Campion Library: History Research Guides: Frontier Conflicts in Australia

MUSEUM EXHIBITS

Unsettled
This land was not peacefully settled - Unsettled uncovers the untold histories behind this nation’s foundation story. With more than 80 significant cultural objects and over 100 contributions by First Nations peoples across the country.
Dark Days: A photo essay by Brendan Beirne
Brendan Beirne’s landscapes illustrate the unquiet places where Aboriginal people have been slaughtered.
Using infrared camera technology to capture a sense of the unseen history through the seemingly peaceful landscapes, these images allow us to see that the lands we live, work and play on remain unsettled.

This is an excellent resource for finding primary documents. You can search for newspaper articles written about events at the time.

INTERACTIVE MAPS OF FRONTIER CONFLICTS

Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930
From the moment the British invaded Australia in 1788 they encountered active resistance from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owners and custodians of the lands. In the frontier wars which continued until the 1960s massacres became a defining strategy to eradicate that resistance. As a result thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children were killed. This site presents a map, timelines, and information about massacres in Australia from 1794 when the first massacre was recorded until 1930
The Killing Times
The colonisation of Australia was brutal and bloody, but many stories of the frontier have been hidden or denied. This series for the Guardian tells some of them and asks, are we ready for truth telling? It includes a massacre map of the frontier wars.

USEFUL WEBSITES

Australian Frontier Conflicts 1788-1940s
This website seeks to document the conflicts between European colonists and Australian Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples.
Monuments and memorials within Australia associated with the Indigenous conflicts
Monument Australia documents the many monuments and memorials associated with the conflicts between European settlers and the Indigenous Australians during the frontier wars. Massacre and other sites are listed
8 war heroes you didn't learn about in school
The Frontier Wars was the bloodiest conflict on Australian soil. This article looks at eight of the warriors who fought for their people and their land against colonial forces.
Archaeology on the Frontier
This blog is about research relating to frontier conflict and especially the native mounted police in Queensland
From invasion to resistance in Australia
overeign Union provides the background to the conflict between settlers and the Indigenous people: the complex societies, invasion, inevitable conflict, and resistance.
Frontier Wars
This page about the Frontier Wars tells of prisoner abuse, freedom-fighters, massacres, and Aboriginal habitats and villages before and after slaughter and displacement.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOURCES

Evaluating Sources Libguide

Research is a process with many steps, and is rarely linear. A good researcher uses multiple sources and continually goes back and reviews their question and keeps adding new vocabulary and learning to their search. This Libguide has been created to provide support for your research tasks in this subject.

BOOKS

THE LIBRARY HAS A COMPREHENSIVE COLLECTION OF PRINT RESOURCES AND THEY CAN BE ACCESSED IN A VARIETY OF WAYS.

There are two methods for accessing books in the Campion Library. You can access the non fiction collection by browsing in the sections relating to your topic, the box to your right gives you the corresponding Dewey numbers for this topic. Alternatively, you can use Oliver to search for information. Type in your topic or a keyword to find relevant books.

DIGITAL RESOURCES

The following PREMIUM DIGITAL RESOURCES may be useful for research on this subject. However, they are password protected and when you click on any of the icons below you will be re-directed to a page that requires authentication.

The World Book Encyclopedia is good for facts.

Use the search terms ancient Australia and aboriginal people of Australia

The Australia New Zealand Reference Centre is a good source for articles. Do a search for a specific conflict or massacre.

VIDEOS

Videos are another information source that can be used for research. There are many ways of accessing videos on your topic and while YouTube is a popular choice however the library also subscribes to ClickView which is a a streaming service for education.

Yagan
When Lieutenant-Governor James Stirling established Western Australia's Swan River colony (later the city of Perth) in 1829, times were tough. Food was scarce and the initially good relations between British settlers and local Noongar people spiralled tragically out of control into a conflict over land and resources.

Murdered and cruelly beheaded in 1833 by those he trusted, the return of Yagan's skull to Noongar country was a momentous occasion for Australian Indigenous people nationwide. This is his story.
Pemulwuy - A War of Two Laws
Pemulwuy was a traditional lawman of the Bidgigal clan, the original Woodlands people of Toongabbie and Parramatta in Sydney. When the First Fleet arrived in 1788, Pemulwuy, along with his better-known Bidgigal clansman Bennelong, tried to coexist with the colonists. But Pemulwuy saw the white man breaking his law and he began a 12-year guerrilla war of retribution which almost brought the young colony of New South Wales to its knees.
They Must Always Consider Us as Enemies
This is a hideous story of a land war engaged by the settlers as tribe af ter tribe of Aborigines fought for their territory. A story about native title, genocide and a most unpleasant jolt to our sensibilities.
More

ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS RESISTANCE TO BRITISH COLONISATION

How did Aboriginal Australians resist British colonisation?
Investigating four case studies
at the National Museum of Australia
Kaartdijin Noonga -Yagan
Australian Dictionary of Biography -Yagan (1795–1833)
Fanny Balbuk Yooreel - Realising a Perth Resistance Fighter
Royal Australian Historical Society -Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840-1907)
Bilin Bilin, Picture Ipswich
Kamalyarrpa Japanangka (‘Bullfrog’) and the Coniston Massacre

LIBRARY CATALOGUE

BROWSING THE SHELVES

You can use Oliver to find books in the library however sometimes it is helpful to know the Dewey numbers for a subject. In doing so you will be able to find books on that subject in most libraries. It will also be useful at those times when you know the topic but don't know where to start looking.
Note that resources about specific events will be located within the Dewey division for the country where the event took place.

994	Australia
994.009	Aboriginal Peoples
994.02	Settlement and Growth 1788-1851

Before starting your research, it is good practice to think about and create a list of keywords that you can use to search for information on your topic. Google is very intuitive however databases usually require a search string. Here are a few tips to help you.

Words are sometimes spelled differently
Many search engines and databases use Boolean logic to construct a search term. The asterisk is known as a wild card. The use of AND, OR and NOT can also be helpful.
Sometimes it is useful to use other words that mean similar or the same thing (synonyms) or broaden the search by using a less subject specific word
Use quotation marks when you are searching for a phrase.

Suggestions for this topic:

frontier wars australia

frontier conflicts australia

aboriginal massacres australia

aboriginal resistance australia

REFERENCING

The Referencing Libguide has resources on how to cite/reference sources in research.

The Online Reference Generator allows you to create citations and bibliographies using the Harvard Referencing Style for a comprehensive list of resources.

MyBib is a free online service that allows users to generate citations and bibliographies. You can paste in a DOI, ISBN or URL and have the fields populate automatically. However it does not always provide the correct reference so you must check that all possible parts of the reference have been included.