The Australian Wars

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BBC History Channel

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Factual: History

The forgotten story of the bloody conquest of Australia. 

The forgotten story of the bloody conquest of Australia. Personal perspectives on the battles between colonial settlers and First Nations people - and the echoes they leave today.

Series 1

BBC Four HD

BBC Four

The Australian Wars: Series 1: Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC Four - The Australian Wars, Series 1, Episode 1

How modern-day Sydney was the first battleground of the frontier wars.

Sydney was the first frontier war battleground. No treaty between European occupying forces and the First Nations people meant conflict, and the first recorded massacre followed.

Intertribal conflict was a familiar fixture for Australia’s First Nations people, but nothing could prepare them for the conflict with the British and European arrivals over land and livelihood.

In the first part of this authored series, film-maker Rachel Perkins, who has both European and First Nations ancestry, examines these first encounters following the British arrival in 1788.

The British Empire’s presence in Sydney began as a small, contained, fortified venture in Sydney Harbour. New South Wales’s first governor, Arthur Phillip, was tasked with forming friendly alliances with locals. But with the lack of a treaty between occupying forces, a scarcity of resources to feed the growing population and neighbouring tribes not willing to surrender their land, conflict ensued. Successive governors ruled by force. The tactics of terror and intimidation, including some instances of the abuse of children and women, became one of the triggers of war.

The Australian Wars: Series 1

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The forgotten story of the bloody conquest of Australia.

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The Australian Wars

Series 1

Episode 1

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