The law of the land

Henry Reynolds

Penguin Books Australia

The publication of this book in 1981 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. Drawing from documentary and oral evidence, the book describes in meticulous and compelling detail the ways in which Aborigines responded to the arrival of Europeans. Henry Reynolds’ argument that the Aborigines resisted fiercely was highly original when it was first published and is no less challenging today.

The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia

History

C.D. Rowley

Australia & Oceania

his historical study of the 19th-century Tasmanian Wars, reveals a new perspective of this little-known episode in Australian history. The author reassesses the black-white conflict of colonial Tasmania known as the 'Black War': a conflict based on land rights and cultural superiority between the white settlers and the Aborigines of the Wybalenna settlement. The author is a Senior Research Fellow at James Cook University whose previous publications include 'Aborigines and Settlers', 'Dispossession' and 'With the White People'. Includes a select guide to reading and research, an index and numerous black-and-white reproductions of 19th-century lithographs and sketches of Aborigines and government officials.

Fate of a free people

in this critically acclaimed and ground-breaking book, first published in 1995, Henry Reynolds presented a landmark reassessment of the nineteenth century 'black wars' between the Tasmanian Aborigines and the white settlers. Now updated for a new audience, Fate of a Free People challenges long-accepted views of the Aborigines as a passive people 'rescued' by G.A. Robinson and reduced to the status of prisoners on Flinders island. Reynolds' research reveals that the Aborigines in fact bravely defended their homelands against the white invaders with skilful bush craft and sophisticated guerrilla tactics. Reynolds argues that their subsequent 'exile' to Flinders island was not due to defeat but was, in fact, part of a negotiated treaty that the colonial government failed to honour. Highly readable and with far-reaching implications for all Australians, Fate of a Free People redresses the whitewash and dispels long-held myths about the nature and fate of Tasmania's indigenous people.

Fate of a Free People

Penguin

Why weren't we told?: A personal search for the truth about our history

Viking Australia

An indelible stain?: The question of genocide in Australia's history

Biographies & Memoirs

Set in central-western New South Wales in the 1890s, Fred Schepisi's film of Thomas Keneally's award-winning novel is a powerful and confronting story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society. Raised by missionaries, Jimmie Blacksmith, a young half-castle Aboriginal man, is poignantly caught between the ways of his black forefathers and those of the white society to which he aspires. Exploited by his boss and betrayed by his [white] wife, he declares war on his white employers and goes on a violent killing spree.The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was one of the most significant films of the 1970s 'renaissance'. It was the first Australian feature in which the whole story is told from an Aboriginal perspective and it broke new ground in dealing with one of the most tragic aspects of Australian history: the racist treatment of the Aboriginal population. The spectre of the violent and vengeful black had barely been touched upon and the depth of rage that the film put on screen was unprecedented in Australian film at the time.

Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

Currency Pr

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? Forgotten War continues the story told in Henry Reynolds' seminal book The Other Side of the Frontier, which argued that the settlement of Australia had a high level of violence and conflict that we chose to ignore. That book prompted a flowering of research and fieldwork that Reynolds draws on here to give a thorough and systematic account of what caused the frontier wars between white colonists and Aborigines, how many people died and whether the colonists themselves saw frontier conflict as a form of warfare. It is particularly timely as we approach the centenary of WWI. This powerful book makes it clear that there can be no reconciliation without acknowledging the wars fought on our own soil.

Forgotten War

NewSouth

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Books by Henry Reynolds