June 20.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Massacre at Gin Gin
Employment of the British Army
The British Army continued to use the same tactics against Aboriginal raiding parties on the Hawkesbury-Nepean during both the first phase (1795-1805) and the second phase (1814-16) of frontier warfare. This was to send 'arm'd parties...to scower the country' and track down the raiders. The soldiers' muskets meant they could exact serious casualties on raiding parties if they made contact. For example, a New South Wales Corps punitive expedition killed two of 'the most violent and ferocious' Darug warriors in 1804. However, skirmishes of this nature rarely happened. Darug warriors travelled more lightly than British soldiers and knew the country better. This meant they generally moved faster through the bush and British soldiers could not catch them. George Caley, the government botanist, wrote in 1801 how troops on the Hawkesbury 'went out in quest of them [Darug] several times, but were not able to meet with them', while in 1805 Governor King complained of 'the Velocity with which these people Remove from One place another'. [1]
...in 1816 the attacks [by Aboriginal groups] had increased to such an extent that [Governor] Macquarie was forced to stiffen these garrisons [of Veteran Company] with small detachments of regulars from the 46th Regiment to be 'Guards of Protection for those Farms which are most exposed to the Incursions of the Natives'. [2]
Letters – Hunter to Portland, 20 June 1797, King to Camden, 30 April 1805, HRA, II: 24, V: 306-07; George Caley to Banks, 25 August 1801, HR NSW, IV: 514; Sydney Gazette, 17 June 1804.
Letter – Macquarie to Bathurst, 18 March 1816, HRA, IX: 54.
Acknowledgment: John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788-1838, pp. 46-47, 136 n.46, n.48.
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... “….wholesome lessons to the natives” – wholesale slaughter
Inseparable from opposition to [Governor George] Gipps was a growing insensitivity to the rights of Aborigines. In the absence of a substantial ticket-of-leave* class and a Border Police, the far northern squatters relied on large-scale punitive expeditions against Aborigines rather than regular minor skirmishes. Meting out “wholesome lessons to the natives” became an important para-military activity, reinforcing personal and ideological ties between the white conquerors. The death of Gregory Blaxland, ...at Gin Gin, precipitated one such engagement. A large party of squatters, headed by the Port Curtis Commissioner of Crown Lands, Maurice O'Connell, sought out and shot down several hundreds of the Gin Gin tribe on Paddy's Island near Fairymead. [1] Although the number of victims is difficult to ascertain exactly, the number of black casualties on this occasion may have numbered as many as 1,000. This contrasted with the figure of 28 whites who died in racial collisions on the Wide Bay – Burnett frontier prior to 1853. [2] The policy of the settlers in so far one could be said to exist was that of extermination. The collision at Myall Creek was a trifle by comparison with such wholesale slaughter.
Arthur Lawrie, “Early Gin Gin and the Blaxland Tragedy”, J.H.S.Q., v. 4, no. 5, Dec. 1952, pp. 712-713
D. Dignan, The Story of Kolan, (Brisbane, Smith and Paterson, 1964), p. 110.
Acknowledgment: Rosalind Kidd, The Way We Civilise – Aboriginal Affairs – the untold story, pp. 12, 147 n.15, n.16.
* Note the explanation of “ticket-of-leave” at 30 May.