December 22.
“A Portrait of Australia With Important Bits Missing” by Glenn Loughrey
Wiradjuri land under threat
The ever-increasing number of settlers and stock animals put traditional Wiradjuri land use under threat.
The relative peace of the Bathurst frontier ended with the arrival in New South Wales of Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane in December 1821. In accordance with the recommendations of the Bigge report, Brisbane 'privatised' the convict system, and ended Macquarie's limit on inland settlement, granting settlers large tracts of land around Bathurst and assigning them convicts with which to work their land. Between 1821 and 1825, the number of cattle and sheep in the Bathurst district increased from 33,723 to 113,973, while the amount of alienated land* increased from 2,520 acres to 91,636 acres [1,010 hectares to 36,650 hectares). In 1822 Bathurst was so small that it did not have a public house, but by 1827 the population had grown so much that the town now supported a brewery, and eleven public houses – ten of them unlicensed. [1]
The ever-increasing number of settlers and stock animals put traditional Wiradjuri land use under threat. The Wiradjuri began attacks at Mudgee and at Swallow Creek, west of Bathurst in 1822. Previously the good relationship between Wiradjuri leaders and the Bathurst commandant, Lieutenant William Lawson (of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth fame), had minimised conflict, and in December 1823 Lawson and another long-term settler suggested to Wiradjuri men that they should visit Bathurst to meet the new commandant, Major James Morisset, in the hope that negotiations could stop the attacks. [2] However, the scale of the British encroachment onto Wiradjuri land made compromise impossible and the raids continued.
...The best-known Wiradjuri leader in these raids was Windradyne,** called 'Saturday' by the British though he was only one of several Wiradjuri leaders. Traditional enmities between the different Wiradjri-speaking groups meant they were unable to combine to fight the British as one group. As late as 1836 Charles Darwin, who visited Bathurst during his visit to Australia, noted that Wiradjuri had kept up 'their ancient distinctions, and sometimes go to war with each other'. As Goodall points out, 'the limitation of authority to one's country' meant that no one leader could coordinate all the Wiradjuri groups, and as the British advanced through the vast Wiradjuri lands, each group fought the invasion in their turn, 'country by country'. [3]
Perry, First Frontier, pp 28-35; Pearson, 'Bathurst Plains and Beyond', p. 71; Barron Field, 'Journal of an Excursion Across the Blue Mountains of New South Wales'; 'XYZ' [Captain William Dumaresq], 'A Ride to Bathurst, 1827', in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, II: 44, 96.
Pearson, 'Bathurst Plains and Beyond', pp 72-73; letter – William Cox Goulburn, 7 December 1823, NLA mfm N257 Reel 6017 AONSW CSO 4/5783: letters – Lieutenant William Lawson to Goulburn, 10 April 1822, 22 December 1823, NLA mfm N257 Reel 6065 AONSW CSO 4/1798.
Charles Darwin, 'Journey Across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst in January 1836, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, III: 38-39; Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 14f
Acknowledgment: John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars, pp. 55-56, 137-138, n.4, n.5, n.8.
* The land was 'alienated' or taken without any negotiation, realistic compromises or treaties with the Aboriginal owners of the land. - RB
** Further on Windradyne note: Marcia Langton, “Ngura barbagai Country Lost – ‘They made a solitude and called it peace’ in First Australians, Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton eds, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2010, pp. 35-42.
See further Stephen Gapps, Gudyarra – the First Wirdayuri War of Resistance, the Bathurst War 1822-1824, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021.