93. The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance

City Road Podcast

Dallas Rogers talks with Stephen Gapps about his new book, Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance — The Bathurst War, 1822–1824 ‘In May 1824, what can only be described as a period of all-out, total gudyarra (‘war’ in the Wiradyuri language) had begun west of the Blue Mountains. Relations between Wiradyuri people and the colonists in the country around Bathurst had completely broken down, and the number of raids and killings occurring across isolated stock stations in the district had intensified.’ In Gudyarra, Stephen Gapps – award-winning author of The Sydney Wars – unearths what led to this furious and bloody war, beginning with the occupation of Wiradyuri lands by Europeans following Governor Macquarie’s push to expand the colony west over the Blue Mountains to generate wealth from sheep and cattle. Gudyarra traces the co-ordinated resistance warfare by the Wiradyuri under the leadership of Windradyne, and others such as Blucher and Jingler, that occurred in a vast area across the central west of New South Wales. Detailing the drastic counterattacks by the colonists and the punitive expeditions led by armed parties of colonists and convicts that often ended in massacres of Wiradyuri women and children, Gapps provides an important new historical account of the fierce Wiradyuri resistance. Stephen Gapps has a long-standing interest in public history and the history of early colonial Sydney. In 2011 he won the NSW Premiers History Prize for Regional and Community history with my book Cabrogal to Fairfield – A history of a multicultural community. Since then he has held a position as a curator at the Australian National Maritime Museum. In 2014 he developed the exhibition War at Sea – The Navy in WWI and in 2015 curated the highly successful Black Armada – Australian support for Indonesian independence 1945-1949. In 2018 he worked on concept development of the new permanent displays at the museum that explore deep time and Australian maritime history. In 2017 he was awarded the NSW State Library Merewether Fellowship for a project on Australian resistance warfare for publication in May 2018 called The Sydney Wars – Conflict in the early colony 1788-1817, which became a book project. His most recent book is Gudyarra: The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance — The Bathurst War, 1822–1824. This interview is a part of the 2023 Festival of Urbanism Book Club Podcast series