The Australian Frontier Wars

The Australian frontier wars is a term applied by some historians to violent conflicts between Indigenous Australians and white settlers during the British colonization of Australia. The first fighting took place several months after the landing of the First Fleet in January 1788 and the last clashes occurred in the early 20th century, as late as 1934. The most common estimates of fatalities in the fighting are in the region of 20,000 Indigenous Australians and between 2,000 and 2,500 settlers. However, recent scholarship on the frontier wars in what is now the state of Queensland indicates that Indigenous fatalities may have been significantly higher. Indeed, while battles and massacres occurred in a number of locations across Australia, they were particularly bloody in Queensland, owing to its comparatively larger pre-contact Indigenous population.

Background and Population

In 1770 a British expedition under the command of then-Lieutenant James Cook made the first voyage by Europeans along the Australian east coast. On 29 April Cook and a small landing party fired on a group of Dharawal people who sought to prevent the British from landing near their camp at Botany Bay, described by Cook as "a small village". Two Dharawal men made threatening gestures and a stone was thrown to underline that the whites were not welcome to land at that spot. Cook then ordered "a musket to be fired with small-shot" and the elder of the two was hit in a leg. This caused the two Dharawal men to run to their huts and seize their spears and shields. Subsequently, a single spear was thrown at the whites which "happily hurt nobody". This then caused Cook to order "a third musket with small-shots" to be fired, "upon which one of them threw another lance and both immediately ran away." Cook did not make further contact with the Dharawal.

Cook, in his voyage up the east coast of Australia, observed no signs of agriculture or other development by its inhabitants. Some historians argue that under prevailing European law such land was deemed terra nullius or land belonging to nobody or land 'empty of inhabitants' (as defined by Emerich de Vattel). Cook claimed the east coast of the continent for Britain on 23 August 1770.

The British Government decided to establish a prison colony in Australia in 1786. Under the European legal doctrine of terra nullius, Indigenous Australians were not recognized as having property rights and territory could be acquired through 'original occupation' rather than conquest or consent. The colony's Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, was instructed to "live in amity and kindness" with Indigenous Australians and sought to avoid conflict.

The British settlement of Australia commenced with the First Fleet in mid-January 1788 in the south-east in what is now the federal state of New South Wales. This process then continued into Tasmania and Victoria from 1803 onward. Since then the population density of white people has remained highest in this section of the Australian continent. However, conflict with Aborigines was never as intense and bloody in the south-eastern colonies as in Queensland and the north-east of the continent. More settlers as well as Indigenous Australians were killed on the Queensland frontier than in any other Australian colony. The reason is simple, and is reflected in all evidence and sources dealing with this subject: There were more Aborigines in Queensland. The territory of Queensland was the single most populated section of pre-contact Indigenous Australia, reflected not only in all pre-contact population estimates, but also in the mapping of pre-contact Australia (see Horton's Map of Aboriginal Australia).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_frontier_wars