AustLit

'On 20 July 1900, an Aboriginal man named Jimmy Governor murdered two white women and three white children at Breelong in northwest New South Wales. Despite the plethora of information on Governor, there is a story that remains to be told: how did the Breelong murders affect Governor’s Aboriginal family at Wollar? This article pieces together the experiences of the Aboriginal people of Wollar alongside settler responses to Governor’s crimes. It demonstrates not only that the law proved malleable in the fall-out of the murders, but the profound fear of warfare that overshadowed the push towards Federation. By tracing the lives of this group of Aboriginal people as well as settler Australians, we can see the interface of settler colonialism, nation-building and protection at a crucial moment in Australian history, as well as the precariousness of white Australia at a time when it was meant to have been triumphant.'  (Publication abstract)