March 17.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Reasons for Resistance
...slaughtering whole camps, not only of men, but of women and children...
Charles Heydon, who was on the Governor Blackall sent from Sydney for the Maria search:
...had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the state of public opinion in North Queensland with regard to the blacks. I heard white men talk openly of the share they had in slaughtering whole camps, not only of men, but of women and children. [1]
Alleged Outrages Committed on the Aborigines in Queensland by the Native Mounted Police', Queensland Votes and Proceedings (QV&P), 1875, p.622.
Acknowledgment: Timothy Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, pp 135, 234 n.9.
____
“..they harboured 'great antipathy to the redcoats.”
Tasmanian [Aboriginals] reserved a particular hatred for soldiers. Robinson found they possessed 'a rooted antipathy' and 'an unconquerable aversion to soldiers'. [1] Likewise, the Oyster Bay settler George Story recalled that they harboured 'great antipathy to the redcoats'. [2] This was probably because soldiers were easily recognisable, always armed, and responsible for many acts of frontier violence. [3] The experiences of Robinson's informants explain why they felt this way:
[Tunnerminnerwait] stated that a soldier stole upon some natives unperceived and shot a woman. The white savage then took out his knife and cut her throat and cut open her belly and then burnt her in the fire. LACKLAY further stated that on another occasion some soldiers stole upon the natives at their encampment and fired upon them and shot one man and one woman; and a helpless infant belonging to the murdered woman they also killed, by beating it on the head with a stick. [4]
Such treatment did result in several reprisals against soldiers when they could be isolated alone or in pairs, but generally fear seems to have encouraged most Aborigines to take a wide berth of those men in red. [5] Desire for revenge, it seems, did not tempt them to make suicidal attacks on targets beyond their capabilities.
Robinson to CS, 24 February 1831, in Plomley, Friendly mission, p. 470.
G F Story to J Bonwick, n.d., University of Tasmania library special and rare materials collection, eprints.utas.edu.au/2228.
e.g. O'Connor to AC, 17 March 1830, in Shaw, Van Diemen's Land, pp.54-55; Plomley, Friendly mission, p. 298-300, 309-12, 412, 451-52.
Plomley, Friendly mission, p. 585.
e.g. Hobart Town Courier, 20 December 1828, 26 March 1831; Colonial Times, 1 October 1830; Williams to CS, 16 December 1828, TAHO, CSO1/316, pp. 210-12; Robinson to Arthur, 20 November 1830, TAHO, CSO1/317, pp. 216-33.
Acknowledgment: Nicholas Clements, The Black War, pp. 62, 231 n.97, n.98, n.99, n.100, n.101.
____
Aboriginal people were the 'first Australians'.
[John] Mulvaney...in his landmark 1969 continental synthesis, The Prehistory of Australia...revolutionised the conventional narrative of Australian history by painting a rich picture of Aboriginal occupation prior to European settlement and asserting, repeatedly, that Aboriginal people were the 'first Australians'. Its triumphant opening sentence declared: 'The discoverers, explorers and colonists of the three million square miles which are Australia were its Aborigines.' [1] The dramatic immense significance of this sentence, and the dramatic shift in perspective it inspired, is the subject of this book.*
John Mulvaney, The Prehistory of Australia, Praeger, New York, 1969, p. 12.
Acknowledgment: * Billy Griffiths, Deep Time Dreaming – Uncovering Ancient Australia, pp. 33-34, 310 n.82.