Rediscovering the Frontier Wars: Queensland's contribution and the role of The Royal Historical Society of Queensland 1950s-1960s.

The article focuses on Queensland’s significant but often under-recognized role in the early study and historiography of the Frontier Wars—conflicts between Indigenous Australians and European settlers. It highlights key Queensland figures and institutions, particularly The Royal Historical Society of Queensland (RHSQ), whose members such as Clem Lack, Arthur Laurie, and Sir Raphael Cilento produced pioneering research and publications on Indigenous resistance and frontier violence from the 1930s through the 1960s, predating the more widely acknowledged national debate sparked by William Stanner’s 1968 lecture. The article also traces earlier contributions by Queensland-based historians and participants, including Raymond Evans, Noel Loos, and Henry Reynolds, emphasizing a continuous lineage of scholarship and firsthand accounts originating in Queensland. This body of work challenges the notion of a “Great Australian Silence” on frontier conflict in Queensland and calls for greater recognition of the state’s foundational contributions to Australian Indigenous-settler conflict studies. [Extracted from the article]