Killing for Country David Marr

• Author: David Marr
  
• Title: Killing for Country  (452 pg)  2023
• Genre: Non-fiction
• Australian TBR List
• #AusReadingMonth23 @ This Reading Life (Brona’s Books)

Introduction:

1. This is a richly detailed saga of
2. …politics and power in the colonial world
3. …of land seized, fortunes made and lost.
4. The violence let loose as squatters and
5. their allies fought for possession of the country.
6. It is a war still unresolved in today’s Australia.

Conclusion

1. Book is a of movement from Sydney to NT moving inland…
   
2. …clients (squatters)  looking for grazing lands  for the merino sheep.
3. They engage explorers to make pioneering  journeys with the Native Police
4. crossing rivers and swamps looking for a stock route.
5. Land is claimed….blacks are murdered or chased off the lands.

1.  Many chapters  mention
2. …Reg Uhr and his brother D’arcy Uhr.
3. Why?
4. David Marr wanted to tell the story of his own family’s
5. bloody business with the Aboriginal people. 
6. His ancestors were members of the force until
7. the late 1860s.

1. That led Mr. Marr into  the history of the Native Police.
2. For 50 years the Native Police  operated without the intervention of
3. judge, jury or the law as it went about its work.

1. In conclusion…the Australian Native Police was
2. “an armed, mobile wing of the government” (ch 25)
3. that protected the settlers from the people whose
4. country they were invading.
5. Australian Native Police (info wikipedia)

Last thoughts:

1. This book is one big history lesson
2. …but so depressing and difficult to finish.
3. Too many sheep and not enough grass on the land
4. so…the powerful landowners must steal from the aboriginals!
5. This feels like the ‘dark side’ of Australia, cringe worthy
6. reading how the Aboriginal peoples were treated. Utter contempt.
7. Chapters follow wikipedia information  but
8. David Marr has inserted direct quotes from legal acts,
9. from newspapers  The Gazette, The Monitor, The Australian, and
10. reports about crimes committed with vivid details and
11. witness accounts used during several trials.
12. Mr Marr gets 5 stars for all the research he has done!

1. PS: I’ve read many books
2. about Australia (fiction) and cannot
3. …remember ANY mention of  Australian The Native Police!
4. Has anybody discovered  the Australian The Native Police
5. …in other books?
6. Please let me know in a comment.

Notes:

New Australian words:

1. Blackbutt = Yarri  tree
2. Paperbark – Broad-leaved medium-sized, fast-growing tree
3. Peacocking. (Australian slang) – “to pick out the eyes”
   
4. of the land by selecting or buying up the choice pieces and water-frontages,
5. so that the adjoining territory is practically useless to any one else.

The important bureaucrats:

1. Gov. Lachlan Macquarie (1762-1824) – Gov. NSW 1810-1821 – introducred reforms
2. Rev. Samuel Marsden (1765-1838) – profits making while saving souls 
3. John Bigge (1780 – 1843) English judge  – sent to NSW bring law and order
4. Gen. Ralph Darling, (1772 – 1858) Gov. NSW  from 1825 to 1831 – “a tyrant…”
5. Richard Jones (1786 – 1852) English-born politician/landowner  in NSW – “the boss…”
6. Bishop William Grant Broughton (1788 – 1853) …another attempt to save souls
7. Gen. Richard Bourke (1777 – 1855) Gov. NSW 1810-1821 – wanted the emancipation of convicts
8. Frederick “Filibuster” Walker (1820 – 1866)  Commandant of the Native Police.

The masscres….just awful.

1. Waterloo Creek massacre
2. Gravesend station
3. Myall Creek massacre
4. Pallamallawa
5. Myall Creek massacre
6. Cullin-la-ringo massacre