The Way We Civilise

Front matter

THE

WAY WE CIVILISE;

BLACK AND WHITE;

II

A Western squatter, taking his wife out to his station, had in his household two blacks, husband and wife. The wife, a young girl, came from New South Wales, and having been brought up from childhood among white people could speak no other language than English, and had in all respects the habits of an English girl of the lower classes. She was an excellent servant, could sew neatly and well, cooked fairly, and was neat and clean in her person and habits. Her "benjeman," Starlight, was also a civilised black, spoke English well and correctly, was a good stockman, and very handy with horses. The pair were hired at fair wages, and made as good use of their money as any of the white employés on the station. After serving the squatter who took them out west for a while, Starlight and his wife signed an agreement with one of his neighbors for, we believe, an advanced rate of wages. Their new employer was unmarried, and a number of young men were about the station. Polly, the black girl, was a source of great amusement to the whole crowd. She had no objection to flirtation, and probably enjoyed the evident jealousy of her "benjeman." For, strange as it must appear to some supporters of our present system of dealing with them, it is nevertheless a fact that the blacks are very much like the rest of us, and have the audacity to cherish similar sentiments. One evening Starlight returned home in the dusk from a hard day's work, and he heard cries coming from an outbuilding belonging to the head station. The cries were those of his wife—or "gin" we shall call her. He forgot that being a black he ought not to be a man, and hastened to the spot. There he saw one of the young overseers engaged in what, if she had been a white girl, would have been called a criminal assault on Polly. Still forgetting himself, he threw himself upon the white overseer and grappled with him. They struggled and fell. Starlight reaching his hand out seized a shear blade lying on the ground, and scored his antagonist's shoulder. It was a flesh wound, but the black, the moment he had inflicted it knew what his fate would be, and let go his grip of the overseer, who cried out, "I am stabbed," to the group of men who, attracted by the noise, hurried to the spot. Starlight slipped away from them in the gathering darkness, and escaped into the thick growing timber. A council of war at the head-station came to the conclusion that a black who had, under any provocation, raised his hand against a white ought not to live. They accordingly offered the half-wild blacks camped at the head station a reward for his capture. This the savages readily agreed to effect, for they knew he was unarmed: and being a stranger to them they had no pity for him. Accordingly they went away next day, and returned triumphantly. They did not bring Starlight, but they had caught him. Finding, however, some difficulty in bringing in their prisoner, they had hamstrung him, and he was then lying at the disposal of the whites, if they chose to go to the spot. However, the people of the station were spared the trouble of finishing their work. Sub-inspector ——— and his troopers arrived that afternoon, and on being informed of the circumstances he very obligingly sent a couple of the "boys" with their rifles, who, being led to the spot by the station blacks, ended Starlight's agony by blowing out his brains. The wounded overseer was well in a week.

It is wonderful what vitality the blacks possess. Mr. X., superintendent of ——— Downs, was riding with his storekeeper over an almost unused end of the run—poor country, with spinifex growing on it. Suddenly he espied the tracks of a blackfellow. There were some "myalls" in the ranges not far distant, but they had committed no outrage of any kind, and this was probably the track of one. Soon Mr. X's quick eyes espied a black in the long spinifex, endeavouring to pass himself off for a blackened stump—a manoeuvre often more successful than those who have not seen it practised would believe. "Ha, ha! there he is," he laughed, as he rode towards the object. It was an old grizzled black, bent with growing infirmity, and he had a nulla in his hand. The poor old creature held out his hands deprecatingly, and jabbered in his fear. Mr. X. motioned him to run, which, after a moment's hesitation, he did. The superintendent was a sportsman, and did not care about shooting his game sitting. As the old black ran, he followed, putting his horse into an easy canter, and tried a snap shot with his revolver. The ball evidently pierced the old man's back, as the bright red blood began to flow. He stopped and turned again, begging for life with beseeching gesture. Mr. X., who had reined up his horse, again mo the game to run. The old creature tottered on, panting hard, the blood running freely down his body. Mr. X. tried another snap shot, again successfully. The old man staggered—then recovering himself, turned and flung his nulla with such unexpected force that it went singing past the ears of his pursuer. This angered Mr. X., who had not till to that time lost his good humor, and he spurred his horse after the old creature, who was wildly staggering on, and fired his third shot. This brought the game down, and as the two men sat on their horses watching the final convulsions of the old blackfellow lying on the ground before them, Mr. X remarked to his companion, "Isn't it wonderful what strength they have? fancy that old —— running on with two bullets through his loins!"—Queenslander, May 22, 1880.

III

It has been objected that the incidents narrated in this column constitute a Newgate Calendar. This is true to a certain extent. The crimes recorded equal in atrocity those described in the publication mentioned. But the Newgate Calendar is a list of crimes which have been punished, and against which the strong hand of the law is always directed. This column contains a record of crimes which are not punished, and which the administrators of the law in the colony tacitly sanction. It is one thing to publish such incidents for the mere purpose of satisfying a morbid curiosity, and another when the publication is intended to arouse the public conscience in order to put a stop to the continual perpetration of the foulest outrages. The truth of the statements we have made and are making is also questioned. We were prepared for the denial. At the present time we are only able to say that every incident narrated has been accepted on good authority, and is, we believe, as true as any other statement of fact appearing in this journal.

With regard to the story of Toby, which our correspondent "Never Never" declares false from internal evidence, we are authorised by our informant to say that if the law officers of the Crown are willing to take action in the matter he is prepared to supply them with the name of the man who shot Toby, of his companion who saw him do it, and the place and date of the occurrence. If the public really believe that the incidents narrated here are mere fictions or exaggerations, and that there is consequently no necessity for reforming our system of dealing with the blacks, the question can easily be settled. A Royal Commission, armed with power to grant indemnity to witnesses, similar to the one appointed to investigate the Trades Union outrages at Sheffield, and authorised to travel from place to place to collect evidence, would speedily convince the most sceptical that this record is but a faint indication of the shameful truth. If such a commission is appointed we shall be happy to furnish its members with data to commence their investigations. Until then we shall continue to withhold names of persons and places. No ordinary commission can possibly elicit the truth, because eye-witnesses are not likely to give evidence of occurrences which would certainly endanger their necks and those of their acquaintances, more especially as the crimes which they would describe have been treated as venial offences, or condoned by every Government that has held power in the colony.

English people may hear, unmoved, of cruelties perpetrated on men, but revolt at the idea of foul outrage committed on women. It was this feature of the Bulgarian atrocities—those imitations of our native police system attempted by the Turks, which aroused so much indignation in England—that caused the greatest exasperation in civilised Europe. Our readers may suppose that in the massacres perpetrated by the native police—which we employ them to perpetrate—women and children are unmolested. If so, they are greatly mistaken. It is true that the lives of women and children are often, perhaps generally, spared; but even this is a rule with a great many exceptions. A few incidents that have occurred within the last three or four years will show how the matter stands.

In the neighborhood of a northern town where the blacks are "bad" a small body of troopers, under the direction of a white officer, were sent to punish them. They returned, bringing down the main street a naked black girl captured by them. Her appearance attracted quite a crowd, and a local storekeeper offered her captors a pound for their prize. The bargain was concluded, and the captured girl handed over. Her purchaser took her home to his wife to be trained up as a servant. But in the evening the troopers came for her, and, carrying her to some ridges behind the main street, kept her through the night for the gratification of their passions. In the morning they turned her loose in the vicinity of her purchaser's house.

A squatter in the North-west was out on his run with his stockman, and be heard in the distance shots. He had heard that the native police were out and at the work we pay them to do. Riding on their tracks he found, first a young girl, apparently about 15, lying stretched on the ground, with a bullet wound in her head. Going on he saw another woman also dead, and also with a bullet wound. This was done, not by Circassians or Bashi Bazouks, acting under the orders of a Moslem ruler, but by a force maintained, equipped, and paid for by the church-going Christian people of Brisbane and Queensland.

A man who accompanied a police officer in a northern district was present at a raid upon some blacks. He shared the officers' tent. The troopers were of course round them. They had a prize, a young black girl, little more than a child. This man, an old bushman, but not so seasoned as our own officers are, could not sleep because of the yells, cries, and moans of the unhappy child as each brutal savage, clad in the uniform of our Government, violated her in turn. They did not finish by shooting her, but left her in the morning in a dazed agonised condition for her tribe to tend her—and be disposed towards friendship with the whites by the spectacle.

In concluding this particular paper it is necessary to warn readers against feeling indignant with the native police. We equip the force, and send it out to do the work which is described in these columns. We refuse to have any report of what is done; all we ask is that they shall do what they please and say nothing. We arm ferocious savages and send them out under single white men, who are only blamed if they are dilatory in shooting blacks. For us to blame the force that does the work would be as improper as it would be for a man who fired a gun into a crowd to cast blame for the wounds inflicted by the bullet on the weapon. —Queenslander, June 5, 1880.

IV

The Western Champion, published at Blackall, in its issue of the 26th ultimo, has an article commenting on our proposals for dealing with the aborigines, and the incidents narrated in this column. The editor takes a different view from ourselves, but writes moderately and in a reasonable spirit. He is, however, mistaken in doubting the accuracy of one incident in the first article of this series. He says:—"The story of the young gentleman who was gaining colonial experience on a western station, is in the main correct, but the tribe who were punished for their depredations were not station blacks as the new chum believed. Probably his slight acquaintance with the aborigines made it unable for him to distinguish between the wild and tame article." We repeat that the blacks shot on the occasion were station blacks—that is, blacks who camped when not out hunting near a head station, that they could talk broken English and were known to the troopers, and finally that they were well known not to belong to the tribe that committed the hut robberies which led to the police raid, being in fact quite innocent of any injury to the whites. We fancy the "new chum" referred to, an experienced bushman now, will be rather indignant at being told that he did not know blacks from a tribe with which he was perfectly familiar. And, "new chum" as he was, it is probable that he had as many opportunities of knowing and distinguishing blacks, at the time the affair occurred—about two years after his arrival in the district—as the editor of the Champion himself.

In another part of the same article the writer says:—"The tragic end of Mr. Welford, who attempted to introduce the civilising plan proposed by the Queenslander, was sufficient evidence that such a plan was a mistake, and probably made the whites understand that the only chance of saving their lives and property was to drive the enemy out of the district." To this statement we have received the following reply by a contributor:—

"The Western Champion quite misunderstands the circumstances under which poor Welford met his death, which, on the contrary, illustrate the necessity of the reform advocated by the Queenslander. I knew Welford personally, and was camped on his country, at the place he afterwards made his main camp, some three or four months before he occupied it with his cattle. He was a man who always got on well with the blacks, treating them justly and firmly; and if his neighbors had acted in the same way, and the black police had been kept away from the lower Barcoo, would have been alive now, or at least would not have died under the nulla nulla strokes of exasperated savages seeking revenge for the slaughter of their friends. He told me himself how on bringing his cattle round by Cooper's Creek to his country—he was compelled to take a very circuitous route from Elizabeth Creek to get water, as the drought of 1868 had not quite broken up—he travelled for a week or two in company with a small tribe of myall blacks. These savages, not having had any experience of the whites, and only knowing the black police by repute, were inclined to be friendly, as they generally are. Mr. Welford, and partner and stock were, I think, the only three white men with the cattle, but the myalls readily helped them, and were wonderfully quick in finding out how to make themselves useful. He gave them one or two calves too young to travel, and he assured me they never attempted to touch any others. He parted company with this tribe on arriving near the junction of the Thompson and Barcoo, and travelled up the latter river to his country. This was at the time apparently a sort of debatable land between different tribes—and it was certainly frequented by the blacks who hunted further up the river, where they had been hunted down and shot like dogs for years before Welford's death. When he told me what I have narrated above, Mr. Weford had sufficiently established himself on his country to be able to leave the cattle in charge of others. He was quite confident that he would be able to manage the blacks safely, but foolishly refused to recognise the danger he incurred by the action of the whites further up the river, and more especially by the extension in his direction of the 'patrols' of the black police. No man knows the exact particulars of his death, which occurred some considerable time afterwards, for he was alone at the time, having sent his only white companion away on an errand. His body was found floating in the waterhole, with the marks of blacks clubs on his head. But we, who were camped on the country even before he reached it, incurred no loss but some trifling pilferings, checked easily, and, except in one instance, without effusion of blood, and this I am thoroughly convinced was due to the fact that the black police had not reached us, and the camps were under the charge of conscientious men, who would not permit unprovoked molestation of the savages. But further up the river this was not the case. Blacks were shot—well, simply because they were blacks. The police extended their 'patrol,' and I need not tell you what that means. In consequence of all this poor Welford was killed, probably by a tribe that had been 'dispersed,' and were seeking for the first unsuspecting white they could find to revenge the death of their friends. It is the same old story that goes on repeating itself to the present day. The man who shoots blacks to try the range of his rifle, or to gratify the mere pleasure that some men seem to experience in hunting down human beings as a sort of game, escapes punishment. He never falls under the blacks' spears or clubs. But his neighbor, who is an upright and humane man, pays the penalty. He knows the blacks—he knows that in their natural state they have a clear idea of justice, and relies on it in his dealings with them. But his calculations are upset when the tribe in whose country he is living is driven mad by experiencing the sort of 'justice' the native police and some of the white settlers give them. The blacks pay the Europeans a high compliment—they abandon their own habits and adopt ours—and they show what apt scholars they are by braining the first unoffending and friendly white man they can find. Until some equitable system such that proposed by the Queenslander is adopted, outsiders must die as poor Welford died, or take part in the disgusting and murderous hunting down of the wretched feeble savages that is constantly going on. The Barcoo, for some years before Mr. Welford's death, admirably illustrated the working of the different systems. The head of it was occupied in the first instance by gentlemen who did what the Queenslander urges—they defended their own property, but let the blacks when harmless rigorously alone. There were few wild blacks killed, and only under conditions that the tribes themselves would admit were just. The whites lost no lives, and little property. In a very short time the myalls understood the conditions of peace, and from that time forward there was absolute safety for the whites. I lived in that part of the district, and have slept alone in a log hut, with a big hole in the logs, within 400 yards of a camp of probably as many blacks, the majority being pure myalls, who were in a state of furious excitement over some tribal quarrel, and was never in a moment's danger of being disturbed. I have ridden alone and unarmed among hundreds of them, miles from any other white man, and far from the road or track, where they could easily have knocked me over—indeed, I have pulled up my horse to talk to individuals, and had scores of them crowding round, all naked, painted, and with their spears and nullas in their hands. Yet I was quite safe, simply because the blacks knew that if they touched me they would be severely punished, but that if they left the whites alone they would be safe. And, what will seem to town readers more strange, I knew well a black 'boy' who bore the scars of his master's bullets, fired at him when he was a myall, as punishment for having taken part in spearing some cattle. That black and his tribe had from the first admitted the justice of the punishment, and the squatter who shot him had no more attached follower in after years—when the tribe was let in—than the young man who bore the mark of his bullet. And although this occurred a good many years ago, and the gentleman in question must have exposed himself hundreds of times to the chance of a spear thrust or a nulla blow from the 'treacherous' blacks whose propensity for stolen beef he so summarily checked, he is alive and well now, and never had another 'difficulty' with the tribe. Further down the river the system that the Queenslander denounces and the Champion upholds was adopted. Mr. Welford's death was one of the many sad results of it."—Queenslander, June 12, 1880.

V

There is no district in the colony where the war of races is carried on with more persistency than the Cook district, and from nowhere do we receive more narratives of loss of life and property. The cost of the war of extermination that has been carried on in that part of the colony is almost incalculable; numbers of white men have lost their lives, property in the shape of horses and cattle to the value of many thousands of pounds has been destroyed, and the country has spent thousands in the maintenance of an exceptionally large force of black police. It will, therefore, be interesting to learn how all this expenditure of blood and money was forced upon the colony.

When the first diggers arrived on the Palmer the blacks were inclined to be friendly. They were astonished at the irruption of strangers, and curious, as all savages are, concerning the newcomers. But the curiosity was good humored, and they did not even show a disposition to pilfer from the first comers, who reciprocated the good will of the aborigines. After this other men arrived, and the whites became more numerous. It happened that the blacks had been fishing in one of the waterholes, using as is their custom the leaves of a tree to stupify the fish. In this manner they had got a great number which were lying thrown out upon the bank. Only some old men, women, and children were let in charge of the fish, the men having gone away hunting. They had not injured the whites, and, having respected their property, feared no injury from men who appeared to be friends. But some white men, coming down to the waterholes, saw the fish, and thinking they would agreeably vary their diet, took some. The old blacks jabbered but made no resistance. Going back to camp the white men exhibited their prize, and others went down to the river and carried off the lot of fish which had been left by its owners, trusting to the honesty of the whites. This made the blacks "sulky," and a few days after a party of whites followed some of the men up a hill. It is not very clear what the whites intended to do, bat the blacks, not unnatually; supposed that men who stole their fish were not friends; they "treacherously" sent, a shower of spears, wounding one white man in the heel. This was the commencement of hostilities on the Palmer.

Soon after this a large party landed at what is now Cooktown to open a road from that port to the new diggings. There were white policemen, some black troopers, Government officials, and diggers. They started up country. At the first river they reached they came on a mob of blacks disporting themselves in he water. The savages, scared, took to their heels, but the troopers succeeded in capturing a woman and child. There was no intention of injuring these people, but it did not seem to strike the whites that they had no right to take possession of them. The child was given some bread and jam, and allowed to run away; the woman was retained. Unfortunately the Snider rifle of one of the troopers exploded by accident, and the ball shattered the knee and thigh-bone of the gin. This was about nightfall. The whites endeavored to bind up the wound of the woman, who howled in her agony, the blacks of the tribe answering with coe-ee-s from across the river. In the morning the whites, on resuming their journey, left the dead body of the gin in their camp. There were, we believe, no presents left with her body, no attempt made at explaining to the blacks how she had been killed. A day or two afterwards her tribe "treacherously" attacked the whites at Battle Camp, and were beaten back with great slaughter. After this it was open war on the blacks. Two blacks with their gins were seen ahead of the party, and two black troopers started after them. Shots were heard, and presently the troopers returned with the women. That night the white policemen were set to watch the camp—the black troopers being left to enjoy their prize.

At another river, the Laura, we believe, more blacks were seen, and at once "dispersed." Judging by the scraps of paper found on them, it was the same tribe that had followed the expedition.

One incident of this "dispersal" is thus described by a witness of it:—Two black troopers had got a wild black as prisoner. They marched him between them. He was trembling, and made a movement as if to escape, when one of the troopers knocked him down with his rifle, and the other setting his foot upon the prostrate wretch deliberately blew his brains out.

Thus having marked their track with blood, the expedition reached the Palmer where already hostilities had been begun. They continue to the present day, and there is little sign of abatement in the mutual war of extermination waged between the races—Queenslander, June 19, 1880.

VI

As a rule the northern blacks, even belonging to tribes now most desperately hostile to the whites, were friendly to them when the races first met. A letter from the well-known old colonist, Captain Pasco, published in another column, supplies the all-sufficient reason for the murderous attack by the coast blacks on the party led to Cape York by Kennedy, the explorer, and the death of the leader and most of his men. As it was in those days, so it is now.

It will be remembered that in the last issue of the Queeanslander we described the commencement of hostilities in the Cook district, and the incident that we are about to narrate will show that under the management of such a police force as we desire to see established peace might have been restored even after the first effusion of blood, and many valuable lives saved. The Normanby was prospected after the Palmer had been opened, and the blacks on that river, if not the same tribe that had been so ruthlessly shot down on the road to that place, were close neighbors, and must have known what had happened. The first prospectors of the Normanby, a party, we believe, of five men, saw a lot of blacks who brandished their spears in a menacing manner. One of the whites raised his rifle, but his companion knocked up the muzzle of the weapon, and told him not to fire. The blacks, who were watching, immediately responded to the friendly demonstration by lowering their spears, and making amicable gestures. A sort of interchange of friendly signals took place, each party inviting the other to come over. Neither blacks nor whites, however, had sufficient confidence to accept the invitation to fraternise, so after a parley they separated. with every appearance of goodwill. The prospectors remained some time, and neither their horses nor themselves were molested by the blacks, although by the intermingling of the tracks it was evident that the savages had been among the animals, probably examining with curiosity the strange creatures.

Another instance of the possibility of maintaining friendly relations with the blacks can be found in the first foundation of the township of Cairns. What was done by exploring parties who first searched Trinity Inlet, looking for a track across the mountains, we cannot say, having no trustworthy narrative. The blacks were shot at without provocation, and it is probable some were killed. It was notorious that the property of the savages was taken without hesitation. One or more canoes were appropriated, and as these canoes had been hollowed out of logs, slowly and with great labor by the use of stone implements and fire, they represented to the makers most valuable property. And at least one black child, belonging to a Cairns tribe, was taken away by the whites. And yet, after the first, formation of the township, the Government official sent to superintend the establishment of the place, publicly said in Cooktown—after recounting instances of the peaceful disposition of the blacks—"If the people of Cairns do not have them cutting wood and carrying water about the township within six months it will be their own fault." Our northern files record the present relations between the races.