April 4.

Artwork by Glenn LoughreyThe slaughter effected by the squatters’ vigilantes.

The slaughter effected by the squatters’ vigilantes.

Five stockmen and timber cutters were killed in 1836 and 1837. Two of the dead were shepherds on John Cobb’s run on the Gwydir and a party of stockmen set off in pursuit of the killers. Through his network of black informers, the missionary Lancelot Threlkeld heard that the vigilantes “came upon the tribe, found some with the clothes of the murdered shepherds on their backs” and set about killing them. As many as 200 died in reprisal raids, their bodies buried on a mountain still called Gravesend. Threlkeld reported to the Colonial Secretary:

If Government were to institute an enquiry into the conduct of some Europeans in the interior towards the blacks, A War of extirpation would be found to have long existed in which the ripping open of the bellies of the Blacks alive; - the roasting them in that state in triangularly made log fires, made for the very purpose; - the dashing of infants upon the stones; the confining of a party in a hut and letting them out singly through the door-way, to be butchered as they endeavoured to escape, together with many other atrocious acts of cruelty, which are but the sports f monsters boasting of superior intellect to that possessed by the wretched Blacks! [1]

The squatters were circulating a list of fourteen – but always said to be fifteen – names of martyrs to black violence since explorers first came to Corbon Comelroy. But as far as [Governor] Bourke was concerned, the old deal with settlers beyond the Limits of Location was unchanged: those who took their sheep deep into the wastelands had to look after themselves. He stuck to this though the outcome was appalling. By Threlkeld’s account, the killing of those fourteen or fifteen whites on the Liverpool Plain provoked the death of at least 500 Kamilaroi.

1. Threlkeld’s 7th annual report to the Colonial Secretary; Neil Gunson (ed.), Australian Reminiscences and Papers of L.E. Threlkeld: Missionary to the Aborigines, 1824-1859, Australian Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, Vol. I, p. 139.

Acknowledgment: David Marr, Killing For Country – A family story, Black Inc, Collingwood, 2023, pp. 74, 425 n.74.

“A great number were slain…nearly one hundred perished...

William Telfer, the Bard of Wallabadah, heard of a raid carried out at this time by twenty squatters, their shepherds and [Frederick] Walker ‘s [1] men on a camp of three hundred warriors.

Just at daybreak they made an attack on the sleeping camp some of them fled hearing the horses coming, making for the scrub but were met by the native police who drew their swords cutting and slashing the fugitives. A great number were slain also a lot shot dead… the old chief fought on his knees using his spear bayonet fashion trying to stab their horses until he was shot dead...thus was broken up this large tribe nearly one hundred perished under the sword and bullet of the white man. [2]

Walker could see that most of the violence in the district was caused by squatters clearing blacks from their runs. He knew there was no empty territory for Aborigines to retreat to. Everywhere was black country. For one people to move onto the lands of another was an unpardonable violation of law. Stay or go, the people who once hunted and fished the squatters’ runs faced reprisals. Fighting to stay was the more honourable course.

1. Native Police Commander.

2. William Telfer, the Wallabadah Manuscript, 1839, p. 41.

Acknowledgment: David Marr, Killing For Country – A family story, Black Inc, Collingwood, 2023, pp.179, 434.