AUSTRALIA’S FRONTIER WARS

FIRST CONTACT

• First contact between Aboriginal Australians with British colonisers in 1788 quickly escalated into frontier conflict
that lasted for over 140 years and cultural divides that continue to split Australia to this day.
• It is estimated that over 750,000 Aboriginal people
inhabited the island continent in 1788. Between
1788 and 1900, the Indigenous population of Australia
was reduced by around 90 per cent.
• Such splits began as soon as Governor Arthur Phillip
claimed sovereignty on 26 January 1788. The British
Admiralty gave 'Secret Instructions' to Lieutenant
James Cook on each of his three voyages to the
South Pacific between 1768 and 1779.  The Secret
Instructions contained in the Letterbook carried on
the Endeavour instruct Cook 'with the Consent of
the Natives to take possession of Convenient
Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of
Great Britain'.
 FIRST CONTACT

• Cook had recorded signs that the coast was inhabited during the voyage north, and here he noted as he returned to
the ship the great number of fires on all the land and islands about them, 'a certain sign they are Inhabited'.
• Despite Cook’s observations, and the British
Admiralty’s instructions, Governor Arthur Phillip
claimed sovereignty and ownership of the land
through the legal concept of terra nullius (land
belonging to no-one) over the area that Captain
James Cook had named New South Wales. 
• Early interactions between the colonisers and
people of the Darug and Eora nations in today’s
Sydney were based on understanding the terms of
trading and encouragement of friendliness by
Governor Phillip. The people of the First Fleet
did not understand the ways of the local
Indigenous peoples they encountered however,
and their diaries and journals record the lack of
respect that many members of the First Fleet had
for local Indigenous people.
 CONFLICT ON THE FRONTIER

• Frontier conflict varied widely in duration and intensity but was a recurring feature of the history of Australia from
the 1790s to the 1930s. In some places it lasted a month or two; elsewhere it occurred for a decade or more.
• Aboriginal Australian attacks initially focused on
individual Europeans, either for taboo behavior or
the killing of kin, both of which would have been
punishable in pre-contact tribal society. Longer
conflicts involved more systematic attacks
combined with sophisticated forms of economic
warfare involving mass killing of sheep, cattle and
horses and burning of crops, grassland and
buildings.
 CONFLICT ON THE FRONTIER

• Massacres of Aboriginal Australians occurred

across Australia, the most widely documented
occurring at Forrest River NT and Myall Creek
NSW.
• The 1838 Myall Creek massacre is remembered
not because it occurred, and not because people
were tried and acquitted for it (trials were rare,
acquittals of the few brought to trial were
common). It is remembered because people
were retried, found guilty and, uniquely, hung
for the crime.
• Other purported massacres, such as that at Bell’s
Falls in the central west of NSW, were not
documented at the time, but accounts of them
have survived in the memories of small local
communities.
 CONFLICT ON THE FRONTIER

• Where the struggle was most intense, Aboriginal resistance delayed the expansion of settlement while imposing a
considerable economic and psychological cost on the colonisers. This is evident in historic accounts of settlement of the
Hawkesbury in the 1790s, in the Tasmanian midlands in the 1820s, in northern NSW in the 1840s, in central and north
Qld in the 1860s and 70s, and in the Kimberleys in the 1890s.
• In the course of frontier conflict, it is estimated that
about 2000 British colonisers and over 20,000
Indigenous Australians died violently, however, historians
have argued for years over how many Indigenous people
were killed in colonial violence, and likewise, how many
colonists were slaughtered also.
• The cumulative Frontier Wars were ultimately fought
for the possession of land and the exercise of
sovereignty. One reason Australians find it difficult to
acknowledge the war is because it goes to the very
heart of the foundations of Australian sovereignty and
ownership of this land.
 CASE STUDY: PEMULWUY’S WAR

• The Aboriginal peoples did not have big armies to fight the British invaders. Instead, they worked in small groups to harass the
settlers and organise surprise raids on the settlements and camps, commonly called guerrilla tactics, in order to discourage
further settlement. One of the earliest Aboriginal men to lead a group of warriors and resist the invasion of the British settlers
around Sydney was a man named Pemulwuy.
• Pemulwuy first came to the attention of the British when he speared and killed the governor's gamekeeper, John McIntyre
(believed to have killed many Aboriginal people), in 1790. After a failed attempt to capture Pemulwuy, governor Phillip branded
him an outlaw.
• Pemulwuy was responsible for organising small groups of Aboriginal
warriors to attack British farms, small towns and troops around
Parramatta and Toongabbie. Many settlers abandoned their properties as
the raids continued.
• Soldiers were soon ordered to patrol farming areas and protect the
settlers. Pemulwuy and his warriors then began using fire as a weapon.
They lit fires in the hope of destroying the British farms, fences, crops,
stock, houses and supplies. The British responded by organising revenge
attacks against the Eora people. The Eora camps were attacked while the
men were away hunting. Elderly people, women and children were shot
and either wounded or killed.
 HISTORICAL ARGUMENTS

• Watch the discussion on YouTube and answer the question below in a TEEL paragraph.
You will need to take notes while watching.
• Australian Frontier Wars: Keith Windschuttle and Henry Reynolds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClS2gzn3QTg

Which of the two personalities do you agree with? Explain why.

 MASSACRES OF THE FRONTIER WARS

• Go to the following website and follow the instruction on the handout.

https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php
• After completing the handout “Frontier Wars – Massacres,” answer the questions below.
1. If you counted all of these massacre sites, they would not total the twenty to sixty thousand massacred
ATSI people. Hypothesise some of the reasons for this discrepancy.
2. What do you find most interesting about the data you have collected and seen? Why?
3. Explain why indigenous people wish to have such wars and massacres recognised as an official conflict?