Australia’s frontier wars: Aboriginal resistance more successful than previously thought 

The popular perception of Australia’s frontier wars seems confined to bands of white marauders descending upon unprotected camps to slaughter helpless black men, women and children.

But Aboriginal resistance to the colonists was far more sophisticated, better organised – and successful – than previously understood, according to the author of a new book.

First Nations warriors, usually portrayed wielding spears and clubs, sometimes used firearms against the intruders and even launched raids mounted on horseback.

They burnt crops, destroyed homes and drove thousands of head of sheep and cattle for hundreds of kilometres, waging guerilla warfare that terrorised settlers. 

It is estimated at least twice as many colonists were killed fighting the country’s original inhabitants than in all conflicts Australians have served in since World War II. 

Aboriginal resistance to white settlement was far more sophisticated, better organised and sometimes successful than previously thought, according to the author of a new book on Australia’s frontier wars. An Aboriginal man poses for a picture with a firearm about 1873 

While Aboriginal people could never have been able to hold back the spread of white settlement across the country forever, historian Ray Kerkhove believes they deserve much more credit for how hard they fought and how long they held out. 

Kerkhove has now presented the case for the real level of Aboriginal resistance in How They Fought: Indigenous Tactics and Weaponry of Australia’s Frontier Wars. 

In recent decades historians have concentrated on massacres committed against Aboriginal people, which has led to some of their victories being overlooked.

‘I don’t want to belittle the fact that there were massive massacres,’ Kerkhove says.  

But concentrating only on massacres has resulted in frontier conflicts being framed as a form of institutionalised genocide which in turn implied there was no real war. 

The Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia website features 412 such incidents of butchery, but there were thousands more skirmishes, attacks and counterattacks.

To establish First Nations resistance was well organised, Kerkhove analysed about 150 news reports and 200 recorded reminiscences, particularly of Aboriginal participants. 

He found plenty of evidence of confrontations he insists should be called battles.

‘I was troubled by what First Nations people were telling me – that they had a great warrior tradition and that they had victories during the frontier wars,’ Kerkhove says.

Author Ray Kerkhove says Aboriginal resistance to white settlement has been downplayed and their regular victories overlooked. He believes it is racist to portray Aboriginal people as 'eternal victims'. Two warriors in North Queensland are pictured wielding sword-clubs

Author Ray Kerkhove says Aboriginal resistance to white settlement has been downplayed and their regular victories overlooked. He believes it is racist to portray Aboriginal people as ‘eternal victims’. Two warriors in North Queensland are pictured wielding sword-clubs 

‘And I didn’t really find that coming out in the books. When I read a lot of the frontier war books they were really just telling what white people did.

‘That’s why there’s so much about the massacres. That’s important but it gives us only half the picture.’

Kerkhove refers to the Battle of One Tree Hill on Queensland’s Darling Downs in 1843 when 150 to 200 Aboriginal warriors routed a white force of an estimated 25 to 55. 

I found it ridiculous that the narrative that I was being fed was basically that Aboriginal people threw a few spears and then went home and waited for people to come and kill them 

‘Schools will call me up and I say, “I want to talk about the battle of One Tree Hill”,’ he says. ‘And they’ll go, “Oh, we’ll have to call it the massacre” and I say, “What do you mean? They won”.’  

Kerkhove thinks most Australians imagine First Nations people sitting around and waiting to be slaughtered, offering only token resistance.

‘I found it ridiculous that the narrative that I was being fed was basically that Aboriginal people threw a few spears and then went home and waited for people to come and kill them,’ he says.

‘That doesn’t make sense, particularly when it’s not just their land but their society at stake and they couldn’t find it within themselves to organise a meaningful resistance?

‘It was a lot more efficient and a lot more organised than people give credit.’ 

Kerkhove is not trying to suggest Australia’s frontier wars could be considered ‘fair or justified conflict’ and he is not denying they reached genocidal proportions.

Instead he wants to inform a better appreciation of how First Australians fought back, and to ‘honour the ingenuity, sophistication, and bravery of Australia’s earliest military traditions’.

It is estimated at least twice as many colonists were killed fighting the country's original inhabitants than in all conflicts Australians have served in since World War II. This artwork called shows a typical example of 'swarming' at Lake Hope in South Australia

It is estimated at least twice as many colonists were killed fighting the country’s original inhabitants than in all conflicts Australians have served in since World War II. This artwork called shows a typical example of ‘swarming’ at Lake Hope in South Australia

Kerkhove, who is Adjunct Associate Professor with the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, has set about ‘humanising’ both sides of the conflict.

‘It’s like treating the settlers as some kind of demonic morons, evil people bent on killing,’ he says of how the frontier wars have been seen.

‘It’s also racist in the sense that it treats black people as eternal victims who can’t organise anything and that is so different from what I found. 

 It’s also racist in the sense that it treats black people as eternal victims who can’t organise anything and that is so different from what I found

‘I found in fact large scale organisation, a lot of use of traditional alliances, all these sort of confederacies developed, a lot of adaptation, a lot of genius in what was being done.’ 

With no frontline, as explorers and settlers spread across the continent Aboriginal people encountered pockets of intruders rather than invading armies. Their land was overrun with sheep and cattle but often only temporarily won or lost.

A lack of police and military support left civilians – timber getters, stockmen, miners, station workers and shepherds – as the main combatants against First Nations people as settlement pushed outwards.

‘We always think it was just an endless march forward, the settlement just went ahead and ahead,’ Kerkhove says. ‘But actually there’s a lot of places that were abandoned for years.’

University of Newcastle historian Lyndall Ryan created a map (pictured) in 2018 that details every frontier massacre between 1788 and 1930 that has at least two accounts of written evidence

University of Newcastle historian Lyndall Ryan created a map (pictured) in 2018 that details every frontier massacre between 1788 and 1930 that has at least two accounts of written evidence 

Land might be bought and sold, repeatedly taken by settlers and then vacated when it became too dangerous to occupy due to the Aboriginal threat.

How Australian war casualties compare 

Frontier Wars: Up to 120,000 Aboriginal deaths and 2,000 to 5,000 whites  

World War I: 61,674

World War II: 39,656

Korea: 340

Vietnam: 523

Afghanistan: 46 

Total since World War I: 102,414 

‘That gets kind of lost in the picture that from an Aboriginal perspective they were often winning and it wasn’t such a quick process, it sometimes went on for decades and decades,’ Kerkhove says.

‘I just wanted to bring that dimension out instead of this pathetic picture that they’ve got at the moment of eternal martyrdom.’    

While not playing down the brutality of massacres, Kerkhove believes they still need to be considered in context. 

‘It’s almost sounds like white people just went around killing for no reason whereas  all massacres that I’ve ever heard of happened within a war,’ he says.

‘That doesn’t justify it – it’s horrific overkill but [you have to] see the chain of events.’

In June 1838, at Myall Creek in northern NSW, a dozen colonists murdered at least 28 unarmed Aboriginal people; seven of the killers were subsequently hanged. 

Kerkhove says what became known as the Myall Creek Massacre was ‘the end product’ after ‘some very frustrated whites’ had their stock and shepherds killed.

‘You’ve got to understand what’s going on and that there were all these victories that the Aboriginal people were having and that’s why there’s this brutal response,’ he says. 

Kerkhove says first-hand accounts of many encounters between black and white describe them as battles.

Menvil Wamaran (King Jackie Delaney) was a great warrior in the Moreton Bay region north of Brisbane who in later years demonstrated traditional fighting tactics at local schools. He is pictured wearing his buluwalam (nose bone)

Menvil Wamaran (King Jackie Delaney) was a great warrior in the Moreton Bay region north of Brisbane who in later years demonstrated traditional fighting tactics at local schools. He is pictured wearing his buluwalam (nose bone) 

Indigenous warriors would fight furiously to hold a camp, be overcome by colonists, then regroup and drive them out again.

‘So it wasn’t just all killing everybody off, it was an ongoing fight,’ Kerkhove says. 

Outstations away from main homesteads were regular targets for Indigenous attacks and sieges because they were right on the edge of the frontier.

‘If you can hold an outstation in siege long enough you can then get your people to take the flock a long way off,’ Kerkhove says. ‘A lot of the fighting on the frontier was actually over sheep.’

Sometimes a flock was moved 150km from where it was taken. In one incident on the Rufus River in south-western NSW, hundreds of Aboriginal people took 5,000 head of sheep.

Kerkhove describes the Aboriginal tactics as ingenious, involving psychological warfare and terrorism: ‘There was so much effort put in and so much brilliance’. 

‘You attack their economy by destroying all their flocks and herds and their crops and wrecking their store houses, also creating a sense of terror,’ he says. 

‘The same as how terrorism works today. Just these random killings and it freaks the hell out of everybody. It works.’ 

Some of the weapons used by Indigenous warriors could inflict horrific injuries. Two 'pineapple-headed' clubs from the north coast of NSW and southern Queensland flank one which has been studded with nails in this picture

Some of the weapons used by Indigenous warriors could inflict horrific injuries. Two ‘pineapple-headed’ clubs from the north coast of NSW and southern Queensland flank one which has been studded with nails in this picture

Kerkhove suggests imagining a settler waking to see hundreds of their cattle had been speared to death in the night. ‘What effect would that have on you?’ he says.

‘Or they would constantly burn out areas, a whole valley, knowing that it would ruin the pasture. So there’s a lot of that incredibly clever use of the environment.’

Indigenous groups held intertribal meetings and had elaborate communication networks relaying on relay runners, message sticks and beacons which could signal over vast distances.   

When settlers launched an expedition to punish the local Aboriginal populace a typical posse would contain a dozen to 40 men, sometimes including native police.

Kerkhove says it was not unusual for such a platoon-size force to encounter 200 to 700 Aboriginal warriors – up to a battalion’s strength.

‘The reason they would bring such large numbers is that’s one advantage,’ Kerkhove says. ‘Because if you’ve got nothing else you’ve got people.’ 

First Nations people burnt crops and drove thousands of head of sheep and cattle for hundreds of kilometres, waging guerilla warfare that terrorised settlers. This graphic shows a typical sequence of Aboriginal tactics for stopping and sacking convoys of horse-drawn drays

First Nations people burnt crops and drove thousands of head of sheep and cattle for hundreds of kilometres, waging guerilla warfare that terrorised settlers. This graphic shows a typical sequence of Aboriginal tactics for stopping and sacking convoys of horse-drawn drays

Kerkhove says Aboriginal warriors were armed with spears – sometimes with steel tips or barbs – clubs studded with nails, tomahawks, and fighting boomerangs. 

‘There’s this assumption that Aboriginal weaponry was crap – well, no it wasn’t,’ he says. 

‘In fact we have lots and lots and lots of newspaper reports about white people getting killed from it or terribly injured.’

There’s this assumption that Aboriginal weaponry was crap – well, no it wasn’t. In fact we have lots and lots and lots of newspaper reports about white people getting killed from it or terribly injured 

Spears might seem primitive by they could be deployed faster than a musket could be reloaded. L-shaped boomerangs could take out an opponent if he was hiding behind a tree. 

Some Aboriginal warriors acquired firearms, and some even moulded their own bullets.

‘They were used a lot more than people realise,’ Kerkhove says. ‘Most regions of Australia I found mention of firearms in use and that surprised me.’

Aboriginal fighters also adapted to horse riding, which they recognised was one of the white man’s advantages against them.

‘There were cases where they were used to steal entire flocks,’ Kerkhove says. ‘And sometimes there were attacks on horseback.’

Some Aboriginal warriors acquired firearms, and some even moulded their own bullets. This graphic shows  reported uses of guns, horses, and iron or glass-tipped weapons against settlers across Australia during the frontier wars

Some Aboriginal warriors acquired firearms, and some even moulded their own bullets. This graphic shows  reported uses of guns, horses, and iron or glass-tipped weapons against settlers across Australia during the frontier wars 

More often, Aboriginal people would release settlers’ horses and drive them into the bush or kill them.  

‘Often these punitive expeditions would just halt when that happened because they were s*** scared,’ Kerkhove says.  

Just one to five whites might be killed in an incident but loses would mount up. The total of white deaths on the frontier is estimated at 2,000 to 5,000 but records are incomplete.

‘People disappeared into the bush and it never was certain what became of them unless they found the body afterwards,’ Kerkhove says.

How They Fought: Indigenous Tactics and Weaponry of Australia's Frontier Wars by Ray Kerkhove is published by Boolarong Press

How They Fought: Indigenous Tactics and Weaponry of Australia’s Frontier Wars by Ray Kerkhove is published by Boolarong Press

‘And it was cumulative. They would kill one person here, one person there, and before you knew it you were up to scores, hundreds in some places.’

‘So there’s a sort of endless slaughter of people anonymously.’

Kerkhove says about 240 of 2,000 settlers in south-east Queensland were killed in 20 years. 

‘That must mean that almost everybody knew someone – a relative or friend – who’s been killed,’ he says. ‘That’s pretty effective.’ 

Estimates for Aboriginal killed from 1788 to the 1930s range up to 120,000 but Kerkhove is not sure the figure is that high. 

Victory in battle is too often observed only in terms of casualties, according to Kerhove.

‘I think we have to reframe how we look at victories,’ he says. ‘It’s a Western sort of thing – let’s have a lot of bloodshed or otherwise it doesn’t count. 

‘But that wasn’t the Aboriginal way, it was more just to make your life miserable and when you look at the accounts of settlers they’d have daily harassment.

‘An Aboriginal idea of a victory is to just completely embarrass and drive off the other side.’  

How They Fought: Indigenous Tactics and Weaponry of Australia’s Frontier Wars by Ray Kerkhove is published by Boolarong Press and can be purchased here

Warriors are shown impeding a white expedition by using fire near Victoria River in the Northern Territory. Members of the expedition reported 50 Aboriginal men attempting to encircle them with flame

Warriors are shown impeding a white expedition by using fire near Victoria River in the Northern Territory. Members of the expedition reported 50 Aboriginal men attempting to encircle them with flame

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