June 18.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Further fatal conflicts
...fatal conflicts, in which some colonists and many Aborigines have been slain...
But Aborigines reacted less to the original trespass than to the ruthless assertion by Europeans of exclusive proprietorial rights often from the very first day of occupation. It was behaviour probably unheard of in traditional society. Increasingly the newcomers impinged on accustomed patterns of life, occupying the flat, open land and monopolizing surface water. Indigenous animals were driven away, plant life eaten or trampled and Aborigines pushed into the marginal country – mountains, swamps, waterless neighbourhoods. Patterns of seasonal migration broke down, areas remaining free of Europeans were over utilized and eventually depleted of both flora and fauna. Food became scarcer and available in less and less variety and even access to water was often difficult. Attacks on sheep and cattle, made frequently in desperation, provoked violent retaliation: reprisal and revenge spiralled viciously.
The missionary William Ridley described the fate of a group of Balonne River blacks in the 1840s. The situation was typical of what happened all over the country:
On this river the effect upon the Aborigines of the occupation by Europeans of the country was forcibly presented. Before the occupation of this districts by colonists, the Aborigines could never have been at a loss for the necessaries of life. Except in the lowest part of the river, there is water in the driest seasons; along the banks game abounded; waterfowl, emus, parrot tribes, kangaroos, and other animals might always, or almost always, be found. But when the country was taken up, and herds of cattle introduced, not only did the cattle drive away the kangaroos, but those who had charge of the cattle found it necessary to keep the Aborigines away from the river...After some fatal conflicts, in which some colonists and many Aborigines have been slain, the blacks have been awed into submission to the orders which forbid their access to the river. And what is the consequence? Black fellows coming in from the west report that last summer very large numbers, afraid to visit the waterholes, within a day's walk of which it was impossible to get sufficient food...that owing to these combined hardships many died. Black fellows coming in from the west report that last summer very large numbers, afraid to visit the river, were crowded around a few scanty waterholes, within a day's walk of which it was impossible to get sufficient food...that owing to these combined hardships many died. [1]
W. Ridley: Appendix in J.D. Lang: Queensland, London, 1861, p.439.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, The Other Side of the Frontier, pp. 54-55, 175 n.19.
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Armed conflict in the Roma district
On 18 June 1861, during the Select Committee inquiry into the Native Police Force, one witness...John Kerr Wilson [an ardent supporter of the Native Police system] was suddenly asked if he could recall any recent 'serious collision' between blacks and whites in his own, the Fitzroy Downs district (near present day Roma). He then mentioned the most serious recent one which he said took place the previous year on a station newly formed by Henry William Coxen (1823-1915). It was an attack which was said to be headed by a rebellious Aboriginal named 'Bilba', alleged to be a survivor from the tribe who had been involved in the massacre of eleven whites at Hornet Bank station on 27 October 1857. Since that attack Bilba had formed a resistance-band of some thirty Aboriginal warriors who were living in a hideout. One highly respected witness, the pioneer squatter John Kerr Wilson, told the Committee, 'in the mountains at the head of the Dawson' River, from where they 'sometimes came down upon the stations, attacked them, and destroyed the cattle'. However, the station hands were in this case warned by 'quiet blacks' and being 'greatly alarmed' one of them 'went off for the police'. Bilba and his band came and did eventually throw 'a shower of spears at the white men'. But the Native Police arrived in time. They 'dismounted and a regular fight ensued, in which eighteen of the blacks were shot'. [2]
SC-1861, 18 June 1861, p.73, Q58.
Acknowledgment: Robert Ørsted-Jensen, Frontier History Revisited, pp. 47, n.78.