Bathurst Plains and beyond: European colonisation and Aboriginal resistance

Abstract

The colonisation of the Bathurst Plains and adjacent areas on the upper Macquarie River and Lachlan River tributaries incorporated reciprocal processes; the gradual modification of the coloniser's British land use pattern into a recognisably Australian pattern, and the gradual erosion, followed by the rapid collapse, of the Aboriginal land use pattern. The European colonisation of the Bathurst Plains elicited one of the strongest Aboriginal reactions met with to that date. The analysis of that resistance gives an insight into both the nature of Aboriginal settlement in the area, and the changes taking place in the European settlement pattern, and shows that while in some ways the Bathurst experience differed substantially from later conflict on the pastoral frontier in New South Wales, it does help to explain that subsequent contact history.