Social organization of area tribes; two class divisions; kinship terms, death rites, disposal of dead; description of implements and ornaments; brief contacts made by Captain Mackays expedition.

Biographical account of the Mills family beginning in the English Midlands, and tracing their immigration to the small mining township of Mount Britton in Queensland in 1865. Their son John Henry became an accomplished pioneer photographer. Author, who is grandson of Henry, describes life on a goldfield and explores themes of mateship, courage in adversity, faith in God and love of family. Includes photos, family trees, measurement conversion chart, bibliography and index. Author is an accomplished historical researcher having written other family histories.

Based on thorough documentary research in archives and newspapers, Workers in Bondage begins with the origins of servitude during the convict era in Queensland before its separation from New South Wales in 1859. The study then focuses in on Queensland’s Pacific Islander labor force, examining the reconstruction of the Queensland sugar industry after the withdrawal of Islander labor and describing the realities of white labor and the early trade union struggles in the sugar industry. Underlying the text is an analysis of labor manipulation by capitalism in a new colony during a time of transition from slavery to indenture in the British Empire. This is a comprehensive and insightful academic examination of the little known history of the enslavement of Pacific Island workers in Australian convict-era industries, as well as a wider study of race relations in a frontier society.

"To travel this long, lonely road is to traverse a stretch of brutal history and to enter a gigantic crime scene. The landscape itself holds a million clues to a horror story blazing across two centuries. Winding through a haunted place that is forever frontier territory, this road is the scene of casual as well as callous murder whether from the 1970s, the 1960s or the 1860s. Not for nothing is it known as the 'Horror Stretch'. In this compulsively readable new book, Ross Gibson drives right back along that dangerous stretch and finds himself deep in the Badland. Part road movie, part memoir, part murder mystery, Seven Versions of an Australian Badland embarks on an enthralling journey through time, into the realms of myth and magic, narcissism and genocide."--Publisher's website.