Stephen Gapps

A very thorough history, based on critical use of primary sources, of warfare between Sydney's indigenous peoples and the British authorities and settlers from the First Fleet to Macquarie's 1816 campaign. Indispensible for anyone interested in a) the early history of British colonization of Australia, b) conflict between the British and indigenous Australians, or c) the history of the Sydney region. Some caveats. Firstly, it is a military history that analyses the conflict as a war, and both indigenous and British agression in terms of war. Secondly, the book is based on European sources and indigenous perspectives are given only when mentioned in written European sources. While, of course, we have no comparable written sources from the Aboriginal point of view, it would have been nice to have some anthropological insight into the culture, motives and modes of conflict of the "Sydney people" (as Gapps calls the indigrnous people of the Cumberland Plain).… (meer)