May 19.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
‘...all the blacks, twelve of them, were shot.’
Whites dine respectably alongside murder site.
When (Reg] Uhr reached the Hermitage, Featherstonhaugh and a party of [white] vigilantes were waiting to ride with him. The chase that followed and the “prompt justice” Uhr dealt out to the blacks were reported in twenty-five newspapers across the country. In the aftermath, Uhr reported to [Lieutenant John] Marlow [Native Police commander] “shooting six blacks for murder of shepherd”. In his memoirs, Featherstonhaugh put the number higher:
We all started on our punitive expedition. These fellows tracked the blacks with ease. They put the number down at about twenty from the tracks, including gins. [sic] We white men could not see a sign of a track till after we had been a week after them...Our trip was quite a picnic. We did about ten miles a day, tracking all the time...No one watched at night, and if the blacks had been about and been game, they could have easily crept on us in the dark. I asked Uhr if this had ever happened. He said only once, and then the wild blacks were led by two runaway black troopers and they pretty well wiped out the police camp…
After doing about one hundred miles on the tenth day as Capito and I were riding in the lead in open scrub country, suddenly he leaned down on his horse and went off as hard as he could, I after him. He had sighted the “myalls”. We galloped into them. They were running in all directions. The gins [sic] lay down, one was shot by mistake. We shot down two blackfellows and got through them and turned back. A shot from one of our fellows hit my horse in the chest – no harm done. In a few minutes, all the blacks, twelve of them, were shot. If one or two tried to fight they had no chance…
We sat down, and it seemed very cold blooded that with some of the dead blacks lying close to us, and the gins [sic] scowling at us from a little distance off, we ate and enjoyed our pot of tea and our dinner.[1]
1. Cuthbert Featherstonhaugh, After Many Days, E.W. Cole, Melbourne, 1917, p.273-4.
Acknowledgment: David Marr, Killing For Country – A family story, Black Inc, Collingwood, pp.277-278, 441.
_____________________
The ‘inhuman’ abduction of Indigenous personnel
The effect of such kidnapping on subsequent race relations on the sea frontier was illustrated before the year [1877] was out. Dunk Island Aborigines attacked another European craft, killing the crew and destroying the vessel. An inquiry revealed that this was ‘in revenge for the kidnapping of the people on board of the Douglas’. [1]
The Water Police Magistrate at Cooktown who inquired into the Douglas tragedy, B. Fahey, commented in his report:
The abduction of natives from their Islands and haunts along the coast of Queensland by masters of pearl and [beche-de-mer] fishing vessels, as well as those in search of guano and following various other pursuits has frequently resulted in the loss of life and valuable property and to this inhuman practice must undoubtedly be traced the murder of Coughlin, Mackintosh and Troy by the natives taken by Capt. Harris from Dunk Island.
He urged that those responsible for the Douglas kidnappings be punished to prevent a repetition of the offence as previously kidnapping had been carried on with impunity. Such action was supported by Fahey’s departmental superior who regarded ‘the conduct of the unfortunate blacks as above all praise… Had three white men attempted to free themselves from bondage in the same way they would have been exalted to be heroes of the first order’. [2]
1877 V. & P., Vol, II, p. 1245.
B. Fahey, Walter P.M., Cooktown, to Water P. M., Brisbane, 19 May 1877, and memo, 28 May 1877. The signature is indecipherable. It may be that of the Water Police Magistrate in Brisbane or the Colonial Treasurer. The memo and file were forwarded to the Premier. Such an enlightened response to Aboriginal resistance was very rare.
Acknowledgment: Noel Loos, Invasion and Resistance, pp. 129-130, 280 n.28, n.29.