The militia tactics of First Nations people were more sophisticated than first thought, researchers have found.
University of Southern Queensland associate adjunct professor Ray Kerkhove's newly published book How They Fought details evidence about the way Aboriginal warriors resisted colonists.
By analysing "hundreds and hundreds" of historical accounts of skirmishes, including from newspaper articles and diary entries, Dr Kerkhove is revealing what he says is an accurate picture of a conflict that "made Australia".
"I've been frustrated with the fact that that we tend to only hear the white side," he said.
"So I've tried to get the other side and get of a lot of First Nations voices in [the book]."
As many as 122,000 people died in the conflict between Indigenous people and white people from 1770 to the 1940s, including up to 2,000 settlers.
More than 60,000 Australians died in World War I.
'Economic sabotage'
Dr Kerkhove said Aboriginal people mastered foreign technologies such as guns, glass, iron and the use of horses.
"I was surprised how many times there were [Indigenous] successes, and we haven't really examined those successes enough," he said.
"They also used the landscape to avoid guns, and they took large quantities of guns and disposed of them."
Dr Kerkhove said Aboriginal fighters also destroyed crops and dispersed pastoralists' livestock as a form of "economic sabotage".
"Sometimes they would move [stock] hundreds of kilometres away," he said.
During the Frontier Wars, some of the most effective resistance came from the people of the Wiradjuri nation, in Central West New South Wales.
In August 1824, governor Thomas Brisbane declared martial law in Bathurst in response to the strength of the Wiradjuri resistance, led by warrior Windradyne.
'It's about time'
Wiradjuri elder and Windradyne descendent Dinawan Dyirribang, from Bathurst, said recognition of his people's successful tactics was overdue.
"This is stuff that I've learned, hearing stories from Aboriginal people on how we fought battles," he said.
"It's about time somebody really looked at it and came out with the evidence."
Dyirribang said Wiradjuri warfare had to evolve quickly as the colonial rules of engagement were entirely different to their own.
"Facing these people was completely different to [facing] their own, because of the guns.
"It was the guerilla-type warfare they adopted around the Bathurst plains area."
'Bury the truth'
Historian Lisa Paton has researched the Central West's frontier wars since 2009.
She said it was in the best interest of the settlers to "bury the truth" and hide the extent of Indigenous resistance they faced.
"They wanted to say it was Terra Nullius so they had a right to take the country," she said.
Ms Paton said her research showed the strength of the Bathurst resistance in the 1820s contributed to the formation of early colonial policies that sought to eliminate Aboriginal people and disempower them and their family groups.
"I believe a lot of the policies around the management of Aboriginal people started to develop from the frontier events at Kings Plains," she said.
"Brisbane's declaration of Martial Law was just 11 days before the first meeting of the NSW Legislative Council.
"These events led to each other."
