Women on the South-East Queensland frontier

Abstract

This article presents three arguments in response to both the whiteness of the historical representations of the past three decades and the masculine violence of the frontier record. It first outlines the evidence concerning women's own physicality and their embodiment and expression of warrior fierceness, but also the formal limits of interpersonal violence in traditional society. Second, women's role in providing bungwal flour and daily bread, fruits and vegetables for their families and having the main responsibility for child care acted as a potent incentive for women to be receptive to the European presence - at least while they were in a position to benefit from it - and so the relationship between women's domestic interests and external relations is delineated. Finally, their part in Indigenous politics is explored. Women's actions in the 1840s and 1850s give us important insights into the political contestations and the shifts of power in the region at the time of the European influx.