The Yield: A Novel

Australia has been home to humans since the migration of people to the continent at least 65,000 years ago. The Indigenous peoples of Australia made up a large number of different groups, with a rich network of cultural practices, beliefs, and kinship structures that make up the oldest continuous cultural group in the world. Australia was “discovered” by European cultures by the Dutchman Willem Janszoon in 1606; in the late 18th century, James Cook claimed the east coast of the continent for Britain, and the British government established a penal colony there. From the beginning of the 19th century, increasing numbers of European free settlers arrived in Australia, and British colonization expanded considerably until the whole continent was under colonial governance. The Indigenous inhabitants of Australia were displaced and killed through violence, starvation, and infectious disease. As elsewhere, conflict in New South Wales flared as the scale of settlement increased, leading to the Bathurst War of 1824, in which the Wiradjuri peoples of that region resisted the colonization of their land. The war led to the further depletion of the Wiradjuri and the military enforcement of colonial rule. The novel refers to this history in the name “Massacre Plains,” the displacement of the Gondiwindi family, and their loss of title to their property.

The Indigenous peoples of Australia were subjected to institutionalized racism, segregation, violence, and religious and cultural conversion programs. These practices continued long after the independent Commonwealth of Australia was established in 1901, and many inequalities remain today. In the early 20th century, Indigenous children who were believed to have any white ancestry were forcibly removed from their families to grow up in residential schools run by the Australian government; this practice continued until the 1970s. This practice—and the institutions themselves—are recognized to have been racist, abusive, and damaging, leading to an official government apology and reparations in 1997. The novel’s Poppy Gondiwindi is one of this “stolen generation” of children.

Tara June Winch has said that she believes white Australians want to learn the difficult truths of their history (Cain, Sian. “‘I Had to Be Manic’: Tara June Winch on Her Unmissable New Novel—and Surviving Andrew Bolt.” The Guardian, 10 July 2019). She has expressed frustration with famous white Australian authors who include a tokenistic Indigenous character without researching the real history of their country; her response was to encompass a great deal of Australia’s history in The Yield to counteract this tokenization.