Musquito: the real story of a legendary colonial warrior

How do you tell the story of a "warrior" without flattening him into myth? Associate Professor Delia Falconer talks with historian Dr Naomi Parry Duncan about her new biography of Musquito — a warrior born around Port Jackson who lived through the first shockwaves of British invasion, was exiled to Norfolk Island, and ultimately met his end in Van Diemen's Land. Parry Duncan set out to tell his full, complicated story — not the "last stand" myth historians have leaned on for two centuries, but a life full of relationships, movement, and agency, drawn only from sources written at the time. The conversation follows Musquito's path from Parramatta to Norfolk Island's coral stone and on to Tasmania's dolerite country, and traces the surprising thread that runs alongside it: Parry Duncan's discovery that her own convict ancestors were caught up in his story, their land grant sitting almost on top of the spot where Musquito was captured. It's a conversation about writing history that holds violence and beauty at once — and about what's owed to a story that's been misused for so long. This episode was recorded live at Gleebooks. Voices Dr Naomi Parry Duncan is a professional historian and president of the History Council of NSW, as well as a senior research officer with the Indigenous Land and Justice Research Group at UNSW. She holds adjunct roles at Western Sydney University and the University of Tasmania and was the 2022 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellow. She was lead writer for the NSW Centenary of Anzac publication New South Wales and the Great War (2016). Associate Professor Delia Falconer is the author of two novels (The Service of Clouds and The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers) and two works of nonfiction (Sydney and Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss), which have been shortlisted for national and international awards across the categories of fiction, nonfiction, innovation, biography, history and research. She is the editor of three cohort-defining collections: The Best Australian Stories 2008, The Best Australian Stories 2009 and The Penguin Book of the Road. Delia's short stories and essays have been widely anthologised, including in the landmark Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature and The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. Delia teaches creative writing at UTS. Further reading Musquito: the real story of a legendary colonial warrior by Naomi Parry Duncan is published by Allen & Unwin. A review of Musquito by Tim Rowse for The Conversation. A review of Musquito by Kate Fullagar for Inside Story. Credits This episode of History Lab was recorded on Gadigal Land, Sydney, at Gleebooks. For more literary events like this one, see the Gleebooks events page. Edited and mixed by Daniel Wiggins. History Lab is brought to you by the Australian Centre for Public History and UTS Impact Studios. Executive producer is Sarah Gilbert.