Listen and Read
A list of recommended publications and media to learn and research more about the Australian Wars.
Listen
The Australian Wars
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/the-australian-wars
A three part documentary directed by Rachel Perkins. “The story of Australia’s first wars, calling for the nation to acknowledge the First Peoples who died in these conflicts and for the Australian War Memorial to recognise them.”
Frontier War Stories
https://open.spotify.com/show/62EVJzHijzm9uYjDErGC4P
Boe Spearim’s podcast, interviewing experts on aspects of the Australian Wars. “Frontier War Stories is a podcast dedicated to truth-telling about a side of Australia that has been left out of the history books.”
Chimney Flats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tK1lRxlcv4&t=147s
Aunty Iris Lovett-Gardiner talks about the war in Gunditjmara country.
Land, Sky, Waters: Convincing Ground and Portland monuments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTTnLzgZo4w
In this brief video Gunditjmara people discuss the way our violent history is, or isn't, acknowledged.
Primary Readings
Thousands of articles relevant to the Australian Wars can be found in Trove by searching keywords such as ‘black, native, outrage‘. Many others can be found in government archives and colonial police reports. The following are just some related to pivotal moments in the Australian Wars, or provide good examples of various aspects of the wars.
Governor Phillip’s Instructions, 25 April, 1787
Governor Phillip orders for establishing the first British colony including securing it from Aboriginal people, attempting to negotiate peace, punishing any colonies who harmed Aboriginal people, and attempting trade.
Governor Phillip’s Instructions, 25 April, 1787 Museum of Australian Democracy https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/nsw2_doc_1787.pdf
Governor Phillip Speared
Watkin Tench’s account of the early years of the British colony at Sydney describes the spearing of Governor Phillip and many other interesting events.
Tench, Watkin A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson Project Gutenberg, 2006 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3534/3534-h/3534-h.htm#8
Governor Macquarie’s Proclamation
Responding to Aboriginal resistance, Governor Macquarie ordered that Aboriginal people appearing in ‘state of hostility’ and any group larger than 6, near a farm, should be regarded as enemies and ‘treated accordingly’.
‘Proclamation’ in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842) 4 May 1816, p1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2176637
Governor Brisbane Declares Martial Law
During the first Wiradjuri War (the Bathurst War) Governor Brisbane declared martial law on 26 August, 1824. This also allowed 'all his majesty's subjects', as well as soldiers, to kill Aboriginal people according to 'summary justice'. The state of martial law was lifted in December of that year.
The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 1824, August 26, p 1. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2183166
Public Meeting, Hobart Town Hall, 24 Sept 1830
Colonists at a town hall meeting in Hobart discuss Government Order No. 10 and debate ‘a war of extermination’.
‘Public Meeting’ in Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 – 1857) Fri 24 Sept 1830, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8645368
Governor Bourke’s Proclamation, 26 August 1835
In response to Batman’s claims to have made a treaty with people of the Kulin nation, Bourke asserted all lands to be crown lands, such that Aboriginal sovereignty was ignored and no treaty or transaction with Aboriginal people over lands and waters could be honoured by the British: ‘every such treaty, bargain, and contract with the Aboriginal Natives … is void and of no effect against the rights of the Crown’
Proclamation of Governor Bourke, 10 October 1835, PRO UK: CO 201/247 ff 411 r + v https://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-42.html
Gipps’s Despatch to Lord Glenelg, 21 July, 1838
Governor Gipps discusses a massacre committed by Major Nunn’s forces on an expedition to the north of Sydney, in Gomeroi country, and raids and massacres of colonists and Aboriginal people in Port Phillip (Victoria). Colonists in Port Phillip had petitioned him to ‘levy Punitive war against the Blacks, or sanction the enrolment of a Militia for that purpose and allow them to be supplied with Arms and Munitions of War from Her Majesty’s stores.’ He rejected both options but established ‘military posts’ and increased mounted police forces (recruited from active or retired military).
‘Sir George Gipps to Lord Glenelg, Despatch No. 115, 21st July, 1838’ in Watson, Frederick Historical Records of Australia Sydney: The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1923 https://archive.org/details/historicalrecord00v19aust/page/508/mode/2up
Parliamentary Select Committee Report on Aboriginal Tribes
This report is representative of changing attitudes and government policy in Britain towards Indigenous peoples in British colonies. These ‘protective’ attitudes and policies were not necessarily reflected in colonies, or sometimes caused harm in different forms.
Parliamentary Select Committee, Report on Aboriginal Tribes (British Settlements), 01 January 1837 https://www.towardstruth.org.au/doc0014-parliamentary-select-committee-report-on
The “Rising” of 1842-4
A colonist describes for posterity, Aboriginal resistance throughout the south east of Australia, from Wide Bay (Kabi Kabi / Badjtala, Bundaberg) to Portland (Gunditjmara, Victoria): “The simultaneous aggressive movement of the Aborigines throughout the entire colony, and along its boundaries, commenced in 1842, and continued through the two or three succeeding years, belongs to the history of the country. For more than two years the warfare which the blacks waged upon the stations situate along the boundaries of the colony, from one extreme to the other, was universal, implacable, and incessant.”
“The Aborigines of Australia” Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 – 1875) 15 April 1854: 3. Web. 23 Mar 2024 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60151188.
Governor Bowen’s letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies 16/12/1861
Governor Bowen summarises the massacre of colonists by Aboriginal people at Cullin-la-Ringo, the reprisal, and includes comments that are relevant to many aspects of the Australian Wars generally. He describes the exceptional skill of the Native Police in tracking and combat, comparing them in sagacity to First Nations people in North America, and suggesting there would have been no ‘war’ in New Zealand if Native Police had been used there. He mentions a massed group of 100 warriors, Aboriginal people’s skilled use the terrain in evading capture, reprisal massacres, and that the intention of the colonial government was to ‘educate’ Aboriginal children and put Aboriginal people to work for colonists, in this case on a ‘Missionary Cotton Plantation’.
Bowen to Newcastle, 16 Dec. 1861, QSA GOV/23/61/74 (DR110747) ITM17671 https://www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM3682012
Small Wars, Their Principle and Practice
The term ‘guerilla’ comes from the Spanish word for ‘small war’. This book by Colonel Callwell, first published in 1896, about anti-insurgency in colonised areas became a British Army textbook. It was based on over a hundred years of Britain’s military experiences in suppressing resistance in colonies. While it doesn’t mention Australia specifically, many of the strategies and tactics are familiar to those who know the history of colonial violence in Australia. Many of those involved in colonial violence in Australia were military, ex-military or ‘police’.
Callwell, C.E. Small Wars, Their Principle and Practice London: Harrison and Sons, 1906 https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/s/small-wars-their-principles-and-practice.html
Books and Articles
Note that Defending Country has a good reading list: https://www.defendingcountry.au/resources/reading-list?444ddaf0_page=2
Conspiracy of silence: Queensland’s frontier killing times Timothy Bottoms (North East. Note: Tim recommends reading his original introduction discussing genocide.)
Coniston Michael Bradley (Central)
The Vandemonian War Nick Brodie (South East)
Surviving New England Callum Clayton-Dixon (South East)
Goodbye Bussamarai Pat Collins (North East)
The Australian frontier wars 1788-1838 John Connor (Australia)
Warrior Libby Connors (South East)
Fatal collisions: the South Australian frontier and the violence of memory Robert Foster, Rick Hosking and Amanda Nettelbeck (South)
In the Name of the Law Amanda Nettlebeck and Robert Foster (Central, North)
The Sydney Wars 1788-1817 Stephen Gapps (South East)
Gudyarra Stephen Gapps (South East)
How They Fought Ray Kerkhove (Australia)
Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal-European Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897 Noel Loos (North East)
Killing for Country: a family story David Marr (North East)
Waterloo Creek Roger Milliss (South East)
Every Mother’s Son Is Guilty Chris Owen (West)
The Other Side of the Frontier Henry Reynolds (Australia)
Forgotten War Henry Reynolds (Australia)
The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police Jonathan Richards (North East)
Tasmanian Aborigines Lyndall Ryan (South East)
Licence to Kill: Massacre Men of Australia’s North Robyn Smith (North)
‘The Great Australian Silence’ in After The Dreaming: The 1968 Boyer Lectures W.E.H Stanner (Australia)
Why Warriors Lay Down and Die Richard Trudgen (North West)
Battle Front 1 Frank Uhr (North East)
Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance Banjo Woorunmurra & Howard Pedersen (North West)
Calls for Acknowledgement
Aboriginal Tent Embassy Memorial honours Frontier Wars Warriors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Am-_LX6PtY
Australian Frontier Wars Marches, Australian Frontier Conflicts https://australianfrontierconflicts.com.au/resources/australian-frontier-wars-march/
The Australian Museum’s Unsettled exhibition https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/
Fighting Wars Australian Museum https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/unsettled/fighting-wars/
The Frontier Wars, Common Ground https://www.commonground.org.au/article/the-frontier-wars
‘Calls grow for Australia’s frontier wars to be remembered on Anzac Day’ The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/24/calls-grow-for-australias-frontier-wars-to-be-remembered-on-anzac-day
‘The Great Australian Silence’ in After The Dreaming: The 1968 Boyer Lectures W.E.H Stanner (Australia)
Digital
Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930 https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/
The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies https://able.adelaide.edu.au/frontier-conflict/
Frontier Conflict and the Native Mounted Police in Queensland https://frontierconflict.org/
Mapping Frontier Conflict in South-East Queensland https://harrygentle.griffith.edu.au/projects/mapping-frontier-conflict-in-south-east-queensland/
Defending Country https://www.defendingcountry.au/