October 4.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Resistance and Massacres
Aboriginal resistance was often a very important obstacle facing the pastoralists.
When Byerley edited and published the Jardines' journals in 1867, he proclaimed their reluctance to shed blood; yet it is clear that they accepted opposition as a declaration of war and ignored any real effort to come to terms with the Aborigines. And Byerley, anticipating the appreciative reading public, glorified the encounters, terming one in which at least thirty unarmed Aborigines were killed, 'The Battle of Mitchell'. In 1865, the Queensland newspapers had carried long extracts of this journal, much space being devoted to the conflict with the Aborigines. An entry for 21 December read: 'In this instance it was thought better to carry the war into the enemy's camp than to have them throwing spears at us in the night. Most of our party went after them, and an exciting chase commenced'. [1] To some, it seems, such was life on the frontier.
Yet in North Queensland, Aboriginal resistance was often a very important obstacle facing the pastoralists. There has been a popular tendency to see Aboriginal resistance as spasmodic, as almost a non-intelligent reflex response to periodic irritations. As has been previously indicated, in North Queensland at least, and probably more often elsewhere than has been realised, there is ample evidence that Aborigines communicated the nature of the threat the invaders offered over long distances and that they reacted in a variety of ways according to the nature of such information. In areas where the nature of European firepower was apparently not understood, such as first in the Bowen District and later with the Jardines in Cape York Peninsula, the Aborigines sometimes responded to what they must have regarded as a hostile intrusion with direct and determined confrontation.
Byerley, The Jardines' Journal, pp. V, vi, 36; Port Denison Times, 4 October 1865. Quoted from The Empire. In this instance no one was hurt on either side.
Acknowledgment: Noel Loos, Invasion and Resistance, pp. 46, 258 n.58
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“Pastoralists were invading...massacring Aborigines as they advanced.”
Not long before[Frederick] Hagenauer was urging the Christian community to spare no effort to bring Christ to the north Queensland Aborigines, pastoralists were invading the very region where the first Presbyterian mission was to be sited, massacring Aborigines as they advanced. These cattlemen were led by Lachlan Kennedy and Frank Jardine. Mapoon people still tell the stories. Twenty years ago there were still those who could actually remember.
Jerry Hudson said:
Jardine and Kennedy came through Batavia River. Jardine wanted to put his station 50 miles up - you can still see the stone walls he made for his footpath. They were killing people all the way up. At Dingle Creek they killed most of the tribe. That's the Batavia River people. Billy Miller and Andrew Archie are of that tribe. Only fifty left out of 300. [1]
Lachlan Kennedy had twenty notches on his gun, tallying the Aborigines he had personally shot. According to Mapoon people, he eventually regretted his past and married an Aboriginal woman. At his request, they buried his dead body in a vertical position as a sign of his disgrace as a murderer. [2]
Jerry Hudson in Mapoon People, 1975 (Part 1), p.6.
Mapoon People, 1975 (Part 1), p.6.
Acknowledgment: John Harris, One Blood, pp. 486 - 487, 526 n.132, n.133.