The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European invasion of Australia

by Henry Reynolds

The publication of this book in 1981 profoundly changed the way in which we understand the history of relations between indigenous Australians and European settlers. It has since become a classic of Australian history. Drawing from documentary and oral evidence, the book describes in meticulous and compelling detail the ways in which Aborigines responded to the arrival of Europeans. Henry Reynolds’ argument that the Aborigines resisted fiercely was highly original when it was first published and is no less challenging today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Australia, Indigenous, Race, War, Historical

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Henry Reynolds is currently an ARC Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania at Launceston. He was for many years at James Cook University in Townsville. He is the author of many well-known books including The Other Side of the Frontier, Law of the Land, Fate of a Free People and Why Weren’t We Told?

Reviews

[Callum's Column · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1981, The Other Side of the Frontier by Henry Reynolds was the "first book to systematically examine the other side of the frontier.... It establishes that it is possible to write Aboriginal history and present it to white Australians in such a way that they can understand black motives and appreciate the complexities of their tragic story." It has since become a seminal text in Australian historiography and helped spark a reckoning with the nation's colonial past that has yet to abate. A case in point, the new Queensland Government plans to scrap the Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry into the historical and ongoing mistreatment of First Nations people.

This book is relatively short at about 200 pages. It explores all aspects of First Nations resistance to British colonisation and how they adapted to the everchanging and violent frontier. Reynolds relies on primary sources, linguistic analyses, and oral history to outline his argument—namely, that First Nations' "response to invasion was much more positive, creative, and complex than generations of Australians have been taught to believe." However, due to its brevity and vast scope, the book ought to be treated as a superficial introduction to First Nations history post-colonisation and be a launching pad for further perusal.

Reynolds is an outstanding Australian scholar and has been recognised with many literary awards. His other books—e.g., Forgotten War, or Truth-Telling—have advanced the debate to duly recognise First Nations' resilience in this country. However, evinced by recent policies of Queensland, public and political resistance to historical truth persists. That said, I do believe that the long arc of history bends to the side of justice. Thomas Mayo poignantly wrote in "Always Was, Always Will Be" that First Nations reconciliation has often faced setback before breakthroughs. The path of reconciliation endures.

[Andrew Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the reputation of this book, and the authors own warnings of an 'inescapably political' view I had expected a barnstorming denunciation and litany of crimes to be nailed into the chest of white Australia. Yet instead I found an engaging thematic history, that is surprisingly dispassionate in its judgement.

Indeed, it's far more evidence-based and nuanced than Reynolds' writing about Australian foreign policy. While the small section on trying to identify a specific death toll has drawn attention, most of the book seeks simply to relate the evidence from white pioneers and Aboriginal oral history to lay out how the interactions occurred. Most of the book is devoted to the nature of life for both sides, with as much about their peaceful and cooperative interactions rather than just the violence.

Indeed, it's partly refreshing in some ways. The modern debate as carried out in the newspapers at least seems so fixed on the central issue of massacres and specific body counts that we risk losing all sight of the context in which it occurred. As Reynolds' rightly notes, such a focus can often return Aborigines to a position as mere victims, when his aim in this book is to show how they lived, not just the ways in which they were killed by others. Recognising the 'other side of the frontier' as Reynolds admirably does means engaging the broad picture which is far more important and interesting.

This book requires some sense of the broader history of the invasion and frontiers of early Australia given its thematic organisation and tendency to jump rapidly around in time in order to pull out the snippets of evidence available. Reynolds may quote from a settler in 1790, then an aboriginal speaker from 1930, then a pioneer diarist in 1850 in quick succession.

It's easy to see why it was a classic on release, and though the scholarly and public conversation has somewhat accepted the broader theme and moved on, there is still a clear and important message in this book. To take the frontier conflict seriously and recognise and respect the role of Aborigines in shaping that frontier - and in turn, in shaping Australia - that deserves renewed focus.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe it's because I'm not Australian, but I don't see how this book was a revelation when it was published. The author sets out the history of the Aboriginal response to European colonisation. But everything he says is perfectly reasonable. Some Aboriginals fought back some accommodated some gave up. I have no doubt this pattern is reflected in any nation that is colonised. It certainly was in Ireland.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the more important books about Australian history. I guess the early 80s saw a few books that tried to describe Western history through eyes of the 'other', like Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. Unlike the Crusades, Reynolds does not have any written record by Indigenous Australians. Instead he has to dig up, re-evaluate, re-interpret early Australian settlers' diaries, notes, and newspaper articles.

That means that Reynolds has to speculate more than Maalouf. He has to interpret and that is always open to mistakes. Still, there's lots of interesting stuff to think about, for example, why there was no organised resistance to Western settlers is one is one of the main threads through this book:

The second strand of interpretation [land boundaries were less clear than expected] seems more pertinent for the assessment of the Aboriginal response to European explorers and pioneers. As a general rule clans did not react immediately to European trespass although illusions about returning relatives or fear of guns may have significantly modified their behaviour.
[...]
The white invasion often forced blacks into a more assertive and possessive stance concerning clan territories. E. S. Parker came to the conclusion that it was an ‘important and unquestionable fact’ that the Port Phillip Aborigines were ‘not insensible to their original right to the soil’.
[...]
While it is true that European material abundance was a major focus of tension the assumption that Aboriginal envy was the principal cause of conflict is both superficial and ethnocentric.

A lot of what Reynolds talks about still hasn't been 'settled' and the debate continues, more political than anything else. There's good reason to talk down Reynold's and more recent historians' assertion, if you're someone who defines themselves by national membership it's not 'nice' to be part of something as dark as Australian history. Even the choice of words is emotional: Reynolds explicitly uses 'Invasion' to describe what happened, which is not an established term (Just as an example, Wikipedia uses 'settlement'). Which word you use depends more on your political orientation than anything else, I guess. It's not a 'nice' history.

Some groups [of Indigenous Australians] exhibited an unquenchable determination to survive; for others the onslaught of invasion had destroyed everything. The future itself had been extinguished.

P.S.: Lots of interesting Indigenous agriculture details

Kangaroos and emus were driven long distances to be trapped in rudimentary stockyards made of logs and bushes. There are numerous references in the pioneer literature to the discovery of long races of sticks, boughs and bushes which had been used to control the movements of the larger marsupials.

or

The failure of this and similar schemes has usually been attributed to the Aborigines’ total lack of understanding of agriculture. Yet traditionally they did harvest root crops and wild grasses and often from the very same patches of soil appropriated by the settlers for agriculture. The big difference lay in the fact that they did not see the need to sit around and wait for the crops to grow. Confident in their knowledge of the environment and their ability to ensure, by appropriate ritual, its continued flowering they arranged their timetable to return to an area when a new crop had matured and ripened. Clearly there was a big gap between the productivity of Aboriginal foraging and European horticulture even in the crude colonial environment. But the crucial difference was not in the use of the land but in the institution of private property. Small European farmers and gardeners remained in one place not just to nurture their crops but because they owned the land and all it produced and residence was required to effect and affirm that ownership.

[Damon Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you were to create a list of the ten most influential books on Australian history, ‘The Other Side of the Frontier’ would be on that list.

This book was published about 25 years ago and has been cited in numerous academic journal articles and listed as a source in quite a few books on Australian frontier history. I also suspect this book has also been quoted in thousands upon thousands of undergraduate History essays, mine among that number

Reynolds in the introduction to his book explains that by reading ‘mainly European texts against the grain’ he was able to paint a picture of Indigenous response to White settlement. A picture that was far more complex, varied and creative than most histories had previously (and to this day) acknowledge.

A must read if you’re interested in Australian history.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently this book helped shape how Australian historians looked at Aboriginal history. Instead of seeing them just as either victims or as anti-civilized savages, this book traced a very nuanced narrative of how they interacted with and adapted to in creative ways the Europeans who changed their world so much. This is so readable! It’s a great introduction to Aboriginal history leading up to 1900 and explains so much. Highly recommend for anyone.

[Frumenty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a little ashamed not to have read this sooner. It’s over 40 years old! My general lack of interest in Australian history is pretty reprehensible, and I’m probably too old to be cured of that. However, in my defence, I will say that the narrative of (mostly) Anglo-Saxon pioneering and economic development that was served up as Australian history when I was in school (I left over a decade before this was published) was the sort of dull stuff only a patriot could love, and with my youthful loyalties divided between Britain and Australia I was never that. The Aboriginal perspective of contact with Europeans was neglected by Australian historians for 19 decades from the arrival of the First Fleet. Had I been paying attention, I’d have been aware that something really exciting had happened in Australian history at last. I’m glad I’ve read it now. It’s a terrific book, and a point of departure for a whole lot more really worthwhile research I’m sure.

As a fairly long-time (ie. 2 decades, more or less) observer of Israel, I cannot but draw parallels with the situation in Palestine. Many liberal-minded Australians have become sensitised to the great harm done to Aborigines by European colonisation; they’re fully on-board with Reconciliation, the Apology, and voted ‘Yes’ in the recent Voice Referendum, but are also staunch supporters of Israel. Only connect! Zionism is a settler-colonial project too, and whatever Europeans may have done to indigenous Australians, Israel’s treatment of the people of Palestine is every bit as reprehensible, with the difference that the massacres and dispossession are contemporary events. One cannot but be a little cynical about liberals’ eagerness to apologise and seek reconciliation only when there can be no going back and penitence is cheap. I’m sure many Israelis would see it that way. It’s very tactless of foreigners to be so harshly critical of Israel when, unlike many of their critics, Israel hasn’t yet had time to finish the job properly. One can understand the sense of urgency. Like surgery before anaesthetics, morally indefensible programmes must be carried out expeditiously.

[Mica · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a call to action for Aboriginal history in Australia, this book is great and was definitely needed in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the accusatory tone/overwhelming colonial guilt makes it inaccessible and worse, vulnerable to critics. Reynolds writes from a markedly colonial perspective, and as a result this book is largely an assessment of how well aboriginal people measured up to European standards of military prowess, intelligence, and curiosity. Better work has been done on Aboriginal people since (and more is needed).

[Tom Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this years ago at uni as part of Revisionism course. Reynolds deals with the subject in a matter-of-fact and mature fashion, granting an active voice to indigneous Australians denied them in pretty much every other history book. His call to commemorate the dead of the frontier wars is still un heard after 25 years. Shame.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone interested in the history of Australia and in particular the background and context of the interactions between the indigenous people and the invaders (or colonisers - which word you use will depend on whether you were standng on the shore or on a ship when the First Fleet arrived). Extremely interesting and very readable.

[Kim Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as background for a Uni subject, heavy going in some parts but really well researched.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more a sociological examination of the Frontier Wars as opposed to a narrative history, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author says at the start of this that this book possibly caused most controversy at the time it was originally published because he placed a guess on the number of Aboriginal people’s killed in the frontier wars – a guess of 20,000. Another book I’ve read of his since says this is far too low a figure. All the same, Australians have never really come to terms even with the lower figure of war dead on the Aboriginal side. Books came out almost immediately in what was referred to here as the history wars saying he had grossly exaggerated the killing.

And while it is important to have some general idea of the number of Aboriginal deaths associated with the occupation of their land, other parts of this book seem to me to be at least as important.

This is a book that seeks to provide an understanding of the colonisation process from the perspective of the Aboriginal peoples themselves. It makes the point that there was no single group of people in Australia when white people arrived to colonise the place, and so there was no single means in which they responded. But what is made clear is that they did respond to having their land removed from them and responded in ways best suited to the nature of the land they were associated with.

Often Aboriginals would seek to offer compromises – where the settlers might take the plains and the Aboriginals the high lands for example. A large part of the problem was that separation between the two groups was never going to be possible. A large part of the reason for that is the fact that the early European settlers of Australia were overwhelmingly male – and so gaining access to Aboriginal women was inevitably going to be the cause of conflict. Having sex with women implied a system of obligations, obligations the white men were certainly not interested in participating in.

This was only one of the cultural conflicts that the Aboriginals found bizarre. White Australians like to think of themselves as egalitarian, but Aboriginal people held everything in common. They found it repulsive that someone might have more wealth than other people. Sharing was an essential aspect of their way of life. This also lead to conflict with the whites. Native law was also often based on forms of reciprocal vengeance – an eye for an eye, etc. But when they sought to enforce this against their colonisers they were met with the same over-reaction we still witness from colonisers today – which was once described as an eye for a tooth, but as we are witnessing in Gaza, it is more 20 lives for a life, sometimes a life for an insult, sometimes just a life for the hell of it. Invariably, the story told is that the colonised only understand extreme force, and so the over-reaction is, in fact, presented as the only moral path available.

The bit of this I particularly liked was the discussion of the arrival of white people being initially understood as the return of their ancestors. This appears to have been quite a prevalent belief – I know William Buckley was accepted into the tribes around Geelong since they felt he was the returned spirit of a local chief. This belief makes perfect sense in a way. Why would the whites have come if they didn’t already have some connection to the land – if they did not already know it was good? Given the local peoples had had perhaps 60,000 years of connection with their land, the sudden arrival of white colonists wasn’t exactly something that fit much of their previous experience. But it quickly became clear that the whites were anything but beings from a spirit plane.

A lot of this presents the complex relationships that existed between the Aboriginals and white settlers. This related to the origins of the stolen generations, the use of sex with Aboriginal women as a means of trade, the impact of alcohol and tobacco, and interestingly also flour, on aboriginal life. There is also a fascinating discussion on how sometimes elders would send off young men to work for white settlers so the elders could dominate young Aboriginal women.

The point repeatedly made in the authors books is that the resistance of Aboriginal people across Australia was anything but passive. But, like any true history, the story is complex, multifaceted and endlessly tragic. You know the score – while, on balance, I quite like people, the more history I read, the more my friendship with my fellow humans is tested.

[Mandy Partridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Reynolds wrote this great history of Aboriginal Resistance to European Invasion in 1981, and it remains a ground-breaking work on first nations history.
An academic book, Reynolds uses his knowledge of Aboriginal Linguistics from around Australia, and researches primary texts from Colonist's letters, newspapers and memoirs to back up his arguments.
For example, he gives us the Aboriginal words for musket (handgun) and bullet in languages from across the mainland and Tasmania.
All the methods of the colonists' massacres are mentioned, from Small Pox to mass poisonings, to 'war parties', hunts and use of other Aboriginal 'trackers' to hunt down 'criminal' first nations people.
Reynolds quote Missionaries and decent settlers like Tom Petrie, who learned the Aboriginal languages, and some of their Lore and Philosophy. We learn that some first nations people accepted that diseases like small pox came from distant hostile tribes, and they did not want the settler's medicine for that; but the new venereal diseases, which they'd not seen before, they accepted as white man's disease, and would try the settler's cure.
Books like Bruce Pascoe's 'Dark Emu', take up where Reynolds left off, and continue to write the Aboriginal history of Resistance to Colonisation.
The person who owned my copy of this book before had underlined passages, and kept a rolling death count, as if Reynolds were trying to give the entire history of the invasion in one slim volume, or something. Reynolds described the ongoing theft of first nations land, and various individual's and group's acts of resistance, and the overwhelmingly barbarous white reaction to these brave acts. Rather than counting bodies, an intelligent reader can extrapolate that these infections, shootings, bashings, rapes and poisonings were repeated time after time right across our continent.
Descriptions of the settlers committing mass murders was scant, and is reflected in the ways in which they at first didn't even try to 'clean up' after their crimes. After many recorded complaints by missionaries and good settlers, the killers later piled the first nations peoples' bodies with wood and burnt them, destroying the evidence of their murders, and leaving no written record, or number of kills, which the previous reader so eagerly looked for.
This is a far superior Australian history book than anything I was exposed to at school in the 1970s and 80s. So glad I got to read this stuff at university, so many Aussies never will.

[Penelope Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book with such a reputation for its impact on studies of Australian history, this was surprisingly short - but on reflection that is not surprising given the paucity of Aboriginal sources preserved. It is a bit depressing however that such a small book, that can give mostly speculation (though well supported with what evidence exists) was for a time (at least - I don't know how much its considered superseded now) the best history of indigenous Australia through the colonial period.

It lacks the panache and easy writing of modern pop-history books but the subject is engrossing (and occasionally horrifying) and I can see how it effectively challenged the white-man's take on noble explorers and hardy pioneers. It raises questions too and reminds us that many of the attitudes that led to atrocities still persist and official policy was pretty appalling relatively recently - white Australia is a young country.

Sadly the questions he raises in the conclusion still have not been satisfactorily answered which really means they remain worth asking.

[Tim Briedis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic!

This book is famous for its claim that 20000 people died in direct frontier conflict during the colonisation of Australia. A hugely important claim, but there is so much more to this book than that.

Reynolds traces Aboriginal attacks on squatters, using fire, stealing sheep and spearing cattle. As well as more direct resistance, he shows the struggles of capitalist attempts to impose wage labour and property relations. While at the same time there was enormous cultural and technological adaptation from the indigenous population to other things - eg becoming adept horse riders, learning how to capture sheep, learning languages far better than the colonisers and using iron in spears.

Love it. Trying to improve my knowledge of earlier Australian history at the moment and this is a must read. As the author says, the book turns Australian history not upside down but inside out.

[Anthony Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must-read Australian history to understand the invasion from the Aboriginal perspective.
The generally accepted history of Europeans destroying Aboriginal society through guns, germs and steel is turned upside-down by examining the Aboriginal response, which is usually depicted as passive or powerless.
Provoked me to reconsider colonialism elsewhere, and to never be satisfied by just reading the histories written by conquerors/victors.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia is a wonderful book. It details quite well how the First Nations People all across Australia resisted the invasion of their lands in a myriad of different ways.

[Tony Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece

This book is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to understand the origins of contemporary Australia's aboriginal politics. With writing accessible to a layperson, and a reporting style which allows the reader to reach their own conclusions, this book should be compulsory reading for any Australian aspiring to a position of responsibility in society.

[Mr_wormwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

The section on Aboriginal sorcery as a method to combat White settlement was particularly interested. It brings forth striking images of dark corroborees where the "death to the white man song" filled the cold night air

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Henry Reynolds is a historian well known for his support of the indigenous people and their battles for land rights and recognition. Excellent book and one of many of his that I love.

[Bec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and highly relevant.

[Phill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, published originally more than 30 years ago, still provides critical insights into European and Aboriginal relationships during the first 150 years of white settlement in Australia.

Far from being passive or entirely overwhelmed by the European settlers, this book provides compelling evidence of sustained Aborginal resistance in many areas. Aboriginals were also able, in many cases, to use the European presence to their own advantage.

The book also provides interesting insight regarding the difficulties for Aboriginals in reconiling their traditional culture with the appearance of the new European culture.

These themes have no doubt been further expanded on in more recent historical studies, but as an initial primer in this field, this Reynolds work is highly recommended.

[Joshua Sim · Rating 5 out of 5]

About eight years ago, I attended a course studying the history of white supremacy and racial history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book has called to memory those issues that captured my attention when studying the course - the oppression and marginalisation of aboriginal groups, the inexorable europeanisation of the aborigines for the purpose of survival in their own lands, and the lack of understanding of the aboriginal reaction and perspective about the colonisation. In seven intricately crafted chapters, Henry Reynolds demonstrates that the aborigines were not passive observers and recipients of colonisation in Australia. To him, that is a simplistic view of white-based histories that showed an utter lack of understanding and empathy for the aboriginal adaptation to the white colonial society. By drawing on a wide variety of colonial sources, studies and oral histories, a number of which were perceptive in their observations about aboriginal lifestyle, Reynolds argues that the aboriginal response to European colonisation was multi-faceted, complex, innovative and intrepid. Though the overall impact and effect of colonisation meant that the aboriginals faced a slow, progressive, and inexorable decline and marginalisation in terms of their livelihood, culture and ownership over the land, their decline was by no means a simple process - the aboriginals were perceptive observers of European lifestyle and in many cases, they responded quite adequately to the challenge of the European lifestyle by learning how to deal with animals and crops brought in from Europe, weapons, husbandry and even farming. In his analysis, Reynolds also shows that while the colonisation process was disruptive to the aboriginal worldview of reciprocity, egalitarianism, and traditional authority of the elders - the persistence of this worldview in the aboriginal tribes in some sense contributed to their inability to fully integrate into European lifestyle for the long term - he demonstrates that at many instances, the aboriginals were able find continuity by bridging their traditional worldview with the new experience that they learnt from " the other side of the frontier" - that is the lived experiences of the aboriginal response and adaptation to frontier colonial society. For example, in order to retain their traditional control over the young women in their tribes, the elders accommodated European lifestyle by sending their young men out to work for the Europeans so that they could bring the young women under their authority without the risk of these girls eloping with the younger (and of course more attractive) aboriginal men. In this view, the aboriginals utilised Europeans ways and careers as a means to accomplish their own ends.

In many ways, this book, which emerged independently at the same time as subaltern studies, can be considered as the Australian version of Edward Said's "Orientalism" as the "inside out" history that Reynolds writes is mainly aimed at dispelling white views of aboriginal passivity and elevating the history of aboriginal response to colonialism to the forefront of Australian history. Of course, Reynolds admits that he made a very big assumption that was a major flaw in his study, that is, the homogeneity of the aboriginals was more or less assumed despite the diversity that was existent among the aboriginal communities spread across Australia. Probably one other way in which this book could be improved is by drawing on similar examples of other colonised lands as contrasting case studies that could throw more light on the uniqueness (or ubiquity) of the aboriginal experience. That said, I think this book has been definitely worth the read and is one which I would go back to if I have time. Even if one is not interested in racial history, the way Reynolds crafts his chapters by ensuring a seamless and logical flow from one theme to another, how he expertly draws on the voices of the colonisers and aboriginals to support his analyses, and the points in which he launches on an analysis to illustrate the explanatory power of his interpretations - which are largely revisionist in nature and quite compellingly built on a good evidence base - are worthy of a history student's time if one is interested in picking up the craft of the discipline. In the last analysis, it is a pity that this book covers the not-so-popular field of Australian history which is why it hasn't seemed to have made a wider impact within the academy, given its quality.

[Justin Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book as the set text in an Aboriginal & Torres Strait islander Music unit at university and enjoyed reading it. it's quite accessible - Reynolds has a direct style that enables him to make his points clearly. The individual chapters have sub-headings that help the clarity as well; in a way the author isn't writing an entertaining history, but setting the record straight.
The book considers Aboriginal experiences and responses to European colonialism from the late 18th century onwards, in a way which reverses centuries of ignoring their traditional societies, stories, tragedies, experiences, and humanity, basically.
Reynolds convincingly builds a picture of Australia's colonial past that shows the stark differences (and occasionally similarities) in cultures that shaped both positive and negative interactions between black indigenes and white settlers.
It ultimately shows that "Lest we Forget" is something that should be applied to black as well as white history in this country, if we have any respect for the people who were here long before 1788 and continue to live often alienated in their own country; as well as respect for ourselves as Australians.

[Amos O'Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult book to read, but only because it hits you fair smack in the face with the ugly truth of colonial Australia. Henry Reynolds is an excellent historian, and a very good writer, reinforced by the fact that his books hold onto you til the grim ending. This book, as well as Frontier, should be made compulsory texts for high school students in this country.

[Josiah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I'm not sure why this is so controversial for people, as it gives your a well reasoned and researched account of the experiences of First Nations peoples of the colonisation. This is a multi-faceted story which needs to be explored more.