Indigenous Australians
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this section contains images and names of deceased persons. Please also see cautions in second paragraph below.
We have more and franker information than usual about TLM-P's interactions with, and attitude to, First Nations 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) - and, on occasion, Nora added her own comment - as well as outlining the context of acquiring land in the mid-century. All references are to this 59pp document in Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1, Oxley Library, unless otherwise stated.
There are a number of cautions about this material. The first is language: this material was written mostly about events around 40 years previously. Some meanings of words have changed and some which were commonplace then are deeply offensive now. While appreciating the sensitivities I have avoided censorship and sanitising the text. The second is that Rosa could ask for clarification - or that, with her shared knowledge, she didn't need clarification that a modern reader might. Without the same context, misunderstandings are easy. 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. TLM-P was very aware of this aspect, telling Rosa that 'It is so difficult after some 40 years to remember all details. Facts remain & as the past flits thro' the mind, new lights are thrown upon them.'1) 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.
TLM-P's memories about First Nations Australians are a complex mixture of brute power and respect; ignorance and at least an attempt to learn Indigenous customs. His reminiscences gives context to TLM-P's criticism of depictions of 'Australians' and other First Nation groups at the Crystal Palace in England in 1882. He thought they were presented as 'miserable looking specimens' and 'very unlike those [Aboriginal people] I have seen'.2)
TLM-P gave numerous examples of Pidgin speech and a few examples of First Nation words, indicating his usual mode of communication. He described First Nation men (and a few 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 described how the acute observation 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'.
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 First Nation owners. TLM-P communicated in Pidgin and used English names for the First Nations people he knew. As outlined earlier in Gaining Colonial Experience, while at Hawkwood station he had no compunction about taking part in a murderous reprisal after the Hornet Bank massacre of the Fraser family, detailing the incidents and 'feeling of insecurity' experienced by the settlers in its leadup. In telling the story in more detail, he took it for granted that the Fraser boys slept with a gun or pistol in easy reach. TLM-P's take on the First Nation warfare was that it was a weakness (cf native Americans) that first they 'must have a corroboree - & a long woolla (council of war) of what they meant to do'.(pp.26-30) This was likely accurate but also reflected white nervousness at any large gathering including the annual Bunya ones.3) Yet the story of colonial conquest is nuanced. TLM-P told Rosa that a few times he warned away First Nation men he considered a threat by telling them that he would ensure the 'debil-debil' would make them sick - the response was periodic messages from one wiseman of the tribe that 'he was quite well' and that he knew that TLM-P's 'debil-debil' story was 'gammon' (nonsense).(p.48) Another factor in his relationships was that 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 First Nation boys. When first acquiring Hawkwood, for example, he rode long distances with a First Nation boy ('Johnny') when he was scouting the land. He described Johny as'about 13 years old … a nice, smart lad, full of fun'. 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'(In this case 'boys' really were adolescents not men). It is unclear to what extent these boys had been forcibly separated from their own families.
The complex and mutually dependent relationship between TLM-P and his First Nations 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 First Nation 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 First Nations 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 4) 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 him 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 wish to have killed.
TLM-P's reminiscences also reveal the self-justifying interpretations squatters put on the massacre of First Nation Australians. The 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 First Nation 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 with incredulity the Attorney-General Plunkett who declared 'that he would hang any man who could be proved to kill a black.' 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 First Nation 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 First Nations police or trackers killed other First Nation people. He also included an account of the vigilante group in the aftermath of the Hornet Bank murders, where a 'half-caste' (as the term was then) lad called Paddy was the only one of the party who could detect First Nation men hiding in the scrub - Paddy, TLM-P wrote, walked in and shot two men before the rest ran away. Nora added her own anecdote featuring 'a black trooper (always the worst against the wilder blacks)'.
On one occasion, TLM-P illustrates one reason why the Native Police were so feared - their indiscriminate attacks. TLM-P recounts that his manager at Hawkwood, 'Ernest Davis went to the Auburn & took my [stock] boy Billy Hay with him. Billy made his camp close to Davis' room. In the middle of the night the policeman came up'. They mistook Billy for 'Auburn Boney' who TLM-P described as 'a great chief & a very dangerous enemy'. The Police 'pounced on Billy' who 'struggled bravely' and called out to 'Mister Davis' who was able to confirm his identity. On his return to Hawkwood Billy recounted the story, proud that the Commandant John_O%27Connell_Bligh had apologised to him for the error. As Bligh and his troops were responsible for numerous massacres, Billy was lucky but then TLM-P later noted that 'Billy had been a good deal with the native police. He and TLM-P had an ongoing relationship. TLM-P recalled that 'Billy had been well-trained & was a gentleman in manner. His gin [as Indigenous woman were then called] Mary-anne had followed me up from Bundooma [Boondooma?]. She had two half-caste children with her, one of these Jinny came to us for some time, when about 6 years old. I thought that Billy & Mary Anne had better be coupled [married]'. He described how he asked each one if they wanted to marry the other and when they both said yes, he said 'All right Billy, mine give him, now you are married.' There was a small one-roomed hut with a chimney close to the house' with a verandah and a bark roof. They lived there and did the hut up 'smartly', with the usual habit of hanging up a firearm over their bed 'handy at a moment's warning'. He recalled that 'Maryanne was a capital cook & used to make good bread, curries etc. In fact the black boys had the nicest quarters & the best living on the station. They were very seldom put to labour, their duty being to look for lost sheep to ride about among the cattle & to bring up the horses. I used to be quite proud of my boys. Maryanne washed their clothes & their moleskins were always white & their shirts clean. They used to wear a silk or coloured handkerchief over one shoulder & knotted under the other arm, which gave them a dressy showy look. … Billy, Freddy, & a small Wide Bay boy Tombo (who had a beautiful voice) used to sing songs they had picked up, & made their camp quite jolly. Billy afterwards went North & purchased a dray & a team of bullocks. When I last heard of him he was doing well.'(pp.50-52)
From the above description of the First Nations stockmen at Hawkwood, it is likely that this faded and damaged photo 5) is of Billy Hay and his fellow stockmen:
While Billy Hay appeared to survive well in the hostile new world, one of the other stockman TLM-P remembered, Freddy, did not. TLM-P wrote that 'Freddy rejoined his tribe near Brisbane, took to drink, gave up his cleanly habits & I have little doubt did not live long.' He added that 'Rosie may remember meeting him in Queen St on one occasion afterwards, when he recognised her & wished to renew an old acquaintanceship.'(p.53) Rosa told the story as him hailing her when she was a guest at an official function - she was young and mortified.[check ref] TLM-P also noted the story of a First Nation boy he recalled as 'Charlie Coxen' (actually John Bungarie) who was taken from his family and raised with the family of Charles Coxen, including going to school with the Coxen sons. He did well at school but TLM-P recalled him expressing profound loneliness at being caught between two worlds. A more accurate version of his life is recorded by the Australian Dictionary of Biography.6)
TLM-P was ever curious and he makes it clear that he attempted to know as much as possible about First Nation culture. He was aware that much knowledge was withheld because it was revealed only to the initiated: regarding 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. TLM-P also described what he recalled as a gathering of around 1,000 warriors engaged in a 'great tribal fight'.(p.31) As was usual in such cases, few were killed, as the intention was to harm, a method of settling scores that put the First Nation warriors at a disadvantage when confronted with European notions of conflict. He also was told by First Nation men that it was 'a law or custom of hospitality which prevents the tribe from turning strangers away', even when they put themselves in danger from harbouring fugitives or indeed any Indigenous person not vouched for by whites.(p.43)
TLM-P also makes it clear that the Australian tradition of telling 'tall tales' to the gullible outsider was very much part of First Nation 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 First Nation people worldwide. 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.'
TLM-P, as noted elsewhere, was not above telling tall tales himself, especially relying on claims that he could will First Nation people to be sick. Yet, again as noted elsewhere, the voices of the First Nation people in the stories he recalls are generally strong with a clear sense of their rights. He recalled a First Nations woman telling him that, when she had been told he was dead, 'she was very glad'. In the anecdotes, TLM-P assumes this blunt truth-telling is to be expected and there is no sense of outrage. With this particular woman who he calls Nanny (?unclear) he gave her gifts of tobacco '& she became quite friendly & took me to the camp 'to see a young man' called 'Jimmy' who TLM-P judged to have a bad bout of influenza 'brought on by exposure to the cold'. 'Nanny' presented TLM-P as a doctor so he went along with the concept prescribing tea and warmth and rest. He went back to the camp in the morning to see Jimmy and to say he thought he would live: 'At this there was great shouting in the camp. Jimmy's eyes fairly glistened, hope came back & he looked at once a different man. I was never again in that part of the country [the Burnett], but I have little doubt that with this treatment, youth & imagination, Jimmy did recover.'(pp.49-50)