Reckoning with the Unspoken History of Bacchus Marsh

There’s a silence that echoes in the landmarks of Bacchus Marsh.

Driving into the area from the East, West or North, you’re met with the familiar symbols of colonial pride. The Avenue of Honour, Moon Reserve , Federation Park , and Women’s Pioneer Memorial are all sites that tell a particular story — one of progress, nation-building, and European endurance in the face of a “wild” land.

But something is missing. In fact, a lot is missing.

Nowhere in these commemorations is there substantial acknowledgement of the First Nations Peoples, whose relationship with this land stretches back tens of thousands of years. This absence isn’t a coincidence — part of the same colonial narrative that continues to shape Australian public memory. It’s not just about what’s said but what’s left unsaid.

When the master plan for Maddingley Park was released for community feedback, I proposed the restoration of the Billabong — a significant space once central to the area’s landscape before being converted into an ornamental lake and eventually filled in entirely. The park is still home to ancient redgums, some hundreds of years old, standing as living witnesses to a time long before colonisation. My recommendations to the feedback included a suggestion that this site may have been used for corroboree or ceremonial gatherings, as it lies close to the boundary between Woiwurrung and Wadawurrung Country.

Knowledge, culture, and kinship may once have been actively shared in this meeting place. This should be acknowledged along with the restoration of the Billabong and native plantings. The new plans include wetlands; however, it lacks any cultural representation.

Bacchus Marsh’s history is overwhelmingly settler-centric. From the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden to Federation Park, the landmarks that shape the town’s identity overwhelmingly celebrate European arrival, resilience, and settlement. Yet, there’s little to no public acknowledgement of the Wathaurong and Wurundjeri Peoples. Their histories, knowledge systems, and stories have been passed down through generations long before the idea of “Bacchus Marsh” existed. Their dispossession, too, is not commemorated in stone or sign.

What does it mean when a town’s public memory leaves out the people who were here first and are still here?

Even natural landmarks carry the weight of misrepresentation. The Lerderderg River — so central to the town’s identity — is considered a corruption of a Wathaurong or Dja Dja Wurrung word, misheard and mispronounced by colonial surveyors or settlers. Its true meaning? Likely lost or mangled in translation.

And then there’s the town’s very name — Bacchus Marsh — named after Captain William Henry Bacchus, an early settler and pastoralist. The naming itself is a marker of possession. It overwrites deep Aboriginal place names and meanings with European figures, many of whom were beneficiaries of violent displacement and land seizure. Captain Bacchus’ legacy is immortalised not because of moral virtue or community ties but because naming something after oneself was — and still is — an act of staking colonial claim.

This isn’t a one-off error. It’s part of a broader colonial practice in which First Nations languages were misunderstood, ignored, or deliberately overwritten, erasing cultural meaning and asserting English naming as a claim to ownership. These mishearings were cemented into maps, schools, and signage. What might seem like an innocent mistake is, in fact, an enduring symbol of cultural erasure.

It’s not just what’s absent — it’s what’s present in place of truth.

Many reserves, parks, and walking trails lie on unceded land. Yet their signs rarely — if ever — mention this fact. The impression left is that these places were empty, waiting to be discovered, claimed, and civilised. This narrative flattens the complex, living histories of place — histories that include ceremony, seasonal movement, deep ecological knowledge, and custodianship.

Moon Reserve might bear a historical name today, but what was this place before colonisation? What Indigenous stories, practices, or spiritual significance might it hold? What animals and plants were observed here, and how were they related to seasonal cycles or kinship obligations? These aren’t quaint side notes — they’re central to understanding the Country as a living, relational entity. And yet, these truths remain absent from public view, hidden behind a thin veneer of settler nostalgia.

This article isn’t written to erase settler histories. Instead, it calls for a reckoning—a fuller, more honest account of place. A public memory that only celebrates one version of history is not history at all—it’s myth-making. We must move beyond romanticised pioneer stories and ask: Who was here before? What was their experience of colonisation? And how do we honour their ongoing presence and sovereignty?

Actual acknowledgement goes beyond a line in a speech. It looks like:

• Dual naming : Restoring or co-naming landmarks in local First Nations languages.
• Interpretive signage : Sharing First Nations stories of place alongside colonial histories.
• Co-created installations : Working with local Elders, artists, and cultural knowledge holders to represent the Country in public space.
• Educational programs : Embedding local Indigenous history into school curricula and community initiatives.
• Ceremony and return : Recognising significant sites and, where possible, returning land or management rights to Traditional Custodians.

None of this erases the past — it enriches it. It lets us see Bacchus Marsh not just as a product of colonisation but as a place with deeper, older roots and many more stories to tell.

Like so many towns across Australia, Bacchus Marsh is layered with meaning. Some layers are celebrated and seen; others are buried beneath years of silence, omission, and colonial pride.

If we are serious about reconciliation, then we must start in places like these—the small towns, the local parks, the names on signs and rivers. Reckoning begins not in textbooks but in the everyday spaces we pass through without question. The question is no longer if we need to do this work but how soon we are willing to begin.

The land remembers. It always has. The question is: will we listen?