Georgetown is the port in northern Tasmania at the entrance of the Tamar Estuary. James Lowndes Junior left there on 24 August 1846 aboard the “Shamrock”, bound for Port Phillip Bay.
The “Shamrock” was one of the first steamships in the country and for a time had an incredibly busy schedule transporting sheep, immigrants and general cargo from Launceston to Port Phillip and Sydney. On any voyage to Port Phillip, up to one hundred steerage passengers disembarked either at Melbourne or Geelong.
James Junior seems to have sailed shortly before the other members of the Lowndes family, departing from Georgetown rather than from Hobart. James Senior, Ann, Harriet and David Wilson sailed from Hobart to Port Phillip in September 1846, around a week after James Junior departed the island. They arrived at Point Henry, near Geelong, in early September.
The Shipping News section of the Melbourne Argus of 8 September 1846 lists “Lowndes and wife” and then “Wilson and wife” as being passengers aboard the wooden schooner “Lillias”. This is corroborated by the Geelong Advertiser of 9 September, which lists “Mr and Mrs Lowndes” and then “Daniel Wilson, Mrs Wilson” as passengers on the “Lillias”.
The “Lillias” was a little eighty-nine ton schooner built in Hobart in 1839. Commissioned by Bass Strait merchant James Strachan, she regularly carried cargo and passengers across the Strait throughout the 1840s. James Strachan was a Scottish gentleman married to Lillias Murray, the sister of Hugh Murray, the most prominent of the squatters at Colac. The vessel eventually ran ashore in heavy seas just off the Hopkins River at Warrnambool in 1852, at a time when she was operated by the Bostock family.
It is a matter of conjecture as to why James Lowndes Junior departed prior to the others in his family. It is possible that he may have needed to leave his home in New Town because of his run in with the constabulary there. At this time, James Junior was an unmarried youth of nineteen, and so the Mr and Mrs Lowndes listed in the newspapers would almost certainly have been James Senior and Ann Lowndes.
Departure records from Hobart indicate that James Senior, Ann, Harriet and David Wilson departed Hobart on 31 August 1846 on the “Julia,” not the “Lillias”, but given that these ships were sailing together in convoy, passengers could easily have been transferred from one ship to the other
The Geelong Advertiser reported that the “Julia” and the “Lillias” landed together at Point Henry on 7 September 1846. Both of these vessels were regularly chartered by the Geelong Immigration Society to transport workers from Tasmania to the Port Phillip District.
Colonial newspapers regularly published the shipping news, reporting the vessels entering or departing colonial ports, along with the names of some of the passengers. Such notification was crucial in announcing the safe arrival of travelers and then people could contact each other based on information published in the papers. Those disembarking from the “Lillias” and “Julia” are listed in the shipping news section of the Geelong Advertiser of 9 September 1846.
A description of the labor situation in the Geelong district was published in the same edition of the Geelong Advertiser. In an article published on 9 September 1846, under the heading “More Immigration”, the paper has the following report: “The brig ‘Julia’ arrived on Sunday last, and landed 100 men at Point Henry, without communicating with the Secretary of the Society. Several drays were immediately sent down to bring up their luggage, and the whole party arrived in town early in the day. Such is the demand for labor, that the arrival of a hundred men is scarcely felt; they are sufficient, however, to prevent wages rising, and the expected arrival of several hundreds more, will enable the settlers to get over the shearing season; and, it is to be hoped, also enable the husbandman to secure his harvest at moderate expense.”
The society referenced here is the Geelong Immigration Society. The Secretary of the Society was none other than James Harrison, the prominent first editor of the “Geelong Advertiser and Squatters Advocate,” as the Geelong newspaper was known at the time. The article clearly connects the arrival of the “Julia” with the Society’s efforts.
During the 1840s, Point Henry was the main landing place for passengers and livestock arriving at Geelong. An extensive sandbar across the entrance to Corio Bay prevented larger vessels from reaching the inner bay where the town is situated. A small vessel such as the “Lillias” was often able to cross the sandbar but a slightly larger one such as the “Julia” was not able to enter the inner harbor.
It is almost certain that James Lowndes and David Wilson were recruited to the Port Phillip District under the program of the Geelong Immigration Society, which was formed by squatters and proprietors in December 1844. The Society specifically aimed to recruit laborers, carters, tradesmen, and shepherds from Van Diemen’s Land. James Harrison, the editor of the Geelong Advertiser, served as the Society’s Secretary. In April 1845, the Society was renamed the “Geelong and Portland Bay Immigration Society.”
The Society used members’ subscriptions to pay for the chartering of boats. The first boatload of workers arrived at Port Phillip aboard the “Lillias” in January 1845. The Society continued its operations until August 1847, transporting nearly 2,000 workers to Port Phillip in under three years. The ships chartered by the Society to carry immigrants from Van Diemen’s Land to Port Phillip included the “Lillias,” “David,” “Julia,” “Shamrock,” “Platina,” and “Scotia.”
There were several schemes to import labor to various parts of Port Phillip. Keith Clarke in his book “Convicts of the Port Phillip District” writes: “With the economic recovery in 1844 the squatters in particular wished to employ more hands on their stations. The Melbourne Immigration Society was formed, and it brought over from Van Diemen’s Land about 1700 men to Melbourne. A similar Geelong Immigration Society in the same period 1845-47 brought a further 1000 to Geelong. The society was paid 10 shillings by the employer for every man they employed. Nearly 5000 other immigrants paid their own way across the Strait – 1800 to Melbourne, 2000 to Geelong and over a thousand to Portland and Port Fairy. They were almost all emancipated convicts.”
By today’s standards, such migration numbers may not seem particularly noteworthy. However, given the very low number of Europeans in Port Phillip at the time, these figures were quite significant. The three thousand workers from Van Diemen’s Land who moved to the Geelong district represented a substantial boost to the working population, and many went on to live in small settlements across the Western District. An influx of a thousand extra workers in the Southwest was quite significant considering that at the time the populations of the Portland and Port Fairy townships were in the hundreds.
Upon taking up his role as Superintendent of the Port Phillip District in 1839, Charles La Trobe quickly became an advocate of the settlement and firmly committed to its expansion and its economic development. La Trobe was wise enough to take the interests of the squatters into account, at least up to a point. By 1844, the Port Phillip District experienced an economic recovery after the downturn of 1842, and this spurred the demand for additional labor, which La Trobe was happy to facilitate. Tasmanian workers were the most readily available option to meet this rapidly evolving need and business interests on both sides of Bass Strait worked with the respective administrations to ensure a steady flow of labor.
When in 1846 the Lowndes family decided to leave Van Diemen’s Land for the Port Phillip District, Tasmania was still in the grip of the economic depression that had commenced several years earlier. The island was by that stage the primary destination for convict transportation to Australia. According to James Boyce, the number of convicts in Tasmania reached over 30,000 in 1847, with three-quarters of the adult male population being either convicts or ex-convicts. Due to the intense competition for jobs and the flooding of the labor market with convicts, emancipists and their children found it difficult to secure ongoing employment. It is hardly surprising therefore that some Tasmanians concluded a better future might await across Bass Strait, where economic conditions had considerably improved by 1845.
James Junior and David Wilson possessed skills which were highly valued by the squatters and proprietors who had gone across the water to Port Phillip. There was a constant demand for heavy haulage using drays and wagons. David Wilson was a farrier and blacksmith, while James had skills as a ploughman, bullock driver, horseman and farmer. They were young, familiar with Australian conditions, and could work and maintain a team of draught animals while living on small leased farms.
James Junior was just nineteen years of age when he first came to Geelong and continued to ply his trade as a carrier in the Geelong district for the remainder of his long working life. James Senior, although well into middle age when he directed the Lowndes family’s move to Geelong, was still active for many years thereafter.
Lowndes family members would have come across some familiar faces from Tasmania in their early years in the Geelong district. Despite their being few convicts directly transported to the Port Phillip District, there were many people of convict background at Port Phillip District in the late 1830s and in the 1840s, a high proportion of them from Tasmania. At times of high demand, workers were recruited from wherever they could be obtained, and in the late 1840s this demand was met by the Vandemonian serving class.
Generally speaking, Port Phillip was not a place where convicts from Britian were directly transported. Prior to 1843, a small number of convicts were sent to the Port Phillip District to work on infrastructure projects, but these convicts had initially been transported to Sydney prior to their arrival in Melbourne or Geelong. Convict transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840, and although convicts were still serving out their sentences for a number of years after that, this source of labor was becoming increasingly unavailable in New South Wales. From 1843, the New South Wales authorities ceased sending convicts to Port Phillip entirely.
The majority of ex-convicts and their families who arrived in the southern parts of Port Phillip in the 1830s and 1840s were from Van Diemen’s Land. This was especially the case for those districts where the land grabbing free settlers were also from Van Diemen’s Land. When seeking and securing land, squatters were overwhelmingly accompanied by laboring men of convict and emancipist background.
Free settlers brought their assigned convict servants with them to Port Phillip. For a period, convicts on tickets of leave from Van Diemen’s Land were eligible for Conditional Pardons based on their service in Port Phillip, even though it was time served in a separate British jurisdiction. The many emancipated Tasmanians who worked as servants and laborers to the gentlemen, while no longer under sentence, were hired under the provisions of the Masters and Servants Acts, and so the conditions of employment were in many ways similar to those that applied when they had been convicts.
Emancipated Tasmanians and their family members were a significant component of the overall European population of Port Phillip and not all were from Van Diemen’s Land. At Port Phillip, in addition to those who had come from Tasmania, there were also men and women of emancipist background from New South Wales. These workers often traveled overland to the Port Phillip District from north of the Murray River with their masters who were in the process of taking up new country. Others coming from New South Wales entered Port Phillip Bay by ship from Sydney.
Commercial links between northern Tasmania and southern Victoria were at their most significant in this period. Geelong, Portland, and Port Fairy were especially inter-connected with Van Diemen’s Land. Trading vessels crossed back and forth across Bass Strait, operated by a network of merchants with commercial interests on both sites of the strait. The trading vessels associated with Stephen Henty and James Strachan are an example.
An insight into how the labor hire schemes worked can be obtained from the report of the meeting of the Portland Bay Immigration Society held at the Woolpack Inn at Digby in 1846. The meeting was attended by the local squatters in this remote part of the Western District. There is a report of proceedings published in the “The Geelong Advertiser and Squatters’ Advocate” of 28 March 1846, under the heading Portland Bay Immigration Society.
The report is as follows: “At the first meeting of the Committee of the above-named Association, held at Mr. Richard Lewis’ the Woolpack Inn, Emu Creek, on Wednesday, the 4th day of February, 1846, the following resolutions for the guidance of the Association were agreed upon:
First, that every stockholder wishing to participate in the advantages of the above Association shall first become a subscriber to the List No. 1.
Secondly, that every member of the Association shall subscribe the sum of £1 for every thousand sheep, or five hundred head of cattle, depastured on his run, the sum of £1 being the estimated cost per man of passage money from Van Diemen’s Land.
Thirdly, that whereas several of the stock holders of the District have already (that is, in the month of November, 1845) subscribed certain sums of money for the purpose of importing laborers from Van Diemen’s Land into the District, and a portion of the money so subscribed has been actually expended, to the amount of £94, there being a balance still in the hands of S. G. Henty, Esq. It is therefore resolved, that the general fund of the Association shall now be debited with the amount of £94 so expended and credited with the balance now in hand, it being distinctly understood by all joining the present Association, that each new subscriber bears his proportion of loss in the amount of £94 previously expended.
Fourthly, that the subscriptions to both funds be paid every half year into the Treasurer’s hands, the half year commencing on the 1st of January, 1846, and the second half year on the 1st day of July following.
Fifthly, that every member of the Association, on paying his half yearly subscription, shall be entitled, on application to the agent in Portland, to have one man indented to him for every pound subscribed in the List No. 2.
Sixthly, that it shall be imperative upon every member wishing for men under indenture, to apply for them within three months from the commencement of each half year, and if not applied for within that time, the funds then remaining at the disposal of the Committee will be appropriated to the importation of laborers to be landed free at Portland Bay.
Seventhly, that those parties who have paid the full amount of their subscription to the fund in November, 1845, in the proportion of £1 per thousand sheep, or their equivalent to cattle, shall be considered bona fide members of the new association, upon their paying to the List No. 1 the extra 10s per thousand sheep.
Eighthly, that instructions be given to the agent of the Association in Van Diemen’s Land, to the effect that all men imported into the District shall be required to be furnished with written characters.
Ninthly, that S.G. Henty, Esq., of Portland be appointed Treasurer to this Association.
Tenthly, that Mr T. H. Osborne in Portland. and. Mr —- in Launceston, be appointed agents, to carry out the necessary arrangements.
Eleventhly, That the accounts of the Association be published quarterly in the Portland newspapers.”
The immigration schemes, driven by free settler proprietors already ensconced in Australia, highlights the underappreciated reality that the settlements along the coast of Victoria were established partly from bases within Australia, albeit by men who considered themselves British. Portland, Port Fairy, and Geelong, along with many of the squatter runs situated inland from the coast, had an Australian genesis as well as a British one. Launceston, Hobart and Sydney were crucial to the colonisation of the Western District.
The pattern of settlement along Victoria’s coast stands out because the towns were initially established by people arriving from locations within the existing Australian colonies. Other early settlements in other colonies were established more directly from Britain and by people arriving directly from there. This is the case for Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, and Hobart. Melbourne, Geelong, and Portland have another aspect to their genesis as European settlements.
A significant number of the men and women who came to the Western District in the 1840s had one parent born in Britain or Ireland and another born in Australia. Some of the British born population had been in the Australian colonies for a considerable time. This was true for people across the class divides.
For example, Peter Mills, the father of the well-known Mills siblings at Port Fairy, was a wayward British officer who “went rogue” to some extent. The Mills siblings’ mother, Jennifer Ann Brabyn, came to Australia as a child of seven. Jennifer was herself the child of John Brabyn, a notorious British officer with a “colorful” career in New South Wales. The Mills children, John, Charles and Eliza Mills, were all born in Launceston and raised by Jennifer, then a widow on a small farm there.
In the initial squatting foray into what is now Victoria, there are parallels with what was happening elsewhere in the world. There are parallels with the southwest of the United States at the same time. Violent raids of armed parties of American settlers were launched into parts of Texas and New Mexico from the 1830s, territory over which the United States eventually gained sovereignty. The raiders were called filibusters. The term “filibuster” originates from the Spanish “filibustero,” which in turn comes from the Dutch “vrijbuiter,” meaning “privateer, pirate, or robber,” and some of the behavior of certain squatters fit this definition.
In the United States, the goal of those standing behind the filibusters was the establishment of a network of small settlements that were loyal to the nascent state from which the freebooters originated, a goal to be achieved preferably through legal means but also by irregular means where necessary. Filibusters usually had the covert support of the state from which the raiders came. The men in the field received formal recognition and integration into official structures upon their success. In cases of failure, or overt atrocity, the claims and actions of the filibusters could be disavowed and disowned. Prior to 1837, the situation on the southern Australian mainland was marked by contestation.
In 1835, when James Senior and Ann were on tickets of leave in Van Diemen’s Land, a consortium of Tasmanian gentry launched a private corporation to take land at Port Phillip. This corporation was named the Port Phillip Association. By 1837 this business venture had changed its shareholder structure. It was from then known as the Derwent Company. From 1837, the local agents of the Derwent Company pressed west from Geelong deeper into the Western District.
The Derwent Company was intimately entwined with the structures of the British state in Australia. While in one sense it was a private company, in another sense it was state sponsored. The Derwent Company was not the only Van Diemen’s Land based pastoral corporation of this type in the field. Its great commercial rival was the Clyde Company and there were also several smaller pastoral companies expanding their operations into unsecured territory on the southern mainland opposite Tasmania. Needless to say, in 1837, the great majority of this land was still under an Indigenous regime, manifested through traditional clan based networks and an intricate ceremonial culture. However, the contest for control and legitimacy had commenced by then.
The years between 1835 and 1846 saw events in the Port Phillip District that would inalterably change the course of our history. One of the longest surviving continuous cultures on the planet was overwhelmed in these years.
For the British investors and entrepreneurs, there was an economic imperative to find new land on which to raise sheep to supply wool for export back to Britian. They needed to show a return on the capital that had been invested in pastoral expansion. The squatters hoped to acquire personal fortunes for themselves and for their children, but the motivation was not just economic. They were also ideologically committed to the planting of British cultural and social modes in a new world, a new field of dreams aligned with the aims and aspirations of the British state.
In Port Phillip the taking of country did not proceed through a government regulated system of land grants, such as had been the case in Van Diemen’s land. Instead, land was “taken up” by occupying it and securing it through coercion. Before 1837, even a license was not required, and early squatters resembled an irregular force of scouts on a frontier where the reach of the claimant government was strictly limited.
This wide scope for freedom of action meant that remote country could be occupied quickly and largely unobtrusively, beyond the prying eyes of articulate observers. The squatters in the field were agents of the Crown in ways in which subaltern shepherds and servants were not. They investors behind the occupation of remote country set the conditions for what unfolded, even when they were not directly present themselves. In many instances, authority to exert British control in the occupation of country was delegated to overseers and other designated representatives of the gentlemen.
Beginning in the mid-1830s, the initial wave of squatters were often the sons or nephews of Van Diemen’s Land pastoralists. Some were the younger relatives of established Tasmanian merchants. Frequently, brothers or brothers-in-law worked together. Some were young men who had been specifically recruited from Britain to spearhead a family’s business. Others had seen military service across the British Empire, and many of these had links to the army of the British East India Company. Some had been gentry farmers in Britain or planters in other colonies. Others still were of more modest means, with few actual claims to social or economic prominence. Nevertheless, all made a show of claiming the status of gentleman, to distinguish themselves from the underclass who did not qualify for this distinction.
In the Western District, scouting parties heading west from Geelong found what they were looking for. There were seemingly endless plains well suited to sheep. Squatter pastoralism was at the heart of the matter. One of the earliest detailed written accounts of the country at Port Phillip and at Geelong and on the Bellarine Peninsula was written in 1836 by Joseph Tice Gellibrand, detailing his journey around the bay in January and February of that year. His account is most interesting with regard to the large numbers of Aboriginal huts, wells and “native tracks” his party encountered, and for his descriptions of various Aboriginal people he met on the way, some of whom were already working for Europeans.
Gellibrand’s account is also insightful due to the way in which he demarcates the social relations between the “gentlemen,” always honored with the title “Mr.”, and the servants and shepherds who accompanied the party at various times. These “men” are usually not named or just mentioned by surname only. It is also clear that the “men” sometimes had their wives with them, but the women are even more discounted than their servant husbands.
Joseph Gellibrand sent his account to the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke in April 1836 but the document appears not have been published until 1858. Gellibrand went missing southwest of Geelong in 1837, presumably killed by Aboriginal people, and his remains were never recovered. Before his death, the honorable gentleman had high hopes for the future of race relations between British and Aboriginal people, asserting that “I am firmly impressed with the opinion that the foundation may be laid at Port Phillip for spreading the truths of Christianity through the whole continent of New Holland, and I am happy to know that I am not singular in this opinion”.
As Gellibrand passed through the various sheep runs allocated to the gentlemen of the Association, the borders of which had been roughly delineated on the map drawn by John Wedge the previous year, he includes notes on their worth to the squatters in terms of the pasture and water they contained within each of their boundaries. He also notes the most attractive future spots for homesteads. It is clear that he envisaged that all this country would shortly be occupied by men of his kind, and that the Aborigines would eventually become reconciled with such “facts on the ground.”
It is also clear that Gellibrand is acting in conjunction with Captain Swanston and other leading members of the Port Phillip Association, and indeed it is very likely that it was Gellibrand who drafted the so called “Batman’s Treaty” which had been employed in 1835 as a ruse to confer some legitimacy to what was occurring on the southern mainland. Gellibrand also makes clear that he shortly intends to bring across more sheep from Tasmania to stock his own run, an allocation which he terms a “grant” in imitation of the terminology used earlier in Van Diemen’s Land.
Gellibrand’s allocated run was No.12 of the seventeen shown on the Wedge map. He includes the following description of his first encounter with his run: “…as I was desirous of seeing No, 12, I had my horse taken to the fording place and round to the salt-water creek, and about ten o’ clock Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Robertson, Dr. Cotter, myself, and Linfield went in the whale-boat to the creek. I took Linfield with me for the purpose of making him acquainted with that section, as I intended to stock it. After passing over about six miles of the section, we came upon a large salt water river, which Dr. Cotter was of opinion communicated with a chain of fresh water ponds, which he had recently crossed on that section. Dr. Cotter and myself therefore proceeded to trace up the river, and I requested the remainder of the party to trace it down to the sea. Dr. Cotter and myself then traced the river up to the chain of ponds, and I was quite satisfied there was plenty of water on the grant. We then made across to the point at which the ships lay, and the stock was landed…”. It seems ironic that the territory described above now contains most of the Western suburbs of Melbourne.
When in April 1836 Gellibrand sent his account of his explorations at Port Phillip to Governor Bourke, other parties of squatters were crossing Bass Strait to take up runs outside the limits of the runs claimed by the Port Phillip Association. By the end of that year additional runs were stretched out along the Barwon and Moorabool Rivers and on the upper tributaries of the Werribee and Maribyrnong Rivers.
In addition to Van Diemen’s Land, Sydney was foundational to what subsequently unfolded. An influential group of colonial families, known as “the exclusives,” had become entrenched in New South Wales initially through leveraging their privileged positions as officers of the British military. They maintained connections with political factions in Britain aligned with their interests. This network of business and political connections bolstered the influence of the exclusives, allowing them to dominate the colonial administration. They made determined efforts to undermine any officials in Sydney who opposed their interests. Above all they were dedicated to expanding pastoralism and increasing wool exports.
When land grants were being taken up there in Van Diemen’s Land during the 1820s, some of the families engaged in pastoralism New South Wales went to Tasmania. From there, some with these connections subsequently moved to Port Phillip in the late 1830s. Additionally, New South Wales pastoralists overlanded stock directly to Port Phillip from north of the Murray. Much later, when remote Queensland was being “opened up” in the 1860s and 1870s, some of the sons and nephews of these “pioneering” families took up station runs in the outback. Several interconnected cliques were involved in this business over decades.
By the end of the 1820s, the most suitable land in the Tasmanian Midlands had been allocated to free settlers, including to a cohort of middle-class Scottish gentlemen who had arrived with their families throughout the 1820s. These families primarily arrived in Tasmania directly from Scotland. These settlers were awarded government land grants and many established themselves as pastoralists on the island. Some of these families had sons or nephews who went to Port Phillip to start new ventures there from 1835.
By the end of 1837, a considerable number of squatters, backed by financiers at home, had crossed Bass Strait with sheep and servants. They swiftly spread out, securing sheep runs beyond an ever-expanding frontier. The occupation of contested frontier country is work for the young and energetic. A frontier is no place for old men. Nevertheless, the young people were driven by the desire to please their parents and the promise of future profits for themselves.
The Scottish colonists who arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in the 1820s were connected to city aldermen, parliamentarians, clergymen, and lawyers at home. Some were from families which owned estates, or at least had substantial farms. They were staunch Protestants, largely members of the established churches, and they were part of a middle class which placed a high value on education, social advancement and public respectability. Squatters needed to possess at least some education, a degree of literacy, and what passed for social respectability in the eyes of the British government. They had to go beyond where their business rivals were camped, peg out a claim, and then defend it from all comers.
From 1837, squatters had to apply to the government for an annual pastoral license, a process which led to greater government control and supervision over them. The regulations were not designed to stop them, but rather to set parameters for their action. Applications were initially made to the Police Magistrate and then subsequently to the Commissioner of Crown Lands. While sharing a common goal, squatters nevertheless competed with one another for access to land and natural resources.
Not all of these ambitious young men would succeed. Many squatters failed to establish themselves in the business and lost the money that had been invested in their efforts. Success was not guaranteed and many would-be squatters failed, not least due to insufficient capital. The work had many dangers and challenges, and the commodity markets rose and fell outside of their control.
In some ways, aspects of the squatter system resembled a franchise scheme. These men had real skin in the game. The task undoubtedly required courage, persistence and determination, but it also required finance. Because of debt incurred when setting up ventures, the primary goal of the squatter was to repay creditors as quickly as possible and to turn a profit. The financial obligations, sometimes owed to corporate backers but often to extended family members, almost always outweighed concern for their workers, not to mention any due regard for the rights of Aboriginal people.
What the squatters achieved was perhaps the most rapid takeover of Aboriginal territory in history. Some writers suggest that conflict was inevitable, implying that pastoralism could not proceed without it. In David Marr’s book “Killing for Country”, he describes a form of frontier conflict whose inexorable nature led to an unfolding sequence of violent dispossessions. Killing for country was part and parcel of the expansion of Australia’s pastoral industry wherever it happened, not least in the Western District.
In New South Wales and Queensland, as David Marr points out, the role of the Native Police Corps was crucial. The formation of these para-military police units was based on a model that had earlier been trialed in the Port Phillip District. In other parts of the Empire, it was common for the British to co-opt one group of Indigenous people to fight against others. “Native” men were essentially hired as skilled para-military mercenary forces led by white officers.
Squatters felt entitled to take over Crown land. It was not illegal and such behaviour was consistent with the regulations of their government. By 1837 most squatters were paying a licence fee to the government for the privilege of pasturing stock on extensive tracts of Crown Land. Initially, pastoral operations were conducted from a camp called a head station. In time, if squatters were successful, the head station would transition to a homestead held by pre-emptive right, and the leasehold run itself would be converted to privately owned grazing property.
There are still families farming in the Western District whose start in the business came about as a direct result of this process, and many members of the Melbourne establishment can also trace at least some of their forebears to such early squatters. Dame Elizabeth Murdoch, for example, had multiple forebears engaged in the business from the early days of Port Phillip.
Wherever the squatters went, Indigenous people were expected to either adapt to the European regime or suffer the consequences. Resistance was interpreted as a challenge to British sovereignty. Some Europeans hoped that Indigenous people could be induced to remain in one confined place. It was paternalistically felt that it was for their own good for Aboriginal people to be surveilled and persuaded to work for the free settlers where possible. It was felt that education in Christianity and civilized values was the key to the future.
In London it was hoped that Aboriginal people would be convinced swiftly of British superiority, and so abandon traditional ways. There was recognition that the process of colonisation should be supervised to protect Aboriginal people from the worst excesses of colonial occupation. In 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, instructed Governor Gipps in New South Wales that several Protectors of Aborigines were to be hired.
The government in England seemed to expect that Aboriginal people would be content to restrict their movements once they had adopted clothes, cultivation and Christianity. The appointment of Protectors of Aborigines, it was hoped, would provide the agency through which such fundamental cultural transition to a more advanced stage of existence might occur. It was widely believed in England that once Aboriginal people ceased to have a nomadic lifestyle and were usefully employed on farms then it would follow that conflicts with settlers would end. Those few who continued to resist would only have themselves to blame. What kind of people would prefer a nomadic lifestyle as primitives in the wilderness in preference to the benefits European civilization could bring?
The genocide that occurred in the Western District stands out for its rapidity and its extent. In retrospect, it is easy to see how the treatment of First Nations people was driven by cultural myopia and lack of empathy. The ignorance on the part of the Europeans meant that even the most humanitarian aspects of the policy of Aboriginal Protection in the late 1830s and early 1840s were driven by what was most convenient to British interests.
When the seeds of the squatter regime in Victoria were being planted in the mid-1830s, James and Ann were on tickets-of-leave in New Town. They were convicts under sentence until they received Conditional Pardons in 1836, and subsequently they obtained Free Pardons in 1839. From then on they were entitled to travel to the mainland as free persons, an opportunity they did not take up for several years. However once young Harriet married David Wilson, the entire family crossed to Port Phillip for good. They were off to work for the squatters and proprietors at Geelong.
The Shadows of the Gentlemen 