Australia was not peacefully settled; it was taken by force through strategic, political and military campaigns. The early colony was militarised to protect it from foreign attacks, to maintain civil order over the convict population, and to suppress Aboriginal resistance against colonial interests. Defining the decades of armed, violent conflicts between sovereign First Nations and the colonists as “wars”, is often contested. However, the historical records from this period included this specific term to describe events on the frontier. The ongoing refusal to recognise this history of First Nations warriors and their adversaries denies them the memory, and the respect, they deserve.

Collection of resources giving a view of Australia’s First Peoples, including stories about their treatment in the past and about their aspirations and demands today. Particularly focusses on the Frontier Wars and the related issue of the involvement of Indigenous Australians in our defence forces.

Phil Breslin describes and shows production of Indigenous weapons (ABC TV, six episodes, July-August 2023)

Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. Why are there no official memorials or commemorations of the wars that were fought on Australian soil between Aborigines and white colonists? Why is it more controversial to talk about the frontier war now than it was one hundred years ago?

This database derives from a four year long project to explore the archaeology of the NMP. It is the only publicly available historical and archaeological dataset of their lives and activities. The excavations conducted for this project were the first archaeological investigations of any Native Police force operating anywhere in Australia. The Queensland Native Mounted Police operated for over 50 years, from 1849 until 1904. It was organised along paramilitary lines, consisting of detachments of Aboriginal troopers led by white officers. It operated across the whole of Queensland and was explicitly constituted to protect the lives, livelihoods and property of settlers and to prevent (and punish) any Aboriginal aggression or resistance. This was often accomplished through violence in many forms, leading Henry Reynolds to characterise the NMP as 'the most violent organisation in Australian history'.

Based on a forum held at the National Museum in Canberra c. 2003 this book presents a series of essays by leading contributors on the subject of conflict between Aborigines and settlers.