The settlers’ first and most important war: Henry Reynolds, ‘Australia’s First and Most Important War’, in Stuart Pearson, Jane L. Holloway, Richard Thackway (eds), Australian Contributions to Strategic and Military Geography, Springer, 2018, pp. 177-186 | settler colonial studies blog

The settlers’ first and most important war: Henry Reynolds, ‘Australia’s First and Most Important War’, in Stuart Pearson, Jane L. Holloway, Richard Thackway (eds), Australian Contributions to Strategic and Military Geography, Springer, 2018, pp. 177-186

14Mar18

Abstract: Australian history has been shaped by geography. The size of the continent, the physical and climatic diversity and the isolation from the other great land masses all impacted on the ancient indigenous culture and on the settlement patterns of the European colonists since the arrival of the British in 1788. Two features stand out. Much of the continent was unsuitable for European settlement. Equally large areas could only be utilised as range lands for low density pastoral farming. Contact and conflict between settlers and the resident indigenous nations persisted throughout the nineteenth and into the first part of the twentieth centuries. The manner of British colonisation predetermined much of the resulting frontier conflict. There was no recognition of indigenous sovereignty; the continent was regarded as a terra-nullius. The legal situation was dramatically overturned in the 1992 High Court judgement in the Mabo case. Historical interpretation swung in the current. The enduring conflict about ownership and control of one of the world’s great land masses had to be reassessed. It was war and because it was fought in Australia and about Australia, it must now be seen as the country’s first and most important war.

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