CHAPTER TWENTY
1831, Autumn and Winter
Northern Fronts
Fisher and Fortosa: Special Forces on Secretive Duties
The ‘friendly missions’ were never the total of colonial government policy. After announcing Robinson’s mission and calling for further volunteers, Arthur asserted that force would continue to be used:
Whilst these measures are in progress, the utmost possible disposable force, will continue to be employed for the protection of the Settlers resident at the most distant and exposed situations, and to afford countenance and protection to the friendly Missions.1
The records disbanding the roving parties reveal some of the ongoing colonial paramilitary operations of early 1831. Dutifully responding to Arthur’s instructions, Anstey wound down the midlands roving parties, recommending many rovers for tickets of leave and forwarding their petitions to Hobart, while suggesting others be appointed to the field police of New Norfolk or other general police duties.2 The Colonial Secretary followed up with other districts, revealing that at least 28 convicts ceased roving the districts of Norfolk Plains, Richmond, Campbell Town, Bothwell and Oatlands.3 The several parties affected included those led by Sherwin and Batman. But this disarmament was not universal. In a query to the assistant police magistrate of Bothwell about clothing for three men ‘not known in this office as being employed upon the service of which James Fisher is engaged’, the Colonial Secretary wanted to know ‘whether they have been selected from the Roving Parties, whom, with this exception, The Lieutenant Governor considers to have been entirely useless, and, unless you see any good reason to the contrary, the sooner they are discontinued the better’.4
While the quip about their usefulness perhaps captures part of Arthur’s frustration with these cohorts, the record itself points to Fisher’s continued deployment. In fact, while his secretive operations are scarcely documented within the colonial archive, Fisher’s mission clearly absorbed some of the slack of other rovers’ duties. In early April the Colonial Secretary clarified that three convict servants attached to Fisher were ‘to be victualled from His Majesty’s Stores in the same manner as the roving parties’.5 Yet he also added that they did not require special clothing because ‘they are chiefly to be employed in watching within doors’. They were hiding in ambush in huts.
All three of Fisher’s convicts had been transported for life, one for ‘Shooting with intent to Murder’.6 Nonetheless, despite this history – or perhaps because of it – the government was keen to ensure that they were adequately armed for their mission. Following up the return of ‘Arms and Ammunition’ as the final phase of disbanding the old convict roving parties a week later, the Colonial Secretary informed the Bothwell police magistrate to ensure this was done quickly, ‘except as regards the party remaining out with “Fisher”’.7 Another week after that, Bothwell was still attracting attention for ‘very superior Arms having been issued to Dorans, and also to some other parties’, that were still outstanding in that district.8 With that last burst of correspondence about guns, the documentary trail of Fisher’s party ends.
Traces of Fortosa’s expedition similarly reveal his continued deployment in the field over the first half of 1831, largely through the administration of his party. In March Arthur approved the removal of a member of Fortosa’s party to the Campbell Town field police when a position opened, because he was ‘unequal to the fatigue of the enterprise’.9 Presumably following on with the topic of Fortosa’s mission, the Colonial Secretary mentioned that ‘with regard to the men recently employed under Mr Batman, it is probable that he will require some of them to accompany him on the mission he is now engaged upon, in conjunction with Mr George Robinson’.
Little else appears regarding Fortosa until May, when Simpson reported ‘that “James Brown” one of Nicholas Fortosa’s party has been sent … into the Colonial Hospital at Launceston in consequence of a severe Gun Shot wound in the right Hand’.10 Simpson added that ‘Fortosa is anxious to have another man or two; his party being now four less than was at first proposed.’ In response, Arthur had ‘very little hope that Nicholas Fortosa will succeed in the undertaking against the hostile Aborigines’.11 Apparently Fortosa’s health was suffering, so Arthur left Simpson to decide whether the mission should continue or not.
But Simpson had good news as well. ‘Fortosa has within this week’, Simpson commented in May, ‘at last found recent traces of a Tribe of Blacks up the South Esk and is now in pursuit’. But after several weeks there were no captures. Fortosa spent the remainder of May and a few weeks of June ‘searching the Tiers round Ben Lomond for the Native Tribes; but without success’.12 ‘His party is so much reduced,’ Simpson stated, ‘that he has requested me to supply him with Three or four Men in addition to enable him to post himself and party on the Coast between “The Bay of Fires[”] and “George’s River”.’ Like Jorgenson before him, Fortosa struggled to maintain his force’s strength, but also like Danvers and Batman, his prowling drew him further north.
Simpson vacillated over Fortosa’s request, ordering him ‘to scour the South Esk Tiers until I am favoured with His Excellency’s wishes’. Knowing that Fortosa’s contract only had about three months to run, Simpson was uncertain whether Arthur would approve the additional men. He appended ‘a list of the men now effective’ for Arthur’s attention, which included only five names, including Fortosa’s. There were two others that Simpson mentioned, explaining that ‘Brown is in hospital having accidentally discharged his gun through his hand and Field is employed on Special Service with Mr W T Massey; which circumstance I believe His Excellency is informed’. He was likely referring to a member of the Massey family of Ben Lomond, whose servants had been attacked in March. Aboriginal people had speared them, acquired their guns, and taken ‘a black girl who had been brought up from her infancy among the white People’.13 In the wake of this raid ‘a party of 8 men … were despatched in pursuit’ from Massey’s farm, joined by Massey himself when he returned from town a few days later. While ‘fruitless’, it seems to have prompted one of the Masseys to take more active measures within the district, much as Batman and others had on previous occasions. Just as Fortosa’s own mission is mentioned only in snippets, generally because of the convict servants assigned by the government, so too were there other missions known to Arthur with even fainter documentary trails.
Arthur was ‘not inclined, to offer either a Conditional Pardon, or a Ticket of Leave to any of the men who may be now placed there for the remainder of Fortosa’s engagement’.14 It suggested Fortosa’s party was going to be wound down. But Simpson was allowed to ‘recommend two or three who have otherwise claims of Indulgence’, which Arthur would approve as additions to Fortosa’s force, and sure enough in July Arthur confirmed two convicts appointed to ‘the party under Nicholas Fortosa in pursuit of the Aborigines’.15 With that, the mission continued, but its documentary trail fades.
Fresh Recruits and McKay’s ‘Friendly Mission’
The last additions to Fortosa’s party, approved on 6 July, corresponded with a communication of the same date from the Colonial Secretary to Simpson regarding ‘the capture of a man, woman, and child of the Aborigines’.16 These three had been caught a few days earlier on 2 July when they ‘were observed approaching Mr. Headlam’s house, on the Macquarie River’.17 The Headlams, like the Masseys and other settlers, were taking charge of the protection of their farms and districts. As the Launceston Advertiser described the event:
The alarm being given, Master Charles Headlam and two assigned servants armed themselves and went in pursuit of them. They soon came up with them; and on approaching within gun-shot, Master Headlam (a youth of about 14 years of age) presented his gun at the black man, who immediately held up his hands and afterwards his feet, thereby intimating that he had no spears, or other weapons. The 2 servants then came up and the blacks were secured.
Their dogs were also taken captive. While the three Aboriginal captives were fed, ‘a strong detachment went out’ looking for more of their tribe, but none were reportedly found. The captives were sent to Campbell Town in the custody of a constable. When they arrived, Simpson reported they ‘shall remain in the Gaol’, but he also wanted them moved quickly because of ‘the very confined accommodation’.18 But rather than being sent to Hobart or Launceston, they remained in Campbell Town Gaol.
An unnamed correspondent subsequently relayed the story of this capture to Hobart, also describing his observations of the captives for readers of the Hobart Town Courier:
I saw them in Campbelltown gaol last Saturday [9 July], & a very harmless & pacific trio they appear. I felt particularly interested in the woman (‘Dembrona’ is her name) for her manners are pleasing, her buoyancy of spirits is great, and her features and gait are very superior to the miserable, untutored Blacks of this island whom you meet with. She and the boy ‘Medroolmilla’ eat mutton, but the man ‘Meelaletta’ cannot be induced to touch it. Opossum, (or ‘Pothum’ as he pronounces the word) is his favourite; they do not belong to Umarrah’s tribe, but they say that it frequently comes to ‘Wacoondina,’ the lofty mountain on the west of the Isis, and that it is it which perpetrates robberies and murders. ‘O Umarrah – no good – speared white man.’ They are all three passionately fond of smoking.19
On learning of these captives Arthur ‘approved of Tea Sugar and Tobacco forming part of their rations’.20 Arthur wanted ‘these poor people to be treated with every possible kindness’ but Simpson was also told that ‘if you can ascertain from them where any of their companions can be found … you will use every effort to discover them.’21 The kind treatment was not just an expression of philanthropy. They were being interrogated for information.
Eumarrah’s continued evasion was a political embarrassment for Arthur, one of several he faced in the early part of 1831. The cost of the late campaign was lambasted in sections of the press as a waste of money.22 Moreover, the site of the new Aboriginal Establishment at Gun Carriage Island in Bass Strait was reportedly unsuitable, leaving the inhabitants ‘very sickly’, meaning that an alternative had to be found.23 To deal with some of this Arthur again recalled the Aborigines Committee, which now became much more permanent, meeting almost every month into early 1833 as it oversaw aspects of the ‘friendly missions’ and the Aboriginal Establishment. Through their minuted meetings, however, more information about the captives in Campbell Town survives. In early August Bedford showed the committee ‘a letter from a man named McKay, stating that he had some Conversation with three Natives at Campbeltown [sic] who had been Captured’.24
[They] appeared to be very unhappy on account of their Country Men having Searched all over the Country without being able to find them, and when informed by McKay that they were living with the White People at Swan Island they were much delighted and expressed a Wish that their Tribes Should be informed of it. McKay also ascertained that Eumariah [sic] is now with a Tribe to the Westward of Launceston, and has offered his Services to proceed with one of the Captured Natives to Endeavor to Conciliate him and his Tribe.
At the next meeting, McKay attended in person and ‘Offered his Services to proceed with the Native Woman, with the view of Conciliating Eumariah [sic] and his Tribe.’25 The committee recommended his services be accepted, but restricted to the west so as to avoid interference ‘with Mr Robinson’s proceedings’, and suggested McKay be given a salary of ‘a pound a week for 3 Months’.
The most successful strategies for capture had generally involved the use of Aboriginal auxiliaries, so there was little new in this approach. Eumarrah’s original capture was facilitated by Kickerterpoller, for instance, who was now helping the colony capture more people for the new Aboriginal Establishment. Even before McKay offered to use these new captives, Batman had made a similar offer, but Arthur decided ‘not to send out Mr Batman’s party at present [30 July] on any fresh pursuit, while the Natives continue quiet, and commit no new aggressions’.26 Arthur potentially thought Batman was too well known, and his methods possibly a little indelicate for the present political circumstance. Instead, Arthur authorised McKay taking the captives ‘for the purpose of effecting a friendly intercourse with their Tribe, and if possible of communicating with “Eumarrah”’.27
McKay returned to Campbell Town, got ‘the Native woman and Boy’, and went ‘in search of the Tribe to the northwest’ in mid-August.28 ‘I was obliged to take them to Mr Batman’s’, he wrote in his brief journal, ‘as she would not concent [sic] to leave him any other place’.29 But after McKay’s little ‘friendly mission’ departed, Batman proposed raising another indigenous roving party using ‘Seven Sydney Natives who have recently arrived from New South Wales’, in concert with ‘the Native now Confined in Campbell Town Gaol, and the Boy he has at his own house’.30Subsequently attending the Aborigines Committee to further explain his plan, Batman was reportedly ‘Confident’ that the young Aboriginal man ‘would not attempt to leave the party, and he thinks his presence would induce the Native Black to remain with them’. Moreover, two of the New South Welshmen had previously served with Batman, and had learned a bit of local language. Batman proposed attaching James Gunn, one of his servants, to the mission. The committee was enthusiastic, and on 1 September reported they ‘urge the immediate employment of the Services of these people’.
In the meantime, McKay and the Aboriginal woman known to him as ‘Sall’ reached Launceston, and headed west. The pair ‘Crossd at the cataract river’, and the next day ‘walkd … over scrubby and stony hills’ before reaching ‘a small plain where we slept the night’.31 The same rough territory caused problems the following day. McKay reported ‘very bad walking all this day the womans [sic] feet much cut with the stones’. But there was some progress, as they ‘came to a place where the natives often stops [sic] at between two hills’. There they ‘found the remains of a Kangaroo several spears which they left and three muskets hid under a tree which was laid on the ground’. But these muskets were ‘all of them over rusted and not in a state of use’.
Another day of ‘very bad walking’ followed. The next morning they ‘came to a very thick myrtle forest which we travelld in all this day keeping the natives path’. Regular Aboriginal pathways were often obvious in certain portions of the landscape, and much of coastal Van Diemen’s Land had distinct trails. In the most settled districts, however, many of these Aboriginal paths had already been turned into colonial roads. On the sixth day since leaving Launceston, the pair left the forest, and ‘came to a plain abounding with Kangaroo and emu’. They also ‘found two natives [sic] huts where they had been about three days ago’. They camped the night, and in the morning Sall found Aboriginal tracks. The pair followed them through ‘Country very Scrubby and wet’.
The next morning they found ‘more natives huts’ beside a creek. Footprints on either side suggested there had been some ‘ten or twelve’ people. Abandoned at the camp were ‘pieces of Kangaroo quite fresh’, which suggested these people had been there very recently. There was also ‘part of a jacket’, which further indicated that this group had contact with settlers, or at least their property. But this was unsurprising. The next day the Aboriginal tracks intersected with ‘cattle tracks’. In the evening the pair ‘heard some one cutting wood’. It proved to be three servants ‘splitting timber at the North side of Pipers Lagoons’. They were now re-entering the most northern of the contiguous interior settled areas, and were only several miles from the military station at Westbury. The splitters, McKay noted, ‘told me that the natives had been here two days ago and made an attempt to rob the hut’. That attempted raid was on 31 August. After only a few days in the bush McKay had returned to the war, now most active in the northwest midlands and beyond.
Domestic Warfare and Colonial Fidelity
The attempted robbery on the woodcutters’ hut was just one of several raids throughout the Norfolk Plains district at that time. A week earlier, on 22 August, one of the most infamous attacks in the colony took place at Stocker’s hut:
There was no person in the hut when they first appeared but a Woman named Dalrymple Briggs with her two female children, observing some little noise outside she sent the elder child to see what was the matter, and hearing her shriek went out herself with a musquet; on reaching the door she found the poor child had been speared[;] the spear enter’d close up in the inner part of the thigh, and had been driv[en] so far thro’ as to create a momentary difficulty in securing the child from its catching against either door post[;] having effected this object, she barricaded the door and windows, and availed herself of every opportunity to fire at them but as they kept very close either to the chimney, or the stumps around the hut and she had nothing but duck shot with little effect, tho’ she imagines she did hit one of them: Their plan was evidently to pull down the chimney and thus effect an entrance, but they were intimidated by her resolution, finding this fail, they went off and returned again in about an hour; this interval had been employed by them in procuring materials for, and forming faggots; which, on their return, they kept lighting and throwing on the roof (to windward) with a view to burn her out; she however shook them off as fast as they threw them on, and maintained her position with admirable composure, till the return of Thomas Johnson the stockkeeper pointed out to them the necessity of a retreat.32
Afterwards Dalrymple described the assault to Captain William Moriarty, a local Justice of the Peace, who penned a lengthy account for the authorities. ‘She reports that there were eight men at the hut, and that she saw a small mob going across the plain besides’.
The day following Dalrymple’s fight, another hut was attacked in the district. On 23 August Aboriginal people ‘speared James Cubitt at the run of Mr Gibson’. Moriarty added that ‘this is the ninth time this unfortunate man has been speared, and he would certainly have been murdered in this instance but for the promptitude, and good conduct of Peter McGuire, 14 years, Bengal Merchant’.
Moriarty’s response was swift. Learning that these people’s tracks ‘directed towards the locations higher up, on the first information I dispatched the detachment stationed here, for the purpose of putting the settlers in that quarter on their guard’. He reported this, along with the statement about the attack on Stocker’s hut, in a letter to the Colonial Secretary. Upon receipt, it was coded 7578/1000, and the Colonial Secretary drew it to Arthur’s attention. ‘I do hope Your Excellency will cause the Heroine Dalrymple Briggs to be rewarded in some way or other’, he wrote, suggesting that the letter could be published ‘with some remarks on the conduct of this intrepid Female, as an example to the Colonists in general’. It was a politically savvy suggestion. It would neatly respond to earlier tragedies and colonial agitation about unattended women and children requiring military protection – such as the slaying of Alicia Gough – while also continuing to advance Arthur’s longstanding argument that settlers needed to take care to arm and protect themselves.
Arthur agreed with the Colonial Secretary’s suggestion. ‘Certainly this woman should be rewarded,’ Arthur noted, ‘but first, I should wish to examine some more particular information respecting her – who is she – from where did she come &c &c’. As it was, Dalrymple Briggs was among the most famous children in the colony, and was described in books published in London, Hamburg and Paris.33 Reportedly the first child born in Van Diemen’s Land to an Aboriginal woman and a European father, a sailor named Briggs, she was apparently named for the first British settlement in the north of the island: Port Dalrymple. Before she was old enough to fight off Aboriginal assailants in defence of her own children, a description of Dalrymple’s childhood physique had been published and translated multiple times over. The ‘remarkably handsome’ child with ‘light copper’ complexion and ‘rosy cheeks’ was a noted curiosity. Yet in records of colonial Van Diemen’s Land, her mixed birth had little real consequence – she was simply considered a member of the colony – despite being known as the daughter of an Aboriginal woman. In fact, because Arthur approved the publication of Moriarty’s letter in Government Notice 196 – ‘in order to show how these wretched people may be intimidated’ – she was actually presented as a model of colonial womanhood.34
Murder, Culpability and the Politics of Conciliation
The public and political praise of Dalrymple Briggs’ fortitude in fighting off her attackers was still being worked out as McKay entered Norfolk Plains, certainly now on high alert. The Colonial Secretary had drawn Moriarty’s letter to Arthur’s attention on the same day McKay learned of the attempted robbery of the splitters. Yet soon after this, McKay and Sall ‘lost the Natives tracks’. Taking Sall’s advice ‘that the natives go to one part of the country for a particular sort of stuff to paint with’, the pair ‘set off for this place’. McKay and Sall soon found ‘several huts where they had been lately’, and made their way to ‘a place like a quarry where they dig out their stuff’. There were, McKay noted, ‘heaps of Kangaroo bones and by the appearance of the place they come here often’. But they were too late. McKay recorded that ‘the woman says umarah and his tribe has gone to the East’. They camped there the night, and headed to Moriarty’s place the next morning. There McKay likely learned of the recent attacks, including the spearing of Dalrymple Briggs’s daughter, and possibly learned of the mysterious disappearance of Captain Thomas and Mr Parker. McKay and Sall then headed further west to the Mersey River, and followed this river until they ‘came on the natives tracks where they had crossd’. But Sall was unwilling to pursue this tribe, ‘telling me the[y] would kill us both’, McKay recorded.35 Almost as if to match this prescience, the next day McKay ‘came to Captain Thom[as’s] and went in search of his body’.
It took time for the full circumstances of Thomas’s disappearance to come to light, but by 10 September the news that he had ‘been murdered by the natives’ was being reported in Hobart.36 The news was shocking for several reasons. Thomas was an ‘accomplished cavalry officer’ who served in the 9th Dragoons in South America, and was related ‘to Sir Henry Parnell, the new Secretary at war’. He was a warrior from a warrior’s family, and none expected him to meet this end. But, as the Launceston Advertiser lamented when news of Thomas’s fate was ‘still impenetrable’, his death came about through his own good intentions:
It seems that in endeavouring to carry into effect the conciliatory measures which the Government have in view towards the Aborigines, Captain THOMAS, and Mr. PARKER, his overseer, went in pursuit of a tribe which appeared in the vicinity of Port Sorell, very insufficiently armed. Having some civilized blacks in company, they came up with the savages, some of whom were secured by the black pursuers, and taken by them to Port Sorell. Captain THOMAS and Mr. PARKER were thus separated from their party and have not since been heard of.37
Because of the circumstances and the profile of the victims, the case attracted widespread attention.
A key witness of the disappearance was Thomas Carter, an assigned servant to Thomas, who was part of a boat crew.38 On 31 August he and three other men were camped at Port Sorell. ‘I was standing by the tent, eating some damper,’ Carter later deposed, ‘when I saw two natives coming along the Bank; immediately they saw me they held up their hands and sung out “Breadlie, Breadlie”’. Carter cut some bread for them, and then offered them some tea.
Shortly after, Thomas ‘came riding down to the boat’, followed by Parker. With two Aboriginal people eating and drinking in the servants’ tent, Thomas seems to have seen an opportunity. He asked whether others were nearby, and the men held up their extended hands, saying ‘Good many more’. Thomas asked them ‘if they would shew them where the others were’, and soon he and they ‘went into the bush together’. Parker, suspicious of the plan, followed with a gun under his arm. Carter reported that a few hours later the two Aboriginal men returned in company with another Aboriginal man and two Aboriginal women. Two more Aboriginal people followed behind, although the last to arrive left again before night. These six accompanied Carter and the other men back to the farm, and were soon in captivity in George Town. Neither Thomas nor Parker were heard from again.
McKay arrived in time to be part of an early search. But, after failing to find the bodies, Moriarty ordered McKay and Sall to George Town to interrogate the captives and gain help. They returned with one of the women, who soon led them to the bodies. McKay described them as being ‘in a shocking state being speared all over’. The coronial inquest described the bodies struck from various angles multiple times.39 There were at least ‘ten spear wounds’ in the body of Parker, slumped against a tree, and 12 in the thigh, side, and back of Thomas, laying in ‘a great deal of blood’ among tall grass. They had also been beaten. Being some time before their discovery, the bodies were in a state of putrefaction. The constable deposed that ‘part of the neck of Mr Thomas had been eaten by crows or cats, and I saw a number of worms on the face and in the eyes’.
Once the bodies were examined and retrieved they were taken to Launceston for the inquest. So too were the captives at George Town, who were placed in the Launceston ‘watch-house’, and then removed to Launceston Gaol. When McKay, Sall, and the other woman arrived, McKay gave evidence to the inquest. He affirmed that these people had admitted to killing Thomas and Parker, before giving details of the event as relayed to him by the captives:
one of the white men had a double-barrelled gun, and that Wow-wee seized the gun by the lock and gave him a twist round, and at the same time another native struck him with a waddy; he fell, and the smallest white man ran away; part of the natives followed him, and the rest killed the white man who was knocked down; the natives who followed the man who fled speared him as he ran and killed him; she told me that while this transaction was going on the women attempted to stop it, but the men would kill them[.]40
Seemingly confirming their unwilling association, witnesses reported the women crying when the bodies were found. The woman Nongoneepitta was then questioned, with McKay interpreting. She confirmed one of the men had ‘a double-barrelled gun (“loweena – shoot twice”) … under his arm’, and then tried to explain which of the prisoners was involved in perpetrating the killings. The coroner concluded that ‘the verdict must depend upon the feelings of the jury, as to a belief in the story of the black woman’ pertaining to two of the men in custody. Despite Nongoneepitta’s initial statements, the jury soon found that Thomas and Parker were ‘treacherously murdered’ by these people, ‘assisted by the residue of the tribe known by the name of the Big River tribe … whilst endeavouring to carry into effect the conciliatory measures recommended by the Government.’
While the jury verdict was in some ways a typically bellicose rejection of conciliatory overtures, it did prompt further public discussion of the whole phenomenon of conflict between the colony and Aboriginal people, and treatment of captives. One correspondent to the Launceston Advertiserasked ‘Are these unhappy creatures the subjects of our king, in a state of rebellion? or are they an injured people, whom we have invaded and with whom we are at war?’41 An editorial in the Hobart Tasmanian took a different view, asserting ‘the Government to have been unfairly treated in every matter connected with this most important subject’:
The only two remedies then which remain are a vigorous offensive prosecution of the war, even to extermination, bellum internecinum, or measures wholly DEFENSIVE, and His Excellency seems to have decided upon most judiciously – determined resistance but undeviating conciliation!42
Essentially, the twin phenomena of continued conflict and increasing numbers of captives meant that some in the colony questioned the legality of exile. But the very public tragedy of Thomas and Parker also seemed to reflect poorly on the expediency of negotiation, and highlighted the very political reality behind the application of the rigours of English criminal law. The slayers of Thomas were found responsible by coronial inquest, were already in custody, yet were not charged with murder. To some it seemed a just measure of humanity towards what was generally perceived as a childlike people; to others in a colony populated by convicted felons it seemed like a double standard.
Despite the press attention they attracted, the group associated with the deaths of Thomas and Parker were not the only captives taken about this time. In fact, the Aborigines Committee were mainly focused on supporting Robinson’s mission, in part because of the strong patronage he received from Bedford, but also because about the same time that Thomas was killed Robinson reported ‘that Six Men and one woman of the Tribe which has so long committed atrocities on the East Bank of the Tamar have been conciliated and joined his party, and that amongst the number is “Eumarrah”’.43
Tribal Enmities and Colonial Service
Since meeting the Aborigines Committee at the start of the year, Robinson’s ‘friendly missions’ had passed through two broad stages, roughly corresponding with the seasons. During autumn he mostly focused on the new Aboriginal Establishment and women in the Bass Strait Islands. He continued visiting islands and recording the atrocities of sealers as he sought to remove women to the establishment. During a journey to Preservation Island in early May he was ‘accompanied by one male aborigine named Jack, who’, as Robinson put it, ‘formerly belonged to Mr Batman’.44A month later Robinson recorded ‘the death of three aborigines’, including ‘Jack’, presumably the same person.45 Robinson recorded few specifics, but it seems likely that Mungo-Jack, the former roving party guide, died of an undisclosed illness on one of the islands in Bass Strait early in the winter of 1831. Many of his countrymen suffered similar fates in the years to come.
Another former ranger was now also helping Robinson’s mission, again cooperating with Aboriginal people to make captures. Richard Tyrrell joined the friendly missions in April, and quickly made himself useful. ‘Tyrrell said Brumby had a black boy at Norfolk Plains,’ Robinson noted within days of his arrival, so Robinson ‘Sent Tyrrell to Norfolk Plains for Mr Brumby’s farm for the purpose of obtaining a domesticated aborigine residing there.’46 Two days later ‘Tyrrell returned with the aborigine,’ who was reportedly ‘in a shamefully ragged state, not having sufficient to conceal his nakedness.’47 Highlighting the way that the ‘friendly missions’ involved the centralisation of many already-captive Aboriginal people, Robinson also noted that ‘Major Abbott ordered the black in the penitentiary to be rendered up to me; also the one with the military’.48 It was never as if Robinson personally rounded up all the people he soon held captive.
Tyrrell, like others attached to the Robinson mission, was often employed in these sorts of side-capture operations, generally only sparsely recorded among the documentation produced by and centred on Robinson. In Robinson’s journals, for instance, Tyrrell often serves as a vehicle for introducing some gossip or alleged slight that Robinson wished to record.49 Tyrrell’s movements between islands, towns and campsites are mostly just passing mentions.50 In early June, for instance, Tyrrell ‘and the two native women’, as Robinson put it, were sent to join another ‘friendly’ roving expedition being conducted by Daniel Clucas. Like McKay, although more closely allied with Robinson’s own mission, Clucas was engaged in his own expeditions of conciliatory capture.
Tyrrell’s June departure marked the shift to Robinson’s second operational phase, back to actively seeking Aboriginal people in northeastern Van Diemen’s Land in person. Two days earlier Robinson moved his party away from the islands. ‘I ordered the two boats to be manned,’ Robinson noted, ‘when myself and the whole of the white and black people, with the exception of R Surridge who was left in charge of the stores, crossed over to the main’.51 Robert Surrage was yet another of the key support staff, often engaged in his own conciliatory captures.
Among the Aboriginal members of Robinson’s own party were Kickerterpoller and Wooraddy. These two continued to regale Robinson with stories of past exploits as they traversed the territory seeking signs of other tribes. In July, for example, Robinson recorded that the land northeast of Ben Lomond ‘was formerly occupied by the PY.EM. MAIR.RE.NER.PAIR.RE.NER nation, who were a fierce people’.
The last chief of the nation was CUMMENER, the husband of the woman of that name at my house. They are now extinct. The country had formerly been burnt, and many trees were notched where the native women had ascended in quest of opossums. Tom [Kickerterpoller] related some exploits of his nation in their wars with these people.52
Later in the month, Wooraddy ‘entertained us with a relation of the exploits of his nation and neighbouring nations or allies’, telling more stories of fights including ‘the manner of fighting, the blows given, where inflicted and how’.53 Yet in contrast the expedition also faced the reality of a depopulated landscape. ‘My sable companions frequently asked me what had become of the natives, as they had not discovered any traces of them’, Robinson recorded.54 ‘They supposed that they had been shot by the soldiers.’
But eventually they did find traces of some Aboriginal people, largely through the direction of the ‘chief’ Mannalargenna, who left the Establishment in August to join this roving expedition.55 Describing ‘my plans to the chief’, Robinson reportedly ‘explained to him the benevolent views of the government towards himself and people’.56Apparently he ‘cordially acquiesced’. But the whole conversation was clearly taking place in translation:
I informed him in the presence of KICKERTERPOLLER that I was commissioned by the Governor to inform them that, if the natives would desist from their wonted outrages upon the whites, they would be allowed to remain in their respective districts and would have flour, tea and sugar, clothes &c given them; that a good white man would dwell with them who would take care of them and would not allow any bad white man to shoot them, and he would go with them about the bush like myself and they then could hunt. He was much delighted.
Robinson believed that it was this potentially duplicitous conversation that convinced Mannalargenna to find Eumarrah’s people, but Mannalargenna’s motives were likely more complex than Robinson realised. A few days later Mannarlargenna ‘related some of the exploits’ of his own past battles, mentioning that ‘he had fought with UMARRAH and that UMARRAH was frightened of him and begged for mercy.’57 They were old enemies.
Mannarlargenna found tracks of Eumarrah’s people while on a hunting excursion.58 It was the same day that Tyrrell returned to the party, but Tyrrell was despatched on another side mission before the final encounter occurred.59 Robinson reported that Kickerterpoller was frightened, and repeatedly held back from the pursuit, but he insisted that Kickerterpoller go out with Mannalargenna and three women to make initial contact. While these five went in pursuit, Robinson came upon a campsite, with the largest bark hut he had yet seen made by Aboriginal people.60 Fires were still burning out front. And then, with what Robinson saw as providential significance, he found ‘some pieces of the leaves of the Common Prayer Book, covered with red ochre.’ He was particularly struck by the significance of some of the printed verses, including Psalm 33:13-14: ‘The Lord looked down from heaven and beheld all the children of men’.
But the advance party were out for days, and Robinson began to worry. ‘The general opinion of those aborigines with me’, he wrote, ‘is that Black Tom [Kickerterpoller] is speared by the native tribe and that they have taken away the women’.61
Kickerterpoller occupied an unusual position in the expedition. He was part of the leadership team, the main translator and had personally met with the Lieutenant Governor prior to joining Robinson. He was often caught between tradition and cultural transition. When creation stories had been told one night several weeks earlier, for instance, he ‘said he would not believe it, he only believed the white people’s story’.62 In response ‘TRUGERNANNA was angry with him and said: “Where did you come from? White woman?”, denigrating his apparent conversion. When Mannalargenna was angry with the government pandering to the sealers over their occupation of the islands and treatment of Aboriginal women – saying ‘No, no, no, they be bad men and by and by me tell the Governor’ – it was Kickerterpoller who mollified him by asserting that ‘Yes, when we have done we will let the Governor know all about it.’63 He was a representative of government and Aboriginal people, needed by both, and often reviled by both.
Robinson expressed some of this mixed attitude when Kickerterpoller and the others returned. ‘I was much disappointed to see my party return alone,’ Robinson wrote, although admitting he ‘was glad they had returned inviolate’.64 Soon enough they tried again, and met with success. Spotting smoke in the distance, a plan was formed. Robinson and the main party camped by a lagoon, while Kickerterpoller and the others went out again. On 29 August Robinson was ‘busy writing’ when he was informed ‘that there was plenty smoke coming this way that the natives were making as a signal of their approach’.65 Out in the bush Kickerterpoller, Mannalargenna, and the three women had made contact with Eumarrah, and were guiding him in. As they approached the camp someone cooeed, so Robinson made sure an Aboriginal person answered. Soon there was talking, as Robinson described:
I saw them leaving the copse and coming on towards me. They were all loaded and walking in single file. They had fourteen dogs. I saw six men and one woman. It gladdened my heart: it was a blessed sight. They were headed by the chief MANNALARGENNA and Tom and the woman Jock, who had a brother among them. Tom informed me UMARRAH was with them, and how I rejoiced to hear that this man was in being. He shortly approached me and gave me a hearty shake of the hand.66
The newcomers spent part of the evening dancing with the others, although Mannalargenna disarmed them and kept watch during the night as they lay by their fires.
‘The natives complain of the outrages which have been committed upon them and their progenitors,’ Robinson noted, ‘and in bitter terms complain of their women having been stole from them.’ Proving the point, the very next day ‘a party of armed sealers’ approached the camp, ‘and behaved in a very abusive manner’, Robinson reported.67 ‘The murderer Everitt demanded an aboriginal female named Jock who was with her brother, one of the strangers,’ and ‘placed himself on a hill with his gun in front of the people’ when he did not get what he wanted. This was the area where the Vandemonian War – between the colony and various tribes – blurred into the violence of clannish frontier relationships. The incursion fretted the party, and Robinson reported the Aboriginal people were soon ‘at variance and quarelling’, with Mannalargenna and Kickerterpoller asserting that Eumarrah’s Stoney Creek tribe ‘were a savage lot and would kill white and black together’.
Mannalargenna carried a spear for the next few days and nights, wary of the newcomers, but the whole party managed to stay together with no actual fighting.68 On 1 September they reached the main expedition encampment at the Forester River, where Tyrrell was stationed. A delicate routine of hunting and conversing was established while Robinson waited for a boat. Tyrrell, like the others, was sent running errands and messages, including to and from George Town. Over subsequent days Robinson learned of public adulation of his success, as well as the death of Thomas.69 The day after receiving this news Robinson succeeded in getting the new people on a boat and deposited them at Waterhouse Island.70 The process of exile was now underway. As Robinson described it:
The chief MANNALARGENNA and other natives were much pleased at the strangers being placed on the island, and indeed it was the most humane as being the only way to save their lives. Here they can remain and when by a proper discipline their ferocious dispositions are subdued, they can be brought on the main, should it be proper to do so, and placed under the protection of a missionary.71
Robinson then headed to George Town. On the way he met Tyrrell leading pack horses, and learned that Thomas’s body had been found. Tyrrell went to erect Robinson’s tent. On 16 September Robinson reached George Town, where he heard that McKay was still at Port Sorell.72
Consultations and Plans
Soon both Robinson and McKay were in Launceston. There Robinson learned the verdict of the coronial inquest into Thomas’s death, and met with the Aboriginal captives in the gaol.73 ‘Both men and women were allowed to commix with the felons,’ Robinson was distressed to see, advocating to the gaoler for ‘their being separately confined’. But this was not his only challenge for the day. ‘Whilst here McKay had the effrontery to come into the gaol,’ he noted. The two had fallen out earlier in the year, so much so that the government even got involved, weighing up differences in the respective descriptions of events in which both had participated.74 Their separate employment was part of the attempted resolution. Robinson was unimpressed when he was ‘informed that McKay had been engaged by the government’:
to go in quest of the natives and had an order from the Governor to get a native woman from Campbelltown, who was with him. … This man McKay subsequently took another black woman from the gaol, and has gone away with her, this before my face and whilst I was here in Launceston.
Robinson appears to have increasingly seen the control of Aboriginal people as his sole prerogative. But he had another meeting that day in Launceston with ‘Mr Batman’, which reveals he was well aware he was not the sole operator concerned with making captures. Robinson and Batman discussed ‘employing the Sydney natives’. A few days previously two of them ‘named Crook and Stewart’ had joined Robinson’s party, but Batman also had others ready for deployment.75 Batman explained that ‘he did not intend going himself in quest of the natives, but recommended Mr Cottrell.’ This was Anthony Cottrell, a close neighbour of Batman, who had been with Batman in some of his earliest expeditions against Aboriginal people in the Ben Lomond area a few years previously, as well as serving during Arthur’s campaign.76
The next morning ‘Tyrrell proceeded at 6am on his way to Waterhouse Point in order to bring up the natives’. Robinson meanwhile ‘Took breakfast with H Arthur esq, the Collector of Customs’, who ‘had received a letter from his brother Charles Arthur’. Robinson learned that the Lieutenant Governor wished to meet him and some of the Aboriginal people in the midlands.
After a few more days in Launceston, Robinson was ready to go to Campbell Town. His journal succinctly records the process, but also something of his attitude: ‘Pleasant weather. Preparing to set off. Visited the gaol. Took my blacks.’77 He often wrote of being their saviour, but in terms that suggested he was their owner.
But Arthur was delayed, so Robinson waited to meet him in Launceston. Arthur arrived on 5 October, with Robinson reporting his own prominent, almost medieval role in the pageantry of a Lieutenant Governor’s arrival:
The guns announced his approach. Went on horseback and met him at the entrance of the town. In the afternoon had a conference with the Governor and the whole of the natives waited on him.78
The content of the discussion remains unclear, but likely followed those Arthur had previously had with Kickerterpoller and Eumarrah about protective exile. In the evening Robinson and Arthur met again. The next morning Arthur reviewed some of the troops before leaving town.79
A week later Robinson and Cottrell met in Campbell Town to plan the next stages of the conciliatory capture expeditions. Robinson headed east, as did Cottrell via a different route. Arthur meanwhile approved changes to the administration of the ‘friendly missions’. Campbell Town was made ‘the central situation for the conciliatory mission to the Aborigines’.80 McKay was ordered to ‘forthwith return with the two native women to the Establishment at Campbell Town’, workmen from the roads department were seconded to building duties on the site, and Arthur specifically approved the construction of a hut for Mannalargenna. But Arthur’s strategy relied on more than diplomacy and allies. Over the following days he stationed mounted troopers at Campbell Town and Oatlands to facilitate the rapid sharing of ‘information connected with the natives’.81 And when word was received of fresh hostilities in the ‘White Marsh’, Arthur announced he would try to arrange for ‘a few more Soldiers to be sent to Richmond District’.82 Just as peace seemed possible, another campaign season was starting.