July 2.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Scale of slaughter indiscriminate
”The killing of from two to twenty blacks is spoken of without the least remorse.”
For some frontiersmen the guilt or innocence of their victims was entirely irrelevant. To men 'distinguished for their malicious vigour', the blacks were merely dangerous animals and their attitude to killing them resembled that of a game hunter. [1] As early as 1824 Adam Amos recorded in his diary several occasions on which he or his son went out 'hunting the blacks' [2] Such practices became far more prevalent as the decade progressed. [3] In 1830, the Colonial Times lamented 'the custom that has been almost universal amongst certain Settlers and their servants, whenever the Natives had visited their neighbourhood, to consider the men as wild beasts whom it is praiseworthy to hunt down and destroy, and the women as only fit to be used for the worst purposes'. [4]
James Bonwick claimed that 'on several occasions [he] heard men declare that they thought no more of shooting a Black than bringing down a bird', and that during the war, ‘it was common enough to hear men talk of the number of black crows they had destroyed'. [5] Hugh Hull, who had lived in the colony since 1819, recalled 'it was a favourite amusement to hunt the Aborigines... Sometimes they would return without sport; at others they would succeed in killing a woman, or, if lucky, mayhap a man or two. [6]
...Colonists attitudes towards killing blacks were rarely reluctant. William Barnes, who had endured the war from its beginning, admitted:
The depredations committed upon them by the white people have been carried on for many years and has been upon so large a scale the slaughter has been so indiscriminate and attended with such heart rendering [sic] and unheard of acts of barbarity that it is impossible to describe them. These acts are never published in the papers, but are recounted by the perpetrators and are made the subject of exultation – when the killing of from two to twenty blacks is spoken of without the least remorse. [7]
Such attitudes were common. When investigating the killing of women and children at Cape Grim, for instance, [George] Robinson interviewed a convict named Chamberlain, who described his role 'with such perfect indifference my blood chilled'. [8]
Not only were many frontiersmen comfortable with killing blacks, some saw themselves as providing a valuable public service. According to the Colonial Times of 2 July 1830, 'the shooting of blacks is spoken of as a matter of levity – indeed, it is considered a meritorious service to the State'. [9] ...The belief was, one settler wrote, that 'the exterminating zeal, of some, may engender the success and safety of others'. [10]
Colonists who held such attitudes were capable of truly ghastly acts of violence. For example, it was not uncommon for colonists to collect trophies from the bodies of their native victims in the form of ears, digits and heads. [11]
West, History of Tasmania, p. 18.
Amos diary, 14, 15 December 1823, 10 January, 25, 28, 29 March, 23 May, 12 July 1824, TAHO, NS323/1/1.
e.g. Plomley, Friendly mission, p. 460; Hobler, Pioneer George Hobler, p. 176.
Colonial Times, 2 July 1830.
Bonwick, Last of the Tasmanians,, pp. 57-58.
H L Roth, The Aborigines of Tasmania, F King & Sonms, Halifax, 1899, p. 172. Some of these stories were undoubtedly coloured by bravado, but they are too numerous to be dismissed.
Barnes to AC, 10 March 1830, TAHO, CSO1/323, p. 300.
Plomley, Friendly mission, p. 207.
Colonial Times, 2 July 1830.
Launceston Advertiser, 28 March 1831.
e.g. Plomley, Friendly mission, p. 100; West, History of Tasmania, p. 9; Colonial Times, 17 September, 8 October 1830.
Acknowledgment: Nicholas Clements, The Black War, pp. 50-53, 228-229 n.41, n.42, n.43, n.44, n.45, n.46, n.54, n.55, n.56, .58., n.59.