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ABSTRACT
Did frontier conflict in Australia amount to genocide? Answers to this question have revolved around topics such as contemporary understandings of the conflict, intent, the applicability of the term to Australian history and considerations of Indigenous agency. In this historiographical article, we argue that ‘genocide’ is a useful framework with which to understand the frontier experience in the Australian colonies. From that perspective, we provide a critical review of the literature up to the present.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Dirk Moses for inviting us to write this article, and for drawing our attention to the newest research while we were writing. We would also like to thank the three anonymous peer reviewers for their very thorough and constructive reports.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Thomas James Rogers completed his PhD in Australian history at the University of Melbourne in 2014. His thesis examined free settler rhetoric in the Port Phillip District, 1835–1850, and showed how it reinforced and justified physical violence on the frontier. His research interests include settler colonial history and the relationships between language and violence.
Stephen Bain is a PhD candidate in Australian history at the University of Melbourne. His thesis examines the Aboriginal Protectorate in the Port Phillip District, 1839–1849.