Eliza Fraser

Eliza Anne Fraser
Sketch of Eliza Fraser
Born	Eliza Anne Slack c.1798 Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England
Died	1858 Melbourne
Cause of death	Carriage accident
Spouse(s)	Captain James Fraser (c. 1821- c. 1836) Captain Alexander Greene (1837 -?)
Children	Jane Earl Stephens James Muir Fraser David Fraser
Parent(s)	John and Grace Slack

Eliza Anne Fraser was a Scottish woman whose ship was shipwrecked off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 22 May 1836, and who claimed to be captured by Aboriginal people when in fact she was ship wrecked on the island and taken in by the Badtjala (Butchella) people.Fraser Island is named after her.

She was the wife of Captain James Fraser, master of the Stirling Castle. There were 18 people aboard the ship and a cargo mainly of spirits, which may have been involved in the accident. They struck a reef hundreds of kilometres north of K'gari. They then launched a longboat and a pinnace, the latter of which landed on the northern side of Waddy Point on K'gari. The 11 survivors split up into two groups, Eliza and her husband in the second group, and attempted to trek south, surviving on pandanus and berries until they reached Hook Point. Eliza later claimed she was captured by the Badtjala; her husband either died from starvation or from his injuries. Many other survivors of the same ship wreck later disputed Eliza's claims of capture and ill treatment. Other white people had previously been taken in by the Badtjala people and been treated extremely well. Eliza Fraser's mythmaking claim eventually led to the massacre and dispossession of the island's tribe.

Eliza was found by John Graham, an escaped Irish convict who had lived for six years with the natives of Wide Bay and had mastered their language. Whether John Graham acted alone in rescuing Eliza is a matter of some conjecture. For many years her rescuer was thought to have been another escaped convict David Bracewell (not Bracefell or Bracefield as is frequently written). Bracewell became the rescuer of legend - a legend enhanced by the equally false tale that Bracewell had led Eliza overland to the outskirts of present-day Brisbane where, rather than, as promised, seeking his pardon in return for his assistance, she threatened to betray him for having taken advantage of her. Official records show, to the contrary, that it was the convict John Graham who walked with her from Fig Tree Point, a corroboree ground near Lake Cootharaba north of present-day Noosa onto the ocean beach near present-day Teewah. Here they met the waiting Lieutenant Otter and his small band of soldiers and convict volunteers. They proceeded north along the beach to the main rescue party waiting at Double Island Point from where Eliza was taken by longboat to the Penal Settlement at Moreton Bay.