The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: Van Diemen's Land, 1803-1847

This is the first volume in a series that re-appraises the now widely accepted story about conflict between colonists and Aborigines in Australian history. Beginning in Tasmania, and eventually covering the whole of the Australian mainland, the volumes find that the academic historians of the last thirty years have greatly exaggerated the degree of violence that occurred. In a close re-examination of the primary sources used by historians, Keith Windschuttle concludes that much of their case is poorly founded, other parts are seriously mistaken, and some of it is outright fabrication. The author finds the British colonization of the Australia was the least violent of all Europes encounters with the New World. It did not meet any organized resis­tance. Conflict was sporadic rather than systematic. The notion of frontier warfare is fictional. To describe the process as genocide is to use hyperbole that is unsupported by the historical evidence.