TOOWOOMBA, Australia -- A small crowd recently gathered in a park in the Australian town of Toowoomba, an hour's drive west from Brisbane. Looking out over the vast, flat reaches of the Darling Downs region, the seated crowd considered One Tree Hill, or Meewah, in Indigenous language -- a nondescript bushland spur that was the site of violent confrontation in what is now known as Australia's Frontier Wars.
Soon after this simple gathering, a major TV series on public broadcaster SBS was launched across Australia. Called "The Australian Wars," the three-part documentary is the first detailed on-screen examination of the long, brutal war between colonial settlers and Indigenous Australians, which according to historian Jane Morrison started with the arrival of British explorers in 1788 and lasted until as late as the 1940s.
