WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are warned that the following post contains references to colonial-era atrocities. The names of individuals who have died do not appear in this post.
In February of 2023, the current chair of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Kim Beazley (also former leader of the Australian Labor Party) made a very uncontroversial statement. He said he supported “proper recognition” of the Australian Frontier Wars, which were fought between the Indigenous People and the invading British – whether they were soldiers, pastoralists or, much later, the Native Police doing the dirty work of British officers. The Frontier Wars were Australia’s longest conflict, lasting more than 100 years, and we still don’t know how many Indigenous Australians were killed protecting their homes, families and sacred places from the British, who saw nothing but empty land. At its most conservative estimate, at least 20,000 Indigenous people were killed in this conflict, but given there were between 300,000 – 950,000 people in this country in 1788 (when the First Fleet landed), this figure seems startlingly low, just 2 – 6% of the population. The true figure is probably much higher.
There are two main reasons why it’s so difficult to say with certainty how many Indigenous people were killed in the Frontier Wars: firstly, the documents from the colonists are inaccurate at best, and downright lies at worst; secondly, the oral history of the Indigenous Australians has been ignored, suppressed and sometimes completely destroyed by White History. White History relies heavily on documentation and primary evidence, and is suspicious of eye-witness accounts without written documentation to back them up. This is a relic of colonialism which has been used since the dawn of time, by all major colonial powers, to justify their invasion and expansion into other people’s homes and territories. They don’t exist, the colonists say, because there’s no documentary evidence. It is not a coincidence that oral cultures are often the targets of colonial invasions. The forced “assimilation” that follows often includes the complete or near destruction of Indigenous languages, meaning new generations cannot be exposed to their own history.
The numbers of dead, wounded and missing from the Frontier Wars will continue to be a point of contention, but their memory shouldn’t. The Indigenous people fought and died for this country, just the same as any khaki-clad ANZAC. They were defending their homes and families from an invading force that was raiding, raping and pilaging on a scale that would put the Vikings to shame! As if death and destruction weren’t enough, the invaders were also bringing deadly diseases which caused far more wide-spread devastation than all the muskets and bayonets in the world. It was a disaster, certainly, but what happened next has often been presented as a foregone conclusion: murder became massacre, massacre became genocide, and the few survivors crawled away to hide and try and perserve their culture as best they could.
There’s a glaring hole in this story though: the Indigenous Australians were not merely helpless victims of a genocide. They fought back, quite successfully in many cases, and waged a long-term guerrilla-style campaign against the invading British. In some instances in Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland, they prevented European settlement for years. The myth of the passive, helpless Aboriginal that has been presented in history is as insulting (and as historically inaccurate) as that of the barbarian savage who was more animal than human. The Frontier Wars were rolling conflicts, which followed the path of European settlements: wherever the white men went, the Indigenous warriors resisted. They had to. Their homes were being destroyed, their hunting grounds fenced off, their waterways polluted, their sacred sites desecrated, and their women and children were being abducted. They were a highly organised and co-ordinated military force; all guerrillas have to be, otherwise their hit-and-run tactics are largely ineffective.
We also know that, far from the various tribes sitting nervously and awaiting their fate, many of them actively brought the fight to British regiments and raiding parties. The British Army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was grossly conservative and officers refused to alter tactics to suit the terrain, no matter how many men they kept losing. Regular soldiers were easily replaceable and things had to be done the British way. Indigenous Australians were often able to successfully ambush large parties of British soldiers and turn the tables on them by using their superior knowledge of the land. It also has to be said that, with their bright red jackets, white or dark blue trousers and black boots, the soldiers weren’t hard to spot in the brown and green bush. They also made a lot of noise moving through the undergrowth and communicated with drums or bugles, which added to the noise footprint. Once the soldiers had been surrounded, they could be engaged with any number of weapons, or driven out of the area using smoke and fire. The British soldiers needed to be able to see their enemy to fire at them, but the Indigenous soldiers were masters at being able to see without being seen.
This is not to say that massacres of Indigenous people didn’t happen, they certainly did! However, the Frontier Wars were not simply a series of massacres against a peaceful, defenceless people. They were a long series of military engagements, where conventional forces (the British) found themselves facing off against highly organised guerrillas (the Indigenous), where the latter had the home advantage. Horrific massacres, especially of Indigenous women, children and old people, are documented in both Anglo-Australian records and Indigenous Australian oral history. However, even a component of these massacres was the engagement of Indigenous warriors and soldiers, who attempted to protect their people. Despite the popular myth, the British did not always have things their way.
So, what’s the problem?
The Frontier Conflicts have every ingredient that, in my mind, makes a war. Defenders and aggressors, organised forced, armed combatants, defined tactics, commanders, and all the nasty and unpleasant consequences that go with it. Sounds like a war to me, and Mr. Beazley is right to say the combatants of Australia’s first conflict, our first soldiers who laid down their lives defending their homeland, should be honoured at the National War Memorial. He’s not even the first person to suggest it! The Memorial has long been criticised for failing to commemorate not just the Frontier Wars, but any pre-1914 conflict involving Australians. There are a few token exhibits here and there (at least, there were when I last visited in 2016 – I’m going back this year, so it will be interesting to see if anything’s changed) that mention the Frontier Wars, the First and Second Boer Wars, and military conflicts like the Eureka Stockade, but, like most military history institutions in Australia, the Memorial continues to perpetuate the lie that Australia’s military history began at Gallipoli in 1915. Of course, like any social history in this country, military history in Australia goes back at least 65,000 years!
So what’s the problem?
The problem is three letters: R-S-L.
The Returned & Services League.
Before I continue, I want to say that the RSL does some wonderful work with veterans and has been a safe and welcoming environment for many returned soldiers, sailors and airmen. However, it is also true to say that it has been an exclusive environment, which has contributed to many of the challenges faced by veterans on their return from conflict, and it has not always acted in the best interests of the people it claims to represent. It’s also a very, very powerful institution with its fingers in some very lucrative pies.
For example, many younger veterans are deeply opposed to the presence of poker machines in RSL Clubs, citing the high rates of mental illness among veterans and their vulnerability to gambling addiction. We know the huge toll poker machines take on the general population and it seems perfectly reasonable that keeping them out of places like RSL Clubs, where there will be more vulnerable members of the community, is just common sense. The RSL begs to differ; poker machines are a very lucrative business and much of their money comes from gambling. They have in the past claimed that, without the revenue from the poker machines, they couldn’t provide many of their services to returned veterans. In some cases, these younger veterans (often those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan) have been kicked out of their local RSL after writing letters to the board complaining about the machines, or participating in protests or community meetings which call for their removal. I hope I’m not the only Australian (indeed, I hope I’m not the only person) whose skin crawls at the thought that some of the money the RSL is using to support veterans is coming from the pockets of other veterans with gambling addictions!
The RSL also has the power to decide which conflicts were wars and which were “local police actions” or other silly euphemisms. Vietnam is a classic example; many returned Vietnam veterans were barred from the RSL Clubs because the league said Vietnam wasn’t a “real war,” which meant they weren’t returned servicemen. As one Vietnam veteran said, “tell that to my dead mates!” Similar hostility has been reported by veterans of East Timor, with the RSL denying that campaign was a war, and even those veterans of Afghanistan have reported that some local clubs do not believe they were veterans of a war. What exactly the RSL thinks war is if they believe Vietnam, East Timor and Afghanistan were not wars I can’t say, but this is the institution that is at the forefront of the movement to prevent the National War Memorial from recognising the Frontier Wars.
It’s Not A War Unless We Say So!
The Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL) says the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and existing war memorials around the country should honour their original mandate and remain dedicated to all Australians who served their country.
RSL Press Release, October 2022
That is a quote from an RSL press release in October 2022, in which they said they did not believe the War Memorial was the appropriate place to commemorate and remember the conflicts of the Australian Frontier Wars. Cosseted in the nice, polite, diplomatic language of the press release though is the nasty truth of the matter: it’s not a war unless we say its a war! Like many powerful and conservative institutions, the RSL has got used to being able to have its own way and they’re annoyed that they’re no longer the only body to speak for veterans or Australian service personnel.
I also have to confess I’m stunned at the mental gymnastics they’ve managed to complete in that quote alone! They say the Australian War Memorial should “remain dedicated to all Australians who served their country.” HELLO! What the heck do they think the Indigenous Australians were doing during the Frontier Wars if not serving their country? They were literally protecting it from invasion! Isn’t that one of the primary functions of any military that has ever existed?!
The quibble the RSL puts up to this argument is that the Indigenous Australians were not “in uniform” and, therefore, were not real soldiers.
PUH-leeze!
How they RSL can say such a ridiculous thing with a straight face I have no idea.
But underneath all of this quibbling lies the heart of the problem, and the real reason the RSL had got their knickers in a twist.
“Australia” as a modern, federated, colonised nation did not exist until 1901. Prior to that, the different states were independent colonies that did stupid things like build their railway tracks with different sized gauges because doing it all the same would have just been too easy. Before invasion there were hundreds of different Indigenous tribes, 260 distinct language groups and over 500 dialects. Each of these tribes had distinct beliefs, dreaming stories, songlines, laws, customs and cultures; they traded with each other; fought wars with each other; made peace and treaties with their neighbours; and came together for ceremonies, festivals and mourning. They were not a monolithic people, instead they were separate societies that nevertheless cooperated with their neighbours. Australia pre-invasion could almost be compared to Europe, with lots of small countries on the same large continent, with different alliances, factions, languages and cultures. Within the various tribes and language groups too, there would have been differences, which might be comparable to a historic city state within a country. It was still “Australia” in the sense of the landmass existing, but it wasn’t the White Australia that would federate in 1901. This is a map from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies which shows the rough boundaries of each language group at the time of invasion, and should help you get a sense of how diverse Australia’s Indigenous people are.
At the heart of the RSL’s opposition to recognising the Frontier Wars (or any other pre-1914 conflict, to be frank) is the notion that Australians only fought in wars after 1901, because we didn’t exist as a people until then. I wonder what that makes those people, Indigenous or not, who were here before 1901? They probably referred to themselves as Victorians, New South Welshmen, Queenslanders etc. but the concept of Australia had existed even in European minds before 1901, and the term “Australian” was already in use in the nineteenth century. The Indigenous people before 1788 wouldn’t have called themselves Australians, of course, they would have identified themselves by their people, but the land they fought so hard to protect from the invading British, their land, was the same land that federated in 1901. It was still Australia, in that sense. They were (and are) Australians, the first Australians, and their ancestors have more claim to being “Australian soldiers” than any other military force on the continent at that time!
It’s also impossible to escape the racism in the RSL’s rhetoric (they have form here, and a long history of excluding Indigenous Australians, uniformed or not). If the Indigenous guerilla soldiers were not “real soldiers” because they didn’t wear uniforms, didn’t organise themselves into units or brigades, and didn’t train, drill and march, then what does that make them? Plenty of modern armies organise themselves very differently to this “traditional” structure, and many of them are very effective. Throughout history armies have been arranged in all sorts of ways too, and did not always follow this structure. Professional soldiers might have also had other jobs, like a reservist today, or citizens might have been expected to train and form a militia if called up. The type of army a nation or city state has or had will depend on its military needs. Indigenous Australians did not need large, standing armies, because their men were trained as warriors and could form into highly effective fighting forces if the need arose. They were soldiers in every sense of the word!
Recognising our First and Longest War
I want to close out by presenting a scenario to you. Imagine what would happen, if the head of the Australian War Memorial stood up tomorrow and said: “The ANZACs at Gallipoli weren’t really Australian soldiers because they were fighting as part of the British Army. Therefore, they were British soldiers, fighting for Britain, and we’re going to be removing all our exhibits commemorating them because it is the purpose of the War Memorial to commemorate Australian soldiers who fought for Australia.”
There’d be riots on the streets of every capital city in Australia!
Yet, it would be more historically accurate to say this than it is to claim that the Indigenous Australians who fought for their country in the Frontier Wars were not really Australian soldiers.
Kim Beazley’s desire for the Australian War Memorial to commemorate the “blood, battles, land and lives” that were lost in the Frontier Wars, battles which were fought by Australian soldiers, is right. It should be done. You cannot have a military history of Australia without including our first and longest war, and it’s an insult that so many people and institutions still pretend we can. The RSL’s view cannot be taken seriously: it is founded on racist and self-serving tropes, which exist purely to maintain the power the RSL exerts on remembrance in this country.
To put it bluntly: they need to fuck off.
And I’d also like to remind the RSL of something. It was they who excluded Indigenous Australian soldiers from their clubs and pubs. It was they who told these men in uniform that they weren’t “real Australian soldiers.” And it is they who continue to erase the service of Indigenous Australian soldiers, uniformed or not, who fought for this country with just as much pride as any white man.
The Frontier Wars were not one-sided skirmishes; the Indigenous people recognised they were facing an existential threat and they fought to defend their land, their people, their families, and their way of life. What else were they fighting but a war?
Further Information
I think the best place to start to get an understanding of the Frontier Wars in the fantastic SBS documentary The Australian Wars, which is available to stream free via SBS On Demand or on their website. I also think this article from The Conversation, “Why First Nations ‘ununiformed warriors’ qualify for the Australian War Memorial” provides some excellent background and strong rebuttals to the RSL’s claims.