The Settler and the Land: Using Patrick Wolfe’s Logic of Elimination to Understand Frontier Violence in Australia’s Colonial Era

Colonial power both requires and generates the destruction of Indigenous peoples and their societies. For colonialism to succeed, the original inhabitants of the land must be erased and the invasive settler society must supplant the pre-existing polities. Such extinction however, is not focused on the fanatic destruction of Indigenous culture, but rather the acquisition and expatriation of land, which in turn, engenders genocidal acts of dispossession and assimilation. This is Patrick Wolfe’s logic of elimination. The concept that settler colonialism always needs more land, therefore provides a useful frame for understanding the frontier violence that occurred during Australia’s colonial era, and illuminates the pervasive colonial foundations that Australian society is built upon. As useful as the logic of elimination may be in deciphering the reasons behind early colonial violence however, it is important to not trivialise nor provide an operational legitimacy to such violence, and recognise the significant role that racist ideologies and beliefs had during Australia’s colonial era. This article discusses the legitimacy of the logic of elimination in the face of frontier violence, and offers alternative theories in an attempt to extrapolate meaning from…