This article introduces and contextualises the poem ‘The Battle of Minderoo’ written in 1869 and depicting an attack on the Thalanyji people, the traditional inhabitants of the area, by ‘white’ colonists. They had travelled to the Pilbara in search of land, becoming pearlers and merchants and taking up huge pastoral leases, and meeting Aboriginal resistance to the expropriation of their land with violence, first in what has become known as the Flying Foam massacre of 1868 and then in the ‘battle’ for Minderoo the following year.
Source: Abstract.
This article introduces and contextualises the poem ‘The Battle of Minderoo’ written in 1869 and depicting an attack on the Thalanyji people, the traditional inhabitants of the area, by ‘white’ colonists. They had travelled to the Pilbara in search of land, becoming pearlers and merchants and taking up huge pastoral leases, and meeting Aboriginal resistance to the expropriation of their land with violence, first in what has become known as the Flying Foam massacre of 1868 and then in the ‘battle’ for Minderoo the following year.
Source: Abstract.