AUSTRALIANA
xii, 255 p. ; 20 cm. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 222-247. #0921/071023/210824 (age tanning)
The Other Side of the Frontier is a history book originally published in 1981 by Australian historian Henry Reynolds. It is a study of Aboriginal Australian resistance to the British settlement, or invasion, of Australia from 1788 onwards.
The book constituted the first comprehensive research on this topic, and had a profound impact on Australian historiography. The University of New South Wales Press, which later published the book in 2012, said it “profoundly changed the way in which we understand the history of relations between indigenous Australians and European settlers. It has since become a classic of Australian history.”[2] Robert Manne described it as “an important landmark”, while Professor Cassandra Pybus of the University of Sydney[3] wrote of the book that “no one could doubt the magnitude of Henry Reynolds’ achievement in profoundly changing the way we understand our past”.[1]: dust jacket
‘The Other Side of the Frontier’ is about the history of the aboriginals and indigenous people after the European invasion in 1788. Since, Aboriginal people have been burdened into a society which is abnormal to them. It was said that ‘over 750,000 Aboriginal people inhabited the island continent in 1788’.[1]: ftn1 and through the arrival of settlers, who brought diseases, destroyed the immediate population of many Sydney tribes. For thousands of years before the European invasion, the land was populated by a number of Aboriginal tribes, as colonists led to believe the land was terra nullius. meaning ‘no one’s land’. Aborigines lived along the ‘foreshores of the harbour'[1]: where they ‘fished and hunted the waters and hinterlands of the area, harvested good from the surrounding bush.’[3] They were able to be independent and agreeable and did not need to travel away from their land, as their surroundings had everything they needed. They were able to trade between tribal groups and only moving across the land due to seasonal changes. Without any war between tribes, they were able to live happily, growing their customs, language and culture – ‘the heart of which was connection to the land’.[1]:
As Lt James Cook arrived in 1770, the Aborigines’ ancient way of life came to an end. As his job was to voyage to the Southern Continent and take possession of it – whether it was inhabited or not. He declared the land of New South Wales to be Britain’s King George III’s, disregarding the fact that the land was already well occupied by the indigenous people. Colonists failed to understand the Aboriginal way of life, which was to live peacefully with the land and environment, the skills and knowledge their acquired over the eras enabled them to use the land to extremely well. They always used the land in perfect balance, ensuring to never damage the environment. This was not understood by the Biritish people; ‘Food shortages soon became a problem. The large white population depleted the fish by netting huge catches, reduced the kangaroo population with unsustainable hunting, cleared the land, and polluted the water. As a result, the Aboriginal people throughout the Sydney Basin were soon close to starvation.’
Ben Kiernan, a director of the genocide studies program at Yale University wrote that nineteenth century Australia colonist mounted numerous disciplinary expeditions against the Aborigines in which they committed “hundreds of massacres”. Kiernan claimed that in central Queensland 40% of the indigenous population were killed, and that the Aborigines “were hunted like wild beasts, having lives for years in a state of absolute terror of white predators”.
Aboriginal Australians — History. | Aboriginal Australians — Wars. | Government, Resistance to — Australia. | Australia — Colonization — History. | Australia — Race relations — History.