July 17.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Dispossession and Subjugation
“The Aboriginal inhabitants of this province have an absolute right of selection...”
The Aboriginal inhabitants of this province have an absolute right of selection prior to all Europeans who have settled in it during the last four years, of reasonable positions of the choicest land, for their special use and benefit, out of the very extensive districts over which, from time immemorial, these Aborigines have exercised distinct, defined and absolute rights of proprietary and hereditary possession.
The invasion of those ancient rights by surveys and land appropriations of any kind, is justifiable only on the ground that we should, at the same time, reserve for the natives an ample sufficiency for their present and future use and comfort under the new state of things into which they are thrown – a state in which we hope they will be led to live in greater comfort on a smaller space than they enjoyed before it occurred on their extensive original possessions.
Such spots of course must be within the native district of the tribe for whom they may be selected. If, in the proposition, you have intended to recommend that the native tribes shall be removed out of the haunts and districts from time immemorial their own, the Governor cannot for a moment countenance a scheme which he is convinced would be practicable only by the severest coercion and harsh towards men who, by their general conduct, merit a very different treatment. [1]
Charles Sturt to S. McLaren and Others, 17 July 1840, The South Australian Register, 1 August, 1840
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, Dispossession, pp. 82-83.
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‘...open warfare, brutality and murder, and...subordination, dependency, and subjugation...’
Each situation of the invading Europeans was subject to an uneasy peace whilst the functional relationships between the competing groups were determined. Because of the rapidly dwindling sources of indigenous food supplies and the competition between the exotic beasts and native fauna, Aborigines had no alternative but to either attack the European cattle, steal from the homestead, or become dependant on the benevolence of the station owner. [1] Some pastoralists tried to allay friction by providing beef for the local tribes, but at other places the indigenes openly attacked the cattle and settlers as well. [2]
In the first stages of adjustment considerable experimentation took place on both sides. The pattern of this process, however, depended largely on the pastoralists' need for labour or sexual services. At one end of the spectrum it was little better than open warfare, brutality and murder, and at the other end, subordination, dependency, and subjugation. As one Police Magistrate put it, 'the only wise thing to do on seeing a black was to shoot. And shoot straight, otherwise he would certainly spear you'. [3]
Others were less concerned about their personal danger and shot them down for sport. [4] The relationship between the new owners of the domain and the resident tribes was pointed and direct:
“as soon as I saw the blacks I...brought them into my head station...and made them understand...that I am master of that ground.../they could use it on certain conditions – as long as they did what I told them./ Whatever I told them to do they had to do, and then I gave them what I thought a fair valuation for their labour. If they refused, I made them go to the scrub... [5]
Berndt, p.86.
M. Durack, Kings in Grass Castles, Constable, London, 1959, pp. 86, 284-286.
W.R.O. Hill, Forty-Five Years' Experiences in North Queensland 1861-1905, Pole, Brisbane, 1907, p.31
Queensland Parliamentary Debates, Vol. LXXXVIII, 15 November 1897, p.1546.
Report of the Select Committee on the Native police Force and the Conditions of the Aborigines Generally, Queensland Legislative Assembly, Brisbane, 17 July 1861, p.80.
Acknowledgment: Frank Stevens, The Politics of Prejudice, Alternative Publishing Co-operative Limited, Chippendale, 1980, pp. 24-25, 164 n.29, n.30, n.31, n.32, n.33.