Indigenous Australia

It is a misconception that indigenous Australians meekly accepted the invasion of their country by the British, for they did not. They certainly resisted, but as far as colonial wars during that era went, the frontier conflicts of Australia did not warrant a great deal of attention. Indigenous Australians were hardly a warlike people, and without central organization or political cohesion beyond scattered family groups, they succumbed to the orchestrated advance of white settlement with passionate but futile resistance.

In this multi-award-winning history of the Bible in Australia, Meredith Lake gets under the skin of a text that's been wrestled with, preached and tattooed and believed to be everything from a resented imposition to the very Word of God. A must-listen for non-believers and believers alike, The Bible in Australia explores how in the hands of Bible-bashers, immigrants, suffragists, evangelists, unionists, writers, artists and Indigenous Australians, the Bible has played a defining and contested role in this country.

In 1769, Captain James Cook’s historic expedition would lead to an English claim on Australia, but before he reached Australia, he sailed near New Zealand and spent weeks mapping part of New Zealand’s coast. Thus, he was one of the first to observe and take note of the indigenous peoples of the two islands.