October 17.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Witnesses silenced but Terror allowed
Disproportionate killings in massacres
The prevailing attitude [of settler silence] enabled the events of 17 October 1861 to unfold, when nineteen whites were massacred at Cullin-la-Ringo Station (c.80 kilometres south-south-west of the future Emerald). [1] This resulted in a further massive retribution, where at least 370 Aboriginal people were killed. Conservatively, this equates to a ratio of nineteen Aboriginals killed for each of the Cullin-la-Ringo whites killed…
...The tragedy occurred because the manager of nearby Rainworth Station, Jesse Gregson, had, along with Second Lieutenant Patrick and his Native Police troopers, [2] shot members of the local Gayiri, and it was a retaliatory response. Cedric Wills was later to recall that his brother Tom told him, ‘If the truth is ever known, you will find that it was Gregson through shooting those blacks that was the cause of the murder’. ...Cedric firmly believed this account as he wrote: ‘It makes my blood boil when I start on this subject -that Gregson, just for the sake of a few sheep, committed the act that was to cause the murder of my father and all his party – men, women and children’. [3]
The British Australian squatters’ response was a complete overreaction, with some 400 Aboriginals killed because of the massacre of eleven whites at Hornet Bank in 1857, and somewhere between 300 and 370 killed directly in response to the massacre at Cullin-la-Ringo.
1. For a more detailed coverage, see G de Moor, Tom Wills: his spectacular rise and tragic fall, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2008; G. Reid, A Nest of Hornets, OUP, Melbourne, 1982; L. Perrin, Cullin-la-Ringo: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tommy Wills, self published, Stafford, Queensland, 1998.
2. A. M. G. Patrick was appointed to the Native Police in 1860 as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was shot in the leg while on duty and resigned with ill-health in 1862. He died in Brisbane in 1870. Richards, The Secret War, UQP, 2008, p.255.
3. Cedric Wills, Morning Bulletin, Rockhampton, 9 December, 1912.
Timothy Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, pp.53-54, 218 n.30, n.31, n.32
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Aboriginal witnesses of killings and other violence not permitted to give evidence.
[The great difficulty in gaining murder convictions against white settlers was that any Aboriginal witnesses could not give evidence because, being regarded as non-Christians, they could not take the oath.]* Difficulties also arose on putting Aborigines on trial. In 1805 the New South Wales judge advocate, Richard Atkins, produced the legal opinion that, while Aborigines were British subjects, they could not understand British law, and so the only way to apply the law to them was, 'when they deserve it...to pursue and inflict such punishment as they may merit'. Corporal Peter Farrell of the New South Wales Corps was rebuked by Governor John Hunter in 1799 for capturing the Darug man known as 'Charley' for farm raids on the Hawkesbury River and bringing him to Sydney for trial. Because 'Charley' did not understand British law, Hunter refused to try him and told Corporal Farrell that instead of making the arrest, he should have shot 'Charley'. [1]
Governor Brisbane's martial law proclamation was one of three measures introduced to end the Wiradjuri raids. He also, at [Bathurst commandant Major James] Morisset's request, increased the Bathurst garrison to seventy-five men....
The experience of 'a wave of terror'.
The Wiradjuri's quick surrender following Morisset's expedition may suggest a massacre at Beels Falls took place, but the Wiradjuri's actions can be explained without relying on this incident. About a week before Morisset's expedition passed through the Mudgee area a man named Chamberlane, who was William Cox's overseer at Mudgee, and two stockmen, killed sixteen Wiradjuri, probably all men, including a leader known by settlers as 'Blucher'. While this number of men killed might seem low, for a small group like the 'Mudgee tribe', it was a high percentage casualty rate for a single action. The appearance a few days afterwards of Morisset's four coordinated parties must have sent a wave of terror through the Wiradjuri. It forced them to move constantly to keep out of sight of the British patrols, and as Governor Brisbane wrote, kept the Wiradjuri 'in a constant state of alarm'. [2] The devastating casualties of Chamberlane's skirmish, followed in swift succession by the total disruption of food gathering caused by Morisset's parties, would have convinced the Wiradjuri that negotiating peace was the only option to ensure their survival.
Atkinson, Europeans in Australia, p. 164; Judge Advocate Atkins' opinion on the treatment of Natives [1805], HRA, V: 503; evidence – Corporal Peter Farrell, NSW Corps, 17 October 1799, HRA, I: 418. Evidence by non-Christian Aborigines did not become readily admissible in New South Wales courts until 1876.* Nancy E. Wright, 'The Problem of Aboriginal evidence in early colonial New South Wales', in Diane Kirkby & Catharine Coleborne (eds), Law, history, colonialism: The reach of Empire, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2001, pp. 140-55.
Sydney Gazette, 16 September 1824; letter – Brisbane to [Earl of] Bathurst, 31 December 1824, HRA, XI: 431.
Acknowledgment: John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars, pp. 58, 61, 138 n.14, 139 n.21.
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* The pious assumption in the swearing of oaths in the colonial law courts that white settlers were all observant Christians does not tally well with the 'down to earth' observation by Welsh migrant and swagman, Joseph Evans, as regards his many neighbours in Malvern in Victoria, in 1889:
“This small town is full of religious buildings [he lists nine denominations] but the ‘Stay at Homes’ outnumber all the other denominations.”
Acknowledgment: William Evans, Diary of a Welsh Swagman 1869-1894, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1975, pp.172-3