Traversing the Frontiers of the History Wars: The Plurality of Settler Sovereignty in Early New South Wales

Abstract

Australian historians of indigenous-settler relations have assumed that indigenous people in early New South Wales had no recognized rights to self-government. Using Lachlan Macquarie's Proclamation of 1816 as a case study, this paper argues instead that in early New South Wales, courts, governors and settlers all assumed that indigenous people were independent of the colonial state, governed by their own laws and only in exceptional circumstances governed by British law.

Keywords: Indigenous People, Settlers, Australian history