari — the home of the Butchulla people — was taken away.

“Thankfully it is now through respect to the Butchulla people that K’gari — her name — has been reclaimed.

“Our oral history, our creation story will now be told and learnt as it should be.”

For more information about Butchulla people and country, including the K’gari creation story, visit the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation website.

Image: Getty.