Jack Drake is an historian, poet, retired grazier and horseman. He has a strong affinity with the Queensland bush. Having had a long lasting fascination with frontier history, the question of indigenous/European conflict has always been a subject of interest. Over the years Jack has found a reluctance to address this issue among white Australians in general and rural dwellers in particular. What has surfaced during his research for this project is the fact that the frontier wars era has been suppressed at all levels right up to government. It is obvious this began at the time of Federation. Research material before then has been a lot more forthcoming with articles, books, letters and editorials describing quite openly, how this country was wrested from its traditional owners. Writers of Australian history in the 20th Century largely ignored First Nations people until the late 1960s when enlightened researchers began uncovering the unpalatable truth of what really went on. It was the rule rather than the exception then, that detailed histories of 500 to 1,000 pages would devote no more than a page or two at most to Aboriginal Australians. In these brief accounts they were dismissed as simple hunter-gathering nomads who did nothing but exist on the land. We now know that Aboriginal Society was a highly complex structure that became the oldest continuous civilization on earth by caring for the environment in a harmonious and sustainable manner. The research for this book has been a more than two year project involving early 19th Century writings, the work of recent researchers who sought the truth, and interviews with those Australians, white and indigenous, who were prepared to discuss the subject. It has been a labour of love and I hope I have had some small part in bringing the truth to the reading public.
Books by Jack Drake
