‘A defiant stand’: histories of Australia’s frontier wars are revealing their true complexity, but there’s more to be done

Gweagal men defending their country from invasion. Andrew Garran, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Historian Stephen Gapps’ latest book, Uprising: War in the Colony of New South Wales, 1838–1844, describes a coordinated Aboriginal military front across more than 20 different Aboriginal nations and language groups. The front extended for thousands of kilometres, from Port Phillip in the south to Moreton Bay in the north.

Over this extended arc, war raged for several years from the late 1830s.