April 30.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Driven out of their country
They could see that they were being driven out of their country by heavily armed military patrols and field police.
By the end of April 1828 [Governor] Arthur had deployed nearly 300 troops from the 40th and 57th regiments at fourteen military posts located along the frontiers and in the heartland of the settled Districts. Towards the end of May he told Governor Darling in Sydney that the military presence had 'put a temporary stop' to Aboriginal attacks, although he admitted that the Aborigines were not usually in the area at that time of year. [1]
Had Arthur met with chiefs from the North Midlands, Oyster Bay and Big River nations, such as Umarrah, Mannalargenna, Tongerlongter, Petelega and Montpelatier, and entered into negotiations with them about their relocation to the north-east and for seasonal passage through the Settled Districts, it is possible that some agreement could have been made. But from the chiefs' perspective that outcome was highly unlikely. They could see that they were being driven out of their country by heavily armed military patrols and field police. Nor had Arthur promised them genuine access to seasonal food sources and the fulfilment of their ceremonial obligations. Arthur, it seems, had overplayed his military strength.
BPP, 'Van Diemen's Land', 24-26; Arthur to Darling, 24 May 1828, HRA series III, vol. vii, 412-13.
Acknowledgment: "Arthur's War , 1826-28" in Lyndall Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, pp. 101-102 and 370. n.54.
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Hidden crimes against women.
...the often hidden crimes against women. This is particularly pertinent on Australian frontiers. In the Kimberley, an area where European women were a minority, police by ignoring or ‘turning a blind eye’ to criminal activity, often were facilitators of crimes against Aboriginal women. The taking of Aboriginal women or the rape of Aboriginal girls by European men was often not defined as a crime. The role of Aboriginal women as sexual partners, in what Ann McGrath noted was referred to as ‘black velvet’, was recognised as a cause of a great deal of conflict yet, although it was reported, it was hardly policed at all. [1]...Robert Fairbairn’s investigation found (among a number of practices) that the keeping of Aboriginal women was the main reason for attacks on pastoralists and not, as pastoralists argued, ‘innate treachery’. [2]
1. Ann McGrath, ‘Born in the Cattle: Aborigines in Cattle Country’ Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987, pp.68-94.
2. Instructions to and Reports from the Resident Magistrate Despatched by Direction of His excellency on Special Duty to the Murchison and Gascoyne Districts, p. 13.
Acknowledgment: Chris Owen, ‘Every Mother’s Son is Guilty’ – Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, UWA Publishing, Perth, 2016, pp. 54, 83, 474 n.102, 485 n.78 176
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The ‘killing times’
Jack Sullivan, a Gadjerong man and stock worker employed by the Durack family, talks of the ‘killing times’ around Patsy Durack’s Newry station:
I lived on the Keep river, which goes right from the coast to Newry Station. There were all Gadjerong people along the coast until the white men shot them. Half of them died and some of the young men were brought into the stations to quieten them and to learn the horses like me. All the Gadjerong people were taken out of their country or were put on the stations or were killed. There are no people left there now. [1]
1. B. Shaw (ed.), Banggaiyerri: the story of Jack Sullivan as told to Bruce Shaw, Canberra, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1983, p.35.
Acknowledgment: Chris Owen, ‘Every Mother’s Son is Guilty, pp. 335, 567 n.19 141
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