June 2.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
The price of resistance
The resulting ‘Black War’, which engulfed much of the central and eastern Tasmania between 1823 and 1831, was the most intense and lethal struggle in the long history of Australia’s frontier conflict. The war parties led by the Oyster Bay chief Tongerlongeter and his allies were by far the most successful resistance force in the whole of Australia. They paid a terrible price. By the end of the war there were only twenty-six of their countrymen and -women alive, sixteen men, nine women and one child. Their nation would have numbered about 1000 when the British arrived on the island.
…The Black War reached its zenith between 1828 and 1830. This time represents both the most violent period of frontier war in Australia’s history, and the stiffest armed resistance ever mounted by Indigenous people on the continent.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements, Tongerlongeter – First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero, NewSouth, Sydney, 2021, pp.8, 100.
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A sample of the “Australian value” of generosity.
In Queensland, the argument was narrow and hard. Dispossession was taken for granted. No one argued the conquest of [the Indigenous people’s] country should stop. At issue was the best way to go about it. Those who demanded more humanity and those who called for greater efficiency both blamed the Native Police. One or two newspapers contended that as the wealth of Queensland came from its soil, some benefit should flow to its original inhabitants. They were ignored. Hardly a soul argued for country to be set aside for Aboriginal people.
Acknowledgment: David Marr, Killing For Country – A family story, Black Inc, Collingwood, 2023, p. 297. 113
Poisoning - Why Warriors Lie Down and Die.
For the four years of its existence, [[Arnhem Land Station] Florida’s 650,000 acres had been a site of violence. Resistance by the Yolngu was stubborn and the brutality of the whites extreme. The first manager of the station mounted a swivel cannon on the homestead verandah to keep the blacks at bay. Richard Trudgen, the distinguished scholar of the Yolngu, records a poisoning on the station in 1885.
The pastoralists came with one of their wagons, offering horsemeat to many of the clans… That evening they ate, thanking the pastoralists for their good gifts. It was only when some of the people became violently ill that the Yolngu realised the Balanda had tricked them with some strange sorcery…
Members of many clans died that day...Yolngu struck back, fighting with spears against muskets and carbines. [1]
1. Richard Trudgen, Why Warriors Lie Down and Die: Djambatj Mala, Why Warriors Pty Ltd, Nhulunbuy, 2010, pp. 19-20.
Acknowledgment: David Marr, Killing For Country – A family story, Black Inc, Collingwood, 2023, pp. 382, 450. 177
“...no provision...made for Aboriginal ownership of country.”
As [George] Robinson learnt more about the squatting system at Port Phillip he understood the important role Aborigines has played in the earliest phases of pioneering. They were not always hostile at the time of initial incursions and often guided overlanding parties across their country and showed them where to find grass and water. 'The natives', he observed, were the parties who first guided the white men 'through the intricacies of the forest' and led them to their runs, their springs and rich pastures. The white men who made their living by what was termed 'finding country' sold the information thus gained to speculators in runs who hurriedly occupied the land with stock. [1]
Soon after his arrival Robinson expressed his concern about the land question to senior government officials. In May 1839 he had a long conversation with the chief surveyor about providing space for the Aborigines. He observed that although the government was officially committed to their protection no provision had been made for Aboriginal ownership of country. He was shown a map of an area covering 30 miles square which was already marked off into allotments. He told the surveyor that if a similar map was 'Exhibited to the people of England' they would at once see the way that natives were treated. Their lands were sold 'from them' and no provision was made for their maintenance. [2]
Robinson, Report of a Visit to the Goulburn, Loddon and Mt Rouse Stations, 1847, GAR Papers, vol. 60, ML, MSS. A7081
Robinson journal, 3 May 1839, GAR Papers, vol. 14, ML, MSS. A7035.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, This Whispering In Our Hearts, pp. 51, 256 n. 14, 257 n.15.