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| ====== Indigenous Australians ====== | ====== Indigenous Australians ====== |
| | We have more and franker information than usual about TLM-P's interactions with, and attitude to, Indigenous Australians because his daughter Rosa Praed asked him about his experiences which she then used in her books. He dictated to Nora what he knew (or thought he knew) about Indigenous Australians - and, on occasion, Nora added her own comment - as well as outlining the context of acquiring land in the mid-century.\\ |
| In earlier decades, TLM-P was a young man determined to make good in the colony. His focus was on owning a successful rural property and, like other colonists, he did not comprehend the rights of Indigenous owners. As outlined earlier [[gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties|Gaining Colonial Experience]], while at //Hawkwood// station he had no compunction about taking part in a murderous reprisal after the Hornet Bank massacre. Yet the story of colonial conquest is nuanced. When first acquiring Hawkwood, he had ridden long distances with an Indigenous boy ('Johnny') when he was scouting the land. He described Johny as'about 13 years old ... a nice, smart lad, full of fun'. TLM-P admired bushcraft and physical toughness in men and perhaps largely because of those qualities, commented that, in his experience, Aboriginal Australians with exposure to white culture made good companions.((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/)) That qualification indicates the huge gap between the two cultures, including language, and that the expectation was that the conquered had to do virtually all the adjusting to the alien culture. Most obviously, the squatters 'right' to the land over-rode all other considerations. In other ways the relationship was revealed: TLM-P communicated in Pidgin and used English names for the Indigenous people he knew.\\ | |
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| We have more information than usual about TLM-P's interactions with, and attitude to, Indigenous Australians because his daughter Rosie Praed asked him about his experiences which she then used in her books. He dictated to Nora what he knew (or thought he knew) about the Indigenous Australians he had encountered - and, on one occasion, Nora added her own anecdote. TLM-p's memories are a fascinating mixture of brute power and respect; ignorance and at least an attempt to learn Indigenous customs. TLM-P gave numerous examples of Pidgin speech, and described Indigenous people (almost all men, there is little reference to the women) as having acute powers of sight and observation, a talent for mimicry, and a deep-seated sense of humour. The acute observations was not just the natural landscape but extended to detecting subtle differences in rank amongst white people. In one case TLM-P recounted when a man was riding in the distance but he could not see him clearly to know who it was. An unnamed 'black boy' was asked and (correctly) identified him as a 'gentleman bullock driver'. It turned out to be a neighbouring squatter who had driven his bullock team some 150 miles in drought conditions. As TLM-P commented, 'a less shrewd observer might have been pardoned for not at once detecting his position in society'.\\ | There are a number of cautions about this material. The first is language: this material was written down (at time of writing) some 150 years ago. Some meanings of words have changed and some which were commonplace then are offensive now. While appreciating the sensitivities I have not distorted the text, and the context it was written in, by censorship. The second is that the context always was that Rosa could ask for clarification - or that, with her shared knowledge, she didn't need clarification that a modern reader might. The third caution is that it was based on memory, always a slippery function and best understood as fragments which have been reassembled and interpreted with hindsight. The fourth is that we can only have the vaguest idea of the events he describes from the viewpoint of the Indigenous people he mentions. \\ |
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| | Regarding the sections on Indigenous Australians, TLM-P's memories are a fascinating mixture of brute power and respect; ignorance and at least an attempt to learn Indigenous customs. TLM-P gave numerous examples of Pidgin speech, and described Indigenous people (almost all men, there is little reference to the women) as having acute powers of sight and observation, a 'great aptitude on concealing themselves' in the bush, a talent for mimicry, and a strong sense of humour. His description of the acute observation of Indigenous Australians was not just relevant to the natural landscape but extended to detecting subtle differences in rank amongst white people. In one case TLM-P recounted that a man was riding in the distance but he could not see him clearly to know who it was. An unnamed 'black boy' was asked and (correctly) identified him as a 'gentleman bullock driver'. It turned out to be a neighbouring squatter who had driven his bullock team some 150 miles in drought conditions. As TLM-P commented, 'a less shrewd observer might have been pardoned for not at once detecting his position in society'.\\ |
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| | In earlier decades, TLM-P was a young man determined to make good in the colony. His focus was on rural success and, like other colonists, he did not comprehend the rights of Indigenous owners. TLM-P communicated in Pidgin and used English names for the Indigenous people he knew. As outlined earlier in [[gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties|Gaining Colonial Experience]], while at //Hawkwood// station he had no compunction about taking part in a murderous reprisal after the Hornet Bank massacre. Yet the story of colonial conquest is nuanced. When first acquiring //Hawkwood//, he rode long distances with an Indigenous boy ('Johnny') when he was scouting the land. He described Johny as'about 13 years old ... a nice, smart lad, full of fun'. TLM-P admired bushcraft and physical toughness and perhaps largely because of those qualities, he seems to have had good relationships with a number of young Indigenous boys. He commented that, in his experience, 'Black boys are very much attached to any one they are with. They have plenty of conversation, are intelligent & make capital companions'.((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/ - in this case 'boys' probably referred to adolescents not men)) \\ |
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| | The complex and mutually dependent relationship between TLM-P and his Indigenous workers at //Bromelton// is illustrated in his recollections of 'Charlie'. In c.1848, 'Charlie' had been a potential outcast as he wanted to transgress the strict Indigenous marriage laws by marrying 'Sallie' who 'belonged to a caste into which he could not legally marry ... [because her caste was] within the [proscribed] degree of relationship'). By his framing it as a legal issue, TLM-P respected the rule of law in Indigenous culture. In recounting how he persuaded the 'tribe' to accept Charlie's transgression, he mentioned that 'their camp was close to our kitchen' - perhaps because both groups needed access to handy sources of fresh water. This was one indication how closely the competing groups lived with each other. TLM-P pretended that he had had a supernatural visitation at night to say that Charlie, who was ill at the time, should be forgiven. 'Charlie with a little care & treatment soon got quite well. He was a good boy & I did not wish to lose him naturally, so I told him that he must ((continued on p5)) not go with the blacks again or he would die.... (In the mean time I had persuaded the other blacks to forgive him & let him have Sallie)'. Charlie consequently stayed with TLM-P 'for years', but it would be wrong to assume that he was totally subservient. Charlie reminded TLM-P that 'a black man is not like a white man' in that he had tribal obligations: he had been told that he should 'go corroboree, when like it that blackfellow must go'. Charlie went but fell sick & died. TLM-P later learnt that Charlie had 'cried out very much for you' and tried to send a message to him to collect him in a dray and ensure he would not die. 'Poor Charlie - had I got the message I should certainly have gone'. This is not to suggest, however, that TLM-P or any of his compatriots rose above his culture's assumption of the superiority of British people, nor of the immense power he could wield with relative impunity. In another incident, TLM-P described frightening Charlie at a time when his horses had all been worked so hard that they were not fit to ride. The exception was TLM-P's favourite horse who Charlie rode when TLM-P was absent so that that horse too was 'regularly broken down'. With the help of 'Tinko', a Chinese worker, TLM-P pretended he would kill him - far from a harmless prank given how easily he could do so with little fear of legal consequences. Charlie explained that he had worn the horse out because he could not resist chasing after an emu then a dingo which he (correctly) thought TLM-P would wished to have killed.((Rosa Praed papers, 8370/Box 3, packet 3/1/1/)) \\ |
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| | TLM-P's reminiscences also reveal the self-justifying interpretations squatters put on the massacre of Indigenous Australians. The [[wp>Myall_Creek_massacre]] - an unprovoked killing of men too old or unwell to work, women and children - is seen as an understandable retaliation for other attacks by different Indigenous groups. On the other hand, he did not minimise the blood lust of the white men involved, claiming that they made a bonfire and threw all those they shot on it '(several I have been told were not quite dead'). TLM-P reflected the conventional squatter view: 'No doubt it was a cruel murder, but the circumstances of the case, the provocation to the whites, was not sufficiently taken into consideration , nor the harm which would result from the encouragement to the black to commit more outrages.' He cites Plunkett, the Attorney-General, declaring 'that he would hang any man who could be proved to kill a black.' He writes this with incredulity which makes sense if the squatters believed they were engaged in war. As was also conventional among squatters, TLM-P went on to praise the dreaded Mounted Police under Major Nunn including their forays against bushrangers and Indigenous resistance: 'Many were the stories told at the Campfire of the adventures of these Policemen.' One of those stories was likely to be the massacre of Indigenous people by the Police at Waterloo Creek, south-west of Moree. Like other squatters, TLM-P particularly relished tales where Indigenous police or trackers killed other Indigenous people. Nora added her own anecdote featuring 'a black trooper (always the worst against the wilder blacks)'.\\ |
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| | TLM-P was ever curious and he makes it clear that he attempted to know as much as possible about Indigenous culture. He was aware that much knowledge was withheld (as belonging only to the initiated): regarding their religion, he wrote that 'either they have no information to give, or they are so bound that they will not divulge anything.' TLM-P did learn of the importance of ceremonies on the Bora grounds, describing them and the initiation ceremonies in as much detail as he had gleaned. His information, he knew, was limited: 'The boys [to be initiated] are brought in one by one. Some ceremony which I never could get any of them to explain to me is gone through'. A few days later, there is a 'grand corroboree' for the newly initiated warriors. No white person he knew had ever learnt more - 'Black boys [who] were questioned have shown great fear ' and said they would be killed if they revealed secret lore. \\ |
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| | TLM-P also makes it clear that the Australian tradition of telling 'tall tales' to the gullible outsider was very much part of Indigenous culture: 'So little do the whites know of the customs & religion of any of the Australian natives, that any story told by black man to white, may, or may not be true.' He then goes on to repeat a story of cannibalism, a common British fantasy about Indigenous people. One example suggests that cremation was mistaken for 'roasting' a body. TLM-P himself was 'inclined to think from what I have been told by the blacks that it is some kind of religious ceremony - the feasters believing that the eating part of a great warrior transmits to the eater, some share of his courage.'\\ |
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| The complex and mutually dependent relationship between TLM-P and his Indigenous workers at //Bromelton// is illustrated in his recollections of 'Charlie'. In c.1848, 'Charlie' had been a potential outcast as he wanted to transgress the strict Indigenous marriage laws by marrying 'Sallie' who 'belonged to a caste into which he could not legally marry ... [because her caste was] within the [proscribed] degree of relationship'). By his framing it as a legal issue, TLM-P respected the rule of law in Indigenous culture. In recounting how he persuaded the 'tribe' to accept Charlie's transgression, he mentioned that 'their camp was close to our kitchen' - perhaps because both groups needed access to handy sources of fresh water. This was one indication how closely the competing groups lived with each other. TLM-P pretended that he had had a supernatural visitation at night to say that Charlie, who was ill at the time, should be forgiven. 'Charlie with a little care & treatment soon got quite well. He was a good boy & I did not wish to lose him naturally, so I told him that he must ((continued on p5)) not go with the blacks again or he would die.... (In the mean time I had persuaded the other blacks to forgive him & let him have Sallie)'. Charlie consequently stayed with TLM-P 'for years', but it would be wrong to assume that he was totally subservient. Charlie reminded TLM-P that 'a black man is not like a white man' in that he had tribal obligations: he had been told that he should 'go corroboree, when like it that blackfellow must go'. Charlie went but fell sick & died. TLM-P later learnt that Charlie had 'cried out very much for you' and tried to send a message to him to collect him in a dray and ensure he would not die. 'Poor Charlie - had I got the message I should certainly have gone'. This is not to suggest, however, that TLM-P or any of his compatriots rose above his culture's assumption of the superiority of British people, nor of the immense power he could wield with relative impunity. In another incident, TLM-P described frightening Charlie at a time when his horses had all been worked so hard that they were not fit to ride. The exception was TLM-P's favourite horse who Charlie rode when TLM-P was absent so that that horse too was 'regularly broken down'. With the help of 'Tinko', a Chinese worker, TLM-P pretended he would kill him - far from a harmless prank given how easily he could do so without legal consequences. Charlie explained that he could not resist chasing after an emu then a dingo which he (correctly) thought TLM-P would wished to have killed.((Rosa Praed papers, 8370/Box 3, packet 3/1/1/)) \\ | |