Ann Curthoys and Jessie Mitchell. Taking Liberty: Indigenous Rights and Settler Self-Government in Colonial Australia, 1830–1890.

Speculating about genocide: The Queensland frontier 1859–1897

“…This is the case even where it is very evident that government, especially in the 1860s, considered that it was engaged not in policing operations but in a war for the control of the colony. As Governor Bowen put it at the very outset of the colony's self‐government—‘the inland boundary of Qld [sic] is the boundary also of the Empire, which it is necessary to protect from the numerous and hostile savages of this portion of Australia’ (Curthoys & Mitchell, 2018, p. 316 citing Finnane, 2005). The struggle for effective jurisdiction over the lands of the colony and its peoples, was the context for a constant debate within and without the colony over its course and character.…”

Sport and Queensland Aboriginal reserves in the 1920s and 1930s: Ideology, revenue, and exploitation

“…Official colonial policy was one of protecting Aboriginal people affected by the advance of the pastoral frontier, through the support of missions, education, rations, and the prosecution of white and black frontier violence. Squatters saw British government Aboriginal policy and law as a hindrance to the spread of civilization, fuelling demands for self‐government in the colonies, and separation in Port Phillip and Moreton Bay (Curthoys & Mitchell, 2018).…”

“…Pastoral frontiers extended in two ‘arms’, from Sydney to Cape York and from Perth along the west coast, meeting in the Kimberley in the 1880s (Rowse, 2017). After separation in 1859, Queensland's pastoralist‐dominated government pursued an open (if unofficial) policy of warfare with Aboriginal people (Curthoys & Mitchell, 2018). As the frontiers advanced, Aboriginal survivors of the violence adapted to become part of the pastoral workforce.…”