From the bestselling author of Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) comes another groundbreaking historical novel about resistance, resilience and love during the frontier wars. Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of cloth and renamed her homeland ‘Bathurst’. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there. The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. Her brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale, but she knows Windradyne is prepared to defend their Country if necessary. When Irish convict Daniel O’Dwyer arrives at the settlement, Miinaa’s life is transformed again. The pair are magnetically drawn to each other and begin meeting at the bila in secret. Dan understands how it feels to be displaced, but they still have a lot to learn about each other. Can their love survive their differences and the turmoil that threatens to destroy everything around them? Anita Heiss is breathing new life into the Australian historical epic. Dirrayawadha (Rise Up) shows the resistance leader Windradyne as the remarkable figure he was and surrounds him with fascinating figures otherwise lost to history. With irresistible imagination and verve, as well as a deep desire for truth telling, Anita Heiss’s novels are re-peopling our past.

‘In May 1824, what can only be described as a period of all-out, total gudyarra (‘war’ in the Wiradyuri language) had begun west of the Blue Mountains. Relations between Wiradyuri people and the colonists in the country around Bathurst had completely broken down, and the number of raids and killings occurring across isolated stock stations in the district had intensified.’ In Gudyarra, Stephen Gapps – award-winning author of The Sydney Wars – unearths what led to this furious and bloody war, beginning with the occupation of Wiradyuri lands by Europeans following Governor Macquarie’s push to expand the colony west over the Blue Mountains to generate wealth from sheep and cattle. Gudyarra traces the co-ordinated resistance warfare by the Wiradyuri under the leadership of Windradyne, and others such as Blucher and Jingler, that occurred in a vast area across the central west of New South Wales. Detailing the drastic counterattacks by the colonists and the punitive expeditions led by armed parties of colonists and convicts that often ended in massacres of Wiradyuri women and children, Gapps provides an important new historical account of the fierce Wiradyuri resistance. ‘This isn’t just a war for Wiradjuri country, this is a war for Australia: the country we are still to be. Our nation begins here.’ — Stan Grant ‘The untold story of the Wiradyuri War of resistance against a World Empire’ — Uncle Bill Allen Junior, Wiradyuri Elder ‘In Gudyarra, Stephen Gapps plots in meticulous detail the brutal war between the British and the Wiradyuri for possession of the Western Plains of New South Wales. A masterly account of both sides of the conflict, Gudyarra offers new understandings of the complexity of frontier history and the need for all Australians to reconcile with the past.’ — Lyndall Ryan ‘This is an important book, indeed essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the new direction in the history of the frontier wars.’ — Henry Reynolds

In mid-1824, the Bathurst district was under siege. Local Wiradjuri people had broken off contact with the English and vowed to kill all white men. Warriors raided outstations, killing people and stock with impunity while large warbands threatened stock-workers. Wealthy Sydney-based landholders clamoured for military intervention and threatened to abandon the Bathurst Plains entirely. Gudyarra (war) unearths what lead to this point, beginning with the settling of Wiradjuri lands by Europeans following Governor Macquarie's push to expand the colony west over the Blue Mountains to generate wealth from sheep and cattle. Stephen Gapps traces the guerrilla warfare by the Wiradjuri under the leadership of Windradyne, and others such as Blucher and Jingler, that occurred across the central west of New South Wales. Detailing the counterattacks by the colonists and the expeditions led by armed settlers, Gudyarra provides an important new historical account of the Wiradjuri resistance. If any single frontier conflict has all the hallmarks of war, this is it.

The Sydney Wars tells the history of military engagements between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians – described as ‘this constant sort of war’ by one early colonist – around the greater Sydney region. Telling the story of the first years of colonial Sydney in a new and original way, this provocative book is the first detailed account of the warfare that occurred across the Sydney region from the arrival of a British expedition in 1788 to the last recorded conflict in the area in 1817. The Sydney Wars sheds new light on how British and Aboriginal forces developed military tactics and how the violence played out. Analysing the paramilitary roles of settlers and convicts and the militia defensive systems that were deployed, it shows that white settlers lived in fear, while Indigenous people fought back as their land and resources were taken away. Stephen Gapps details the violent conflict that formed part of a long period of colonial strategic efforts to secure the Sydney basin and, in time, the rest of the continent. ‘A powerful and cogent contribution to one of the most contentious aspects of Australian history: the war between British settlers and the First Nations. The fine detailed research will mean that we will have to radically reassess our understanding of the history of the first thirty years of settlement.’ —Henry Reynolds

The history of Australia’s Frontier Wars is becoming a hot topic for debate and research. It is now part of our national educational syllabus. However, there are very few books available which explain, in detail, the modes of warfare First Australians applied during the Frontier Wars. How They Fought is written as an introductory guidebook. It is broken into chapters covering organisation, strategies, weaponry, and defences. The book considers both traditional practices and technological and tactical adaptations. To make this complex topic more accessible, How They Fought includes numerous tables, figures and diagrams that illustrate and summarize the contents.

In 1822 a young James Webber, recently arrived in the Colony, took up his land grant on the Paterson River. In that one act of possession, the landscape, managed and maintained by Aboriginal people for many centuries, was changed forever. James and his convict crew carved out a European-style agricultural enterprise by exploiting the rich diversity of the land. In a nod to the earlier custodians, he named his estate ‘Tocal’, an aboriginal word for ‘plenty’. Through toil and enterprise, successive owners grew rich on the Tocal lands, until, in 1965, private ownership ceased, and a new agricultural college was born on the site. That college, now retaining the name given to the land by its original custodians, grew into a thriving educational centre, with tentacles of training reaching throughout the nation. 2022 marks a significant milestone in the history of the land. This brief overview of its story—including the millennia before dispossession—has been compiled by four authors with over 170 years of combined memories associated with Tocal College and recording its agriculture and its history. Over its history, Tocal has touched many families and many lives, and it continues to expand its reach, including to the descendants of its original peoples who cared for and respected its resources. This book in a small way pays homage to all of those lives.