Aboriginal Convicts: Australian, Khoisan, and Maori Exiles

by Kristyn Harman

Overview

Revealing the forgotten stories of Aboriginal convicts, this book describes how they lived, labored, were punished, and died. Profiling several of the 130 Aboriginal convicts who were transported to and within the Australian penal colonies, this collection features the journeys of Aboriginal warriors Bulldog and Musquito, Maori warrior Hohepa Te Umuroa, and Khoisan soldier Booy Piet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781742241180
Publisher:	UNSW Press
Publication date:	11/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Kristyn Harman is a lecturer in Aboriginal studies at the University of Tasmania's Riawunna Center. She specializes in 19th-century cross-cultural relations throughout the British colonial frontiers.

Read an Excerpt

Aboriginal Convicts

Australian, Khoisan and Maori Exiles

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By Kristyn Harman

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

Copyright © 2012 Kristyn Harman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74224-608-6

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CHAPTER 1

Banishing Musquito, Bull Dog and Duall

The first Aboriginal convicts were exiled at the Governor–s behest. During Governor Philip Gidley King–s administration in New South Wales, Musquito and Bull Dog were captured in 1805 following conflict at the Hawkesbury River. Duall was taken prisoner, in 1816, after Governor Lachlan Macquarie ordered a punitive expedition against Aborigines at the Cowpastures. In these early decades, the colony–s laws were overseen by the Governor and his Judge Advocate. The Supreme Court of New South Wales was yet to be established. The conflicts that formed a backdrop to the men–s captivity were not simply a matter of black against white. Instead, their stories reveal delicate, fraught and complex negotiations within and between various colonising and indigenous groups.

From the mid-1790s, colonial population numbers along the banks of the fecund Hawkesbury River exploded. The colonists– cultivations extended for more than 30 miles along the riverbanks, depriving local Aborigines of essential access to fresh water and impacting on the availability of traditional food resources. Competition over land use escalated to the point where violent encounters became increasingly commonplace. Hawkesbury colonist Jonas Archer, a former convict turned struggling farmer, described how between 1795 and 1800 about twelve colonists and twenty Aborigines were killed in conflicts.

On 13 May 1805 settlers from the outlying districts of Sydney with constables from Parramatta awent in quest of the natives in the neighbourhood of Pendant [sic] Hills in order to disperse them–. They returned with Aboriginal warrior Tedbury in their custody. Son of resistance leader Pemulwuy, Tedbury had been incriminated in murdering stockmen at Prospect, near Sydney. His captors coerced him into revealing the hiding place of weapons used in the attack. While they were about this business, the vigilantes came across a small group of Aborigines including Musquito. According to a report in the Sydney Gazette, Musquito asaluted them in good English– and declared aa determination to continue– his actions against the colonists.

Musquito favoured economic sabotage as a tactic. He used it against farmer Abraham Young at Portland Head on 15 June 1805. He and his supporters set fire to Young–s aBarn and Stacks–, a flagrant act of war that saw Musquito held responsible by colonists for akeeping the flames [of conflict] alive–. Aboriginal use of fire as a weapon signalled an innovative departure from the usual technologies of warfare – the spear, shield and stones.

Several of Tedbury–s kin were also under lock and key. Knowing how desperate the colonists were to get their hands on Musquito and wanting to redeem Tedbury, on their release from Parramatta Gaol on 1 July 1805 some of them volunteered to search for Musquito. On 6 July 1805, they handed over Musquito and his compatriot Bull Dog (men from a different tribe from them) to the colonists. These two, who were sketched by Nicolas-Martin Petit when the Baudin expedition visited Sydney in 1802, were implicated in the murders of two settlers and several stockmen at the Hawkesbury. In exchange, the former Aboriginal prisoners successfully negotiated the release of Tedbury.

Once King had Musquito and Bull Dog safely in custody, he was faced with the difficult decision of what to do with them. The Governor felt sure there was enough evidence against the men to demonstrate their guilt in court. There were problems, though, when it came to staging a trial. Judge Advocate Richard Atkins told the Governor that while he appreciated the necessity of making examples of Musquito and Bull Dog, he could not see how the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction would be able to uphold its oath ato give a true Verdict according to the Evidence– if a trial were held. Not being Christians, the prisoners could not swear the required oath. Their evidence would therefore be inadmissible.

As Atkins deliberated over his advice to King, Musquito and Bull Dog did not merely sit contentedly in gaol waiting to learn their fate. Instead, they aingeniously contrived to loosen some of the stone work by the help of a spike nail– and plotted to burn Parramatta Gaol and all the white men within it. Their plan was foiled, though, when their discussions were overheard and reported to the turnkey. Musquito and Bull Dog attacked the informant while he was still in gaol. Soon afterwards, the man received a pardon for his role in preventing the escape attempt.

As a trial seemed out of the question, King decided on a course of action that would see Musquito and Bull Dog removed from the scene and curtail any further participation on their part in the ongoing conflict. He exiled them to one of the colony–s harshest penal settlements, Norfolk Island, where the least desirable officers and worst of the convict offenders were being shipped from New South Wales. Convict labour on the island produced food to supply Sydney, which struggled to feed itself in its early years. In a letter dated 8 August 1805 to Acting Commandant John Piper, the Governor wrote:

The two Natives Bull Dog and Musquito having been given up by the other Natives as principals in their late Outrages are sent to Norfolk Island where they are to be kept, and if they can be brought to Labour will earn their Food – but as they must not be let to starve for want of subsistence – they are to be victualled from the Stores.

Musquito and Bull Dog arrived at Norfolk Island on 5 September 1805 where they spent more than seven years relegated to the lowest ranks of the convicts, labouring as assistants to a charcoal burner. While lowly, this job was nevertheless important to the daily functioning of the penal station. Charcoal was essential to the process of infusing iron with carbon. This was a necessary step in manufacturing processes where iron needed to be agiven an edge–, as in, for example, ato make sturdy pins that could be sunk into the keel of a ship, or to forge pick heads sharp enough to dress a block of sandstone–.

In 1806 the colonial administration decided to close Norfolk Island because it was expensive to administer, difficult to communicate with, and awkward to approach safely by water. Over several years, numerous convicts from Norfolk Island were shipped to Port Dalrymple in the north of Van Diemen–s Land. On 20 January 1813, Musquito boarded the Minstrel II to be relocated. Sometime after August 1812, Bull Dog (also known as Roy Bull) seems to have been returned to Port Jackson along with another Aboriginal convict, Jackson.

Musquito arrived at Van Diemen–s Land during a period when convicts were assigned to private individuals to work as servants. In return for shelter and arations and cloathes equal to that issued from the [Government] stores–, a convict–s master or mistress could expect labour equivalent to aa full government task–. Failure to carry out their duties, or being absent without leave, landed a convict before the local magistrate. Musquito–s contemporary, Danish convict Jorgen Jorgenson, claimed the Aboriginal convict was assigned as a stockkeeper to farmer Edward Kimberly of Antill–s Ponds. Jorgenson suggested Musquito took a Tasmanian Aboriginal wife known as aGooseberry of Oyster Bay–, but later akilled the poor creature in the Governmentpaddock–. There is no evidence to support this assertion, and Jorgenson was known for gross exaggeration. For example, he claimed himself to be a king of the Danes.

Diplomatic efforts were made to have Musquito repatriated. On 17 August 1814, New South Wales Colonial Secretary Thomas Campbell wrote to Lieutenant Governor Davey in Van Diemen–s Land:

Application having been made by some of the Natives of this District on behalf of A Native formerly banished ... by the late Governor King to Norfolk Island and who was lately removed from thence to Port Dalrymple on the final evacuation of that Island, soliciting that He might be returned to his Native Place, His Excellency has been pleased to Accede to said Solicitation.

Davey was asked to send Musquito back to Sydney and told Musquito–s brother Phillip was travelling to Van Diemen–s Land on board the Kangaroo to arrange his repatriation. For unknown reasons, Davey did not return Musquito to Sydney. It is possible Musquito, described as aan admirable bloodhound–, was too valuable for his tracking skills to be lost to the colonial outpost. Instead, by the time Lieutenant Governor William Sorell replaced Davey, Musquito was a stockman employed by wealthy pastoralist and former marine Edward Lord. He was also working as a blacktracker to locate escaped convicts and bushrangers.

Musquito was one of two servants described as anatives of these Colonies– in Lord–s employ. At the time, he was looked upon favourably both as a stockkeeper and as an explorer of sorts. While moving Lord–s cattle, Musquito, Lord–s afaithful servant–, adiscovered– Lawrenny Plains. The plains, located in the south-east of Van Diemen–s Land inland from the town of Buckland, were identified on colonial maps as aMosquito Plains–.

When Lord planned to visit Mauritius, he advertised his intention in the Hobart Town Gazette so that creditors could present their claims prior to his departure. In the same edition of the newspaper, 24 February 1818, he placed another notice that read aMuskitoo and James Brown (Natives of these Colonies) proceeding to the Isle of France [Mauritius] with Mr. E Lord, all claims are desired to be presented at his house in Macquarie-street–. Lord apparently took two other servants with him instead of Musquito and James Brown, perhaps because Lieutenant Governor Sorell would not allow them to accompany their master on his cattle-buying expedition. In any case, Musquito was in Van Diemen–s Land in 1818 where he and another Aboriginal convict, Duall, were utilised to track bushrangers. The latter was banished to Port Dalrymple in Van Diemen–s Land in 1816 from country around Camden, New South Wales, called Muringong by Aborigines and the Cowpastures by colonists.

By the time Duall was born in the mid-1790s most of the yam beds Aboriginal people in the greater Sydney area had previously relied on for food were destroyed. The land was being planted with crops by the settlers and conflict was escalating. In the 1790s, Dharawal people to the west of Sydney were yet to feel the full impact of the British arrival, as were their Darug neighbours north of the Nepean River and the Gundungurra who lived in the Blue Mountains. All three peoples shared a common hunting ground, a bountiful plain situated about 30 miles inland from Sydney. The first of the newcomers to intrude onto this country were abovine pioneers–.

Two bulls and six cows strayed from the Government Herd five months after Sydney was established in January 1788. The sudden appearance of these abeings with spears on the head– must have been very disconcerting for Dharawal people. Their 'sense of terror' was conveyed through a Dharawal representation of a bull that dominated the wall of Bull Cave to the north of present-day Campbelltown. The bull was aso different in size to the soft-pawed kangaroo– to which local Aboriginal people were accustomed.

The loss of the black cattle brought by the First Fleet from Cape Town while en route from England to Sydney was a devastating blow for a small colony struggling to feed itself. Seven years later, a large herd of cattle descended from the runaways was spotted more than 20 miles inland from Sydney Cove. Details of who relocated the herd, and the original number of animals that strayed, change with the teller of the tale. After the cattle were relocated, Governor John Hunter led an expedition to the area and renamed it the Cowpastures. In a contemporary account the escaped herd of cattle were said to be aextremely wild and vicious–. The animals had ataken possession of a most fertile valley–. The bovine coloniser that formed the most memorable impression was undoubtedly a particularly large and ferocious bull:

A bull, fierce and of great size, made an attack on the party with such obstinacy that they were obliged to shoot him. He took six balls through the body before they durst approach him; but in revenge they eat [sic] a beef-steak cut from his rump on the spot.

A correlation could be drawn between the attitudes displayed by the Governor–s party towards the wild bull who stood in their way, and actions taken by some colonists towards Aborigines. While some maintained good relations, many settlers along the Hawkesbury River ashot any Aborigines they saw on their land–. On some occasions, these actions were officially sanctioned. People living beyond the bounds of Europe were often aidentified with the land they occupied– and aimagined as being part of the natural world–. Just as a bull perceived to have gone wild could be shot, so too could Aboriginal people who were seen as being as wild as the lands they inhabited. Aborigines were described as awild men of the woods– or achildren ofnature– well into the middle of the nineteenth century.

After the cattle strayed, aa fear of venturing far amongst the natives, then somewhat hostile, repressed all attempts to regain them–. The author of an account of their rediscovery could not fathom why ain the almost starving state of the colony– the land where the cattle were found had not been explored previously in the hope of relocating the beasts. However, vestiges of the reluctance to traverse territory thought to be inhabited by hostile natives remained embedded within the psyches of the settler population of New South Wales for several decades following settlement.

Duall enters the colonial records for the first time in 1814 as the expedition guide who accompanied the later famous explorer Hamilton Hume on his first exploratory journey. With Hume–s brother, they travelled south from the Cowpastures to Berrima. Hume later claimed he and his brother adiscovered– the County of Argyle where Berrima is situated. However, it seems Hume–s uncle John Kennedy, a man who featured prominently in Duall–s life, preceded his nephews to Berrima. In his obituary, Kennedy was said to have been athe first European who entered the new county of Argyle by the Bargo Brush, in the early part of the present century (if not before)–.

By the time Duall and the Hume brothers returned from their 1814 journey, the colony was experiencing a severe drought that did not break until March 1816. It caused aa very great Mort- ality amongst the Horned Cattle and Sheep throughout the colony– and agreatly Injured the Crops–. The already stressed Districts of Airds and Appin, adjacent to, and including the Cowpastures, came under increasing strain from an influx of settlers that further displaced Aboriginal people and put pressure on resources. Conflict resulted between some colonists and Gundungurra people who traditionally came down from the Blue Mountains seeking food at the Cowpastures.

The escalation in hostilities led Governor Macquarie to order a magisterial investigation. The magistrates found that acruel acts– were areciprocally perpetrated by each party–. There was adequate evidence ato convince any unprejudiced man that the first personal attacks were made on the part of the settlers–. However, the available evidence was considered insufficient to warrant criminal prosecutions. Macquarie resolved that those involved in the hostilities would receive athe most exemplary punishment–, but because of the lack of prosecutions this ended up applying only to ahostile natives– and not to colonists.

The Governor ordered a punitive expedition against ahostile– Aborigines at the Cowpastures. Settler John Warby was instructed to lead it. At about the same time that Musquito and Bull Dog were shipped to Norfolk Island, Warby became the first colonist officially sanctioned to reside at the Cowpastures. His role was aSuperintendent of the Wild Cattle–. The local knowledge Warby acquired and the relationships he fostered led to demand for his services as a European guide. On more than one occasion, this placed him in the awkward position of being ordered to assist in punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people he had befriended while other Aboriginal friends were commandeered as guides under his supervision.

On the 1814 punitive expedition, Warby was accompanied by thirteen armed settlers and four afriendly native– Darug guides. They pursued five Gundungurra men accused of murdering two white children. Those deaths, in turn, were in retaliation for the murder of an Aboriginal woman and child at settler William Broughton–s farm in Appin. While the ultimately unsuccessful expedition was under way, local Dharawal sought refuge with some of the Cowpastures settlers. Dharawal leader Gogy frightened settlers with accounts of Gundungurra acts of cannibalism. The veracity of such claims is unproven, but these stories effectively distanced in colonists– eyes Dharawal from the Gundungurra, thus aiding in their protection.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Aboriginal Convicts by Kristyn Harman. Copyright © 2012 Kristyn Harman. Excerpted by permission of University of New South Wales Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments,
Maps,
Terminology,
Preface,
Introduction,
I New South Wales,
1 Banishing Musquito, Bull Dog and Duall,
2 Diverging destinies,
3 Jackey's pitiful state,
4 Dancing in defiance,
5 Exiled to Goat Island,
6 Driving out the white fellows,
7 The hanging judge,
8 Exemplary punishments at Port Phillip,
9 Sentences to 'instil terror',
10 Aboriginal deaths in custody,
11 A less destructive alternative,
II The Cape Colony,
12 From the 'Cockatoo of Cape Town' to Sydney,
13 Indicted for the crime of theft,
14 Mutiny and desertion,
15 'Black Peter' the bushranger,
III New Zealand,
16 In open rebellion,
17 A merciful alternative,
18 Repatriating Hohepa Te Umuroa, 1988,
Conclusion,
Notes,
Index,