From the early days of colonisation, Aboriginal resistance to dispossession and the often brutal, military response of British colonists, led to violent conflict. Known as ‘The Frontier Wars’, this conflict took place across the Australian continent, from what is now Sydney and as the colony expanded outwards through what is now New South Wales.
In new research, Towards Truth examines government orders relating to the Frontier Wars in NSW, and how the legal system treated Aboriginal people and colonists during this period. The research shows that, while some colonial authorities took steps to mitigate violence and confrontation between colonists and Aboriginal people, frontier conflict was not simply the province of rogue actors. The stage for the Frontier Wars was set from the top down, with the orders, laws and policies of Governors and operation of the courts often creating inconsistency, confusion and cultures of impunity.
Content advisory: This article includes racist language taken from primary sources, to demonstrate how Aboriginal people were viewed and defined by authorities at the time.
Contradiction
As Governor Phillip set out to establish the colony in 1787, instructions from King George III were clear: ‘Endeavour by every possible means to open an Intercourse with the Natives, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all Our Subjects to live in amity and kindness with them.’
But by the end of 1788, Governor Phillip had ordered military action resulting in the violent abduction of local Aboriginal man Arabanoo. In 1790, he ordered a military detachment to find and behead 10 Aboriginal people in reprisal for a spearing by Pemulwuy.
While colonial authorities regularly expressed sentiments about peaceful relationships with Aboriginal people, these sentiments were frequently contradicted by the reality of Governors’ orders and actions that prioritised securing land and expanding the colony.
In 1807, the outgoing Governor King told his successor Bligh, in a confidential memorandum, that he had always considered Aboriginal people the ‘true proprietors of the soil’. Yet during his tenure, he ordered troops to fire on Aboriginal people to drive them away from land.
On his arrival in NSW three years later, Governor Macquarie gave a speech in which he expressed his hope that Aboriginal people ‘may always be treated with Kindness and Affection’. In his Governorship, Macquarie would order the largest military campaign NSW had yet seen against Aboriginal people, resulting in the Appin massacre of 1816, and establish the Native Institution, which saw Aboriginal children removed from their families until the age of 16.
During the early colonial period, before a parliament was established, laws were predominantly made through Governor’s orders and proclamations as a parliament was not yet established.
Military Orders
Orders for the use of force were often indiscriminate and brutal, usually for the apparent safeguarding of farmland and property seen to be at risk of ‘raids’ by Aboriginal people.
Governors’ orders directing the use of force were a particular feature as the colony expanded into the Hawkesbury. By 1795, 400 people lived in the area, where new farmland was being established. There were frequent reports of violence between Aboriginal people and settlers, often attributed in contemporaneous accounts to Aboriginal ‘raids’ on farms and property. Acting Governor Paterson also acknowledged it highly likely that Aboriginal people had been victims of violence and atrocities as the colony expanded into the area.
In response to the cycles of violence, Paterson sent a detachment of 62 soldiers to drive back Aboriginal people from newly established farmland in June 1795. David Collins, the first Judge Advocate and Secretary of the Colony, wrote that the purpose was to ‘destroy as many as they could meet with of the wood tribe… in the hope of striking terror’.
Historian Grace Karskens describes this as the first recorded massacre of Aboriginal people in NSW.
Orders for the use of force were not restricted to members of the military. In 1796, the new Governor Hunter ordered the settlers living on the banks of the Hawkesbury River to work together to assist each other against Aboriginal people for the protection of their farms.
As the Hawkesbury settlement continued to expand, the violence continued, with only brief periods of peace. In 1804, Governor King wrote that, in response to Aboriginal people taking crops from farmland, resulting in settlers leaving the area, he had been ‘reluctantly compelled to direct a stop being put to those acts by firing on them’. According to King, two Aboriginal people were killed as a result of this order. It was only after this that Governor King appears to have been the first Governor to ask Aboriginal people the reasons for their raids on farmland and their role in the violence.
Governor King wrote of their response: ‘they did not like to be driven from the few places that were left on the banks of the river where they could procure food, that they had gone down the river as the white men took possession of the banks and were fired upon if they went across white men’s grounds.’
Governor King made assurances that no more settlements would be made lower down the river, and kept this promise, but future Governors did not.
‘Protective’ Orders
Other orders made by Governors align more closely with the instruction given to all Governors to live in ‘Amity and Kindness’ with Aboriginal people and establish peaceful relationships between Aboriginal people and colonists. These orders typically prohibit ‘wanton violence’ and remind the colony that Aboriginal people are entitled to protection under the law.
Closer consideration of these orders and the context in which they were made shows they were often made selectively and used as methods of control of Aboriginal people.
For example, in 1802, Governor King told Aboriginal people they would only be ‘readmitted to our friendship’ when Pemulwuy was captured. By this time Pemulwuy had spent several years leading Aboriginal warriors in raids across the Sydney region.
And it was only after Pemulwuy was killed, that Governor King issued a proclamation forbidding ‘any act of Injustice or wanton Cruelty towards the Natives.’
This pattern was repeated in 1805. Following the alleged murder of colonists in the Hawkesbury, Aboriginal people were banished from the township. Governor King only issued an order for the protection of Aboriginal people in the colony once the accused perpetrators were detained, and even then it was conditional on their behaviour. The order stated ‘NO MOLESTATION whatever is to be offered them in ANY part of the Colony, unless any of them should renew their late Acts, which is not probable, as RECONCILIATION will take place with the Natives generally.’
The starkest example of this conditional protection came from Governor Macquarie in 1816, during a military campaign he had ordered against Aboriginal people. The campaign had already resulted in the deaths of at least 14 men, women and children in the Appin Massacre.
Immediately after the massacre, Macquarie set out specific rules and restrictions applying to Aboriginal people and created a so-called passport for which Aboriginal people could apply. The passport would offer protection from ‘being injured or molested’. But it was only available to people who were ‘disposed to conduct themselves in a peaceful, inoffensive and honest manner’ and required compliance with specific rules, including a prohibition on Aboriginal people carrying ‘any warlike or offensive weapon or weapons of any description, such as spears, clubs or waddies.’
Read more
Learn more about the legal history of Australia’s Frontier Wars at the Towards Truth website, including how the legal system and the status of Aboriginal people under British law contributed to the perpetuation of violence against Aboriginal people.
