Aboriginal ‘Kings’ of Benalla

15 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by Jacqui Durrant in Aboriginal, Benalla, Uncategorized, Wangaratta

Tags

Aboriginal burial practices, Baalwick, Broken River Tribe, Faithfull Massacre, King Brangy, King Branky, King Michie, Lake Benalla, Maragan, Marangan, Old Michie, Pallanganmiddang, Possum skin cloak, Taungurung, Tommy Banfield, Tommy Mickie, Tommy Micky, Waywurru

It’s time we make a start in getting to know some important figures in the Aboriginal history of Benalla.

1024px-Lake_Benalla_001

Lake Benalla. (Image by Mattinbgn, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

Warning: this post discusses issues which may cause feelings of pain and sorrow to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, including the naming, discussion about, and an image of ancestors now deceased, and funeral rites. This post also includes the usage of culturally offensive labels for Aboriginal people which are directly quoted in historical context but do not reflect the language or opinion of the author.

Note: It is necessary to preface this discussion by recognising that the historical practice of conferring the status of ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ by Europeans upon senior Aboriginal men and women deserves to be interrogated as a complex act of colonial power on the part of the European invaders. Although use of these terms was generally designed to benefit Europeans rather than Aboriginal people, the historian cannot presume to know what these titles meant within Aboriginal communities, either in positive or negative senses. While this post is written in the knowledge of the complex cultural implications which attend the usage of terms ‘King’ and ‘Queen’ in relation to Aboriginal peoples, it is concerned principally with the autobiographical details of Aboriginal individuals, rather than the modes of colonial European oppression.

In March 1860, an Aboriginal ‘King’ — King Branky — was buried by a waterhole in Benalla. Each Summer, the river at Benalla would stop flowing along its length, breaking into a chain of waterholes. At first, this caused Europeans to label it the ‘Winding Swamp,’ before they finally settled on the name ‘Broken River’. The largest of these waterholes at Benalla, at which point there was a crossing place, was known to Aboriginal people as ‘Mer-ry-an-gan-der’ [1] or by its shorter form, ‘Marangan.’ [2] For this reason, the Aboriginal people associated with the locality were often referred to by local Europeans as the ‘Maragan tribe’. [3] However King Branky, a ‘Maragan tribe’ man, a ‘Broken River tribe’ man, was not buried next to Marangan, but alongside another waterhole nearby. [4] More than three decades later, it was recalled by a local that:

‘The funeral obsequies consisted in his remains being wrapped (after having been doubled together like a pocket rule) in an opossum rug and put into an ale cask and buried on the bank of the Broken river, near the “dead-man’s hole.” The mourners were few indeed, consisting of blacks and their lubras.’ [5]

Little wonder that the number of mourners for King Branky would have been small: since the permanent arrival of Europeans in the district, the local Aboriginal community had been decimated, not least by the massacres and other violent reprisals undertaken by pastoralists and their convict servants in response to the Faithfull Massacre of April 1838; but also through European diseases, malnutrition, and a combination of alcoholism and interpersonal violence associated with a deeply traumatised community, dispossessed of their homelands.

However, despite the level of social disruption experienced by the Aboriginal people of Benalla, King Branky was still buried in a manner that was, at the very least, culturally recognisable to local Aboriginal peoples: He was buried with his possum skin cloak, and was bound with his knees drawn up to his chest. The fact that he was buried in a cask may have been a concession to Europeans who wished to see him buried in something approaching a coffin, but I think it more likely an adaptation of traditional burial practices, which tended to ensure that the deceased was protected from direct contact with the earth.

An eye-witness report by a European observer of a Aboriginal burial which took place at Scrubby Creek, near the Mitta Mitta River in 1858, provides a little more insight into local Indigenous funeral practice:

‘…the wildness of the scenery was peculiarly in unison with the strange proceedings of these savages, in making their arrangements in silence for the burial, according to the custom of their nation. The lubra of the dead man sat near the corpse as motionless as a statue, her face covered by her hands, and seemingly unconscious of what was passing around her, while another female, apparently a relative of the deceased, gave loud vent to her lamentations. The body was now approached by the men who proceeded to bond the legs of the corpse on his breast, and then to wrap the body in a blanket, which they strongly stitched together. This being done, the corpse would not be recognised as that of a man, being only the length of the trunk, and from being doubled up in the manner described, had only the appearance of a clumsily made up bundle. The grave was then dug. It was about five feet deep, and with a tunnel or drive extending three feet inward from the bottom. A bed of leaves was then placed, on which to deposit the body. The body was conveyed to the grave on the shoulders of one man, the widow, leading the way, carrying a lighted torch of gum leaves, her face being daubed over with clay. The features of two others of the party were similarly begrimed. The corpse having been carefully deposited in the grave, the opossum rug of the deceased, his clothes, belt, &c., were placed on it. A framework of saplings was then formed over all, and on this several sheets of bark were laid, to keep the earth entirely from coming in contact with the dead body. After the pit had been filled up, two poles were stuck upright over it, and on these were placed the billy and quart-pot of the deceased. Not a word had been spoken during the course of the proceedings I have described, the whole party being apparently under the influence of that feeling of awe which the presence of death creates in more enlightened beings than these poor children of the bush. They afterwards moved off to their camp in single file, carrying with them the fire they had brought to the grave.’ [6]

***

King Branky was the son of ‘King Michie,’ and much like the latter day recollections of King Branky (which we will come to), recollections of King Michie recorded close to the turn of the century revelled in a common though tawdry literary trope of the era, which portrayed Aboriginal kings as sad figures who though having once been leaders of their people and chief among the ‘original proprietors of the soil,’ [7] had been subsequently reduced to the status of ‘king in name only,’ eking out their existence as if by the grace of Europeans.

Of King Michie is was recalled, his ‘kingly duties had dwindled to a span—the once powerful Broken river tribe had been considerably diminished in numbers through migration, principally caused by the occupation of the country by the settlers; and no doubt numbers died from unnatural causes… Hence the king’s chief occupation was to display a brass plate, suspended from his neck, announcing that he was king of the Broken river tribe. He would hang about the Black Swan hotel, and if grog was not to be procured through his kingly position he would get it by cutting wood for the cook; and frequently he would draw the queen’s dowry in advance (with her consent), she having become an expert charwoman and laundress, for which occupation, she was always paid the same as if the work were done by white people.’ [8]

However, this description of King Michie belied a fact of which local Aboriginal people who had survived the European invasion of 1838 surely must have been aware — that King Michie had been a formidable leader in the local resistance to European invasion. In 1841, Chief Protector of Aborigines for the Port Phillip District, George Augustus Robinson, had been told by his most reliable Aboriginal informant in the region, Pallangan-middang man, Mul.lo.nin.ner (a.k.a. ‘Joe’), that ‘Wool-gid-yer-dow-well alias Big Micky killed Faithfull’s men.’ [9]

This was no small statement. The ‘Faithfull Massacre’, in which an advance party of men and stock belonging to squatters George and William Faithfull had been attacked on the banks of Marangan on 11 April 1838, resulting in the death of eight of Faithfull’s servants, [10] had sent such shockwaves of terror through European pastoralists, their stockmen, hut-keepers and shepherds, that the pastoralists had petitioned Governor Gipps to, in Gipp’s words, either have his government undertake ‘Punitive war against the Blacks, or sanction the enrolment of a Militia for that purpose and allow them to be supplied with Arms and Munitions of War from Her Majesty’s stores.’ [11] Gipps had refused their call, instead setting up a ‘Border Police’ to police the road to Port Phillip — an act which did little to assuage the sheer terror instilled in the pastoralists by this single guerrilla attack.

And if we can safely acquaint the identity of ‘Big Micky’ with ‘Old Man Micky,’ it can be seen that only a little over a decade earlier, Michie was one of several men (also including Pallangan-middang warrior Merriman), whom in mid-1842 was deemed responsible for the murder of a station hand (an ‘American black’) employed at Gray’s ‘Pelican Lagoons’ just south of Wangaratta; and that this attack at Grey’s station was only the latest in a string of attacks that had occurred throughout the Ovens and Broken River Valleys in the years since the Faithfull Massacre on stations belonging to unfriendly pastoralists. ‘Old man Micky,’ concluded the Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser, ‘has been the ringleader in all the depredations committed on the whites in that quarter for several years back.’ [12]

‘Nothing is known of how King Mickey attained his imperial position whether by right of birth or of conquest,’ wrote the author of ‘Recollections of Benalla’ in 1893. [13] However, the author might have more credibly written that no European wanted to know the gruesome details of how or why King Michie had attained, or perhaps retained from an earlier time, his position as a leader among Benalla’s remaining Aboriginal people.

Despite acts of Aboriginal resistance, Europeans won the bloody but officially unacknowledged frontier war in the north east region of what would become Victoria. They had settled a town around Marangan, which by late 1852 was overrun with gold rush traffic en route to the Ovens diggings. However, despite these incursions into his country, King Michie had continued to live next to Marangan, in what could be considered, in retrospect, to be one of the greatest acts of civil defiance of European rule imaginable.

King Michie’s dogged refusal to leave his country makes the senseless manner of his death at the hands of an ignorant (if not wilfully ignorant), European doctor all the more poignant:

‘In the early part of 1853 the first medical gentleman took up his residence in Benalla… This medico was appointed Government doctor to the police of the gold escort and those stationed here. The king was taken suddenly ill, internally, and the queen left her residence under the old bridge, and waited on the doctor. After describing the king’s complaint a bottle of lotion was given her to take to his majesty, with the instructions that it was to be used externally. But in the absence of an interpreter, and lack of knowledge of English prescriptions, she administered the lotion in the same manner as their own crogick or doctor gave them wattle gum dissolved in water. The dose had the effect of terminating the earthly career of this potentate, in the short space of three hours…’ [14]

King Michie was also buried in the traditional manner, ‘wrapped in his opposum-skin rug and put into a hole in the then burying ground, at the corner of Barrack and Mair streets’ — the location of Benalla’s first burial ground, at the end of what is now Church Street (formerly Barrack Street), where it meets Marangan (Lake Benalla). ‘There was no demonstration of joy or regret; no condolences forwarded onto the Queen [Polly [15]], or congratulations to the little princess; no tribal mournings or gathering of the clans, His death was a peaceful one, and his funeral unostentatious. Branky was appointed in his stead.’ [16]

benalla_old_cemetery_monument Plaque marking the site of the former Benalla Cemetery, on the right bank of Lake Benalla. (Image by Mattinbgn, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

***

Of King Michie’s wife Queen Polly, we can only find traces:

From a record of her testifying at the death inquest of Joseph Worthington in 1847, whom she had found deceased in the room adjoining hers at the Black Swan Inn in January 1847, we can see that both she and the man she called ‘my coolie Old man Mickey’ actually resided at the Black Swan Inn, at least at that time. [16b]

Polly was also encountered at the Black Swan Inn by Mrs Campbell and her daughter as they made their way to join husband and father, Police Magistrate Archibald Campbell at the Spring Creek diggings (Beechworth) in mid-1853:

‘Hearing the sitting-room door open I looked up; a black head was popped in and out again. So ugly was the object that I gave an involuntary scream and covered my face, a proceeding which evidently caused amusement, for the owner of the cranium now showed itself, making a low guttural hissing sound, meant for a laugh. Ashamed of myself, I ventured to look up again, and was introduced by my landlady to the queen of a tribe then at Bannalla, said to be handsome. Fancy a black woman, with hair long and stiff, hanging like porcupine’s quills over her shoulders, no forehead, eyes long and half closed, broad nose, mouth from ear to car, with the contrast of beautifully white and even teeth, and you will have the picture of a handsome Aborigine—quite a belle. She was pleased with [young daughter] G., who, wiser than her mother, saw nothing to be frightened at in her, and made friends accordingly.’ [17]

Unfortunately, we know not how she died, only recollections reveal that it was soon after King Michie:

‘Queen Polly, after the death of the king, pursued the even tenor of her ways, by making herself useful at the Black Swan, which place she found a comfortable asylum, and died in 1854. She was quiet, temperate, civil and industrious.’ [18]

***

Upon the death of King Michie, his son King Branky had taken the mantel. The same Benalla local who had written recollections of King Michie in 1893 speculated rather ungenerously that King Branky was only able to assume this position due to a lack of competition:

‘But how, or why, I could never understand. It could not have been because he was clever in diplomacy or in controlling or governing subordinates. He was by no means a finely developed man, and was devoid of everything brilliant or even crafty. He could certainly throw the spear with almost unerring accuracy, and give flight to the boomerang in many ways very surprising. He was an expert at swimming and dining, and became a good shot with the old muzzle loading gun. But these accomplishments were by no means in excess of the acquirements of most of the men of the same tribe. He was the hereditary successor but was a very a small contributor to the late monarch’s comforts. Therefore, how Branky became king is still unsolved. The Broken river tribe, having in a great measure dispersed and, attached themselves to other tribes, more distantly situated from the operations of the white people, appeared to lose caste, and dwindled into insignificance. Hence we must presume that Branky constituted himself king and that without opposition. If ever anything were truly nominal, Branky’s kingly position was, as tribal contentions had disappeared, and no warlike invasions were anticipated, nor were there friendly visits by other monarchs to prepare for. There were no internal disputes to decide, or petty chiefs to issue orders to. Thus, within a decade the once powerful Broken river tribe had became almost extinct, and its king, was king of nothing.

‘Branky’s occupation principally was that of shooting wild-fowl, fishing and making opossum rugs, all of which were purchasable by anyone for money or tobacco. During the rainy season his chief employment was that of chopping wood for the residents, and spending the income arising therefrom in grog. Throughout the whole of his various undertakings, even to the consumption of grog and tobacco, he was most ably assisted by his lubra — Queen Sally — of whom nothing can be said in praise, more than that she, lived-up to late in the fifties, and never had a family.’ [19]

(A great deal more could be said of the inferences made in these recollections, but this will have to pass for now.)

However, Branky’s presence in Benalla also can be found, in warmer tones, in the retrospective diary of John James Bond, a gold seeker who visited Benalla where his uncle, William Carpenter Bond served as district pound keeper, during the gold-rush of the early 1850s. William Bond had a house in the centre of the fledgling town (at what is now 56 Arundel Street [20]):

‘The natives (Blacks) are just as we see them represented. A few are now camped a little in front of this house. Benalla. There are always some in the township – women washing and so on. Men shooting ducks, stripping bark and co. for nobblers of spirit. They all are naturally of a cheerful disposition … Branky was our favourite black man[.] He was often in [and] out of the house in very free easy fashion. All of us liked him. A letter told me that he was killed in a quarrel by another black with the Tomahawk. Saw Branky got to the top of a high large tree, climbing by means of small notches which he cut out as he ascended in the smooth bark just large enough for the great toe. This tree stands in front of Uncle’s house. (All the limbs cut off by Branky).’ [22]

Branky’s easy visitations at William Carpenter Bond’s house indicate that like his father, he had maintained a strong attachment to the banks of Marangan, and strongly suggests that Benalla’s ‘black’s camp,’ rather than being on the periphery of town, was located near its early centre — which is where Branky came to blows with his killer.

Early map of Benalla, c.1850s (State Library of Victoria)

The circumstances of King Branky’s death were widely reported at the time, although not necessarily with great accuracy:

‘On Wednesday last [ie: 7 March 1860] one of the remaining few of the Broken River tribe of blacks received so much injury as to terminate his existence within about forty-eight hours after it was given. According to what I can learn, a blackfellow of the same tribe, called Jemmy, who is a very noisy fellow, and a great drunkard, went to camp, and, King Brankie not liking the noise, told Jemmy to be quiet, and got out of his opossum rug for the purpose of making Jemmy leave the camp, or be quiet; but Jemmy paid no attention to King Brankie, who, upon seeing that his orders were not obeyed, took a waddy for the purpose of trying the effects of physical force. Jemmy, not admiring the attitude of his king, stood upon the defensive with a tomahawk. From yabba yabba it came to blows, and, after various thrusts, cuts, and bad hacks, Jemmy succeeded in slaying his king, by driving his weapon through the skull.’ King Branky had not died immediately after receiving the blow to the head, however, apparently, ‘Dr. Lumsden made an examination of the fractured skull, and gave as his opinion that the death of the king was caused by a blow with a tomahawk, delivered by… Jemmy.’ [23]

The perpetrator, Jemmy, was arrested, taken to Beechworth and remanded in what Beechworth locals jokingly referred to as ‘Mr Castieau’s hotel’ (the Beechworth gaol). [24] His trial was set for the Beechworth Circuit Court of the Supreme Court on 12 April. [25] On the 11th, it was reported that an Aboriginal man and woman had been brought up from Benalla to Beechworth ‘per escort’ to give evidence in the trial. [26]

William Thomas of the Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines came up from Melbourne to assist. Of the trial, he would record in his journal that the male witness ‘would give no information, & appears perfectly sullen as tho’ if he spoke, the Blk in the dock would be hanged, or fearful of the consequence if he gave evidence… he knew nothing and would speak of nothing. In fact the court & Judge felt regularly annoyed.’ A doctor testified that King Branky could not have survived as long as he did after receiving the blow to the head from Jemmy, and the female witness testified to having seen Jemmy land the blow to the opposite side of the head than the fatal wound. Jemmy, who had good legal representation, was acquitted by the jury. [27]

Decades later it was recalled that King Branky had indeed lived much longer after the altercation with Jemmy than what had originally been reported; that Jemmy’s tomahawk blow to Branky had ‘chipped a piece of the skull clean away, leaving the thin “vellum” which covers the brain unaffected, except by exposure to the air. Branky lived some five or six days after, when mortification set in and he died.’ [27] Afterwards, as we have seen, he had been buried in the traditional manner, next to that water hole known as ‘dead man’s hole,’ on the banks of the Broken River.

(Author’s note: There was also a King Brangy who lived predominantly in Oxley, and who was, according to his sister-in-law Mary Jane [Milawa] who testified at his death inquest in 1882, born on the Ovens River and was ‘King of the Ovens Tribe.’ [29] King Brangy is not to be confused with King Branky of Benalla, although the two do appear to have been kin.)

***

The next Aboriginal man of Benalla who was strongly identified as a leader of his people — not referred to as ‘King’ but who publicly named himself at a parliamentary inquiry into Coranderrk Aboriginal reserve as ‘Tommy Micky, chief of the Broken River tribe,’ [30] was commonly known by the name ‘Tommy Banfield’ (sometimes this surname is written as ‘Bamfield’ and ‘Mansfield,’ while Micky is also spelled ‘Michie’). His Aboriginal name was Bertdrak. [31] Europeans also referred to him by the nickname ‘Punch’. When married at Coranderrk Aboriginal reserve in 1868 to Eliza Werry, Tommy Banfield gave his father’s name as Michie, his mother’s as Lucy Neal, and his birthplace, Benalla. [32] His death certificate of 1893 named his father as ‘Old Michie,’ and indicated that he had been born c.1843. [33]

Tommy Banfield/Bamfield, aka Tommy Michie/Micky, Bertdrak, Punch, aged in his early 20s. (Photograph by Fred Kruger, at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, Victoria, c.1865-1866; Museum of Victoria).

As with his forebears, Tommy Banfield’s very early life is unknown, but some misinformation exists. In a letter to the Chief Secretary’s department written by Ann Fraser Bon, former owner of Wappan Station on the Delatite River, and advocate for the Aboriginal people of Coranderrk, Bon said of Banfield:

‘Punch about whom we have heard so much lately happens to be one of my boys. His mother the Chiefess of the tribe gave him to me many years ago to be my own “Picaninny” — He is a superior black — too much so for his “Protectors” — and when in my employ sometimes earns 12/ a day, with food and lodging.’ [34]

In this letter, Bon was attempting to impress upon authorities that Tommy Banfield was an intelligent and reliable man, whom she had known for a long time. However, in doing so she too much assumed a role of European maternalism: a quick check of some dates reveals that by the time she had arrived in Australia in 1858, Tommy Banfield was already around 15 years old, and especially by the standards of the day, no ‘Picaninny’.

Tommy Banfield’s association with Wappan needs disentangling, for it creates an impression that Banfield was primarily associated with Taungurung people and country. Anthropologist Diane Barwick, in her well-known essay Mapping the Past — An Atlas of Victorian Clans 1835-1904* suggested that Tommy Banfield’s father was Baalwick, and that it was ‘Baalwick [who was], remembered by [the] Bon family as “chief of Broken river tribe” and “chief of Delatite tribe” [who] took survivors [from Benalla] to … Wappan run c. 1844/7’. (Unfortunately she does not provide the evidence for this assertion). [36] In doing so, Barwick created the notion that Tommy Banfield’s father, Old Michie, and Baalwick, were one and the same person; which in turn, like Bon’s letter, makes it seem likely that Tommy Banfield lived on Wappan run from a young age. However, a newspaper article of 1934 clearly states that ‘on the pre-emptive [right of Wappan station] is the grave of old Baalwick, the chief of the Delatite River tribe.’ [37] This indicates that Baalwick was not King Michie (for the two men are buried in different locations, not to mention having been ‘King’ of different river systems on which each is buried), and that as such, the assertion that it was Tommy Banfield’s father who lead Benalla’s surviving Aboriginal people onto Wappan Station in Taungurung country looses credibility (unless solid evidence that suggests otherwise can be found). As we have seen, King Michie remained on country, and died in Benalla in 1853. Neither was he alone.

Certainly, Tommy Banfield was named by the great Kulin leader (in Woi-wurrung language, ngurungaeta) William Barak to be one of his three successors, [38] along with Robert Wandin and Thomas Dunolly. This suggests that he was integrated into and accepted within the Kulin community. However, throughout his life, he maintained deep connections to people who, by any definition, were his kin, who lived in Wangaratta (and later also in Wahgunyah at Lake Moodemere) in non-Kulin-speaking lands. And not only did Banfield maintain contact with them, but he advocated for them to the authorities, as revealed in letters written by Banfield to the Aboriginal Board of Protection. For now, I would like to leave room for my colleague Megan Carter to closely examine the evidence, and explain these kinship connections (which are part of her own), as well as Banfield’s concerted efforts to advocate for those he referred to as ‘my people’ in Wangaratta. [39]

***

What we can discern from all of these stories is that Benalla did have Aboriginal men who identified as leaders of that community at least up until the death of Tommy Banfield in 1893. Two of these three men, Tommy Banfield and King Michie, are clearly documented as having done their utmost to protect their people under rapidly changing circumstances. We may be missing vital pieces of the historical jigsaw puzzle to enable us to more fully know whether the third individual in this picture, King Branky, had acted likewise. These individuals are worthy of greater attention and recognition, especially in the town built around their beloved ‘Marangan’, their great ‘Mer-ry-an-gan-der,’ Lake Benalla, in the town of Benalla. In getting to know these historical figures, there remains much more work to be done.

*Note

In critiquing an aspect of Diane Barwick’s essay ‘Mapping the Past’, I do not wish to downplay her substantial achievement. Barwick stated that she wrote ‘Mapping the Past’ as a crib for scholars, in the hope that others would ‘expand and correct my attempt at mapping the past.’ This is the intention of my efforts. She was a giant among scholars.

This is original written content that is copyright protected to ©Jacqui Durrant, 2020. You are welcome to share links to this blog, but please do not use the content elsewhere without permission. Thank you!

References

[1] Ian D Clark (ed), Journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Protectorate, Melbourne, 2014, entry for 23 February 1841.

[2] ‘Picturesque Victoria. Around Benalla.’ Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Thursday 24 July 1884, p.1.

[3] W.L. Murdoch, ‘Particulars concerning the blacks who is portraits appear in last issue,’ Science of man and journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Australasia, Vol. 3, No. 3, 23 April 1900, p.44.

[4] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA. (by AN OLD RESIDENT.)’ The North Eastern Ensign, Friday 28 July, 1893, p. 3.

[5] ibid.

[6] ‘A Native Burial,’ The Age, Friday, 24 September, 1858, p.6. (originally reported in the Ovens Constitution.

[7] The example of this extremely commonplace sentiment of the era, viz. that Aboriginal people were the original owners of the land, is quoted from: ’The Aborigines of Port Phillip,’ Southern Australian, Saturday 1 September, 1838, p,1.

[8] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA. (BY AN OLD RESIDENT.)’ The North Eastern Ensign, Friday, 14 July 1893 p.3.

[9] Clark, op. cit., entry for 8 February, 1841.

[10] Judith Bassett, ‘The Faithful Massacre at the Broken River,’ in Journal of Australian Studies, Number 24, May, 1989, p.18.

11] ‘SIR GEORGE GIPPS TO LORD GLENELG.’ (Despatch No. 115, per ship Superb; acknowledged by Lord Glenelg, 21st December, 1838.) reproduced in Australian Aborigines: Copies or extracts of despatches relative to the massacre of various Aborigines in Australia, in the year 1838, and respecting the trial of their murderers; compiled by the Colonial Office, Great Britain, 19 August 1839.

[12] ‘The Blacks,’ Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser, Thursday 29 September 1842, p.2.

[13] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA. (by AN OLD RESIDENT.)’ The North Eastern Ensign, Friday 28 July, 1893, p. 3.

[14] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA. (BY AN OLD RESIDENT.)’ The North Eastern Ensign, Friday, 14 July 1893 p.3.

[15] ibid.

[16] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA.’ Friday 28 July, 1893, p. 3.

[16b] Joseph WORTHINGTON Death Inquest, Cause of death: Visitation of God; Location of inquest: Broken River; Date of inquest: 19 Jan 1847, Public Records Office of Victoria, VPRS 24/ P0 unit 4, item 1847/75 Male

[17] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA.’ Friday, 14 July 1893 p.3.

[18] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA.’ Friday 28 July, 1893, p. 3.

[19] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA.’ Friday 28 July, 1893, p. 3.

[20] Bond’s property is marked on an early ‘Township Map of Benalla, Broken River. No. 59’, c.185-? State Library of Victoria.

[21] This location is most likely land owned by William Carpenter Bond at the time, at 56B Arundel Street, Benalla.

[22] John James Bond, ‘Diary of John James Bond’ [Retrospective ‘diary’, based mainly on a few letters that John Bond wrote to his family, recording his visit to Australia in 1853-1855. (89pp.)], (as filmed by the AJCP) [microform]: [M724], National Library Australia, 1915, pp:88-89.
The pound keeper was William Carpenter Bond, pound keeper from 1848.

[23] ‘MURDER OF AN ABORIGINAL KING.’ Mount Alexander Mail, Friday 23 March 1860, p.3.

[24] ‘ADELAIDE. BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. | Thursday evening.’ Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Friday 23 March 1860, p.2.

[25] ‘BEECHWORTH CIRCUIT COURT. April 12th, 1840,’ Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Wednesday 11 April 1860, p.2.

[26] ‘The Ovens and Murray Advertiser Published every Wednesday and Saturday. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11th, 1860,’ Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Wednesday 11 April 1860, p.2.

[27] Dr Marguerita Stephens (ed) The Journal of Assistant Protector William Thomas 1839-67, Volume 3: 1839-1943, Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (VACL), Melbourne, p.266, Entry for 12 April 1860.

[28] ‘RECOLLECTIONS OF BENALLA. (by AN OLD RESIDENT.)’ The North Eastern Ensign, Friday 28 July, 1893, p. 3.

[29] Inquest into the death of King Brangui, VPRS 24/P Unit 445, Item 1280, Inquiry 6 November 1882, Public Records Office of Victoria.

[30] ‘THE CORANDERRK INQUIRY.’ The Argus, Wednesday, 19 October, 1881, [Issue No.11,025], p.6.

[31] ‘MR. BERRY AND THE ABORIGINES.’ The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday, 30 March, 1886, p.5.

[32] Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages, ‘Marriage Solemnized in the District of Bourke, 1868, No in Register 362, 3 April, 1868.

[33] Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages, Tommy Banfield, Death Certificate, Reg. number 10334/1893.

[34] Letter reproduced in ‘A philanthropist and lobbyist on behalf of Victorian Aborigines,’ in First Ladies: Finding Women in the Public Records Office Victoria, Revised edition originally published 1999© Australian Women’s Archives Project and Public Record Office Victoria, 2005

http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/fl/flten00.htm
The letter itself can be found at VPRS 1226, Unit 4, Item 82/ X 4907, Public Records Office Victoria. I have note cited the original, only the published transcription.

[35] Joan Gillison, ‘Bon, Ann Fraser (1838–1936)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bon-ann-fraser-5284/text8911, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 14 September 2020.

[36] Diane Barwick, ‘Mapping the Past: An Atlas of Victorian Clans 1835-1904’ Aboriginal History, Vol. 8, 1984, p.128.

[37] ‘A Healesville Benefactress MRS. ANNIE F. BON, AND THE LATE MR. JOHN BON. Compiled from Various Sources by M.H.’ Healesville and Yarra Glen Guardian, Saturday 21 July 1934, p.3.

[38] Diane Barwick, op. cit., p.128.

[39] This is quoted from a letter written by Tommy Banfield, which is located in the Board of Protection for Aborigines Correspondence Files No. B313 Box 3 Item 42 Wangaratta and Wahgunyah, National Archives/Public Records Office Victoria.

Were Aboriginal people in Beechworth in the 1850s? (Following a new lead)

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Jacqui Durrant in Aboriginal, Beechworth, Tangambalanga, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

David Reid, Dhudhuroa, Faithfull Massacre, King Billy, Merriman, Queen Emily, Waywurru

This time, it’s you, my dear readers, who have come up trumps. Cheers all round, especially for those who are furthering my efforts to answer that question of ‘Where were Aboriginal people during the Beechworth gold rush?’

WARNING: Visitors should be aware that this blog post includes images and names of deceased people that may cause sadness or distress, particularly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

A bark canoe sketched at Little River (Kiewa River, Tangambalanga) by Eugene von Guerard in 1862. (Source: Volume 12: Sketchbook XXXIII, No. 15 Australian. 1862 / by Eugene von Guerard. State Library of NSW). ‘King Billy of the Barwidgee tribe’ regularly camped on the Kiewa River at Tangambalanga.

Some months ago after reading my earlier post, Where were Aboriginal people during the gold rush? a reader named Richard (as it turns out, a good friend of good friends) mentioned that some years ago, someone in the Burke Museum showed him a reference in the Ovens and Murray Advertiser to an Aboriginal corroboree held at the races in Beechworth in the late 19th century. Richard suggested I follow it up. It’s taken me some time to get around to it, but I located the article to which he might have referred. And what a suggestion it has turned out to be — as until now I had difficulty placing Aboriginal people right in Beechworth around the time of the gold rush. Not any more.

The article seems to have been a news piece that follows in quick succession a report about the Wangaratta races in February, 1859, and I shall quote it in full:

‘Fashionable Arrivals — Beechworth has been, within the past day or two, honored with the presence of royalty, the representative of kingdoms in this case being no less a personage than King Billy, of the Barwidgee tribe. The king (we learn his rank from the brass plate suspended from his neck) is accompanied by about half a score of his sable countrymen, who, we presume, hold high offices in the executive of His Majesty of Barwidgee. A number of the gentler sex are also attached to the regal retinue, and the peculiarity of whose beauty has attracted the gaze, if not the admiration, of the good people of Beechworth, during the short period they have been sojourning in our midst. The party in the aggregate numbers nearly twenty, including an half cast of about twelve years of age, who we are informed as an indisputable fact has some of the blood of an ancient Scotch family in her veins, and whose familiar patronymic amongst her black companions is the Highland name of her putative father. The notorious Merryman appears to be Prime Minister of the tribe. This individual, it will be remembered, was one of the party of blacks concerned in the murder of Mr Faithful’s men some years ago, and only escaped well-merited retribution from the impossibility of directly connecting him with the crime. The boundaries of the territory, or run perhaps would be more correct, owned by this tribe, extends from the Ovens River to the lands beyond the Omeo, including the Mitta Mitta country, and all this side of the Murray for a great distance from the river. They pay periodical visits to every part of their district, always reaching Beechworth about the time when the races come off, and remain until the curiosity occasioned by their presence has subsided, and they instinctively find that their longer continuance is a nuisance. The number of the blacks in this neighborhood is getting small indeed, ere long, the sight of a member of any of the tribes who formerly hunted the kangaroo and the wallaby in grounds now covered by the habitations of civilized man, will be one of rare occurrence.’ [1]

We may well now cringe at the condescending tone of this article, and its once commonplace supposition that these Aboriginal people would simply ‘die out’, but it does offer some valuable insights. It astounds me that as late as 1859, this clan was still moving about their country — perhaps in something of a traditional manner (with ‘Little River’ [Tangambalanga] being another regular encampment) — despite two decades of European invasion. We can even tell that their arrival in Beechworth was seasonal, as it happened yearly, ‘about the time the races come off’, which seems to have been between late February and early April, if we use the Annual Beechworth Race Meeting as a guide. This is a period in which the seasons are in transition, and according to the late Bpangerang elder Eddie Kneebone, in which Aboriginal peoples made their way from the high country where they harvested bogong moths over Summer, down to the river flats in Autumn. [2]

Who were these people who identified Beechworth as a part of their country in 1859? Who were this clan who could count Merriman — famous for his involvement in the Faithfull Massacre some 21 years earlier — as a leader? One of my readers, Megan, has generously offered that she is descended from the clan involved in the Faithfull Massacre, and says ‘we are multi-clan: Waywurru and Dhudhuroa people. Lots of movement in the old days: from Corryong to Kiewa, Tarrawingee and Oxley up to Wodonga and Rutherglen.’ (*see my note).

Aborignal_breast plate_National_Museum_Australia

A brass breastplate similar to that which was worn by ‘King Billy of the Barwidgee tribe’ when he visited Beechworth in the 1850s. (Image: National Museum of Australia.)

By the mention of King Billy’s ‘brass plate’ (breastplate, which he can be seen wearing in his portrait c. 1869, now held in the National Library), it seems that King Billy was judged by non-Aboriginal administrators to be a ‘chief’ among his people, and yet it also marks him as a man who was most likely cooperative in some way with White people. This fact makes it all the more interesting that he was accompanied by his son Merriman — the warrior who years before was not only involved in the Faithfull Massacre (which destroyed the first attempt by Whites to settle on the Broken River at Benalla), but is also said to have been responsible for a retributive attack on squatter David Reid’s run ‘Currargarmonge’, and later, an attack which completely drove squatter Dr George Edward Mackay’s shepherds, hut keepers and stock off his run at Whorouly in May 1840 — figuratively and quite literally ‘lock, stock and barrel’. [3] At the time of these events, Merriman had been captured by the Border and Mounted Police not once, but twice — and escaped both times to return to his parents ‘King Billy Elengeist’ and ‘Queen Mary’ and family, who were camped at Little River [i.e.: Tangambalanga]. [4]

No doubt many residents of Beechworth took a good look at King Billy and his clan when they came to town each year. Squatter David Reid, who still lived in the district, knew of Merriman and all that he stood for: a warrior who had conducted a guerrilla attack on the Faithfull party’s shepherds in 1838; who’d fronted-up already wise to their ways, wearing European clothes and speaking English [5], and yet was determined to defend his people and lands against the violence and depredation wrought by these White newcomers. And so we might guess that even two decades after these events, many Beechworth residents knew something important about King Billy and his ‘Prime Minister’ Merriman. They may have tried to joke about it, but deep down they knew that there was much more to these ‘Fashionable Arrivals’.

Postscript: if anyone knows the whereabouts of King Billy’s breastplate, or has any more information about King Billy and his family, please share the information.

Notes

∗This is not to detract from the fact that an elder in the Bpangerang tribe, Freddie Dowling, has sent me many historic maps [and also included the N. B. Tindale map of 1974] which shows that Beechworth fell in the Bpangerang tribal area. I can only say with the greatest respect that it is not my place to reconcile the varying information.

[1] Ovens and Murray Advertiser, ‘Fashionable Arrivals,’ Wednesday, 23 February, 1859, p.2.

[2] Eddie Kneebone, ‘Interpreting Traditional Culture as Land Management,’ in Birkhead, J., DeLacy, T.’ and Smith, L.J (eds.) Aboriginal Involvement in Parks and Protected Areas, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1993, pp.227-235 [this reference, p.231].

[3] Reminiscences of David Reid : as given to J.C.H. Ogier (in Nov. 1905), who has set them down in the third person, manuscript, National Library of Australia, pp.32-33.
I am generally suspicious of this reference, as it was written when David Reid was of an advanced age, almost seventy years after the events he recounts. However, in this case I think Reid’s memory demonstrates that Merriman had a formidable reputation as a warrior.

[4] Bassett, Judith, ‘The Faithful Massacre at the Broken River,’ in Journal of Australian Studies, Number 24, May, 1989, p.26. Bassett says that Merriman was the son of ‘King Billy Elengeist’ and ‘Queen Emily’.
Bassett says that Merriman escaped and returned to his family at Little River, Kiewa. Little River is the old name for the Kiewa River. The camp site seems to have been at Tangambalanga/Kiewa, as King Billy and his wife Emily are recorded as having regularly camped there in later years: ‘Grandfather (Joseph Coulston) came to Tangambalanga 61 years ago there was only one house on Tangam then and no fences or roads. Some black fellows, old King Billy and Queen Emily and a few more lived in a tent near where our church is now and when they went away they all carried swags on their backs and about a dozen dogs followed them’ Source: letter written by the mother of Nellie Barton (nee Coulston) in 1933, referring to the 1870s. Letter held by Nellie Barton; excerpt appearing in ‘Kiewa Valley Environmental History‘ slide show, put together by the Kiewa Catchment Landscape Group. Note that the letter specifies ‘when they went away’, meaning that they didn’t camp here permanently.

[5] Bassett, ibid — explains that Merriman was in European dress during the Faithfull Massacre, etc; and Ogier, op. cit., p.32. in which Reid is at pains to state that Merriman had lived with Whites before the Faithfull Massacre, and knew their ways: ‘This this blackfellow [Merriman] had been several years amongst the whites on the Hume River [i.e.: Murray] and therefore was to some extent a half civilised black the most dangerous, because from being brought up amongst white people he had the opportunity of judging as to their means of defence, and their customs were familiar to him. Hence he had the knowledge as to what would be the best means to attack them with the least danger and the greater certainty of success.’ This fact is corroborated (to an extent) by the information that Merriman ran a bark canoe across the river at Albury for Robert Brown, when he set up the first Inn there in 1836. (Dr Arthur Andrews, The History of Albury, 1824-1895, Albury and District Historical Society, Albury, 1988, p.5).

Where were Aboriginal people during the Beechworth gold rush?

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by Jacqui Durrant in Aboriginal, Beechworth, Benalla

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of The Aborigines, David Reid, Edward George Mackay, Faithfull Massacre, George Faithfull

It’s an important question, is it not? North-east Victoria was 100% populated by Aboriginal peoples when the first pastoralists arrived here around 1838; and yet there is almost no mention of Aboriginal people in association with the Beechworth gold rush, which happened only 14 years later. What happened to them?

William Barak, Figures in Possum Skin Cloaks, 1898. (Painted on Corranderrk reserve at Healesville).

I haven’t made a post on Life on Spring Creek for a while, as I had a break while teaching Introduction to Aboriginal Australia at La Trobe University. That experience has drawn me to want to tell you about Aboriginal people during the gold rush: a story which cannot be told without some deeper historical background:

In 1836 Major Mitchell passed through North East Victoria. When he returned to Sydney, he reported that he had found ‘Australia Felix’, a Latin term which denoted the country south of the Hume [Murray] River as a ‘pleasant land’. Australia Felix was a landscape that had been cultivated for thousands of years by Aboriginal ‘fire-stick farming.’ Its lush pasture was interspersed by mature shade trees, largely free of dense understory. Its green sward drew grazing game species; its openness made for ease of hunting and travel. Its wetlands and rivers ran clear, and were abundant with fish and crustacea. To Europeans, Australia Felix looked like an English nobleman’s country park left to go wild. To prospective ‘squatters’ (pastoralists) looking to establish new sheep and cattle stations for stock which were languishing in the drought-stricken ’19 counties’ around Sydney, it smelled like opportunity. In his report, Mitchell didn’t make much of fact that the land was already occupied. But the squatters weren’t stupid; they knew what they were up for when they decided to take their vast flocks of sheep and herds of cattle beyond what was officially designated as ‘the limits of location’.

As Mitchell’s drays rolled through this countryside, the cart-wheels sunk into the ground, leaving ruts: the soils were soft and spongey, having never been trodden by hard-hoofed animals. The ruts, leading from the Murray River all the way down to the Port Phillip district [Melbourne], became the path that squatters followed in search of pasture for the thousands upon thousands of sheep and cattle they brought with them, despoiling the countryside and fouling river crossings as they went. One of these river crossings was at a place local Aboriginal people called ‘Benalta’ (thought to derive from the local word for musk duck). This became the site of one key event that history has recorded, as opposed to the doubtless numerous subsequent events that went unrecorded. It became the site of The Faithfull Massacre.

On 11 April 1838, the stockmen of squatters George and William Faithfull were attacked by a party of perhaps 20 Aboriginal people on the banks of the Broken River at Benalta (where present-day Benalla is situated). Eight of the 18 stockmen were speared to death, and in return, one Aboriginal man was killed by musket fire. Historian Judith Bassett suggests that rather than an act of war, this massacre was a guerilla-attack by a band of Aborigines intent on inflicting retributive justice against the stockmen who shot some of their people on the Ovens River seven days earlier. [1]

In the wake of this attack, the Faithfulls, along with squatters on other runs nearby, retreated to the relative safety of the Murray River. That June, a group of more than 80 squatters with stations along the Port Phillip route [now the Hume Highway] petitioned Governor Gipps, who in turn refused their request: he would not sanction a war on the Aboriginal population, let alone allow the squatters to take matters into their own hands as was their threat. [2] As Dr George Edward Mackay, a squatter who was based at Everton (if you’re a local, think of the location of the ‘Pioneer Bridges’ crossing on the Ovens River) would later bitterly recount, the government wasn’t at all sympathetic to their plight: after all, they had knowingly gone beyond ‘the limits of location’. [3] They had wittingly taken a risk and now they had to bear the cost.

Nevertheless, Governor Gipps did answer their petition with the establishment of a ‘Border Force’ along the Port Phillip route. The government would set up a police post at several river and creek crossings between Sydney and Port Phillip (Melbourne), but until they did so, there existed a window of opportunity in which squatters in North East Victoria, intent on settling the land to their purposes and fuelled by a desire to undertake retribution for the Faithfull Massacre, were well beyond official scrutiny.

There are virtually no historical records of what actually happened at this time. We can only infer what happened from a handful of recollections and a few other fragmented records, which were purposefully written to avoid explicit explanation. The main recollections come from a book called Letters from Victorian Pioneers: a compilation of letters which were written in response to a circular sent by Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe in July 1853, requesting information as to the time and circumstances of the first occupation of various parts of the colony of Victoria by Europeans.

In a letter to La Trobe, George Faithfull explained that the early European settlers in North East Victoria were subject to constant attacks on themselves and their livestock by Aboriginal people, [4] and it is clear that this resulted in retaliatory attacks by the whites, purportedly often more severe in nature than the events which had initiatied them. [4b]

By August 1839, when Henry Bingham, Commissioner for Crown Lands (Murrumbidgee district) visited the region, he found the Aboriginal peoples of the region, for the most part, already visibly afraid. He encountered large parties of ‘natives’ at Howlong, whom he says ‘appeared much alarmed at our first appearance’. At Whorouly he found they were ‘very shy’. And on the Ovens River, he reckoned, ‘the Natives appear to have a hostile feeling for the squatters from past transactions.’ [5]

David Reid, the squatter who held the run ‘Carrajarmongei’ (Carraragarmungee, on which the Beechworth goldrush would later take place), arrived in September 1838, initially building a hut somewhere on the Ovens River above what is now Tarrawingee. In his recollections (recounted by Reid to J.C.H. Ogier in 1905) it is stated that, ‘It was some eighteen months after Mr Reid had formed his station before he allowed blacks to come there’ (my italics). It isn’t stated by what means Reid kept local Aboriginal people from living on their own land; only that in what probably would have been the late summer of 1839/1840, two Aboriginal men approached Reid as representatives of their clan ‘without instruments of war’ and with a ‘green bough in each hand’ to make peace, so that they could camp nearby on the Ovens River. Three or four weeks later, by which time Reid’s first crop of wheat was being harvested, Reid and his men spotted 15 or 20 Aboriginal men from the same clan, now armed with spears and painted with ‘pipe clay’, approaching them from across the River. Reading this as an imminent attack, Reid and his men retreated to their nearby hut, after which they employed double barrelled guns: ‘It is not for Mr Reid to describe what followed but there was soon a scatterment made of our sable foes.’ [6]

Even after Reid’s shooting of Aboriginal people along the Ovens River, the hostility between Aboriginal people and squatters continued, and even stepped up. George Edward Mackay had arrived in the district on the eve of the Faithfull Massacre in the Autumn of 1838, and finding his servants unwilling to stay, had retreated to the Hume (Murray) River, returning in the Spring of 1838 to squat on land at ‘Warrouley’ (Whorouly). In his letter to Governor LaTrobe written years later, he stated that:

In May 1840, 21 [Aboriginal men], all armed with guns, besides their native weapons, attacked my station in my absence. They murdered one of my servants and burned my huts and stores, and all my wheat. … only seven head of cattle, out of nearly 3,000, were left alive on the run. … Three special commissioners were sent one after another to examine into the matter, Major Lettsom, of the 80th Regiment, Mr. Bingham, Commissioner of Crown Lands for the district, and Chief Protector Robinson. The whole drift of their inquiries seemed to me to be an attempt to prove that the cause of the attack upon my station by the blacks was an improper treatment of the native women by my servants. This was shown to be totally without foundation, for the natives had no women with them, and it was their first visit to the station. … These, Sir, are the salient points of my experience as a squatter. I have lost my capital. I have lost my health. I have lost fifteen years of the best period of my life. [7]

I don’t doubt Mackay’s sentiment: that the level of conflict with Aborigines in North East Victoria left him a broken man, but bear in mind that this is history written by the victor: he was on the side that won. Take from that what you will about what it was to be on the side that lost.

Reid and Faithfull both mention that it was necessary to be armed while going about daily work on their stations: ‘It was a rule in those days that no man went about any occupation without having his firearms immediately at his disposal, in fact a hut keeper never went for a bucket of water without going armed, not knowing at any moment whether or not he might be intercepted’. [10] George Faithfull wrote, ‘We dared not move to supply our huts with wood or water without a gun, and many of my men absconded from my service, throwing away their firelocks [i.e.: muskets], and in some cases destroying the locks and making them wholly useless from sheer terror of the blacks. This may appear too absurd for belief; nevertheless, it is a fact.’ [8]

Faithfull’s claim as to how this situation was finally ended are worth reading (the locality is probably on the Oxley Plains, on the banks of the King River, where Faithfull had a run):

At last, it so happened that I was the means of putting an end to this warfare. Riding with two of my stockmen one day quietly along the banks of the river, we passed between the ana-branch of the river itself by a narrow neck of land, and, after proceeding about half a mile, we were all at once met by some hundreds of painted warriors with the most dreadful yells I had ever heard. Had they sprung from the regions below we could have hardly been more taken by surprise. Our horses bounded and neighed with fear old brutes, which in other respects required an immense deal of persuasion in the way of spurs to make them go along. Our first impulse was to retreat, but we found the narrow way blocked up by natives two and three deep, and we were at once saluted with a shower of spears. My horse bounded and fell into an immense hole. A spear just then passed over the pummel of my saddle. This was the signal for a general onset. The natives rushed on us like furies, with shouts and savage yells; it was no time for delay. I ordered my men to take deliberate aim, and to fire only with certainty of destruction to the individual aimed at. Unfortunately, the first shot from one of my men’s carbines did not take effect; in a moment we were surrounded on all sides by the savages boldly coming up to us. It was my time now to endeavour to repel them. I fired my double-barrel right and left, and two of the most forward fell; this stopped the impetuosity of their career. I had time to reload, and the war thus begun continued from about ten o’clock in the morning until four in the afternoon. We were slow to fire, which prolonged the battle, and 60 rounds were fired, and I trust and believe that many of the bravest of the savage warriors bit the dust.
It was remarkable that the children, and many of the women likewise, had so little fear that they boldly ran forward, even under our horses’ legs, picked up the spears, and carried them back to the warrior men. We at last beat them off the field, and found that they had a fine fat bullock some of it roasting, some cut up ready for the spit, and more cattle dead ready to portion out. The fight I have described gave them a notion of what sort of stuff the white man was made, and my name was a terror to them ever after. [9]

Let’s analyse Faithfull’s statement, as if we are looking at a silent movie and seeing the actual scene, but with none of the narration: The Aboriginal men are wearing paint. There is a bullock being roasted to feed the masses. Women and children are present. All would suggest that Faithfull and his men have stumbled across a ceremonial gathering. When interrupted, the Aboriginal people throw a ‘shower of spears’ none of which hit their mark, even though these people are consummate hunters. This would suggest that the spears were not thrown to kill or even injure, but more as a warning. In retaliation, as Faithfull explains, ‘I ordered my men to take deliberate aim, and to fire only with certainty of destruction to the individual aimed at…. We were slow to fire, which prolonged the battle, and 60 rounds were fired…’ In other words, Faithfull and his men conserve ammunition by not firing unless they are confident of killing someone, but they still manage to shoot sixty rounds over six hours. You can estimate for yourself: How many Aboriginal people are killed that day? How many children witness family members being shot?

Faithfull also resorted to kidnapping a child to buy himself some protection: ‘I picked up a boy from under a log, took him home and tamed him, and he became very useful to me, and I think was the means of deterring his tribe from committing further wanton depredations upon my property; my neighbours, however, suffered much long after this.’ [10]

Faithfull further explains, without giving explicit examples which would incriminate fellow squatters, that his own mass-killing of Aboriginal people paled to insignificance in comparison of what was to come: ‘The Government during all this time gave no help, no assistance of any kind, and at last threatened to hang any one who dared to shoot a black, even in protection of his property, and appointed [Aboriginal] Protectors to search about the country for information as to the destruction of the natives. These gentlemen resorted to the most contemptible means to gain information against individuals, whom the trumpet-tongue of falsehood had branded as having destroyed many of these savages. This, instead of doing good, did much evil. People formed themselves into bands of alliance and allegiance to each other, and then it was the destruction of the natives really did take place.’ [11] So it would seem that after the Faithfull Massacre in April 1838, there may have been a period of unrestrained slaughter before the arrival of the border police; but also, after the border police were in place, and despite the fact that Aboriginal Protectors had been appointed in late 1837, the slaughter of Aboriginal people not only continued but worsened as squatters became more organised and clandestine in their activities.

That Faithfull’s men destroyed guns before absconding from his service is telling. These men were servants who had found themselves caught in the midst of an horrific conflict — freemen who probably had known little of what to expect on the colonial frontier before arriving; some of them assigned servants who’d had no choice in the matter at all — and as George Faithfull recounted, at least on one occasion (but we may surmise many more) these men had been pressed into shooting Aboriginal people, moreover, in the presence of children. To assume that these servants had no objections to killing other people is to assume that they came from a supremely brutal and racist mindset, an assumption which (to adopt a line of argument from historian John Hirst) would ‘mistakenly cast the high racism of the late nineteenth century back to the century’s middle decades.’ [12] We will never know for certain why some of Faithful’s men destroyed their guns, but it is reasonable to suspect that they wanted to end the horror.

Aboriginal people at the Black Swan Inn, Benalla, 1852-53

So where were the remaining Aboriginal people of North East Victoria, during the gold rush of 1852? By this time, the adult Aboriginal population had been children or young adults when they survived the frontier conflict with the squatters. Without doubt they had lost family members to gunshot wounds, and bore the psychological scars. Now the country around them was filling up with gold seekers — all of whom carried guns and fired them regularly. What traces can we find of these Aboriginal survivors?

In 1853, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Henry Smythe, estimated that there were still 399 Aboriginal people living in the region, and yet as Smythe noted, they were not attracted by the prospect of gold — a fact which he attributed to their ‘natural indolence’. [12b] Their disinterest in gold mining may partly account for why Aboriginal people are almost entirely absent from the diaries and letters of the gold seekers on the Spring and Reid’s Creek diggings, with the exception of encounters they had with Aboriginal people en route from Melbourne: frequently at Longwood, secondly at Benalla, and more occasionally at Wangaratta. The Aboriginal people at Benalla were met on the banks of the Broken River in the vicinity of the Black Swan Inn (which still stands at 4 Bridge Street West, on the river bank opposite the site of the Faithfull Massacre). These Aboriginal people seemed to offer the gold seekers nothing but hospitality and assistance, and were met in return with a mixture of condescension, fascination and sometimes admiration.

Thomas Woolner, while travelling to the diggings on 15 November 1852, wrote, ‘I saw there a black man attiring himself, performing his toilet duties with grimaces of fastidiousness self-admiration: he combed his thick shock of wool with some pain to himself, then (smeared) it with grease and rubbed some fat over his visage, then combed again twisting his delight into hideous leers; after he had finished I told him he had made himself look very pretty, he grinned at me in ecstasy and asked if I wanted a light for my pipe.’ However, when one of Woolner’s party drowned in the Broken River on the return journey on 18 December, Woolner mentions that ‘a black woman was diving for a long time but could not find him.’ Woolner’s inference is that while he and his party dragged the river, the person most capable of finding their friend’s body — this Aboriginal woman — could not, and therefore efforts to locate the body, though in vain, had been substantial. [13]

Seweryn Korzelinski passed through Benalla around the same time, writing, ‘I saw for the first time native women and their children, called piccaninni.’ He was clearly impressed when ‘One of their men who arrived soon after, on our request for a fish just dived in the river and soon came out with a tasty looking foot-long fish.’ [14] Some five or six months later, Mrs Campbell was travelling to the Spring Creek Commissioner’s Camp where her husband was serving as the new Police Magistrate. On the way, she stayed at the Black Swan Inn with her daughter ‘G’:

Hearing the sitting-room door open I looked up; a black head was popped in and out again. So ugly was the object that I gave an involuntary scream and covered my face, a proceeding which evidently caused amusement, for the owner of the cranium now showed itself, making a low guttural hissing sound, meant for a laugh. Ashamed of myself, I ventured to look up again, and was introduced by my landlady to the queen of a tribe then at Bannalla, said to be handsome. Fancy a black woman, with hair long and stiff, hanging like porcupine quills over her shoulders, no forehead, eyes long and half closed, broad nose, mouth from ear to ear, with the contrast of beautifully white and even teeth, and you will have the picture of a handsome Aborigine, quite a belle. She was pleased with G., who, wiser than her mother, saw nothing to be frightened at in her, and made friends accordingly. Of course she was civilized. In their native state, as I afterwards saw them, they are a very repulsive people, said to be tho lowest of the human race… [15]

There is much one could read into Mrs Campbell’s thoughts about ‘the queen of the tribe’, but what is striking is the good nature of this Aboriginal woman in the face of uncomprehending, almost involuntary prejudice.

I wish I knew what became of these Aboriginal people who were camped at Benalla that Summer leading into the Autumn of 1853, who had lived through such extraordinary changes of circumstance. One sad footnote to this scene at Benalla is a brief entry in a government report of 1861, concerning an orphan Aboriginal ‘or half-caste’ girl living in a ‘public house’ in Benalla (which could well have been the Black Swan). A local man named Banfield had made repeated applications to the government for land on which the girl could live, to improve her situation. The government agency, the new Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of The Aborigines, could only think to remove her to an asylum in Melbourne, but once it realise it had no power to do so, did nothing more. [16]

[Since writing this blog post, I have realised that William Howitt (in Land Labour and Gold, Chapter 15) also encounters a substantial encampment of Aboriginal people while en route to Albury, camped on the river near Wodonga, in early 1853. This tells us that Aboriginal people were still in the district, but perhaps were choosing to stay away from the crowded areas impacted by the gold rush.]

Aboriginal people around Beechworth, Yackandandah and Chiltern, 1860-62

In 1860, by which time the Beechworth gold rush had been and gone some six or seven years, the colony of Victoria established the aforementioned Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of The Aborigines. The Board was ‘of the opinion’ that:

it is the bounden duty of the people who have taken possession of their country to protect them as far as possible, and to a certain extent to maintain them. We occupy for pastoral and for other purposes nearly all the land in the Colony, and that which we do not occupy is least fitted for the black population. Under these circumstances it is necessary that permanent reserves should be made for the blacks whenever their numbers are such as to require a tract of country for yielding food. [17]

Ironically, many of those who would be drawn-in by the Board to assess the situation of the Aboriginal peoples of Victoria and assist with ‘protecting them’, were the very same pastoralists who had forcibly taken the land away from Aboriginal peoples in the first place. Needless to say, the few ‘permanent reserves’ created were pitiful in size.

In 1861, the Board made its first report to parliament. Squatter David Reid was one of the Board’s honorary correspondents, as was George Edward Mackay. In the Report, Reid estimated that there were 60 Aboriginal people in the area between Wodonga and Wangaratta, reaching over to the Kiewa Valley. Incidentally, by comparison, this number made this patch of country — originally so rich in natural resources of food, clothing and shelter — one of the least indigenous-populated regions in the state. [18] Mackay commented that these people rarely stayed in one location for more than a couple of weeks. That Aboriginal people continued to move through country, as they had done for millennia, shows extraordinary resilience; and yet the indigenous preference for movement was met with distaste by Mackay and Reid, because their perpetual movement afforded them poor prospects for permanent employment. [19]

In 1862, a reserve of 640 acres on which Aboriginal people were expected — somehow — to live, had been gazetted at Tangambalanga. Police Magistrate H. B. Lane distributed stores (food, blankets and clothing) to 41 people at Tangambalanga, while David Reid, now of The Hermitage (at Barnawatha, near Chiltern), distributed stores to 48 people. [120] Reid wrote that ‘The condition of the blacks is improved, owing to having food and raiment [i.e.: clothing], and being thereby protected in the winter from the effects of cold and rain. This, of course, with wholesome food, which they receive, tends to contentment and good health.’ [21]

In the ten years since the gold rush, and 24 years since the first pastoralists settled in North East Victoria, the miserable handouts, and tiny reserve on which it was hoped Aboriginal people would remain, was a far cry from the Australia Felix that they, and they alone, had created.

[1] Judith Bassett, ‘The Faithfull Massacre at the Broken River,’ in Journal of Australian Studies, Volume 13, Issue 24, 1989, pp.18-22. It is unclear whether the stockmen shot dead or maimed the Aborigines at the Ovens, but it seems they did so in response to two head of their cattle being speared.
[2] Bassett, ibid, p.32; A. G. L. Shaw, A History of the Port Phillip District: Victoria Before Separation, MUP, p.114.
[3] George, Edward Mackay, from Tarrawingee, 30th August 1853, Letter 37 in Bride, T. (ed), Letters from Victorian Pioneers, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1898, pp.187-188.[4] George Faithfull, from Wangaratta, 8th September 1853, Letter 27 in Bride, T. (ed), Letters from Victorian Pioneers, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1898, pp.152-3.
[4b] (I’m going to be unprofessional here in this footnote, with the excuse that I consider this piece of writing to be a ‘work-in-progress’.) The fact that squatters retaliated against what were commonly referred to as ‘Aboriginal depredations’ with violence far out-weighing the original incidents was a well-known and oft-commented fact in the newspapers of the day. However, in order to demonstrate this fact conclusively, I will have to offer a number of sources — which I will do when I have time to go back over my source materials!
[5] NRS 906: Colonial Secretary: Commissioners of Crown Lands – Itineraries, Murrumbidgee, Henry Bingham, 10 Jul – Nov 1839, Aug 1843, Jul 1844, Mar – Nov 1845, Apr – Jun 1847 [X812], Reel 2748 [Squatters and Graziers Index, State Archives and Records NSW]
[6] Reminiscences of David Reid: as given to J.C.H. Ogier (in Nov. 1905), who has set them down in the third person, type-written manuscript, National Library of Australia, pp:28-30.
[7] George Edward Mackay, ibid.
In his letter Mackay attributes the cessation of Aboriginal attacks on his station (barring the occasional taking of a few head of cattle for food), to the fact that he followed the men responsible for the attack for 18 months, apprehending 17 of them who were subsequently gaoled in Melbourne.
[8] op. cit. George Faithful.
[9] ibid for George Faithfull. The Aboriginal Protectors and Assistant Protectors were appointed in late December 1837. The Protector for the Goulburn River district, which included North East Victoria, was James Dredge. The area was also subject to visits by Port Phillip’s Chief Aboriginal Protector, George Augustus Robinson. See: Ian Macfarlane (ed.), Historical Records of Victoria, Volume 2B: Aboriginal and Protectors, Victorian Government Printing Office, Melbourne, 1983, for information on James Dredge and the appointment of protectors in general; and: Ian Clarke [ed.], Journals of George Augustus Robinson, Heritage Matters, Beaconsfield, 1998, for further commentary.
[10] Faithful, ibid.
[11] Faithfull, ibid.
[12] John Hirst, ‘An Indigenous Game,’ in The Monthly, September 2008.
[12b] Aborigines : return to address Mr. Parker, 21st October 1853, Victorian Government paper (Legislative Council), 1853-54, no. C 33, p.24.
[13] Thomas Woolner, in Amy Woolner, Thomas Woolner: His Life in Letters, Chapman and Hall, London, 1917.
[14] Seweryn Korzelinski, Memories of Gold Digging in Australia, translated and edited by Stanley Robe, UQP, 1979, p.78.
[15] Mrs Campbell, The Rough and the Smooth or, Ho! for an Australian gold field, Quebec [Ontario] : Hunter, Rose & Co., 1865, p.108. (This entry from mid [May?] 1853).
[16] First Report of the Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of The Aborigines, in the Colony of Victoria, John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1861, p.9.
[17] ibid., p.11.
[18] ibid., p.13.
Even fewer Aboriginal people lived towards Mitta Mitta (27) and Omeo (6).
[19] idid, p.16, p.17.
[20] Second Report of the Central Board appointed to watch over the interests of The Aborigines, in the Colony of Victoria, John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1862, p.17.
[21] ibid., p.10.