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Description of  Blood Revenge: Murder on the Hawkesbury 1799

Blood Revenge examines the first time that white men were held to account in a criminal court of New South Wales for killing Australian Aborigines. It happened in 1799, just 11 years after the New South Wales colony began. This book answers the disturbing question: Why were five men found guilty of killing two Aboriginesyet they were never punished? The story lays bare the nature of black-white relations at the colonys Hawkesbury River frontier settlement. Governor John Hunter tried to carry out his orders and stop the wanton killing of Aborigines. Inevitably, there was a divide between policy and practice. In Blood Revenge the politics of this murder case reads like a missing chapter of Doc Evatts Rum Rebellion.