March 1.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Maltreatment and Massacre
“...the Aborigines were 'in a manner outlawed in their own country...
Conflict was sharpened by the widespread belief among frontier squatters that 'niggers and cattle don't mix'; that the half-wild herds were unsettled by the mere sight or sound of Aborigines. As a result the blacks were repeatedly driven away from river frontages and lagoons. They were shot at or ridden down and stock-whipped. Relevant evidence for this is voluminous, coming from all parts of the continent. 'All the freshwater is surrounded by cattle', wrote Burketown's policeman in 1897, and 'if a black [person] was unfortunate enough to be seen by the station hands he was 'hunted, whiped [sic] and severely maltreated'. [1] Inspector Foelsche of the Northern Territory police noted how local squatters kept the blacks away from inland lagoons and billabongs which were important both as meeting places and sources of food. [2] The Protector of Aborigines at Camooweal remarked in 1901 that the station owners and managers claimed that the sight of the blacks disturbed the cattle with the result that the blacks were 'dispersed by the station hands'. [3] Writing of northern New South Wales in the early 1850s the Commandant of the Native police noted that with the exception of a few stations the Aborigines were 'in a manner outlawed in their own country, being hunted from the river and creek frontages, and thus deprived of means of lawfully obtaining food'. [4]
Acting Sergeant J. Dunn, Burketown to Inspector of Police, Normanton, 15 May 1897,
Qld Police Commissioner's File 41 2M, 17785 of 1897.Government Residents Report on Northern Territory for 1889, South Australia
Parliamentary Papers, 2, 1890, paper 28, p. 10.Report of Northern Protector of Aborigines, 1902, QVP, 2, 1903.
Commandant to Col. Sec, Callandoon, 1 March 1852, NSWLCV&P, 1852, p.790.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, The Other Side of the Frontier, pp. 129-130, 184 n.4, n.5, n.6, n.7, n.8.
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Retribution was swift – a massacre ensued.
[In 1879], across the Endeavour River from Cooktown, Messrs Hartley and Sykes were severely wounded by members of the Guugu Yimithirr when trying to retrieve a cedar log from the beach. Retribution was swift. Several expeditions set out, but it was Sub-Inspector O'Connor with six troopers who crossed the harbour by moonlight and:
...made a detour in the direction of Cape Bedford, and by Sunday morning had hemmed the blacks within a narrow gorge, of which both outlets were secured by the troopers. There were twenty-eight men and thirteen gins thus enclosed, of whom none of the former escaped. Twenty-four were shot down on the beach, and four swam out to sea. The inspector and his men sat down on the beach, and waited for the swimmers to return, but without success, and as after several hours they were lost sight of, it is conjectured they were drowned. [1]
Brisbane Courier, 1 March 1879, 'Northern News'.
Acknowledgment: Timothy Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, pp 121-122, 231 n.36.
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There are no 1860s estimates of the original size of the Aboriginal population of the [Pioneer Valley in North Queensland] but E.M. Curr, quoting Bridgman and Bucas in 1880 as his sources, suggests that:
During the eight or ten years which followed [1860], about one-half of the [A]boriginal population was either shot down by the Native Mounted Police and their officers, or perished from introduced loathsome diseases before unknown. The Black troopers, however, are said to have been the chief destroyers. [1]
Curr, E.M. The Australian race: Its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over that continent, vol 3. Melbourne, 1886-87: 44.
Acknowledgment: Clive Moore, ‘Blackgin’s Leap’, Aboriginal History, Vol. 14 (1990) p. 74 n. 47.