Indigenous Australian BDS

"The staunchest warriors of the Paroo continued to carry on the vendetta against the invaders long after the young had yielded to the squatter. Simpson Newland, of Marra Station on the Darling, kindlier disposed than most to the dark people he had dispossessed, has left a sad picture of the defeated but still defiant Barpoo, chieftain and mekigar of the Naualko lands between the Darling and Paroo:

'In person tall, spare, stately; in manner quiet, reserved and dignified... he refused to hold any intercourse with the hated Boree, much less work for him, wear his clothes, or even eat his food... On the few occasions we met, the proud savage took not the slightest notice of the stranger other than the aboriginal's silent sign of aversion, spitting on the ground as he passed him. More he dared not do - scarcely that much as time went on, and the whip might find even his sacred shoulders'.

"Having realised the futility of further resistance,

'... he acquiesced in the submission of his tribe, and though never submitting himself, he openly took no aggressive step against the conquerors, but no doubt many a poor nameless tramp met his fate at the hands of the untamable black chief in revenge for the wrongs of his people. About such matters all the members of his tribe for long kept an impenetrable silence... The squatters denounced the Parkingee [Barkindji] leader as an old scoundrel... [but] it is not to be expected that... when their dangers and difficulties were around them, [they] could form unprejudiced opinions of their aboriginal foes. When Barpoo was hungry he doubtless killed a sheep or robbed a hut of rations... I have little doubt he knocked lonely travellers on the head as opportunity offered. But have not many of the heroic patriots of history done all these things against the enemies and despoilers of their country? Cool reflection shows... [what he] must have felt when he saw the detested interloper take possession of all his country after slaughtering many of his people in their vain attempt at resistance, and bend the survivors to his service, making shepherds and stockmen of the free hunters, then later to see them wither and die. There was clearly nothing left for him but to die too, and die cursing the Boree'." (Lament for the Barkindji: The Vanished Tribes of the Darling River Region, Bobbie Hardy, 1976, pp 116-117)