"Queensland’s ‘Black War’" Topic

"…Thus it has become difficult to place Aboriginal responses to invasion as ‘resistance' as understood from other military contexts. Therefore it may help to revisit how and where the concept entered academic debate.

According to Peter Sutton (2008), the first person to use the term ‘war of resistance' to describe Aboriginal responses was a Queensland historian, Bill Laurie. As early as the 1930s-1950s, Laurie, along with Clem Lack and Ralph Cilento, penned notes and newspaper articles about Queensland's turbulent settlement history.

The trio's concept of Aboriginal ‘resistance' grew from their socialist-inspired interest in ‘people's uprisings' and the combative mood of Australians during World War II. Laurie (1959) coined the phrase ‘Black War of Queensland' specifically for the struggle of Aboriginal people during the 1830s-1880s. This culminated in Lack's and Cilento's Triumph in the Tropics describing ‘a guerrilla war' along ‘aboriginal frontiers' (1959, p. 177). A decade later, ‘Bill' Stanner's Boyer Lecture (1968) popularized the notion and a deluge of ‘frontier wars' research followed.

Bill Laurie was convinced the ‘Black War' began with an official declaration. In 1843, two escaped convicts – Bracewell and Davis – had Dr Stephen Simpson (Protector of Aborigines in his role as Lands Commissioner) pen reports on their behalf to send to the New South Wales Governor George Gipps. Their report (1982, p.5) stated that as a consequence of the poisoning of many Aboriginals at Kilcoy Station…."
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Amicalement
Armand

there is nothing new in that…always the same distortion of history…
how can be called "resistance war" bt Aboriginals…if they were the firt to kill people and those same Aborigenals that attacked not military but civilians, settlers…killing them and destroyng properties and livestock?..those last belonging to settlers that created from nothing a developped country..i don't imagine that before the hard work done by European sheppards and settlers those lands had been exploited in some way except some vague and unproductive "hunting grounds"…i'm always amused by the ambiguity of those supposed to be historians from european origin (as the Australian ones of this article), whose fortune and well being is a consequence of the sacrifices and hard work done by their ancestrors, cannot resist in trowing mud over their very ancestors memory

Glup!…

Amicalement
Armand

I alerted TMP readers to the existence of Kherkove's paper back in November 2014, Tango, and some discussion followed at that time.