If you’re looking to learn more about the resistance and bravery of Aboriginal communities at the time of the colonial invasion, and broaden your understanding of true First Nations history then look no further than Frontier War Stories.

Dedicated to truth-telling about a side of Australia that has been left out of the history books, Frontier War Stories documents the first 140 years of conflict and resistance between First Nations communities and colonial settlers. It covers everything from the very first clashes of the late-eighteenth century right through to punitive expeditions that were planned (and quashed) as late as the 1930s. 

Created and hosted by Boe Spearim, a Kooma, Murawarii and Gamilaraay, podcaster and activist, Frontier War Stories has thirty-two episodes ready and waiting for you right now. These are the Top 5 most downloaded episodes of the show – a great starting place if you’re just diving in for the first time. 

Waterloo Creek Massacre with Professor Lyndall Ryan

Professor Lyndall Ryan, a historian of violence on the Australian Colonial Frontier and leader of the team behind the Colonial Frontier Massacres Map, yarns with Boe about the Waterloo Creek Massacre and why 1838 was such a violent year. 

Surviving New England with Callum Clayton Dixon

In the first episode of Frontier War Stories Boe speaks with Callum Clayton Dixon an Ambēyang researcher, author of Surviving New England, and PhD student working on an Anaiwan dictionary. Boe and Callum discuss Aboriginal resistance and resilience during the first forty years of what Callum calls the Colonial Apocalypse.

Reconciling with the Frontier Project with Skye Krichauff

Boe yarns with Dr Skye Krichauff about Reconciling with the Frontier. This project will develop a mapping tool that people can use to identify and learn about conflict sites between colonists and Aboriginal people in South Australia. Dr Skye Krichauff is an ethnohistorian who combines the methodologies of history and anthropology. She is interested in colonial cross-cultural relations, the relationship between history and memory, and how societies live with historical injustices.

Interview with Uncle Rodney Dillon

Uncle Rodney Dillon joins Boe to talk about Place names and the way colonisation has been normalised in Australia. Uncle Rodney Dillion, a Palawa man from Tasmania, is Amnesty International Australia’s Indigenous Rights Advisor and a lifelong advocate for Indigenous people’s rights, particularly fishing and hunting rights, repatriation of Indigenous people’s remains, and people’s rights to live in their traditional homelands.

The Australia Wars with Rachel Perkins

Boe interviews film and television director, producer, and screenwriter Rachel Perkins, an Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman whose new documentary for SBS: The Australian Wars explores the bloody wars fought between the colonial settlers and local tribes which raged from the time the first land grants were allocated in 1792.

Frontier War Stories is produced, written and hosted by Boe Spearim with additional editing support from Awesome Black. To read more about how you can support First Nations communities, movements and people read Pay the Rent on our News page.