Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this blog may contain images, or names of deceased persons in photographs, or printed material.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and write today. I would also like to pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

Inspired by Faith & Steel’s recent book review blog I decided to share one of the best books I have read in a long time. I always have about a half a dozen books on my bedside table that I read and put down and read some more later, but this was read in one sitting, albeit into the wee small hours of the morning.

Late last year a mate of mine let me know about the existence of this book and I was able to pick it up from Book Depository for $35.00. As usual their price and delivery service were excellent.

A regular reader of this blog will know that despite gaming the “Australian Frontier Wars” we are appalled at the way that the British “savages” behaved towards the indigenous population of Australia. The savagery and systematic genocide that took place far exceeded that of the North American First nations on a population basis, and worst of all it has been erased from our history.

The proud American First Nation leaders are well known right across the world. Names of their great war leaders like Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Pontiac and Joseph Brant and the Great Nations of the Apache, Sioux, Navajo and Crow (just to name a few) are well known by most of us, even if it is only from the Cinema.

Indigenous Australian War Leaders such as Pemulwuy, Musquito, Windradyne, Yagan, Jandamarra, and Dundalli are totally unknown, and yet their struggle for their lands and the rights of their people were no less heroic and no less tragic. Likewise the names of their proud tribes such as the Gurndji, Jarijari, Pyemmairre or the Warkawarka are probably only known to their descendants.

Only recently has researched been conducted into this shameful period of Australian history and only now is the true story is being told.

Time to get off the soap box and back to the review.

The Sydney Wars tells the history of military engagements between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians – described as ‘this constant sort of war’ by one early colonist – around the greater Sydney region.

Telling the story of the first years of colonial Sydney in a new and original way, this provocative book is the first detailed account of the warfare that occurred across the Sydney region from the arrival of a British expedition in 1788 to the last recorded conflict in the area in 1817. The Sydney Wars sheds new light on how British and Aboriginal forces developed military tactics and how the violence played out.

Analysing the paramilitary roles of settlers and convicts and the militia defensive systems that were deployed, it shows that white settlers lived in fear, while Indigenous people fought back as their land and resources were taken away. Stephen Gapps details the violent conflict that formed part of a long period of colonial strategic efforts to secure the Sydney basin and, in time, the rest of the continent.

Additional reading:

Forgotten War. By Henry Reynolds

“Warrior” by Libby Connor

“The Black War” by Nicholas Clements

“The Other Side of the Frontier” by Henry Reynolds

“The Secret War” by Jonathan Richards

“Frontier History Revisited” Robert Orsted-jensen

“Conspiracy of Silence” by Timothy Bottoms

“Denny Day” by Terry Smyth

I can really recommend “Denny Day” who was a New South Wales police officer that brought the first white men to justice for murdering indigenous people, and “Warrior” that is about the war leader Dundalli.