By Norman McVicker
Source: Mudgee District History website by Dianne Simmonds
Aboriginal Place Names
Aboriginal place names abound in and around
the Eurunderee district. One of the first questions many tourists ask is the
reason these still exist when there are no visible signs of any Aboriginal
culture. In researching this question many local stories were uncovered. This
posed further questions! What is fact and what is fiction? Sometimes even
official documents cloud the issue. Diaries and records of the early white
settlers often omitted the real facts perpetrating further folklore stories.
One thing is certain. There was once a time when all things in Eurunderee were
in harmony with each other, when the Wiradjuri warriors hunted kangaroos and
emus, wild birds and ducks and various edible plants. The Wiradjuri people, since the beginning of time, had lived here and been one with the land.
Wiradjuri Country
Eurunderee was an infinitesimal speck on
the area inhabited by the Wiradjuri. Their lands stretched from the high
mountainous ranges in the East to the three rivers to the west, the Macquarie,
Lachlan and Murrumbidgee. The Murray River was their southern boundary with the
plains and hills just beyond Wellington being their northern border. In all,
about 12,000 people, divided into clans, co-existed as the Wiradjuri nation or
tribe. They hunted, fished, and being semi-nomadic, moved from place to place
living off the land.
Wiradjuri people
The Wiradjuris were dark brown in colour.
Their hair was either straight or curly, worn long, usually held back with a
head band decorated with bird feathers. Other body ornaments were made of
kangaroo teeth, possum or kangaroo skins. They were a healthy and very fit
people. The men hunted the larger game with a variety of spears and nets of
different sizes. The women gathered berries and roots in either wooden dishes
or baskets used to store the grain collected, especially when they were
changing camp sites. They often travelled by bark canoe, hunting fish, turtles,
yabbies or water fowl as they progressed. The tribe was governed by strict
codes of moral and social behavior. The breaking of these codes, enforced by
the Elders of the tribe, resulted in harsh punishment to any guilty party. The
leader of the Wiradjuri people was a warrior named Windradyne.
Windradyne—The Warrior
Windradyne, according to written records
and diaries of the first settlers, was a handsome, powerfully built man with
broad shoulders and strong muscular arms and legs. He was a great hunter. A
great warrior. He was reputed to know every feature of Wiradjuri territory
which had, according to tribal legend, spiritual meanings for his people. The
Wiradjuri people believed their souls lived in the trees, rocks and waterholes
after they died, waiting to be reborn in a new child. This accounts for them
always believing they were at one with the land, which owned them as much as
they owned it. They were taught, from the Dreamtime, that they were only
caretakers of the land they called their tribal territory.
Family Groups
There were many family groups living
together as a band. The members of a band were all related and hunted and
fished together in their recognized hunting grounds, according to family
groups. Family groups were related to other family groups by a sign or totem.
People of the same sign were regarded as brothers and sisters. Wars of conquest
between groups were unknown as each group was content to stay within the
confines of its tribal territory. The Wiradjuri were a happy and peaceful
people based on co-operation and conservation. On special occasions they would
gather, perhaps on the banks of the Cudgegong River, to hold corroborees and
other ceremonies.
The Coming of the White Man
The idyllic conditions of the Wiradjuri
people and their tribal leader, Windradyne, were soon to change. To understand
the change, it is necessary to understand English law. In 1788 when Governor
Phillip established the convict colony at Sydney Cove his instructions were:
“You are to endeavour by every possible means to open an intercourse with the
natives, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects to live
in amity and kindness with them.” English law distinguished between conquered
and settled colonies. The convict settlement under Governor Phillip was
regarded as a ‘settled colony’.
Under English law this meant it was
deserted and uninhabited at the time of settlement. In effect, the law
technically disregarded the Aboriginal people. But they did exist. At first, they were
friendly, but when the white men did not leave, their attitude changed,
especially when the Governor’s policy of amity changed and shots were fired to
keep them away from the settlement of Sydney Town.
The Politics of Expansion
For a quarter of a century the white
settlers under a succession of Governors after Phillip had been trying to
expand their territory. Hunter, Bligh, and then Macquarie all looked towards
the west and that natural barrier, the Blue Mountains. By the end of the first
decade to the 1800s Macquarie had over 65,000 sheep, 22,000 head of cattle and
2,000 horses in the settled area. New pasture areas had to be found for their
survival. Various attempts were made, but it wasn’t until 1813 that Blaxland,
Lawson and Wentworth finally managed to traverse the mountains and gaze across
the rich undulating plains and slopes to the west. They also discovered good
rivers, rich soil and top grazing land. The Wiradjuri people saw the white men
but kept their distance. A few weeks later a small party headed by Assistant
Surveyor George Evans was sighted moving across the plains, following the
rivers, testing the soils and evaluating the grazing potential. In 1814, in
less than six months, William Cox supervised the construction of a road from
Penrith to Bathurst. The way was open for expansion.
The Liberal Governor
Lachlan Macquarie was an enlightened man, a
liberal Scot. He was a friend to emancipists, a moral and reasonable Governor
who abhorred the narrow and exploitive local conservation lobby who thought of
the Aboriginal people as vermin or pests. Macquarie was very much aware of the
problems which could result from rapid settlement of the area. He knew that
John Oxley and John Macarthur were aggressively and obsessively devouring land
and were eager to expand. He held them at bay. The Wiradjuri, oblivious to the
machinations going on around them, looked on as the small numbers of settlers
came over the mountains. By 1821 there were only about 150 whites living in the
region. Relations between whites and Aboriginal people were amicable. An unspoken
truce existed as neither saw each other as a threat. Over the next three years
all this was to change.
New Government Policies
Encouraged by aggressive policies coming
out of London, new settlers began to migrate in large numbers. By August 1824
whites were occupying an area of Wiradjuri territory 100 kilometres wide by 200
kilometres long. The Aboriginal people saw what was happening. Peace and harmony was
about to end.
The Silent War
It was ironic that a settlement which had
started so amicably was slowly and forcefully drifting into anarchy. The
Wiradjuri, led by Windradyne, frustrated by wholesale destruction of kangaroos
and possums, their staple meat diet, began to attack the settlers’ livestock.
They also noted that prime river flats were being settled. Sacred burial sites
along with their traditional hunting grounds were being destroyed. Their
paradise was being over run and they were being dispossessed. Minor skirmishes
occurred between the Aboriginal people and the settlers. Like most wars, short
lightning raids by the Wiradjuri developed, and conflict had started. The
Wiradjuri were normally a peaceful people but their attacks became more
frequent and more ferocious. Family groups and clans consolidated and they
became a significant fighting force. The settlers became alarmed and demanded
military reinforcements and formed their own posses but not one Aboriginal person was
rounded up. Windradyne became a master strategist. His reputation grew but
eventually he was captured. He was placed in leg irons for a month. Major
Morisset, the area’s commandant, believed that this would teach the Aboriginal people a lesson. Instead he created a martyr. Windradyne, on his release, returned to
his people, a hero. From now on it was total war.
Reprisals
Reprisals on both sides were quick. The
settlers called for military support. Parties roamed the countryside killing
any Aboriginal people contacted. The entire countryside was now at war. Wiradjuri men walked their hunting grounds at their peril. The settlers were armed for any
attack. The killings were irrational. The Wiradjuri, inspired by Windradyne,
were confronting the white settlers at every opportunity. On one occasion, a
party of whites headed by a William Lane, headed off a party of thirty
Aboriginal people, opening fire and killing two girls and a woman. The killings were a
reprisal for an attack on a stockman, John Hollingshead, speared in the arm.
Five of Lane’s party were sent to Sydney for trial on a charge of manslaughter.
The trial was a farce. All five men were acquitted.
The Lesson from the Trial
The Sydney Gazette had made much of the
trial asking “How then is it to be expected that man should justify such
blood-stained guilt”. The acquittal of the five men taught the settlers and
soldiers a lesson. If anyone was going out to kill Aboriginal people, they had to make
sure that no records were kept or reports submitted to the authorities. The
‘Christians’ and the ‘moral guardians’ were portrayed as fools who did not
understand the situation. The settlers’ problems could only be resolved by
brutal solutions.
Total War
On 14th August, 1824, Governor Thomas
Brisbane issued a Proclamation of Martial Law to be in force in all the country
west of Mount York. This was Wiradjuri country. The Establishment had now
officially declared war against them. Small parties of soldiers set out bent on
genocide against the Wiradjuri. The Proclamation said that Aboriginal women and
children were to be spared. None were. The Proclamation gave the whites the
right to kill with no fear of standing trial. It gave the squatters the right
to annihilate. No mercy was extended to anyone who came within the range of the
guns.
Martial Law
The declaration of Martial Law proved to be
an ‘open season’ on all members of the Wiradjuri. Pregnant women were
slaughtered along with children, usually having their skulls broken. Aboriginal
men were taken prisoner, executed and their bodies hung from trees as a warning
to others. They fought back. A reward of 500 acres of land was offered for
Windradyne – dead or alive. There were bloody massacres from one end of
Wiradjuri country to the other. The sole purpose seemed by be total
extermination of the tribe. There were stories of food and wheat being poisoned
and offered as gifts to the Wiradjuri. On one occasion soldiers prepared
dampers and bully beef for themselves. Some of the food was placed on the
ground and the Wiradjuri approached believing the food to be a gesture of
goodwill and friendliness. The women and children came first followed by the
men. As the women collected food the soldiers fired on them and some thirty
Wiradjuri were killed.
The Slaughter Continued
The slaughter continued unabated. Soldiers and
settlers alike went on a rampage. Starting from the mountains near Capertee
they fanned out through the valleys following the creeks and rivers. Each time
they caught the Wiradjuri at their camp sites they shot them as they tried to
escape up the exposed rock faces. The valleys resounded with gunfire and the
moans of the dying. No records were kept. Martial Law was the justification of
every atrocity and every death. After two months the Wiradjuri were a broken
people. They were overwhelmed by the rifle and the musket and the ruthless
determination of the settlers.
End of Martial Law
On the 11th December, 1824, four months
after its proclamation, Martial Law was repealed. The murderers were never
brought to justice. The killings were never officially reported. The white
settlers believed that Windradyne was the architect of what they called ‘an
uprising’ and they wanted him apprehended. On 28th December, 1824, Windradyne
led the survivors of his tribe over the mountains to Parramatta, where,
according to white reports, he paid humble respect to Governor Brisbane. He was
a broken man. A shadow of the angry young warrior who led his people in a
losing battle against superior forces.
The End
Windradyne lived for another 11 years. He
died in 1835. During this decade the remaining Wiradjuri people slowly
declined. Their lands, their kinsmen and their lifestyle had been ruthlessly
destroyed by greed. In the wake of despair came the diseases of the white man,
alcohol – and finally death. By 1850 the Wiradjuri had been completely
dispossessed and were virtually extinct.
Up to this point the Wiradjuri story has
been told in general terms. It would be quite wrong and totally dishonest to
stop now without adding the sparse local knowledge that exists. The story has
been told in general terms because of the vastness of the subject and the
tribal territory in which they lived. In researching the question - as to why
there are no visible signs of Aboriginal people while Aboriginal place names
still exist in the area - many local undocumented stories were
uncovered. Were they folklore? Official documents cloud the issue. Diaries and
records of the early white settlers often omitted the real facts. What better
way then than to conclude the story by allowing the extant documents, diaries
and official records speak for themselves.
In Their Own Words
William Cox, landowner at a Public Meeting in Bathurst, 1824 (quoted in Blood on the Wattle by Bruce Elder):
“The best thing that can be done is to shoot all blacks and manure the ground with their carcasses. That is all they are fit for! It is also recommended that all the women and children be shot. That is the most certain way of getting rid of this pestilent race."
William Lawson in a letter to a friend (quoted in Blood on the Wattle by Bruce Elder):
“We have now commenced hostilities against them in consequence of their killing a great number of shepherds and stockmen, but afraid we shall never exterminate them, they have such an extensive mountainous country for them to flee from their pursuers.”
Governor Thomas Brisbane, proclaiming Martial Law, 1824 (in part)
“that mutual bloodshed may be stopped by the use of arms against the natives beyond the ordinary Rule of Law in Time of Peace, and for this End Resort to summary Justice has become necessary.”
Ernest Hume in his History of Mudgee (Mudgee Shire Library):
“Owing to the cruelty of the manager of one of the settlements in the vicinity of where Guntawang Homestead is now located, the blacks attacked the place, where eight white men and several blacks were killed. After the encounter, the manager, Mr Chamberlain, who was held responsible for the trouble, was dismissed”.
William Lawson (son of the explorer) writing to his brother in England in 1824 (Journal of Royal Historical Society, Vol. 50, pt 3 August 1964. Mudgee Shire Library):
“(Lawson) and a party of settlers went out to exterminate the natives. We came across a party of native women and despatched them”)
GHF Cox in his History of Mudgee:
“William Lawson had come across from Bathurst and shared the hospitality of the Coxes (George and Henry) during his stay. As a matter of courtesy, Lawson was given the choice of where he should settle.” (Eastern side of Cudgegong River. The Coxes settled in huts at Menah.) “One morning at daybreak the men were surprised by a body of natives who made a fierce and determined attack on the hut. Fortunately the defenders were well provided with firearms and ammunition for two hours desultory fighting was maintained.”.
An Official Report (Quoted in Blood on the Wattle by Bruce Elder):
“Some of them (the natives) have been killed whilst in the act of driving off a considerable number of cattle belonging to Mr Cox near Mudjee (as per the spelling in report).
Ernest Hume in his History of Mudgee (Mudgee Shire Library):
“The Cox brothers (George and Henry), however, finding that the attitude of the blacks towards them was becoming a cause of continual anxiety, decided to abandon the property (Guntawang). A few years later it was taken over by Messrs Richard and Edwin Rouse”
Report: Maitland Mercury, 11 Sept 1900 (quoted in Koori: A Will to Win by James Miller):
“Also in 1900 the Kooris (Aborigines) at Wollar near Gulgong were forcibly moved to the mission station at Brewarrina because the Gulgong townsfolk had complained that the family of the notorious Koori bushrangers Jimmy and Joe Governor were living at Wollar and should be removed, together with all other Kooris, for the townsfolk’s safety.”
Governor Thomas Brisbane, repealing Martial Law, 1824, (in part):
“WHEREAS, the judicious and humane Measure, pursued by the Magistrates assembled at Bathurst, have restored Tranquility without BLOODSHED I do direct that Martial Law shall cease to be any longer in force.”
William Cox in his memoirs 1901 (Mudgee Shire Library):
“Saturday (a name given to Windradyne) was finally captured by six white men, but a musket was broken on his ribs before he could be overpowered.”.
William Cox in his memoirs 1901:
“The last of all the blacks of the district was Tom Penney and he died about 25 years ago (approx. 1876), so that the present generation has scarcely seen a black in the district.”
Draft State Heritage Inventory, 1990 (NSW Department of Planning):
“By 1840 apprehensions about dangers from the Aboriginal inhabitants had abated and there was widespread dislocation of Aboriginal culture. At Mudgee, blankets and other government supplies were still being handed out to Aborigines in the 1840s and corroborees were still held on the hills around Mudgee in the 1850s, but these were the last signs of an independent Aboriginal presence.
The Wiradjuri – A Pyrrhic Victory
Source: Norman McVickers via Mudgee District History
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About Norman McVicker"Norman began writing Tales Along the Wallaby Track for the Mudgee Guardian in 1989; first a single column on page 2 every week, later flourishing into the weekly full-page story and photo features of today. He was an expert storyteller, his work written in the quirky, interest-grabbing language he learnt when he began his writing career in 1937 at the age of 17 when he did his first radio play ‘King Peter’ for 2SM in Sydney and then wrote and broadcast for 2UW’s Children Session. Gone were the boring, dry history books. Norman’s history came alive for his readers and his latest publications, written at the grand old age of 92 still enthral and capture the imagination.
'I have been researching and writing a column about local history for over twenty years for the Mudgee Guardian. Once read, it disappears into archival catacombs. That is about to change and local history will be available at the flick of a switch.
The technique is not new but this method of recording allows the surfer of the net to have information available 24 hours a day. That is new-- and I am pleased to be associated with the project. I hope the community will also readily adopt this revolutionary approach of “history at your fingertips” and its easy accessibility for everyone—young and old.'
[Norman McVicker OAM, on the launch of the Mudgee District History website, 20 February, 2009]
