What does The Secret River say about ownership of land?

One should examine how Grenville's acclaimed novel reveals the personal, cultural, and political collision of perspectives on land across national lines, especially in regards to colonization. Her novel examines the colonization of Australia by the British.
Consider the effect of the following: as Will Thornhill gains freedom from his past and a new opportunity to build a life for his family near Hawkesbury river, he perceives the land he claims to be his. However, he does not acknowledge the deep, abiding history of the aboriginal land. In fact, Thornhill's new, clean slate of a fresh life on a new piece of land ignores the truth that many other lives and people have already left their mark on the land.
One should also analyze how Thornhill's actions are symbolic of the attempts by the British Empire to enter lands around the world, conquer, and seize "new lands" for the Crown, leaving devastated people groups, cultures, and lands in their colonial wake.
Consider why Thornhill joins the fight over the land. Also, evaluate Thornhill's statement in how he views the land: "the tidy square of ground inside a fence." Thornhill's perspective is very different than the aboriginal view of living off the land without designated boundaries, being closely united to the land. Should natives of the land accept outsiders' claims to a land on which the natives have lived their whole life? Why or why not?
Grenville encourages her readers to consider what claiming land really means for all involved, as she illustrates the consequences of both gaining and losing land.

The ownership of land is certainly a main theme in the novel. Grenville highlights the discrepancies between the white European and aboriginal worldview regarding land; however, she also presents a range of positions within each worldview.
For example, Thomas Blackwood unequivocally condemns the violence Smasher Sullivan and Sagitty Birtels unleash on the native Aborigines. At the same time, Blackwood deeply values the western conception of private property. To Blackwood, land ownership is a privilege to be treasured. Additionally, he believes that it is possible to enjoy this privilege while living peacefully among the natives:
"Ain't nothing in this world just for the taking.... A man got to pay a fair price for taking. Matter of give a little, take a little."
The yearning to call a plot of land one's own is sometimes regarded as a western impulse, and men like Blackwood and Thornhill recognize this. Due to Thornhill's convict status and previously impoverished background, land ownership is a means to freedom, personal agency, and autonomy:
"He let himself imagine it: standing on the crest of that slope, looking down over his own place. Thornhill's Point. It was a piercing hunger in his guts: to own it. To say mine, in a way he had never been able to say mine of anything at all."
Yet Thornhill and Blackwood understand something of the Aboriginal connection to the land. The Aborigines are masters at supporting their way of life with skills amassed from long years of experience. Their days are managed with such organic simplicity that they inspire envy in the white settlers:
...the blacks were farmers no less than the white men were. But they did not bother to build a fence to keep the animals from getting out. Instead, they created a tasty patch to lure them in. Either way, it meant meat for dinner.There were no signs that the blacks felt that the place belonged to them. They had no fences that said this is mine. No house that said, this is our home. There were no fields or flocks that said, we have put the labor of our hands into this place.
Thornhill notes that his household is up with the dawn, clearing the land, lugging water, and chopping wood. By the end of the day, all are exhausted and have little energy to spare. In contrast, the natives spend only a little time each day on their work. Yet they always have plenty of kangaroo meat to eat and time to play with their children.
As for the Aborigines, many are content to live peacefully among the settlers. Others are uneasy when they see portions of their land parceled out to white owners. Some of these Aborigines decide to fight back, and the novel delineates their actions in doing so. However, a final, bloody conflict between the Aborigines and the white settlers demonstrates that the two opposing views regarding land ownership may never be fully reconciled.