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Killing for Country: A Family Story
A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia's frontier wars
David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in the bloodiest years on the frontier. Killing for Country is the result -- a soul-searching Australian history.
This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world -- of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country -- a war still unresolved in today's Australia.
"This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr's forebears and their crimes. It is an account of an Australian war fought here in our own country, with names, dates, crimes, body counts and the ghastly, remorseless views of the 'settlers'. Thank you, David."--Marcia Langton
"[Marr is] one of the country's most accomplished non-fiction writers. I was sometimes reminded of Robert Hughes' study of convict transportation, The Fatal Shore (1987), in the epic quality of this book ... Killing For Country is a timely exercise in truth-telling amid a disturbing resurgence of denialism." --Frank Bongiorno, The Age
" Killing for Country ... stands out for its unflinching eye, its dogged research, and the quality and power of its writing." --Mark McKenna, Australian Book Review
"It's a timely, vital story." --Jason Steger, The Age
"The timing of this book is painfully exquisite and it demonstrates perfectly how little race politics have changed in Australia." --Lucy Clark, The Guardian
David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in the bloodiest years on the frontier. Killing for Country is the result -- a soul-searching Australian history.
This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world -- of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country -- a war still unresolved in today's Australia.
"This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr's forebears and their crimes. It is an account of an Australian war fought here in our own country, with names, dates, crimes, body counts and the ghastly, remorseless views of the 'settlers'. Thank you, David."--Marcia Langton
"[Marr is] one of the country's most accomplished non-fiction writers. I was sometimes reminded of Robert Hughes' study of convict transportation, The Fatal Shore (1987), in the epic quality of this book ... Killing For Country is a timely exercise in truth-telling amid a disturbing resurgence of denialism." --Frank Bongiorno, The Age
" Killing for Country ... stands out for its unflinching eye, its dogged research, and the quality and power of its writing." --Mark McKenna, Australian Book Review
"It's a timely, vital story." --Jason Steger, The Age
"The timing of this book is painfully exquisite and it demonstrates perfectly how little race politics have changed in Australia." --Lucy Clark, The Guardian
596 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 3, 2023
234 people are currently reading
1364 people want to read
About the author
David Marr
39 books104 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Eminent Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. David Marr is the multi-award-winning author of Patrick White: A Life, Panic and The High Price of Heaven, and co- author with Marian Wilkinson of Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian Australia and the Monthly. He has been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch. He is also the author of two previous bestselling biographical Quarterly Essays: Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd and Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. His areas of expertise include Australian politics, law, censorship, the media and the arts. David Marr began his career in 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism. He also appears as a semi-regular panellist on the ABC television programs Q&A and Insiders.
Eminent Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. David Marr is the multi-award-winning author of Patrick White: A Life, Panic and The High Price of Heaven, and co- author with Marian Wilkinson of Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian Australia and the Monthly. He has been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch. He is also the author of two previous bestselling biographical Quarterly Essays: Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd and Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. His areas of expertise include Australian politics, law, censorship, the media and the arts. David Marr began his career in 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism. He also appears as a semi-regular panellist on the ABC television programs Q&A and Insiders.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
March 9, 2025
Australia was invaded by the British Empire. The Queensland frontier may have been the most brutal. The Native Police, consisting of First Nations policeman and British officers, massacred other First Nations people en masse—perhaps 40,000 in total in the late 19th century. The wanton violence of squatters was often met with quiet acquiescence of the government and apathetic acceptance by the settlers. First Nations people fought back but were doomed to lose. However, enough people publicly condemned these practices to illuminate a deliberately obfuscated and dark past, which contemporary research continues to explore.
Some of David Marr's ancestors served as officers during this time and feature prominently in this book. Their names are Reg and D'Arcy Uhr, and they are responsible for the murder of hundreds of First Nations people. Marr's thesis is simple: First Nations people were obliterated so British colonists could become rich from their land. The Native Police were a cynical force that used divide and conquer tactics to snuff out perceived threats to white advancement. This book is well-researched and well-written. I listened to most of it as an audiobook, and Marr is a fantastic orator. It is one of the rare books where the author actually does a good job of reading their own work.
Without the violence of the Native Police, the land we now live on—a land that I love—might not be called Australia. The nation and its prosperity were founded through bloodshed and colonial ancestors, and later immigrants reap the fruits of the land. A treaty would have been better, but it likely would not have prevented conquest. After all, the New Zealand Treaty of Waitangi was ignored for over 100 years, and the Māori were subject to conquest through several wars. This is both confronting and paradoxical. I do not have an answer to the paradox, except to acknowledge the truth of what happened and work together towards reconciliation.
Some of David Marr's ancestors served as officers during this time and feature prominently in this book. Their names are Reg and D'Arcy Uhr, and they are responsible for the murder of hundreds of First Nations people. Marr's thesis is simple: First Nations people were obliterated so British colonists could become rich from their land. The Native Police were a cynical force that used divide and conquer tactics to snuff out perceived threats to white advancement. This book is well-researched and well-written. I listened to most of it as an audiobook, and Marr is a fantastic orator. It is one of the rare books where the author actually does a good job of reading their own work.
Without the violence of the Native Police, the land we now live on—a land that I love—might not be called Australia. The nation and its prosperity were founded through bloodshed and colonial ancestors, and later immigrants reap the fruits of the land. A treaty would have been better, but it likely would not have prevented conquest. After all, the New Zealand Treaty of Waitangi was ignored for over 100 years, and the Māori were subject to conquest through several wars. This is both confronting and paradoxical. I do not have an answer to the paradox, except to acknowledge the truth of what happened and work together towards reconciliation.
October 26, 2023
If this detailed account of the brutality of white settlement wasn’t grim enough, reading it in the shadow of the recent defeat of a referendum that might have gone a tiny, tentative step towards redress was dark indeed.
This is an account of how vested interests, greed, brutality, ignorance, weasel words and lies were easily able to defeat the small voices of humanity and protest as white settlement spread through Australia in the 19th century, leaving indigenous Australians dispossessed or dead.
It is unrelenting stuff: ‘dispersals’ of Australian natives code for unprovoked attacks and massacres that went on and on wherever there was land to be exploited and indigenous Australians in the way.
The views of the conservative Liberal Senator who campaigned strongly during the referendum against giving a parliamentary voice to indigenous Australians arguing that there are “no ongoing negative impacts of colonisation” look more outlandish and perverse with every page of this book.
As Marr wrote, just prior to the referendum, ‘Polls show hostility is strongest where most blood was shed. Despising those we have wronged is another way we humans have of dealing with our shame’. Queensland, where most of the murderous events described here took place, was the Australian state most strongly against giving indigenous Australians a voice.
This is not a pleasant or easy read. It might have been more effective if the family connections, and the relationship of the author to the anti-hero of this story, were made earlier but it is important nevertheless.
For David Marr, the new knowledge that one of his forebears served in the brutal Native Police demanded reckoning and truth-telling. It is a pity that, on the larger scale, Australia is still not ready for coming to the truth; books like this, hard as they are, can only help progress our understanding.
This is an account of how vested interests, greed, brutality, ignorance, weasel words and lies were easily able to defeat the small voices of humanity and protest as white settlement spread through Australia in the 19th century, leaving indigenous Australians dispossessed or dead.
It is unrelenting stuff: ‘dispersals’ of Australian natives code for unprovoked attacks and massacres that went on and on wherever there was land to be exploited and indigenous Australians in the way.
The views of the conservative Liberal Senator who campaigned strongly during the referendum against giving a parliamentary voice to indigenous Australians arguing that there are “no ongoing negative impacts of colonisation” look more outlandish and perverse with every page of this book.
As Marr wrote, just prior to the referendum, ‘Polls show hostility is strongest where most blood was shed. Despising those we have wronged is another way we humans have of dealing with our shame’. Queensland, where most of the murderous events described here took place, was the Australian state most strongly against giving indigenous Australians a voice.
This is not a pleasant or easy read. It might have been more effective if the family connections, and the relationship of the author to the anti-hero of this story, were made earlier but it is important nevertheless.
For David Marr, the new knowledge that one of his forebears served in the brutal Native Police demanded reckoning and truth-telling. It is a pity that, on the larger scale, Australia is still not ready for coming to the truth; books like this, hard as they are, can only help progress our understanding.
November 2, 2023
Compulsive and compulsory reading
'KILLING for Country' is an essential account of Australia's bloody and atrocity filled colonial past. Such a grotesque past needs to be faced, acknowledged and its consequences for First Australians recognised and addressed, not buried beneath slick meaningless memes like "We are all Australians".
Unfortunately as a nation we seem to lack the courage or perhaps the knowledge to do so.
David Marr makes it that much harder to evade.
'KILLING for Country' is an essential account of Australia's bloody and atrocity filled colonial past. Such a grotesque past needs to be faced, acknowledged and its consequences for First Australians recognised and addressed, not buried beneath slick meaningless memes like "We are all Australians".
Unfortunately as a nation we seem to lack the courage or perhaps the knowledge to do so.
David Marr makes it that much harder to evade.
January 3, 2024
In his acknowledgements David Marr is at his absolute best quoting friend Mary Vallentine, with: "David, none of us has another book in you".
You can certainly see why he might have been hard company writing this book, which details the terribly decisions of Marr's ancestors (and friends) with the same kind of relentless focus that they brought to Australia's frontier massacres. The book is exhaustive, and occasionally feels so, despite Marr's superb wit (one figure's situation is summarised simply with "The family called him in their letters Poor John". And nobody is entirely engaging when talking about their own family's history.
Marr is not simply summarising a family's (mostly mis-)deeds, here, however. He unpicks a story of capitalist greed, morals bendable in all directions to serve profit, incompetance protected by family, and unabated expansion of taken territory, sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, but never, ever, reversing. This is where the book is the most significant for me, in detailing not deeds of just bad people, but systems that reward genocide, and theft of a continent for the enrichment of a few. Marr is clearly fascinated by the figure of Richard Jones, and while the beats of Sydney colony history may be familiar to many, they take on new life through the lens of this singular figure, who could condemn 'unnecessary' killings while authorising his own, assumedly necessary, ones. Jones' breathtaking hypocrisy - no doubt recognisable to Marr from his studies of various politicians - matters because it becomes too easy in our day and time to assume someone who says the right things will also do them under pressure. But pressure wins so often.
The second half of the book focuses on the notorious native police units of Queensland, which killed close tens of thousands of people (current estimates are at 41,000) over 30-40 years. Marr focuses on two brothers, looking at how the units operated and documenting the tally of events.
At times, the book can feel like a litany of similar events, with changing characters and locale, but depressingly similar actions and outcomes. It is hard to fault this - part of the point is that killings were depressingly routine.
Marr notes in his afterward that colonialism's story are for settlers to tell, and here he certainly delivers. As with any book about the frontier wars, it is shocking how openly discussed this was in the 19th Century, and then how totally purged it became in the 20th. That means lots of rich resources for historians to understand,and no excuses for us not to wrestle with what this collective trauma and destruction might have left us with.
Marr comments in the afterword ""I have been asked how I could bear to write this book. It is an act of atonement, of penance by storytelling. But I wasn’t wallowing in my own shame. None of us are free of this past. ... My links to the Uhr brothers made the obligation to come to grips with this past personal. For a man of my trade, the outcome was obvious – I had to write their story." None of bear responsibility for the actions of others. But all of us bear responsibility for deciding how to respond to the world they left us, and the individual inheritances we all got from this. A starting point is to document what that history actually was.
You can certainly see why he might have been hard company writing this book, which details the terribly decisions of Marr's ancestors (and friends) with the same kind of relentless focus that they brought to Australia's frontier massacres. The book is exhaustive, and occasionally feels so, despite Marr's superb wit (one figure's situation is summarised simply with "The family called him in their letters Poor John". And nobody is entirely engaging when talking about their own family's history.
Marr is not simply summarising a family's (mostly mis-)deeds, here, however. He unpicks a story of capitalist greed, morals bendable in all directions to serve profit, incompetance protected by family, and unabated expansion of taken territory, sometimes slow, sometimes rapid, but never, ever, reversing. This is where the book is the most significant for me, in detailing not deeds of just bad people, but systems that reward genocide, and theft of a continent for the enrichment of a few. Marr is clearly fascinated by the figure of Richard Jones, and while the beats of Sydney colony history may be familiar to many, they take on new life through the lens of this singular figure, who could condemn 'unnecessary' killings while authorising his own, assumedly necessary, ones. Jones' breathtaking hypocrisy - no doubt recognisable to Marr from his studies of various politicians - matters because it becomes too easy in our day and time to assume someone who says the right things will also do them under pressure. But pressure wins so often.
The second half of the book focuses on the notorious native police units of Queensland, which killed close tens of thousands of people (current estimates are at 41,000) over 30-40 years. Marr focuses on two brothers, looking at how the units operated and documenting the tally of events.
At times, the book can feel like a litany of similar events, with changing characters and locale, but depressingly similar actions and outcomes. It is hard to fault this - part of the point is that killings were depressingly routine.
Marr notes in his afterward that colonialism's story are for settlers to tell, and here he certainly delivers. As with any book about the frontier wars, it is shocking how openly discussed this was in the 19th Century, and then how totally purged it became in the 20th. That means lots of rich resources for historians to understand,and no excuses for us not to wrestle with what this collective trauma and destruction might have left us with.
Marr comments in the afterword ""I have been asked how I could bear to write this book. It is an act of atonement, of penance by storytelling. But I wasn’t wallowing in my own shame. None of us are free of this past. ... My links to the Uhr brothers made the obligation to come to grips with this past personal. For a man of my trade, the outcome was obvious – I had to write their story." None of bear responsibility for the actions of others. But all of us bear responsibility for deciding how to respond to the world they left us, and the individual inheritances we all got from this. A starting point is to document what that history actually was.
September 19, 2023
Incredibly well researched account of the Native police and Frontier wars during the mid to late 1800’s. It seemed like a passion project for the author who had discovered a couple of his ancestors were in the Native police and were responsible for some of the massacres. There was an incredible amount of detail in the book and while it did need to be written it definitely became more hard work as the book progressed. Persistence is required.
October 11, 2023
Excellent book. The author has written this book after discovering that one of his own ancestors was in the Native Police who were responsible for clearing land of aborigines in the 1800s, killing thousands of them in the process.
The Native Police and its cruel methods are covered in great detail. White settler/pioneers would move onto aboriginal land and start their farming operations (usually cattle or sheep) and inevitably they would antagonise the local aborigines (by breaking their word, stealing their women, stealing their children, or simply murdering some of them) and when the aborigines retaliated, they cried out for the Native Police to immediately protect them from the "murdering savages", mainly by murdering them. Not that the white settlers were afraid to take illegal action themselves.
It was interesting to note that some settlers were kind to aborigines and discovered they had less trouble when they didn't harass them and instead "allowed them in" to their stations. Also interesting that some contemporaries stood up for the rights of aborigines and complained about their treatment.
This book should be read by all Australians. It should also be a school textbook.
The Native Police and its cruel methods are covered in great detail. White settler/pioneers would move onto aboriginal land and start their farming operations (usually cattle or sheep) and inevitably they would antagonise the local aborigines (by breaking their word, stealing their women, stealing their children, or simply murdering some of them) and when the aborigines retaliated, they cried out for the Native Police to immediately protect them from the "murdering savages", mainly by murdering them. Not that the white settlers were afraid to take illegal action themselves.
It was interesting to note that some settlers were kind to aborigines and discovered they had less trouble when they didn't harass them and instead "allowed them in" to their stations. Also interesting that some contemporaries stood up for the rights of aborigines and complained about their treatment.
This book should be read by all Australians. It should also be a school textbook.
May 19, 2024
Don't look away...important insights
about the "dark side" of Australian history.
about the "dark side" of Australian history.
January 7, 2024
This was intense! It's epic in scope, particularly in how David Marr pieces together much of the diverse source material. Still there's so many records of the Native police that are still to be trolled through, that is if the records can be unearthed somehow.
It's still a magnificent effort in truth telling, particularly with the shame of members of his own family committing much carnage and either encouraged or ignored by the Governments of the Day. Anyhow they were never brought to account. This book in some ways does bring some accountability and educates along the way. It was not really the time of year for it, but I felt compelled to carry on with the subject matter despite how difficult it was to read at times. I think comparisons of how important this work is along the lines of The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding is fair enough.
I really enjoyed how David Marr spoke about Judith Wright's insights including her family's impact and also Rachel Henning's letters, considering how women's viewpoints of the era are usually overlooked.
One I think I'll read again sometime in the future, I'm sure I'll get more out of it on another reading.
It's still a magnificent effort in truth telling, particularly with the shame of members of his own family committing much carnage and either encouraged or ignored by the Governments of the Day. Anyhow they were never brought to account. This book in some ways does bring some accountability and educates along the way. It was not really the time of year for it, but I felt compelled to carry on with the subject matter despite how difficult it was to read at times. I think comparisons of how important this work is along the lines of The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding is fair enough.
I really enjoyed how David Marr spoke about Judith Wright's insights including her family's impact and also Rachel Henning's letters, considering how women's viewpoints of the era are usually overlooked.
One I think I'll read again sometime in the future, I'm sure I'll get more out of it on another reading.
May 21, 2025
This is a very deep and detailed dive into how Australia was colonised, with lots of politics and nuance about administration thrown in. And lots of shocking documentation of some of the murder and rampages that took place, with impunity. Truly shocking. It makes an important contribution to Australian history, and the lens of Marr’s family connection worked for me. I listened to this as an audiobook, read by Marr, as I undertook a road trip through this country and I found it very very powerful. The unpacking of some of the characters was very telling and I’ll never hear the word ‘dispersal’ again with a clear conscience. White Australia must make reparations, we have already so much evidence in the truth telling so far. We live on stolen land, I get that in my guts more now after reading this book.
May 5, 2024
David Marr has given us a heartbreaking and blood curdling account of the state sanctioned massacre of the First Nation Australians peoples. I predict I will make frequent references to this book in my future and encourage every Australian to read this book
November 1, 2023
A must read for all Australians, in my opinion.
November 12, 2023
This is such a clever title. Subtitled "A Family Story", the title works on several levels. "Killing"- who is killing here? Indigenous people killing families, shepherds and hutkeepers in defence of country as the waves of 'settlers' and 'squatters' sweep across the continent? Or the white officers of the Native Police who turn the other way and let their 'boys' of the Native Police loos killing men women and children of other tribes? Or the Native Police troopers themselves, far from 'country' and with no links to their victims? Or white squatters and settlers who ride alongside the Native Police, or who distribute poisoned flour and meat? "Country" as used by indigenous people as their spiritual connection? Or 'country' as used by white settlers as land to be used; or a political entity to be defined and defended internationally? And "a family story" - David Marr's own family through genealogical connections of which he was unaware until relatively recently? Or 'family' as the protagonists sought and maintained their positions through the networks of connections which bound together the British Empire? This book is all of these and more.
This is excellent narrative history, told with Marr's deft turn of phrase. It is well researched, with references cited according to page number at the back of the book. The failure of the Voice referendum notwithstanding, truth telling continues. This "bloody family saga" is Marr's own contribution.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2023/11/12/...
This is excellent narrative history, told with Marr's deft turn of phrase. It is well researched, with references cited according to page number at the back of the book. The failure of the Voice referendum notwithstanding, truth telling continues. This "bloody family saga" is Marr's own contribution.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2023/11/12/...
July 19, 2024
I wasn’t going to read this book. I have worked in schools with high Aboriginal populations. I have made many friends and appreciate the history that has made the indigenous people who they are today. I watched with great sadness the lead up to the Voice referendum and was so disappointed in the Liberal and National politicians’ pseudologia fantastica, their handling the truth with undue care. I was also frustrated by the feeble attempt by the Yes side to deal with the opposition’s untruths. Why they didn’t introduce the Voice through legislation and after two years put it to a referendum. Nevertheless, there was a large modicum (excuse the tautology) of truth in Laura Tingle’s statement about Australia being a racist country.
I was worried that this book would tire and depress me. Now that I have finished it, I am grateful that I did read it. It is a tale of the litany of murders and the terrible treatment of the indigenous people of this country. Sadly, the many of the comments made by white settlers in nineteenth century are replicated on social media, and at times the mainstream media in the twenty-first century.
There is a masterful ambiguity in the title of this book. Was it the Aboriginal people killing families, shepherds and hutkeepers in defence of country as the waves of squatters sweep across the continent? Or was it the white squatters with their revenge killings, their poisonings or the Native Police under the guidance of white officer and compliant magistrates who failed to enforce British law? ‘Country’ as used by indigenous people as their spiritual connection or ‘country’ as used by white settlers as land to be used; or a political entity to be defined and defended internationally?
Killing is a major part of wars and none of it is pretty but where is this killing justified? I guess the Ukrainians say they are justified in killing the invading Russian soldiers. The Israelis are loud in their justification of killing thousands and thousands of Palestinians. The justification probably lies in the history of the war. In Marr’s history the Aboriginal killing of the white invaders is justified.
The problem for the Aboriginals was that their weaponry consisted of spears, clubs and boomerangs whereas the squatters were armed with carbines and then poisons.
To this day I hold in contempt John Howard and his celebrated attachment to the term ‘black arm band history’ It will be an epitaph that will accompany him to his grave. He was in the company of Geoffrey Blaney and the bottom feeder, Keith Windschuttle, whose Fabrication of Aboriginal History has been rebutted as a fabrication of lies, half-truths and made-up summaries. I waited with bated breath for the Windschuttle edited (until recently) Quadrant, to challenge Marr’s writing; nothing. The strength of this book is not Marr’s intensive narrative style but rather the detailed and extensive research that has gone into the compiling of this book.
Marr initially writes about the slaying of the indigenous people in NSW. He relates to many of the massacres Appin, Coniston, Myall Creek, Twofold Bay, Appin, Turon River and the list continues. The score of Black deaths to White deaths mirrored what is happening in the Middle East. Many of the massacres were settler reprisals, where the Whites often killed random black fellas.
Marr’s narrative follows the lives of several ancestors, although this aspect of their identity is under played until the end of the book. Merchant and Legislative Councillor, Richard Jones Reg and D’Arcy Uhr, Jones’ grandsons.
I found that the early pages filled the sizeable gaps in my own knowledge of colonial Australia. I still have difficulty in naming the first half dozen governors of NSW and have little knowledge of their character and achievements. The reporting of incidents on the Hunter River interested me greatly as I worked in the area for nearly two decades and had read nothing of the squattocracy and their attacks on the Wonnarua, Kamilaroi, Worimi, and Darkinjung people. (Naming these tribes made me reflect that as a child I knew the name of numerous American Indian tribes, but none of the Australian equivalent.)
The second half of the story focuses on Queensland and the role of the Native Police. I had read about these Aboriginal men from elsewhere in the colony but was unaware of the savagery they inflicted on their fellow indigenous folk under the leadership of white officers. Marr does not explore the training or motivation of the Aborigines who joined the Native Police.
Marr explains the role of the squattocracy in the behviour of the Native Police and the massacres they caused. The reader can see the antecedents of the modern National Party in the behaviour and attitude towards the indigenous people.
In the afterword Marr gives a powerful account of the role of his ancestors and his own view of them and their actions. His own words say it so well:
The maths is indisputable: we each have sixteen great-grandparents. Reg Uhr was one of mine. I don’t believe he’s tainted my blood. I don’t believe I am responsible for his crimes. But when I learned what he had done, my sense of myself and my family shifted… We can be proud of our families for things done generations ago. We can also be ashamed. I feel no guilt for what Reg did. But I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me when I first saw that photograph of Sub-Inspector Uhr in his pompous uniform….It embarrasses me now to have been reporting race and politics in this country for so long without it ever crossing my mind that my family might have played a part in the frontier wars. My blindness was so Australian.
On closing the book, I sat quietly reflecting on the result of the Voice referendum and the obvious failure of Australia to learn and understand the position of Aboriginal people in this country and what are their needs.
I was worried that this book would tire and depress me. Now that I have finished it, I am grateful that I did read it. It is a tale of the litany of murders and the terrible treatment of the indigenous people of this country. Sadly, the many of the comments made by white settlers in nineteenth century are replicated on social media, and at times the mainstream media in the twenty-first century.
There is a masterful ambiguity in the title of this book. Was it the Aboriginal people killing families, shepherds and hutkeepers in defence of country as the waves of squatters sweep across the continent? Or was it the white squatters with their revenge killings, their poisonings or the Native Police under the guidance of white officer and compliant magistrates who failed to enforce British law? ‘Country’ as used by indigenous people as their spiritual connection or ‘country’ as used by white settlers as land to be used; or a political entity to be defined and defended internationally?
Killing is a major part of wars and none of it is pretty but where is this killing justified? I guess the Ukrainians say they are justified in killing the invading Russian soldiers. The Israelis are loud in their justification of killing thousands and thousands of Palestinians. The justification probably lies in the history of the war. In Marr’s history the Aboriginal killing of the white invaders is justified.
The problem for the Aboriginals was that their weaponry consisted of spears, clubs and boomerangs whereas the squatters were armed with carbines and then poisons.
To this day I hold in contempt John Howard and his celebrated attachment to the term ‘black arm band history’ It will be an epitaph that will accompany him to his grave. He was in the company of Geoffrey Blaney and the bottom feeder, Keith Windschuttle, whose Fabrication of Aboriginal History has been rebutted as a fabrication of lies, half-truths and made-up summaries. I waited with bated breath for the Windschuttle edited (until recently) Quadrant, to challenge Marr’s writing; nothing. The strength of this book is not Marr’s intensive narrative style but rather the detailed and extensive research that has gone into the compiling of this book.
Marr initially writes about the slaying of the indigenous people in NSW. He relates to many of the massacres Appin, Coniston, Myall Creek, Twofold Bay, Appin, Turon River and the list continues. The score of Black deaths to White deaths mirrored what is happening in the Middle East. Many of the massacres were settler reprisals, where the Whites often killed random black fellas.
Marr’s narrative follows the lives of several ancestors, although this aspect of their identity is under played until the end of the book. Merchant and Legislative Councillor, Richard Jones Reg and D’Arcy Uhr, Jones’ grandsons.
I found that the early pages filled the sizeable gaps in my own knowledge of colonial Australia. I still have difficulty in naming the first half dozen governors of NSW and have little knowledge of their character and achievements. The reporting of incidents on the Hunter River interested me greatly as I worked in the area for nearly two decades and had read nothing of the squattocracy and their attacks on the Wonnarua, Kamilaroi, Worimi, and Darkinjung people. (Naming these tribes made me reflect that as a child I knew the name of numerous American Indian tribes, but none of the Australian equivalent.)
The second half of the story focuses on Queensland and the role of the Native Police. I had read about these Aboriginal men from elsewhere in the colony but was unaware of the savagery they inflicted on their fellow indigenous folk under the leadership of white officers. Marr does not explore the training or motivation of the Aborigines who joined the Native Police.
Marr explains the role of the squattocracy in the behviour of the Native Police and the massacres they caused. The reader can see the antecedents of the modern National Party in the behaviour and attitude towards the indigenous people.
In the afterword Marr gives a powerful account of the role of his ancestors and his own view of them and their actions. His own words say it so well:
The maths is indisputable: we each have sixteen great-grandparents. Reg Uhr was one of mine. I don’t believe he’s tainted my blood. I don’t believe I am responsible for his crimes. But when I learned what he had done, my sense of myself and my family shifted… We can be proud of our families for things done generations ago. We can also be ashamed. I feel no guilt for what Reg did. But I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me when I first saw that photograph of Sub-Inspector Uhr in his pompous uniform….It embarrasses me now to have been reporting race and politics in this country for so long without it ever crossing my mind that my family might have played a part in the frontier wars. My blindness was so Australian.
On closing the book, I sat quietly reflecting on the result of the Voice referendum and the obvious failure of Australia to learn and understand the position of Aboriginal people in this country and what are their needs.
June 13, 2025
This, along with other stories of frontier slaughter, must be compulsory reading.
June 22, 2024
After beginning Killing for Country in January, and re borrowing it for a third time, I have managed to finish it just before it’s due to be returned again. The waiting list is incredibly long at my library, which gives me great comfort.
It was such a difficult read- because of its historical dryness, but also because of the unceasing brutality in Australian colonial history. The breadth of atrocity is something I hadn’t ever understood before, and sadly I only have this glimmer of understanding because of self-direction. I can only hope this generational lack of understanding stops with my generation, and that younger Australian generations have been exposed to so much more historical truth rather than white-explorer and -settler achievements. I’ll never remember all the names in this books, nor what they were responsible for, but their actions, or lack of, will remain indelibly.
“Books can’t change the past but facing the truth together can change the future. “ p410
4.5 ⭐️
It was such a difficult read- because of its historical dryness, but also because of the unceasing brutality in Australian colonial history. The breadth of atrocity is something I hadn’t ever understood before, and sadly I only have this glimmer of understanding because of self-direction. I can only hope this generational lack of understanding stops with my generation, and that younger Australian generations have been exposed to so much more historical truth rather than white-explorer and -settler achievements. I’ll never remember all the names in this books, nor what they were responsible for, but their actions, or lack of, will remain indelibly.
“Books can’t change the past but facing the truth together can change the future. “ p410
4.5 ⭐️
December 17, 2023
I'm so glad this book exists, is being mass marketed and heavily promoted. It has an important contribution to make to our national identity as Australians and also to the broader realities of colonialisation by the English. When I was in school, we were still taught the lies that Australia was peacefully founded and that no wars have been fought on Australian soil. I would highly recommend this book to all Australians. It's genuinely shocking how the legacy of colonial politics still plays out in Australia today, from the corrupt influences of property developers and banks in Sydney state politics to the reactionary conservatism of Queenslanders.
That's not to say that I found this an enjoyable read. It was quite a slog. I found the first section of Jones to be unnecessarily long scene-setting and it could have been a separate book on Sydney politics. The rest of the book was more heavily centred on the Uhrs than was interesting to me - I would have liked them backgrounded more. And there was a lot of genocide. Like a lot a lot. It's quite distressing to read a catalogue of slaughters over hundreds of pages, of real people that happened not that long ago.
Overall, a well-researched book that is shockingly contemporary but one I skim read for fair chunks.
That's not to say that I found this an enjoyable read. It was quite a slog. I found the first section of Jones to be unnecessarily long scene-setting and it could have been a separate book on Sydney politics. The rest of the book was more heavily centred on the Uhrs than was interesting to me - I would have liked them backgrounded more. And there was a lot of genocide. Like a lot a lot. It's quite distressing to read a catalogue of slaughters over hundreds of pages, of real people that happened not that long ago.
Overall, a well-researched book that is shockingly contemporary but one I skim read for fair chunks.
January 20, 2024
This book so clearly shows the terrible way the Native Police were used to wipe out so many first nations people.Those in charge of the police were not aiming to keep both squatters and natives under control and sharing the land, their job was to wipe out any natives. If a white person was killed, they would be sent to kill any nearby natives regardless of whether or not they were involved. The First Nations people tended only to attack the settlers after some crime had been commited against them. I was unaware that in granting squatters land there was part of the contract that said they must allow local natives to use the land to move about on, fish, gather and hunt. No one seems to have enforced that rule. This gives book us a better view of how the land was "conqurered" than what we were taught in history. It should be used as a useful tool in history lessons.
September 29, 2024
This is a tough one because the book didn't match my expectations but that's probably more my fault than the author's. I'd heard him speak at an event and was under the impression that the book was more about his uncovering of the truth about his family and how he reckoned with it. But that's only the last 5 pages. The rest is a more straight up narrative history. The first half was a bit slow and there were a lot of people only briefly in the story which made it a little hard to follow. but the second half picked up a lot and became a lot more interesting as it narrowed in more on a couple of characters.
September 7, 2024
Haven’t read anything this shocking since A Very Expensive Poison, and Killing for country beats that by a good margin. The realities of how venal, cruel, greedy and amoral the early Australian colonisers were is just gob smacking. I knew it was bad but Marr brings our shameful history to life in a visceral technicolor. Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Requires a bit of fortitude to finish but worth it. Make sure you have another book on the go at the same time for light relief!
May 12, 2024
I thought I knew enough about this part of Australia's history not to be shocked. I was wrong. Racism in Australia may no longer be this violent, but it still manages to blame the victims. I feel shame for many reasons associated with this history.
There were a couple of passages that I'm not sure I understood what was being conveyed but with the amount of information covered I sometimes found it hard to keep up with it all. Thank you David Marr, this is tough history to face no matter how close a connection you have to it....and I can only hope that more Australians will.
There were a couple of passages that I'm not sure I understood what was being conveyed but with the amount of information covered I sometimes found it hard to keep up with it all. Thank you David Marr, this is tough history to face no matter how close a connection you have to it....and I can only hope that more Australians will.
March 8, 2025
The brutal historical account of the killings of First Nations Peoples that took place by officials in colonial Australia. Murders, poisonings, and all out war.
September 30, 2025
Should be on the Australian school curriculum. Nuff said
April 29, 2024
My most anticipated book from last year. Horrifying but essential, especially for white Australians with settler ancestors
September 17, 2024
Reading this book, I wanted a crime scene board. You know – the ones with photos of people and places with bits of string linking the images. It’s apt because the book chronicles a vast number of crimes but it also would have been so handy in trying to remember who is who and how they are connected/related to each other.
So, quite recently, David Marr discovered that the Uhr brothers, his ancestors, were members of Queensland’s notorious Native Police force. He wanted to find out more – and this book is the result. The Native Police were recruited and led by whites. These units existed in various forms in colonial Australia during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. They were primarily used to patrol the often vast geographical areas along the colonial frontier in order to conduct raids against aboriginal people or tribes that had broken the law and punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people. They were mostly recruited from the south so were presumed to feel less kinship with eth people they were targeting. And the white people in charge of them certainly displayed no feelings of humanity in dealing with the Aboriginal people who had the temerity to want to live on the land that they had always inhabited.
What it came down to for most of the greedy white pastoralists is that you could have more sheep or you could have Aboriginal people. But not both. And as the colonies expanded into the less explored parts of Australia, things became dire for Aboriginal people. The British government over time had policies that directed that no harm should come to the Aboriginal people but at the same time, did little to stop the violence or bring perpetrators to justice, and they also welcomed the economic success of the colonies. From a reviewer: “At the core of this narrative is a simple truism of colonialism: land is the ultimate commodity, the raw material of wealth. They were among the 450 squatters who had seized an area larger than Victoria before Queensland’s separation in 1859.” (https://theconversation.com/i-cant-ar...)
Marr’s ‘family story’ begins with the arrival in Sydney in 1809 of the Shropshire-born merchant Richard Jones. Jones, a smooth talker adept at convincing those in power of his impeccable propriety and moral rectitude, quickly became one of the wealthiest men in New South Wales. (Jones was brother-in law to Reg Uhr, father of the aforementioned Uhr brothers.) I liked this description from the reviewer” A key character is Richard Jones, a self-interested man who arrived in New South Wales in 1809 as a clerk. He thrived, learning how to use his power for self-advancement, becoming a member of the Legislative Council and president of the Bank of NSW. Sometimes his pragmatic Christianity helped him draw the line, but he had no sympathy for Aboriginal people. As Marr writes,
Many dismissed him in his own day as pious and penny pinching. But Richard Jones was a great white carp in the colonial pond, half-hidden in the weeds, always feeding and always dangerous.” (https://theconversation.com/i-cant-ar...)
You can appreciate there the tone of Marr’s writing and the wit of his descriptions of people. On Richard Jones: ‘a great white carp in the colonial pond, half hidden in the weeds, always feeding and always dangerous’. On Morris Townsend Somerville, who found land for squatters, recruited Blacks as guides, and shot them when they got in his way: ‘a genial and unscrupulous gentleman of the warrior class’. On William Charles Wentworth: ‘that great windbag of liberty’. I liked this summary by Mark McKenna: “Yet, despite its radical departure in subject matter, Killing for Country: A family story is entirely consistent with Marr’s modus operandi. Remain focused. Track down every last detail. Compile, sift, and test the evidence. Write with razor-like clarity. Don’t waste a word. Know the law. Scrutinise the press. Closely examine the words and self-serving manoeuvrings of those in power. And follow the money – or, in this case, the sheep.” (ABR review) ‘Australia,’ writes Marr, ‘was fought for in an endless war of little, cruel battles.’” (https://www.australianbookreview.com....)
In tracing the lives of British settlers from upper class backgrounds who became dominant in the seats of power – as squatters, as magistrates, as public servants, as police, he shows that the same people (or their relatives) served in each of these capacities in different stages of their lives, thereby ensuring a culture of control over others less fortunate or well-off.
Many, many Aboriginal people were killed in the process of opening up the pastures of Australia. Often the word “dispersed” was used instead of killed to cover up the crimes. For example: “A day or so after the murders [of three members of the Straher family] had been committed, Mr Inspector Coward, with Sub Inspectors Townshend and Douglas, came upon the black vagabonds and “quietly dispersed” them.” Very few people were held accountable for these crimes. It would have been difficulty to have credible and effective court cases as Aboriginal people were not allowed to give evidence. “Although many of the records ‘have disappeared, presumed destroyed’, Marr notes that scholars estimate that at least 40,000 Aboriginal people died at the hands of Queensland’s Native Police. ‘Slaughter,’ he concludes, ‘was bricked into the foundations of Queensland.’
There were some journalists, lawyers, governors and public officials who tried to promote a more humane approach, and this did lead in some areas to relative peace, usually because a squatter/farmer was prepared to negotiate with the First Nations people a mutual agreement to share the use of the land (as was intended by the formal rules of settlement). The Myall Creek case was, however, the only one in which whites were actually charged and convicted of massacring Aborigines.
It was a bit like reading a history book and at times, I longed for the approach where the author inserts him/herself into the story at regular intervals as a mode of shifting things a bit. I heard a podcasts where an interviewer asked Marr if he had considered it and Marr sounded horrified by the idea. His personal connection to events in the book forms the top and tail for the book but he stays well out of the way, apart from his sardonic character assassinations, of the events of this period.
He used the available records in newspapers, court proceedings, and government reports to create this book. As I type this, the age of newspapers is coming to an end and we will have different kinds of publicly available records in the future.
I was interested in this comment in a review: “The macro view is that historians are now recognising the colonial wars unleashed from the 16th century onwards as the first of the great wars, rather than WW1 as has been previously universally understood (by historians). The death toll from these wars was immense: the Spanish conquest of the Americas from the 16 - 18th centuries has an estimated death toll of 28 million. The British Empire, that annexed the continent of Australia as part of the 24% of the Earth's total land area it held by 1920, wrought an estimated death toll of 100 million people. It was by far the largest empire in history and a source of great pride for those who tied their fortunes to it.” (https://nit.com.au/27-05-2024/11637/r...)
And this one – note sure what I think about it: “Finally, I was struck by a remark in Marr’s Afterword. In Brisbane, he talked with another descendant of a member of the Queensland Native Police who warned him that today was another time and place. ‘We were different then,’ he told him. ‘No,’ Marr insists, ‘times change, not people.’ I’m not so sure. The people of the past are not earlier versions of ourselves. Context, knowledge, and beliefs determined their behaviour: what they assumed to be true, what they believed to be right or wrong, and what they deemed to be possible. As Marr writes in the Note that prefaces Killing for Country, ‘Language keeps shifting ... the language of today and the values it represents were not in the minds of settlers then.’”
(https://issuu.com/australianbookrevie...)
In summary, this is such an important book though not the easiest read in any sense - the subject matter, the fact that it is dealing with hundreds of people and its hard to keep track of who is who, and the ongoing feeling that this account of our history is just the tip of the iceberg. It makes you wonder about your own ancestors. I know that my father had knowledge of a massacre in South Gippsland - he knew the white family involved but only spoke of it once ever in his life. That sort of secrecy around our history would have been common. This book has made me much more aware of the violence and ruthlessness of the white settlement of Australia.
So, quite recently, David Marr discovered that the Uhr brothers, his ancestors, were members of Queensland’s notorious Native Police force. He wanted to find out more – and this book is the result. The Native Police were recruited and led by whites. These units existed in various forms in colonial Australia during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. They were primarily used to patrol the often vast geographical areas along the colonial frontier in order to conduct raids against aboriginal people or tribes that had broken the law and punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people. They were mostly recruited from the south so were presumed to feel less kinship with eth people they were targeting. And the white people in charge of them certainly displayed no feelings of humanity in dealing with the Aboriginal people who had the temerity to want to live on the land that they had always inhabited.
What it came down to for most of the greedy white pastoralists is that you could have more sheep or you could have Aboriginal people. But not both. And as the colonies expanded into the less explored parts of Australia, things became dire for Aboriginal people. The British government over time had policies that directed that no harm should come to the Aboriginal people but at the same time, did little to stop the violence or bring perpetrators to justice, and they also welcomed the economic success of the colonies. From a reviewer: “At the core of this narrative is a simple truism of colonialism: land is the ultimate commodity, the raw material of wealth. They were among the 450 squatters who had seized an area larger than Victoria before Queensland’s separation in 1859.” (https://theconversation.com/i-cant-ar...)
Marr’s ‘family story’ begins with the arrival in Sydney in 1809 of the Shropshire-born merchant Richard Jones. Jones, a smooth talker adept at convincing those in power of his impeccable propriety and moral rectitude, quickly became one of the wealthiest men in New South Wales. (Jones was brother-in law to Reg Uhr, father of the aforementioned Uhr brothers.) I liked this description from the reviewer” A key character is Richard Jones, a self-interested man who arrived in New South Wales in 1809 as a clerk. He thrived, learning how to use his power for self-advancement, becoming a member of the Legislative Council and president of the Bank of NSW. Sometimes his pragmatic Christianity helped him draw the line, but he had no sympathy for Aboriginal people. As Marr writes,
Many dismissed him in his own day as pious and penny pinching. But Richard Jones was a great white carp in the colonial pond, half-hidden in the weeds, always feeding and always dangerous.” (https://theconversation.com/i-cant-ar...)
You can appreciate there the tone of Marr’s writing and the wit of his descriptions of people. On Richard Jones: ‘a great white carp in the colonial pond, half hidden in the weeds, always feeding and always dangerous’. On Morris Townsend Somerville, who found land for squatters, recruited Blacks as guides, and shot them when they got in his way: ‘a genial and unscrupulous gentleman of the warrior class’. On William Charles Wentworth: ‘that great windbag of liberty’. I liked this summary by Mark McKenna: “Yet, despite its radical departure in subject matter, Killing for Country: A family story is entirely consistent with Marr’s modus operandi. Remain focused. Track down every last detail. Compile, sift, and test the evidence. Write with razor-like clarity. Don’t waste a word. Know the law. Scrutinise the press. Closely examine the words and self-serving manoeuvrings of those in power. And follow the money – or, in this case, the sheep.” (ABR review) ‘Australia,’ writes Marr, ‘was fought for in an endless war of little, cruel battles.’” (https://www.australianbookreview.com....)
In tracing the lives of British settlers from upper class backgrounds who became dominant in the seats of power – as squatters, as magistrates, as public servants, as police, he shows that the same people (or their relatives) served in each of these capacities in different stages of their lives, thereby ensuring a culture of control over others less fortunate or well-off.
Many, many Aboriginal people were killed in the process of opening up the pastures of Australia. Often the word “dispersed” was used instead of killed to cover up the crimes. For example: “A day or so after the murders [of three members of the Straher family] had been committed, Mr Inspector Coward, with Sub Inspectors Townshend and Douglas, came upon the black vagabonds and “quietly dispersed” them.” Very few people were held accountable for these crimes. It would have been difficulty to have credible and effective court cases as Aboriginal people were not allowed to give evidence. “Although many of the records ‘have disappeared, presumed destroyed’, Marr notes that scholars estimate that at least 40,000 Aboriginal people died at the hands of Queensland’s Native Police. ‘Slaughter,’ he concludes, ‘was bricked into the foundations of Queensland.’
There were some journalists, lawyers, governors and public officials who tried to promote a more humane approach, and this did lead in some areas to relative peace, usually because a squatter/farmer was prepared to negotiate with the First Nations people a mutual agreement to share the use of the land (as was intended by the formal rules of settlement). The Myall Creek case was, however, the only one in which whites were actually charged and convicted of massacring Aborigines.
It was a bit like reading a history book and at times, I longed for the approach where the author inserts him/herself into the story at regular intervals as a mode of shifting things a bit. I heard a podcasts where an interviewer asked Marr if he had considered it and Marr sounded horrified by the idea. His personal connection to events in the book forms the top and tail for the book but he stays well out of the way, apart from his sardonic character assassinations, of the events of this period.
He used the available records in newspapers, court proceedings, and government reports to create this book. As I type this, the age of newspapers is coming to an end and we will have different kinds of publicly available records in the future.
I was interested in this comment in a review: “The macro view is that historians are now recognising the colonial wars unleashed from the 16th century onwards as the first of the great wars, rather than WW1 as has been previously universally understood (by historians). The death toll from these wars was immense: the Spanish conquest of the Americas from the 16 - 18th centuries has an estimated death toll of 28 million. The British Empire, that annexed the continent of Australia as part of the 24% of the Earth's total land area it held by 1920, wrought an estimated death toll of 100 million people. It was by far the largest empire in history and a source of great pride for those who tied their fortunes to it.” (https://nit.com.au/27-05-2024/11637/r...)
And this one – note sure what I think about it: “Finally, I was struck by a remark in Marr’s Afterword. In Brisbane, he talked with another descendant of a member of the Queensland Native Police who warned him that today was another time and place. ‘We were different then,’ he told him. ‘No,’ Marr insists, ‘times change, not people.’ I’m not so sure. The people of the past are not earlier versions of ourselves. Context, knowledge, and beliefs determined their behaviour: what they assumed to be true, what they believed to be right or wrong, and what they deemed to be possible. As Marr writes in the Note that prefaces Killing for Country, ‘Language keeps shifting ... the language of today and the values it represents were not in the minds of settlers then.’”
(https://issuu.com/australianbookrevie...)
In summary, this is such an important book though not the easiest read in any sense - the subject matter, the fact that it is dealing with hundreds of people and its hard to keep track of who is who, and the ongoing feeling that this account of our history is just the tip of the iceberg. It makes you wonder about your own ancestors. I know that my father had knowledge of a massacre in South Gippsland - he knew the white family involved but only spoke of it once ever in his life. That sort of secrecy around our history would have been common. This book has made me much more aware of the violence and ruthlessness of the white settlement of Australia.
November 14, 2023
((My copy of Killing For Countey was an uncorrected version of book))
This is a book a book that carries weight. The weight of our history and the blood and destruction that was left behind in its wake. In the name of wealth and expansion, did this begin, and it's a story not yet done as Australians still learn to face stories such as the Urh's. To those who wish to delve into the horrors and want to face this history, to those who can confront what was done, this is a highly recommended book. I would say necessary to those who want to confront the black stains of Australian history. But this is how i feel, as this and many other parts of my countrys history linger in my mind.
This is a book a book that carries weight. The weight of our history and the blood and destruction that was left behind in its wake. In the name of wealth and expansion, did this begin, and it's a story not yet done as Australians still learn to face stories such as the Urh's. To those who wish to delve into the horrors and want to face this history, to those who can confront what was done, this is a highly recommended book. I would say necessary to those who want to confront the black stains of Australian history. But this is how i feel, as this and many other parts of my countrys history linger in my mind.
May 14, 2024
This story was confronting in so many ways. As a child growing up in Brisbane in the 1980’s, the stain of poor race relations between the National Party government and First Nation’s People was real but the true story was not known. This is an essential read across Australia, because it confirms the State sanctioned killing of First Nation’s people.
December 22, 2025
Maybe this is five stars, it’s essential reading. One gets a little bogged down with the records at times; but actually I don’t know how else you could do this. Marr sets the scenes so well, and it’s just … all there. What it took to dispossess the inhabitants and colonise the place. It makes so much clear about how it was done, just stage by relentless stage. Very much worth ploughing on through. This is more or less phase 2 of the colonisation/dispossession. After setting up their outposts, they’re settling in for good, and using violence to expand their footprint outwards. I guess the stages after this are the breaking of continuity with land via the segregation of people onto missions under ‘protectorates’; the breaking of family ties and continuity via the stealing of children and mass incarceration - the latter still happening, as is the destruction of cultural heritage and the destruction of Country through mining and climate change. The period this book covers includes the damage done to Country by introduced stock, making water resources polluted and unavailable (get shot if you come in for water!), overfishing, destroying local food sources. I don’t see how it’s not genocidal in intent. The white people decided the land was theirs, so they did whatever was required to make it function for them. This country is built on that white supremacist attitude.
January 17, 2024
Every Australian should read this book. Everyone.
September 1, 2024
An important book but it gets bogged down in the research. I also felt Marr could have inserted himself into the story more.
November 25, 2023
An extraordinary book. Horrifying. Insightful. Historical. Familial.
A written history of Australia’s Native Police that I am sure accompanied David’s shame. Shame that we are not as good as we can be. Distress that we subconsciously cleanse ourselves by attributing less than satisfactory behaviour as something that inhabited our distant past. But is seen as absent from our present.
The Native Police were an officially sanctioned arrangement whereby indigenous Australians from areas distant from their home range were employed early in Australia’s white settler expansion to subdue, hunt, slay and kill. David Marr's discovery is that one of his descendants, Reg Uhr, was part of that force.
David is right as he writes:
We can be proud of our families for things done generations ago. We can also be ashamed. I feel no guilt for what Reg did. But I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me when I first saw that photograph of Sub Inspector Uhr in his po0mpous uniform. I checked with Wikipedia.. The Native Police were exactly who I thought they were. Wikipedia even had a thumbnail account’ of Reg’s and Darcy’s massacres. I pulled from my shelves everything I had on the frontier wars. The brothers were there but I hadn’t made the connection. It embarrasses me now to have been reporting race and politics in this country for so long without it ever crossing my mind that my family might have played a part in the frontier wars. My blindness was so Australian.
So Australian.
As indigenous academic Marcia Langton writes “This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr’s forebears and their crimes. It is an account of an Australian war fought here in our own country, with names, dates, crimes, body counts and the ghastly, remorseless views of the ‘settlers’. Thank you David.”
As the decent person he is, David would not have wanted his laconically expressed views to percolate from history through present to our future. The organised and intentional killing of Australia’s indigenous inhabitants was at its height in the time of the Native Police that David describes. What remains troubling is the apparent disinterest Australia has with overcoming the disadvantage that results in the practical adversity we all know exists. Our lack of understanding of modern Australia’s true inheritance is unlikely to be met by many with generosity.
The laryngectomy offered by our collective rejection of The Voice referendum had yet to be visited upon us at the time Killing For Country’s black ink had dried on paper.
One of the explanation’s for our unwillingness to engage with the fact that Australia is where it is, is we simply do not know or wish to understand. Anyone who has been attacked, underestimated or undervalued can find familiar realisation that the victim’s voice is heard less clearly than the beneficiary of history’s collision. That’s one explanation. That other less palatable is that we know but choose to ignore.
I hope Killing For Country feeds truth telling in a process ripe for improvement in our understanding and practical response to what we should be proud of. A strong, rich and deep indigenous history.
A written history of Australia’s Native Police that I am sure accompanied David’s shame. Shame that we are not as good as we can be. Distress that we subconsciously cleanse ourselves by attributing less than satisfactory behaviour as something that inhabited our distant past. But is seen as absent from our present.
The Native Police were an officially sanctioned arrangement whereby indigenous Australians from areas distant from their home range were employed early in Australia’s white settler expansion to subdue, hunt, slay and kill. David Marr's discovery is that one of his descendants, Reg Uhr, was part of that force.
David is right as he writes:
We can be proud of our families for things done generations ago. We can also be ashamed. I feel no guilt for what Reg did. But I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me when I first saw that photograph of Sub Inspector Uhr in his po0mpous uniform. I checked with Wikipedia.. The Native Police were exactly who I thought they were. Wikipedia even had a thumbnail account’ of Reg’s and Darcy’s massacres. I pulled from my shelves everything I had on the frontier wars. The brothers were there but I hadn’t made the connection. It embarrasses me now to have been reporting race and politics in this country for so long without it ever crossing my mind that my family might have played a part in the frontier wars. My blindness was so Australian.
So Australian.
As indigenous academic Marcia Langton writes “This book is more than a personal reckoning with Marr’s forebears and their crimes. It is an account of an Australian war fought here in our own country, with names, dates, crimes, body counts and the ghastly, remorseless views of the ‘settlers’. Thank you David.”
As the decent person he is, David would not have wanted his laconically expressed views to percolate from history through present to our future. The organised and intentional killing of Australia’s indigenous inhabitants was at its height in the time of the Native Police that David describes. What remains troubling is the apparent disinterest Australia has with overcoming the disadvantage that results in the practical adversity we all know exists. Our lack of understanding of modern Australia’s true inheritance is unlikely to be met by many with generosity.
The laryngectomy offered by our collective rejection of The Voice referendum had yet to be visited upon us at the time Killing For Country’s black ink had dried on paper.
One of the explanation’s for our unwillingness to engage with the fact that Australia is where it is, is we simply do not know or wish to understand. Anyone who has been attacked, underestimated or undervalued can find familiar realisation that the victim’s voice is heard less clearly than the beneficiary of history’s collision. That’s one explanation. That other less palatable is that we know but choose to ignore.
I hope Killing For Country feeds truth telling in a process ripe for improvement in our understanding and practical response to what we should be proud of. A strong, rich and deep indigenous history.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews