April 11.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
‘Dispersals’ near the Sunshine Coast
't'was a melancholy but a necessary duty'
Macquarie had written his orders with much thought and a sincere desire to limit frontier violence. Unfortunately, they were almost impossible to implement in frontier conditions. The only way British troops could get close to Aboriginal groups was to look for their campfires at night and surprise them in their sleep. In these circumstances it was very difficult for soldiers to differentiate between men, women and children.
This problem was shown during the course of the expedition. Schaw's detachment followed the route as specified in his orders...and did not kill or capture any Aborigines. Dawe's detachment arrived at the Macarthur farm at Camden on 11 April [1816] to be informed that a group of Aborigines was camped nearby. At 3:00 AM the next morning Dawe's troops set out for the camp aiming to reach it at dawn, but about 100 metres from the camp, the alarm was raised and the inhabitants fled. The soldiers fired and hit one man, who later died of wounds. The only one captured was a teenage boy. [1]
The third party, commanded by Wallis, reached Broughton's farm west of the George's River at Appin, and early on the morning of 17 April came across an Aboriginal camp on the cliffs above a creek. Wallis ordered his troops into a line and advanced into the camp in the moonlight, killing seven Aborigines. Tragically, Wallis did not send any men around the camp to cut off people fleeing the advancing line and a further seven 'met their fate by rushing in despair over the precipice'. Two women and three children were captured. Wallis later wrote to Macquarie, 't'was a melancholy but a necessary duty'. The bodies of two men, Durelle and Kanabygal, were hauled off from the creek and hung up [2] on McGee's Hill near Broughton's farm. [3]
Letters – Schaw to Macquarie, 8 May 1816, Dawe to Macquarie, 4 May 1816, NLA mfm N257 Reel 6045 AONSW CSO 4/1735.
Letter – Wallis to Macquarie, 9 May 1816, NLA mfm N257 AONSW CSO Reel 6045 4/1735; Anonymous, 'Old Memories', p. 105.
This was in accord with Macquarie's instructions that: Such Natives as happen to be killed on such occasions, if grown up men, are to be hanged up on Trees in Conspicuous Situations, to Strike the Survivors with the greater terror
Acknowledgment: John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788-1838, pp. 51, 137 n.63, n.64.
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‘Dispersals’ in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast
After finishing with the Ugarapul in early 1861, the infamous Lieutenant Wheeler continued carrying out reprisal raids from his barracks at Sandgate (c. 18 kilometres north-east of Brisbane). Ray Kerkhove has recorded some of Wheeler's adventures:
On...11 April 1861 he 'dispersed' the 'bunya bunya natives' (presumably the Nalbo and Dallabarra of the Nambour-Maleny-Kenilworth region). On 19 June...he patrolled up into Kilcoy and the bunya lands. In 1862, he patrolled to Caboolture and then on 31 July...he was met by a grand force of Obi Obi (Maleny-Mapleton), Brisbane and Caboolture warriors at Cressbrook. He managed to 'disperse' these too...Wheeler boasted that he had driven most of the inhabitants either out to the Moreton Bay islands, down into New South Wales, across the Divide or into northern rainforests. [1]
R. Evans, 'Against the Grain: Colonialism and the Demise of the Bunya Gatherings, 1839-1939' in Queensland Review, Vol 9, No 2, 2002, p.53, n 36; R. Kirkhove, A Concise Aboriginal History of the Sunshine Coast, typescript, 1986, pp.73-74; F Wheeler (Sandgate) to A W Manning, 1 December 1863, QSA, COL/A47 63/2889.
Acknowledgment: Timothy Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, p.29, 214 n.58.