A plaque giving the Indigenous point of view has pride of place as a counter-memorial on a controversial statue in Fremantle, one which initially commemorated the leader of a punitive expedition that killed up to 20 Aboriginal people in Western Australia.

Unlike historically contentious statues in other parts of Australia and the United States, supporters of the addition — placed 81 years after the original — say the monument now stands for reconciliation rather than division.

Known as the Explorers' Monument in Fremantle, it was dedicated in 1913 with a plaque that read, in part: "To the memories of Panter, Harding and Goldwyer … attacked at night by treacherous natives, were murdered".

The three pastoralists had been searching south of what is now Broome for new grazing land.

When they did not return, prominent politician and pastoralist Maitland Brown led a search for the men, which is also described on the 1913 plaque.

"Maitland Brown, one of the pioneer pastoralists and premier politicians of this state, intrepid leader of the government search and punitive party."

A conflict followed Maitland Brown's discovery of the dead pastoralists in which 10 to 20 Karrijarri people were killed, while none of the punitive party were injured.

Diaries kept by the Europeans involved include details of hostage taking, torture and summary execution, leading up to and following the incident.

The 1913 description of these events was updated 81 years later in 1994, when a second plaque was added to the Explorers' Monument.

"This plaque was erected by people who found the monument before you, offensive," the 1994 plaque reads.

"The monument described the events at LaGrange from one perspective only, the viewpoint of the white settlers.

"No mention is made of the right of Aboriginal people to defend their land, or of the history of provocation which led to the explorers' deaths."

Two sides to the story

Jimmy Edgar is a Karrajarri man whose great grandmother survived the punitive killings that followed the deaths of the explorers.

His brother Joe Edgar worked on the plaque that gave what he calls "the other side of the story".

"They wanted to get the recognition of our stories on the other stories that were told," Mr Edgar said.

"Because there's two sides to the story, you know, we need to tell our part of the story too."

Jimmy Edgar is a Yawuru and Karrajarri man from north-west Australia. ( ABC Kimberley: Ben Collins )

Mr Edgar puts his existence down to the chance survival of his great grandmother from what he calls a massacre.

"My great grandmother crawled away, she was lucky to survive that massacre," Mr Edgar said.

"There is always two sides to the story in Australian history, so that needs to be understood."

Australian National University professor of history Bruce Scates worked with Mr Edgar's brother on the addition of the plaque that tells the Karrajarri perspective on the conflict.

He says that addition of the plaque didn't edit history, but added to the story it tells about Australia.

"We're actually saying that this monument is not the final truth about this event, that we can revisit this event, this question, and approach it in different ways," he said.

"We need to move beyond that very painful past and enter into a much more sophisticated dialogue about it."

Australia's current conversation about how we tell the nation's history has the chance to include Aboriginal perspectives that have been previously ignored, according to Dr Scates.

"In a post-Mabo age we are privileged to have these Aboriginal voices like Jimmy's, telling us another story," he said.