The neglect of the Sydney Aboriginal population in the 1820s

By 1820 the optimism of the previous decade had waned. The records suggest that many Aboriginal people in Sydney were suffering from privation and malnutrition and the debilitating effects of smoking and alcoholism (3:36). In complete contrast to the earlier reports it was claimed that 'all the governor's efforts to educate the natives and to attach them to the Europeans, have been in vain' (3:24).

Akhilles Shabel'sky, a Russian interpreter with the ship Appollon and a keen observer of Sydney society during his stay there in 1822, was very critical of the government's treatment of the Aboriginal population (4:1). He claimed that although Macquarie's school was responsible for some children 'speaking English pretty well' they had not received a useful education which would equip them for life in the colony. He believed that the children at the school were not representative of the general Aboriginal population but were part of the new population of 'half-castes'

bom to Aboriginal mothers by non-Aboriginal fathers. The same observation was made by Barron Field, a former judge of the supreme court in NSW (4:6). Echoing the racism of the time Shabel'sky claimed that the more European-looking the child the greater its 'aptitude for education'. He was surprised that Aboriginal people continued to prefer life in what was left of the bush on the Cumberland Plain to the 'delights of civilised society'. Aboriginal people told astonished colonists that they had returned to the 'bush' because they 'liked it best' (4:7). People who remained in Sydney

generally became chronic alcoholics and suffered the debilitation of consumption.

In 1825, Barron Field wrote about the profound effect colonial society had had on the Aboriginal population (4:5). He saw them gradually abandoning their traditional lifestyle as alcoholism became a way of life for many people. Street fights between Aboriginal people replaced ritual contests and were just as popular with the colonists. Rev Samuel Marsden complained that in spite of the obvious interest some Aboriginal people showed in Christianity the 'immoral example' of the majority of the colonists led them to a life of vice rather than 'civilisation'. A little later, in 1828, Rev Ralph Mansfield also painted a dismal picture of the Aboriginal population in Sydney. The large gatherings of people for ritual and social events no longer took place. He saw only 'miserable stragglers' who 'reeled and quarrelled' in the streets affected by alcohol, malnutrition, disease and social neglect (Mansfield 1828c:351, 4:40, 41).

Field observed that the government had little control over the Aboriginal population who conformed to the norms of colonial society only when it suited them (4:5, 31). Although many people agreed to have their children attend the government school they would not allow it to be an avenue for their being trained to be servants like the

convicts. Even an attempt to set up a training school at Blacktown to teach Aboriginal people trades such as carpentry and needlework was a failure because it was against the principles of the wider Aboriginal community (4:49, 50). Some people accepted grants of farming land from the governor. However, they also expected the

government to give them convict servants to work the farms for them and so that they could work the land as and when they chose (4:5).

Many Aboriginal people in the Sydney area lived in abject poverty on the social fringe of the colony (4:11). Cunningham observed their unwilling dependence on the colonists and their begging or stealing to obtain clothes, bread and rum (4:16).

Aboriginal men prostituted the women to colonists 'for a slice of bread or a pipe of tobacco' (4:16). Aboriginal people accepted gifts from the governor, particularly at Christmas and New Year, but, did not see them as buying their cooperation (4:36). Cunningham noted that the people who lived on the edge of the settlement at the Cowpastures and the Hawkesbury had fared much better than the people of Sydney town (4:20). (Mansfield worded the observation more strongly (4:34).) Some Aboriginal people lived in government huts and laboured intermittently for the local farmers amongst whom they had been raised. At governor Darling's orders others had been made constables in recognition of their great ability as trackers and were paid and rationed by the government.

3 .2 .2 The northern district

As noted above (3.1), the first permanent settlement outside the Cumberland Plain was established on the north coast at Newcastle then called 'King's Town' after Governor Phillip Gidley King. However, the area remained sparsely settled until the 1820s by which time the western and southern districts were already opened to pastoral settlement.

In September 1797, Lieutenant Shortland first reported the existence of a river which he named 'Hunter's River' after John Hunter the governor of the time. Shortland noted a very good coal deposit conveniently located for shipping in the harbour entrance to the river (Collins, vol. 2, 1975:35). Hunter subsequently sent work parties to the area to obtain coal. They, reportedly, were 'kind and civil' to the

Aboriginal people they met in the area (Collins, vol. 2, 1975:147). However, in April 1799, 'the crew of two boats, which had been permitted to go to Hunter's River for a load of coals, had been cut off by the natives'. A well-armed search party was sent out and they 'fell in with a large body of natives all armed'. They told the colonists that the crews of the boats had gone to Sydney. However, goods from the ships, such as sails and blankets were in evidence and the meeting deteriorated into violence and several Aboriginal men were shot (Collins, vol. 2, 1975:146).

In 1801, the governor sent an exploring party to the Hunter River district to survey the area and make a full assessment of the local resources, particularly the coal. They met up with several local Aboriginal people and also found a man who had been shipwrecked thirty-two days previously with two other men. The other men had died, one killed by Aboriginal people. They also came across a group of nine men sent by Commissary Palmer into the area to cut cedar. Grant found that they were a rough crowd and that 'they had discovered evident marks of a depraved and irregular disposition, from the time their stomachs were filled' (Grant 1803:159). Numerous 'cedar getters' entered the district in the early nineteenth century and were well known for their rough treatment of the local Aboriginal population.

In 1802, the governor established a small and short-lived coal mining settlement at the mouth of the Hunter River (Clouten 1967:12). However, the first permanent colony was a penal establishment created on the same site by Governor King, in 1804. It was to be a place of punishment for criminals convicted in the Sydney Supreme Court. The first Commandant, Charles Throsby, took with him twenty soldiers and twenty convicts. Little is now known about the progress of the colony from 1805 to

1813 because its records disappeared. However, by 1813, the administration was erecting timber buildings, clearing land land and a building a landing for boats. Between 1814 and 1821 the colony went through three commandants and convict numbers grew from two hundred and ninety to one thousand including more than one

hundred women. It became the spillover for the settlements of Sydney and Parramatta. In 1821, the disciplinarian Major Morrissett took over and the colony gained a name for being a very severe place of punishment (Windross and Ralston

1897:5-7). Also in 1821 the problem of runaway convicts became serious when some colonists made an unauthorised overland track between Sydney and Newcastle

(Clouten 1967:13).

Local Aboriginal people attached themselves to the colony and assisted the

commandants in retrieving convict runaways. Aboriginal people intensely disliked the convicts because they regularly attacked Aboriginal women (Threlkeld 1854:57). Aboriginal people also proved to be very useful as messengers between Sydney and Newcastle. Aboriginal people from Sydney also travelled to the settlement with the colonists. The Newcastle chaplain, Rev Middleton, was very popular with the local Aboriginal people and they often accompanied him on his sojourns into the local countryside. For example, in 1821, Middleton led a walking trip to Lake Macquarie accompanied by a number of colonists and 'the whole tribe of one hundred' (John Bingle quoted in Clouten 1967:14). Unfortunately, records for the period are sparse and little is now known about the Aboriginal people who interacted with the penal colony.

The colonists observed that the Aboriginal population on the north coast was 'connected in a kind of circle extending to the Hawkesbury and Port Stephens' (Threlkeld 1825b: 186). Robert Dawson (whose settlement at Port Stephens is the subject of Chapter 4) often observed Aboriginal people from Port Stephens visiting Newcastle. Therefore, it is likely that any linguistic developments at Newcastle would have affected Port Stephens and vice versa. In 1820 colonists also observed that the Aboriginal people who lived around Sydney could understand each other but that the people from Newcastle, Port Stephens or the far side of the Nepean River could not

understand the Sydney people at all (3:33). Therefore, NSW Pidgin would have been a useful lingua franca for those people.

In 1823, the area was opened to free settlement and most of the prisoners removed to a new penal colony at Port Macquarie. Only a few convicts remained to mine coal and undertake reclamation works about the harbour. Free selecting began on a small scale in 1821-22. However, from 1823 forward, settlers moved in rapidly as it became known that the Hunter district was very suitable for agriculture and grazing. Its proximity to Sydney was a further inducement to speculators (Windross and Ralston 1897:13-15).

In 1825, Rev Lancelot Threlkeld opened a mission to the local Aboriginal people at Lake Macquarie. Threlkeld attempted to help the people make the transition from their pre-colonial lifestyle into the world created by the colonists. He made the first serious attempt to study an Aboriginal language since the officers of the First Fleet tackled the Sydney language, in the early 1790s. Threlkeld helped a number of Aboriginal people acquire the skills necessary to participate in the colonial economy and in the process he chronicled the fate of the Hunter district Aboriginal population. His mission and interactions with the local Aboriginal people are discussed at length below (3.2.2.1). Threlkeld claimed that many people adapted successfully to the colonial economy.

Much has been said of our dispossessing the blacks of their land, but this did not inflame their minds against Europeans, generally speaking they were glad of Settlers residing amongst them, for the sake of obtaining bread, tea, sugar, rum, tobacco, and clothing, which were procurable, in exchange for game, going on messages, for postage departments in the bush, and various other employments for which they were admirably adapted. (Threlkeld 1854:57)

He observed that they learnt the utility of the new animals that were introduced to their country through their participation in the pastoral industry.

The mode of surrounding a herd of cattle, the Slautering of the beasts, the

preserving of the flesh by smoke and the plaiting of whips from the hides, were the lessons of a convict Stockman, and under such tutors, so numerously scattered amongst the tribes in the interior, it is not marvellous that they become adept pupils in such arts... (Threlkeld 1837:136)

Threlkeld noted that colonists employed many Aboriginal people in local industries. Blacks have been profitably engaged in maritime pursuits, and others have been employed in husbandry, and shepherding; some instances have occurred in which the blacks have become mechanics. ...O ne establishment, to the southward, employed a number of blacks in whale-boats, in the whale fishery on the coast at Two-fold bay. At the present moment a friend of mine, in the interior, has a number of black families regularly employed as shepherds, to whom he pays wages, and supplies them with rations, they minding several thousand sheep in separate flocks. The men abide at the huts, shift the hurdles, clean the yards, and attend to the home department, whilst their wives are the dark shepherdesses to the flocks which they tend most carefully, and have done so, now, for several years. For stockmen the blacks are invaluable, they being exceedingly fond of riding on horseback, and as guides through the bush, none else are so well adapted as they. (Threlkeld 1854:70)

In late 1839, Horatio Hale and James Agate visited Newcastle and described it as 'a small village of seventy or eighty houses, built on the side of a hill; it contains two taverns and several grog-shops, a jail, convict stockade, hospital, court-house, and a venerable old-looking church' (Hale and Agate 1839:155). The thriving coal-mine and the building of a breakwater for the protection of the harbour gave the place 'an air of life and animation'. By the time of their visit colonial settlement had fully

marginalised a large proportion of the Aboriginal population of the district and most lived in abject poverty.

In their walks they came across a group of several blacks (natives) seated around a small fire; they were pointed out as the remnant of the tribes which about forty years ago wandered in freedom over the plains of the Hunter and around the borders of Lake Macquarie. Their appearance was wretched in the extreme:

emaciated limbs, shapeless, bodies, immense heads, deep-set glaring eyes, thickly- matted hair, and the whole begrimed with dirt and red paint, gave them an aspect hardly human. The dress (if such it could be called) of the women, was a loose ragged gown, and of the men, a strip of blanket wrapped round the middle, or a pair of tattered pantaloons, which but have performed their office. (Hale and Agate

1839:155-56)

In their travels up the Hunter they observed that 'there are no wild tribes in this vicinity. These poor creatures are becoming rapidly exterminated by the whites, who are not overscrupulous as to the means' (Hale and Agate 1839:158).

3 .2 .2 .1 Rev Lancelot Threlkeld's mission at Lake Macquarie

In 1824, Rev Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet from the London Missionary Society arrived in Sydney. During their stay they became convinced that a mission to the Aboriginal peoples would be successful if it was conducted along the lines of their Society Islands mission. They proposed that missionaries should spread Christianity via the medium of Aboriginal languages. Following their visit to Newcastle, they selected the Lake Macquarie area as the first mission site. Threlkeld, who had accompanied the deputation from the Society Islands, was to be the first missionary (Gunson, vol. 1, 1974:13-15).

In early 1825, Threlkeld arrived in Newcastle to establish the mission on the proposed ten thousand acre grant at Lake Macquarie (Map 18) (Threlkeld 1825- 26:45). The town of only thirty four residents was in the process of transforming from a penal colony to a free settlement (Threlkeld 1825:85, 88). The settlement had attracted a number of Aboriginal people and Threlkeld observed an air of good-will existing between the people and the colonists. 'The Clergyman, the Surgeon, the Officer, and the Magistrate all took a lively interest on their behalf and expressed themselves pleased with the contemplated mission' (Threlkeld 1854:44). Threlkeld's first impression was that 'the Natives do not appear so vitiated here as at Sydney but only from the fact that there are so few opportunities here in comparison to what is afforded them at Sydney' (Threlkeld 1825d:85). However, he soon revised his ideas and commented that the Aboriginal people of Newcastle were disadvantaged by their involvement with the colony.

It would be indelicate to describe minutely the abject state of the Aborigines under our cognizance, suffice to say, that the females wander about, through towns, or among the more scattered residences of the Settlers, completely naked, often intoxicated, and even when furnished with articles of clothing indifferent as to using them for the purposes of decency. The men, naked, fierce, cruel to their wives, frequently involved in quarrels ending in blood, in the open streets

vehemently pursuing any object that will procure them spirits, and when under its influence uttering forth oaths the most horrid, and obscene expressions the most disgusting. The very children partake of these deplorable evils, and boys not seven years old have been seen staggering under the effects of liquor! Often are the Aborigines most shamefully ill-used by those who pride themselves on the

difference of complexion; and there are stubborn facts in existence, when the poor Aborigines have been forced to give up their hard obtained provisions to their more powerful white neighbours, or personal maltreatment would be the consequence of denial. Their girls and women have been taken from their camps at night,

shrieking, and muskets have been presented to intimidate, and their heads have born the marks of the butt-end in preventing the interference of the males. (Threlkeld 1825c: 189)

Threlkeld claimed that the Aboriginal people were initially curious about and approving of his missionising intentions. Many people visited him when they heard 'that one had come down amongst them to seek to do them good' and local officials encouraged him to believe that he could look forward to attracting about three hundred Aboriginal people (Threlkeld 1854:44-45). On the evening before he returned to Sydney to make arrangements for the mission 'the blacks assembled, had a dance, enquired how long it would be before I returned from Sydney, and on two moons [two monthsl being mentioned they shouted in approbation' (Threlkeld 1854:45). In June 1825, he established the mission at a place called by the local Aboriginal people Biddobar (Threlkeld 1825d:90).

For one year, while setting up the mission, the Threlkeld family lived in the

government cottage in Newcastle. To Threlkeld's delight, the cottage became a refuge for 'the tribe of blacks belonging to Newcastle'. They camped outside the building to avoid being molested at night by free-roaming convicts (Threlkeld 1854:45).

Threlkeld saw immediate advantage in their close proximity and in accordance with LMS policy set about acquiring their language (Threlkeld 1854:45).

In September 1826, Threlkeld and his family moved from Newcastle to the mission station built on the east side of Lake Macquarie and named 'Batabah' (from Biddobar) (Threlkeld 1826b:94). However, his optimism was dampened when in the first year of the mission he had only attracted a transient group of about fifty people who hailed from a wide area (Threlkeld 1854:60). In 1827, Threlkeld was assisted in clearing twenty five acres of land by Aboriginal people from both the town of Newcastle and

Tuggerah Beach (Threlkeld 1827c:96). The people were drawn to the mission

because of the plentiful supplies of food available both from the surrounding bush and lake and the mission stores. People would gather for an event such as a physical competition and then leave again when their business was over (Threlkeld 1827c:96).