Libby Connors will discuss her recent book Warrior: A Legendary Leader’s Dramatic Life and Violent Death on the Colonial Frontier.

In the 1840s, colonial settlement in the north was under attack. European settlers were in awe of Aboriginal physical fitness and fighting prowess, and a series of deadly raids on homesteads made even the townspeople of Brisbane anxious. The young warrior Dundalli was renowned for his size and strength, and his elders gave him the task of leading the resistance against the Europeans' ever increasing incursions on their traditional lands. Their response was embedded in Aboriginal law and Dundalli became one of their greatest lawmen. With his band of warriors, he had the settlers in thrall for twelve years, evading capture again and again, until he was finally arrested and publicly executed.

Associate Professor Libby Connors lectures in history at the Toowoomba campus of the University of Southern Queensland. Her 2015 book Warrior won the Queensland Premier’s award for a work of State Significance, and the Australian Historical Association’s Magarey Medal for Biography. She previously co-authored Australia’s Frontline: Remembering the 1939-45 War (UQ Press 1992), and (with Drew Hutton) A History of the Australian Environment Movement (Cambridge  1999), and is the author  of a number of  scholarly chapters and articles. Having undertaken her PhD at the University of Queensland, she is author of two ADB biographies and serves as a member of the ADB Queensland Working Party. She has also agreed to be a member of the newly-established editorial board of the NCB e-journal Using Lives.