This book deals with key issues of Australian history, it is a story of the colonisation of the First Peoples and their culture and the ways the indigenous inhabitants, resisted, survived and adapted to this onslaught.

It looks at the history of a single region of New South Wales, the Gwydir River through the lens of one of its most famous survivors, Peter Cutmore. Some testimony of the events of this period are published for the first time. The evolving programs and policies of the authorities over the ensuing years towards the First People are traced and their impacts described. The intent is an honest appraisal of the history, in the words of those who witnessed it, in the spirit of Truth-telling, reconciliation and justice for First Peoples in this country.

Peter, as he was known, and the central role his people played in the history of the Gwydir, Moree and Terry Hie Hie, the home of the Cutmore ancestors. The family are proud of their heritage and identity and fought hard to keep their culture alive. But racism and the cultural suppression of the post contact period, culminating in the draconian Assimilation policies, all played their role, washing our First Nation heritage from our collective history. Now the untold story of the Cutmore family must be told as one of incredible resilience and survival.