March 13.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Cruelties and Dispossession
“...cruelties have been perpetuated repugnant to Humanity
Tasmania's third governor, William Sorell, reacted in [with] similar [concern] in 1819 when informed about the ways of up-country settlers. In a proclamation on 13 March [1819] he declared:[1]
It is undeniable that, in many former instances, cruelties have been perpetuated repugnant to Humanity and disgraceful to the British character...The Impressions remaining from earlier injuries are kept up by the occasional Outrages of Miscreants whose Scene of Crime is so remote as to render detection difficult; and who sometimes wantonly fire at and kill the Men and…pursue the Women for the purpose of compelling them to abandon their children. This last Outrage is perhaps the most certain of all to excite in the Sufferers a strong thirst for Revenge against all White Men and to incite the Natives to take vengeance indiscriminately according to the general practice of an uncivilized* People, whenever in their Migrations they fall in with Herds and Stockmen. [1]
GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL ORDERS, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HOBART TOWN, 13th MARCH 1819 – cited by Clive Turnbull, Black War – The Extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines, Sun Books, South Melbourne, 1974, pp.57-58.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, This Whispering In Our Hearts. p. 3 n.4.
'Uncivilised' – This word could, on occasions, more aptly describe the violence perpetrated by white settlers in the colonies. See entries for 14 March and 22 March. - RB
___ Disagreements between West Australian pastoralists and government officials over treatment of Indigenous workers.
By 1885, [William] Lukin was expressing doubts about the strategic location of his station. The independent Aboriginal people who made inquisitive and fleeting visits to his homestead infuriated him. He had enough trouble maintaining the loyalty of a small assembly of white workers and found it almost impossible to recruit a servile Aboriginal workforce. At the inaugural meeting of the Kimberley Pastoral Association, which elected [William] Forrester chairman and [Isadore] Emanuel secretary, Lukin expressed bitterness about his labour difficulties. He put a motion, seconded by Emanuel, that 'the laws for the punishment of Aborigines should be altered so that flogging might be resorted to as the penalty for absconding Aboriginal assigned servants'. [1]
At the same meeting Emanuel called for the appointment of six West Kimberley settlers as justices of the peace. The motion was unanimously adopted and he followed it with a strongly worded letter to Governor Broome. [Kimberley Government Resident, Robert] Fairbairn intervened and advised Broome that the West Kimberley settlers could not be trusted with judicial powers. 'Far from receiving assistance from the settlers who seem anxious to be placed on the Commission of the Peace,' Fairbairn argued, 'I feel that the Government Resident would be seriously impaired in the discharge of magisterial duties'. [2]
Fairbairn's advice was accepted...With disdain the settlers claimed Fairbairn was more interested in protecting the Aboriginal people than in supporting them. Fairbairn had drawn such condemnation because of his strict adherence to the government's policy of not issuing warrants for the capture of Aboriginal people on the fringes of pastoral settlement.
1. Colonial Secretary's Office, 30 April 1885, 1612/85.
2. ibid.
Acknowledgment: Howard Pedersen and Banjo Woorunmurra, JANDAMARRA and the Bunuba Resistance, Magabala Books, Broome, 2011, pp. 40-41, 216 n.10, n.11.
Note on oral/written history of Jandamarra – Stephen Muecke, Alan Rumsey and Banjo Wirrunmurra, ‘Pigeon the outlaw: history as texts’ Aboriginal History, Vol. 9 (1985) pp. 81-100