July 4.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Rifles arrived...atrocities committed
For thousands of years they shared cultural events but then men with rifles arrived.
Until 1848 four tribes inhabited the valley of the Tilly River: the Girramay in the southern part, the Djiru along the north, the Gulngay along the Tully River and the Jirrbal to the west. The four tribes have been linguistically represented as 'Dyirbal'. [1] For thousands of years they hunted for food, held buyas (corroborees) to settle disputes and shared cultural events. On 4 July 1848, a dramatic change took place. On what is now known as Meunga Creek, the Girramay confronted white invaders. Edmund Kennedy's exploring party had arrived. During the confrontation four Girramay were shot. A week later, on 11 July, Kennedy was near the Murray River when he wrote that ‘the fifteen or so Aborigines following them did not know what had happened to their mates eight miles in front of them’. [2] That is, they had been shot. The rifle had arrived.
R M W Dixon, The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland, Cambridge University Press, London, 1972
Kennedy’s retrieved notes from Escape River dated Tuesday, 11 July 1848, in Edgar Beale, Kennedy’s Workbook, Wollongong University College, Wollongong, 1970, p.101.
Acknowledgment: Timothy Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, pp.133-34, 233 n.2, n.3.
Squalor in conditions for, and white attitudes of, Tasmanian Indigenous survivors
Tarenootairrer was the only Aborigine at Oyster Cove to leave grandchildren, which she did by her daughter Fanny Cochrane Smith. Her descendants form part of the Aboriginal community today. Truganini now saw it as her responsibility to take Tarenootairrer's grandchildren on possum hunting expeditions and teach them songs and stories of her people. [1]
When James Bonwick visited the station in 1859, only fourteen Aborigines were still alive, comprising nine women and five men [2]...Bonwick was deeply shocked that 'No means are adopted by Government to provide any religious instruction or emulation and no effort made to protect them from the vicious influence of the bad white man or keep them from the destructive effects of strong drink. The remnant should at least be prepared for death and eternity.' [3]But like [Dr Joseph] Milligan the government blamed their misery and squalor upon the 'inmates' and could not wait for them to die: 'There are five old men and nine old women living at the Oyster Cove Station – 'uncleanly, unsober, unvirtuous, unenergetic, and irreligious, with a past character for treachery, and no record of one noble action, the race is fast falling away and its utter extinction will be hardly regretted.' [4]
1. Plomley, The Westlake Papers, 60.
2. Bonwick, The Last of the Tasmanians, 282-3.
3. Oyster Cove Visitors Book, 21 May 1859.
4. Hull, Royal Kalendar, 20. “Ironically it seems the Port Davey people and others from the North West nation who had first met [George] Robinson in 1830 had produced a sufficient number of children to ensure their survival. But Lieutenant-Governor William Denison* and Dr Joseph Milligan appear to have been determined to prevent the community's survival.' - Lyndall Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, pp. 254-255.
Acknowledgment: Lyndall Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, pp. 262-263, 378 n.20, n.21, n.22, n.23
* The legacy of this era is found in contemporary Australia. Denison's name lives on – both an electorate and a town are named after him.
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The struggle against public opinion.
[The Rev'd John] Gribble was not left totally alone in the white community of Carnarvon. He was gratified, 'for the sake of Australian Christianity', that a few people had declined to sign the petition [calling for his withdrawal by the church for his support for local Aboriginal people]. Some who had, including George Baston and Thomas Bird, contacted the Bishop to have their names erased from the petition, feeling that they had been misled. Some tried to assist [Gribble] by purchasing extra supplies for themselves to provide some for Gribble, but they, too, were soon boycotted.
At another public meeting in Carnarvon on 28 December, Gribble was called upon to resign. Amidst heckling from the white crowd and cries of 'we are not slave-drivers', Gribble took the floor, declaring that he would never cease to fight 'for the downtrodden natives'. The West Australian reported the comments made at the meeting. Gribble had not proved himself to be 'a true Britisher', said Mr Rotton. Gribble had not acted Christianly, they said. 'If we were not Christians, Mr Gribble could not make us such'. A Mr Russell said that if Mr Gribble was a Christian, he certainly did not want to resemble him. [1]
West Australian, 5 January 1886.
Acknowledgment: John Harris, One Blood, pp. 419-20, 454 n. 127.