August 7.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
John Batman’s encounter
“I was obliged therefore to shoot them.”
The following August [1829] a civilian roving party under John Batman came across a large native camp. They crept as close as they could before one man 'struck his musket against that of another party, which immediately alarmed the dogs'. According to Batman's report, the blacks:
…were in the act of running away into the thick scrub, when I ordered the men to fire upon them, which was done, and a rush by the party immediately followed, we only captured that Night one woman and a male child about Two years old, the party was in search of them the remainder of the Night, but without success, the next morning we found one man very badly wounded in his ankle and knee, shortly after we found another 10 buckshot had entered his Body, he was alive but very bad, there was a great number of traces of blood in various directions and learned from those we took that 10 men were wounded in the Body which they gave us to understand were dead or would die, and Two women in the same state had crawled away, besides a number that was shot in the legs...on Friday morning we left the place for my Farm with the two men, woman and child, but found it quite impossible that the Two former could walk, and after trying them by every means in my power, for some time, found I could not get them on. I was obliged therefore to shoot them. [1]
The only difference between the two attacks [2] was that the 40th Regiment's kill rate was much higher than Batman's, which no doubt reflected their arms training. Tactically, however, the ambushes seem to have been identical. Although neither soldiers nor frontiersmen had been trained to execute such ambushes, the tactics of the gin raiders were well established by the time the roving parties were formed.
There were also important similarities in the ways the attacks were reported. Neither [Constable John] Danvers nor Batman expressed the slightest concern that they might attract censure for firing on masses of sleeping men, women and children. And neither did. The roving parties were the colony's primary defence against the blacks, and [Governor] Arthur was unwilling to compromise their authority. [3] Indeed, he went so far as to reassure rovers their rewards would be safe, even if they were 'unavoidably compelled to use violence, and loss of life ensue[d]'. [4]
Batman to Anstey, 7 August 1829, TAHO, CSO1/320, section B.
The 40th Regiment's attack was on the 6 December, 1828. See entry for 6 December.
C Billot, John Batman: The story of John Batman and the founding of Melbourne, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1979, p. 48.
CS to Simpson, 4 August 1830, in Reynolds, Fate of a free people, p. 114.
Acknowledgment: Nicholas Clements, The Black War, pp. 74-75, n.25, n.26, n.27.
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Imperil authority merged into national and state authorities
More broadly, [Emma] Kowal argues ‘the authority of Australian governments is continuous with the authority of those who invaded the land’. [1]
1. Emma Kowal, Trapped in the gap: Doing good in Indigenous Australia, Bergahn Books, New York, 2015, p.49, citing Patrick Dodson, ‘Indigenous communities need to be part of the solution. Top-down measures don’t work’, The Guardian, 22 September, 2017.
Acknowledgment: Sarah Maddison, The Colonial Fantasy – Why white Australia can’t solve black problems, p.159.