The Wiradjuri Wars: analysing the evolution of settler colonial violence in New South Wales, 1822-1841

Between 1822 and 1841 the Indigenous Wiradjuri nation and the British colony of New South Wales engaged in two distinct bouts of conflict with one another. The first of these was fought in the Bathurst region from 1822 to 1824 and culminated in an infamous period of martial law that, despite the traditional obscurity of frontier warfare in Australian historiography, has netted the ‘Bathurst War’ a significant degree of scholarly attention. The second, and less well known, round of hostilities between the two peoples began thirteen years later in 1838. Centred on a collection of settlements on the Murrumbidgee River that would eventually coalesce into the town of Narrandera, this conflict brought armed Wiradjuri resistance to a bloody and tragic end at the Murdering Island massacre of 1841. Both the Bathurst War and its distant follow up- named in this study the ‘Narrandera War’- were examples of Anglo-Wiradjuri conflict. And yet, despite this obvious commonality, they have rarely been analysed or understood collectively; instead, the historiographical tendency has been to represent each war in isolation, with no or minimal reference to their broader context.

This thesis aims to correct this by providing a chronologically comprehensive overview of the Wiradjuri Wars from the outbreak of the first conflict in 1822 to the culmination of the second in 1841. With an emphasis on how the modes of war- that is, the means by which the Wiradjuri and the British fought one another- evolved during this time, it will be conducted as a study of military history. In addition, the analytical lens of settler colonial theory will also be used to contextualise the cause and effect of interracial violence as well as the operative logic behind the strategies and policies of the British belligerents. Through the intersection of these two historical disciplines the project also aims to contribute to the diversification of both military history and settler colonial studies.