Forgotten War by Henry Reynolds

Author:Henry Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
Published: 2022-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

5

WHAT WAS AT STAKE?

The historical significance of any war is not determined by the way it was fought or the number of consequent casualties but by the reason it was undertaken and the results that were achieved. Concentration on the conflict itself, on debate over particular encounters or the number of bodies, detracts attention from the larger strategic questions. This is particularly the case in relation to Australia’s frontier wars. Their nature and scale never matched the large objectives of the conflict, leading some observers at the time and many more subsequently to doubt whether there was a war at all.

Small, spiteful skirmishes, isolated assassinations, the furtive torching of bodies seemed more like the characteristics of private feuds or the unedifying conflict of criminal gangs. And for many people the details of the conflict were embarrassing, best forgotten rather than commemorated. Victory itself was assumed rather than proclaimed. There were no marches, no medals, no statues, no rolls of honour. Even the participants felt constrained from talking of their exploits, apart from boasting to sympathetic listeners in bush shanties and notching the butts of well-used rifles. Outback memorabilia such as perforated skulls and dried detached ears never became fashionable in urban Australia.

The war may have lacked smart uniforms and welldrilled marches of returning heroes but what was at stake was momentous. To begin with it was access to and control of all the productive land across vast provinces from the cool south to the mangrove-fringed coasts deep in the tropics. Even more important was the annexation and claim of sovereignty over one of the world’s great landmasses. It was effected by the usurpation of the many nations of people who had discovered, humanised and managed the land undisturbed for at least 40 000 years. It was expropriation unmatched in both speed and scale, an event of truly global significance.

There are profound misconceptions in our historical understanding of both how and when those two great prizes – sovereignty and property – were grasped. There is a widespread and enduring view that both passed effortlessly into British hands at the moment when proclamations were read and the union flags were run up recently cut flagpoles. The only gunfire required to effect these heroic outcomes were the ceremonial volleys shot harmlessly into blue Australian skies. In a High Court judgment delivered in 1913, Justice Isaac Isaacs gave authoritative support to the popular view, declaring:

So we start with the unquestionable position that, when Governor Phillip received his first Commission from King George III. on 12th October 1786 the whole of the lands of Australia were already in law the property of the King of England. [original emphasis]1

The conflict that followed was about less important questions. The great issues of who owned and controlled the continent had already been settled.

Apart from the great extravagance of Isaac’s general proposition it is necessary to remember that Phillip’s commission related only to eastern Australia. Further claims of sovereignty were required for Central Australia in 1824 and the west

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