Cattle Chosen/Chapter 8

VIII
WILD JUSTICE

about the Vasse and its people during 1838 is very scanty. In January Charles writes from Perth to John in England: 'You have heard of our row with the natives. The whole affair was admirably conducted, and by the blessing of God no European suffered. It did not, however, meet with the entire approbation of the Government, but it was none the less well done on that account.... The folly of the measures that have been adopted on the Swan and at York* is too apparent not to strike anyone gifted with a grain of common sense. Most atrocious acts are going on even to this day because they have been played with, while at Pinjarra a set of natives once the most formidable in the colony have been by measures properly severe, rendered peaceful and even useful to the European.' Once started on the 'Whiggish notion' of criticizing Government, Charles proceeds to denounce 'the abominable selfishness Of the human race', including Governor Stirling himself, in that he had established a town at the other end (from Busselton) of his large grant on Geographe Bay. This was Port Leschenault, afterwards known as Bunbury. To it three soldiers were removed from the Augusta-Vasse establishment.


 * The York natives, two of whose tribesmen had been shot in the act of thieving from a farmhouse, had retaliated by spearing isolated settlers. The Colonial Office, after the 'battle of Pinjarra', had instructed Governor Stirling that natives were to be treated in all respects as British subjects and given similar treatment at law. As the evidence against the York natives was incomplete they went unpunished.

This dispersal of the defensive strength of the white community was a small evil, however, in comparison with the departure of Governor Stirling, and his replacement, after an interregnum, by 'the Radical Mr. Hutt', early in 1839.

Sir James Stirling was a man who saw with his own eyes. He had been 'through the mill' with the first-comers, had planned, improvised and persisted in face of every disappointment with them. There came in his stead a man with a theory, the theory that the blacks were being wronged, and that their wrongs could be righted by civilizing them and giving them equal treatment. No doubt the blacks were being wronged. Their freedom to kill any beast they could find, and to avenge blood by shedding more blood, was being taken from them. How else could colonization proceed? But Governor Hutt had no heart for the task of imposing government upon the natives, and smashing, by the inhibition of fear, the cult of retaliation as a sacred duty. He thought, rather, in terms of schooling for the native children, and protectors for their fathers. Schools and official protectors were good, no doubt, but they did not put an end to private war.

The atmosphere created amongst the settlers by Governor Hutt's civilizing measures may be sensed in two reports made early in 1840 by his new officials, the 'protectors of natives'. Peter Barrow, protector at York, thus sums up his first quarter's work, ending 31st March 1840.

'Since my residence in York, I have seen and conversed with many natives, to all of whom I have clearly expressed, through the medium of interpreters, the nature of my duties, and the benevolent object for which Her Majesty's Government had sent me among them. But in return for all my efforts to impress in their minds the advantages of civilization, and of a peaceful industrious and well-spent life, I could only elicit from them the well-known and all- engrossing desire: "Flour, give it 'em ".

'I have in a tedious space of three months instructed four native children, namely Powett, Wanningan, Ida and Agul in the alphabet letters as far as d.'

The Chief Protector of Natives, Charles Symmons, is mainly concerned, in his June quarterly report, to stiffen up the punishment of crime. 'No more forcible instance of the efficacy, and in some cases vital necessity of a striking example of our power, on the minds of the natives, can be adduced than the present peaceful state of the Murray district, in which previous to the Pinjarra affair, no European settler could have ventured to locate.'

Seemingly, however, the process of the law to which as British subjects native offenders were entitled, put many obstacles in the way of the detection and punishment of crime. (Cf. Charles Bussell's letter, Appendix, p. 175.)

'It is to be hoped', thought the Chief Protector, 'that the legal difficulties at present almost insuperable, and which are continually interfering with the conviction of native offenders, may shortly, with the sanction of the Home Government, be removed, and I beg leave respectfully but earnestly to suggest to His Excellency the absolute necessity in cases of aggravated murder committed by the natives on the white settler, and where cOnviction ensues, of carrying into effect the extreme penalty of the law, not for the purpose of depriving a Desperado of life, but of striking a wholesome terror into the breasts of the native population.'

That Mr. Symmons had grave reason to emphasize this 'respectful but earnest suggestion' would appear from his repeating it, verbatim, in his December report, 1840. Two episodes during 1840, of which record has survived, may have moved him to this.

On 22nd May, a Murray tribesman, Kalyot, or Calliote, reputed to have been the murderer of two settlers, McKenzie and Nesbit before the Pinjarra 'battle', was tracked, by his footsteps in the sand, as the murderer of two natives in the town of Perth itself. Yet he escaped punishment!

Early in May, near Leschenault,* a boy, Henry Campbell, servant of R. Wells, was speared. Fanny Bussell records on the 8th: 'Intelligence having been received that young Campbell has been speared, great consultation about the natives. Mr. Bull and the soldiers at Leschenault in pursuit of them.' Three were caught, and, it would seem, punished offhand, in some way, by Mr. Bull. Correspondence with Perth followed, and on 26th November the Government Resident at Leschenault, Mr. G. Eliot, wrote to the Colonial Secretary, acknowledging the receipt of 'His Excellency's request that I should co-operate with the neighbouring magistrates in the apprehension of the murderers of the boy Henry Campbell.


 * Now known as Bunbury.

'I have the honor to inform you', he went on, 'that I have no informations or depositions of any sort against them. Therefore I have to request that I may have positive instructions on the above subject. At the same time I must beg to submit for His Excellency's consideration, if it would not be better even to allow the men to escape, than to break our faith with them, after their having received Mr. Bull's most positive assurance that the punishment given them by him was to be the final one.'

His Excellency wavered. On the back of Mr. Eliot's letter of 26th November he wrote this minute:

'The Resident Magistrate of Wellington District is requested to say whether he considers that the lives and properties of the residents in that part of the country are likely to be endangered by carrying the law into full force now against these murderers, because if so, it becomes a matter of expediency to run the risk of one evil, allowing offenders to escape, rather than incur the still greater one of exciting a wild and savage population to further acts of revenge and bloodshed.'

John Bussell, having received as a Justice of the Peace the same instructions to co-operate in the arrest, to which Eliot had demurred, met Nungandung at Picton barracks, on 17th December, while on his way home from conferring with the Leschenault magistrate. He at once arrested him and reported to the Colonial Secretary:

'I was returning from Bunbury to the Vasse, when I perceived the prisoner standing by the barracks at Picton. He accosted me, and on my asking gave his name. I dismounted, took the hasty deposition of one James Blyth, late of the 21st Regiment, issued a warrant for Nungandung, Duncock and Gerback, who had illegally escaped justice, and seized the prisoner, whom I conveyed to my house, in the absence of another place of security. The other two concerned in the murder were not to be found, though I sent for them at the same moment to the harvest fields, where they were said to be.

'The prisoner is the individual that attempted the life of the Constable's wife at Busselton in the year 1837, by throwing his spear through her window, while her husband was wounded in the arm by another native at the same moment. He also is guilty of the murder of Mr. S. Layman's cowherd at Wanerup, in the immediate vicinity of the house.' Eliot must have objected to the arrest in his district, for in January '41, John Bussell wrote to him, 'The man I took without any premeditation, which you must know from the doubt I was in as to the road I should choose for my journey back. This I think will exculpate me from the charge of invading your district. I long since told you that whenever I chanced to meet one of the murderers I would take him, and I should have done so equally in the town of Perth.... If I reprehend your conduct, you equally reprehend mine. We differ in our notions of the measures to be adopted towards these people.* I trust, however, that those who have the concluding this affair, will not admit the idea of any conditions, or allow these savages to suppose that threats on their part can turn the stern decree of the law from its steady channel.'


 * A reference to John Bussell's refusal on 15 October 1840, to arrest Kenny, a son of old Gaywal, whom Eliot asked him to take for spearing in the arm the sister of young Chapman, Eliot's 'boy'. Kenny did so,' replied John, 'not with intent to kill, but to avenge, as their barbarous law dictates, the rape of his sister by the said boy, Chapman.'

Nungandung was sent to Fremantle in the schooner 'Venus' on 27th December, and confined on Rottnest Island. At the Vasse feeling over the episode ran high. The natives threatened to spear a white man if Nungandung did not return. The settlers, in turn, expected, from the representations known to have been made by Mr. Eliot against his further punishment, that at any moment he would reappear, confirmed in insolence by such vacillation. John Bussell received instructions not to arrest the other culprits. The little group at the Vasse, numbering only eighty whites in all, thirty-six men, sixteen women and twenty-eight children, felt itself isolated indeed, both by distance and by the preoccupation of the Perth authorities with the natives' interests.

On Sunday evening, 21st February, the more serious-minded, as was their wont, had gathered in the sitting-room at 'Cattle Chosen' to hear John Bussell read the old liturgy, to sing some hymn, filled, perhaps, with the stirring note of appeal to the Lord of Hosts. Suddenly galloping hoofs are heard through the stillness of the bush. Two horsemen draw rein, and into the congregation rushes Bob Heppingstone, crying 'George Layman has been speared to death by Gaywal.' In an instant all are on their feet. The service breaks off. Away go all the men, armed and mounted, in pursuit of the natives. A few boys are left to guard the homestead, dried kangaroo skins having been nailed over the windows.

Layman, it seemed, had given some natives who had been working for him the usual payment in flour. At night-fall one had come in to complain that old Gaywal had taken his share. Layman went over to the blacks' camp near by, pulled Gaywal by the beard, and bade him give it back. Gaywal replied that the other had worked little, and that he would give him little. Again Layman pulled his beard and bade him give the flour back. Gaywal in a rage rushed for his spears, and as Layman went inside shipped one into his throwing-stick and drove it through his body with fatal effect. Another spear was thrown at almost the same moment, by one of his sons, Woolerdung, and passed between Layman's legs.*


 * These details are taken from the depositions of R. Heppingstone, who was present.

Of the pursuit, the Protector of Aborigines who came to the Vasse a day or two after the crime, reported: 'February 25th. A party of the settlers in pursuit fell in about sunrise with a band of natives, amongst whom they thought to recognize the voice of Gaywal. They heard them over their fires relating with great exultation the death of Layman, and expressing their intention to massacre more of the whites. The party then rushed in. Spears were shipped by some, whilst others fled, and in the confusion five natives were shot.'

The two leaves which presumably contained the entries of Fanny Bussell in her diary, from the 5th of February to the 25th, have been torn out, but the remaining part of the entry for the 26th reads thus: 'the protector of the natives.* In the evening John, Capt. Molloy and Mr. Northy returned. Capt. Molloy drank tea here. 7 natives killed. Gaywal supposed to be wounded.


 * The tearing out of the pages can hardly have been seriously intended to suppress the story of the affray at Wanerup, for the entries left, and quoted above, are evidence enough of its fatal character. It seems to have been an attempt to wipe out the record of a painful incident between the Bussells and Mr. Symmons, the Protector of the Natives, which took place at 'Cattle Chosen'. Writing to the Colonial Secretary in April John Bussell, who was afterwards on the closest terms of friendship with Symmons, referred to the episode in these terms: 'I cannot but regret that the popular feeling exhibited itself in insults to my friend Mr. Symmons. It was an unfortunate moment for an officer bearing his name to appear, a name which in these districts, so long isolated and exposed to danger from the native savages, has been looked upon as equivalent to persecutor of the European, the individual who stands by far in the greater need of protection,'

'27th. Saturday. All the strangers dined here. A party headed by Charles started in the afternoon in consequence of the intelligence that Gaywal had not been killed, and that Vernon and his party wanted support. Vernon returned in the evening and Charles and Mr. Vaughan in the middle of the night.

'28th. Sunday. The Swan River party left. A cessation of hostilities but great debate. Alfred returned with very bad eyes. John, Vernon and Charles started again in the afternoon in quest of the offenders.

'March 1st. Monday. A very lonely house. In the evening the party returned with no intelligence of Gaywal. Bennett laid up with a bad foot. Fanny much engaged in the rooms upstairs. A commencement of rain with thunder. Mr. Taylor guarding against leaks in his own room and in Bessie's apartments. Poor Lenox very ill.'

On 4 March, 'Mr. Ommanney returned from Leschenault with a party of 6 whites and 4 blacks in pursuit of Gaywal.'

On the 6th, Saturday, 'in the evening Crocodile offered to give information respecting Gaywal. A party started at 12 at night, consisting of Capt. Molloy, Mr. Northey and servant, John, Alfred, Charles, Mr. Vaughan and Balchin in pursuit of the offender.

'March 7th. Sunday. In the afternoon Mr. Northey arrived with the intelligence of the death of Gaywal, shot by Kelly, Mr. Northey's servant.... The whole party at home again.

'8th. Monday. Woolerdung and Kenny on the premises at night. Sheep brought from Wanerup.'

On the 10th Kenny, Woolerdung and Mungo, the three sons of Gaywal, were arrested by Captain Plaskett of the American whaler 'Napoleon' at Toby's Inlet, and on the 25th that vessel sailed for the Swan River with Kenny and Woolerdung as prisoners. Thenceforward the Vasse had rest from the natives.

Strained relations had been inevitable between the aborigines and their invaders. To the former, their land was a hunting-ground in which food was scarce enough, and all animals that could be killed by stealth were tribal feasts. With this communism went a code of honour which required the appropriate avenging of every injury to their womenfolk or to themselves. The whites had been welcomed at first, probably because of the plenty they brought in food and in drink, the game they shot, the whales' and seals' carcasses they brought ashore, and the rum. When they came as permanent settlers, however, they thrust the black man from his best hunting, they brought down the kangaroos, by the score, with their dogs and guns, making the game scarcer every year, and then objected with violence when the blacks speared in the open forest their horses and cattle. The clash of war followed. It came, however, not as the blacks knew war, in blood-feuds between families or tribal battles in which blood was shed but little life lost, but as a conflict of economies and morales, a struggle for exclusive mastery of the land. It could end in one way only. Then, and not till then, could trial be made of the black man's competence for the restraints and tasks of civilization.