ABSTRACT
Reassessing the Magnitude of Australian First Contact Aboriginal Resistance in Sydney 1788-1805: Psychic Invasion of a Narrative Landscape and a Nativist Response.
There has been a frequent assertion that the death toll from smallpox in first contact Sydney was far greater than early estimates, and a frequent assertion that what occurred was ‘war’, yet there has been little to connect and dissect these assertions, and little account taken of the spiritual and religious aspects of warrior resistance.
This paper brings together demographic factors, nativist religious impulses and warrior resistance, to propose, not just a physical, but a psychic invasion of a Narrative landscape, and to reveal a far more powerful and complex pattern of resistance and an extraordinary scale of warfare.
Download the full article