The violence of the frontier wars has never really ended

Two police officers entered the home of a First Nations family in the remote NT community of Yuendumu in early November. One of them allegedly shot an unarmed 19-year-old Warlpiri man. This incident is now classed as one of the over 420 Aboriginal deaths in custody since 1991.

Straight after the teenager's death, locals were likening the tragedy to the 1928 Coniston Massacre that took place at a cattle station not far Yuendumu. That slaughter involved the deaths of over 60 Aboriginal people at the hands of mounted Europeans led by police constable George Murray.

Coniston is said to be the last massacre of the Indigenous people of this continent as part of what is now referred to as the Frontier Wars. The conflict between the British and the people of around 500 nations that existed on this land prior to occupation began in 1788.