No 50 Port Lincoln

The West Coast blacks had the reputation of being the wildest and most  ferocious in the Province. Probably they were. Certain it is that their record is blacker even than their skins. In the forties they terrorised the tiny settlement at Port Lincoln as no other place has been scared. But was it the black man's fault? Were the whites themselves blameless?  Black brother's greatest sin was his lack of discrimination.  

This article is mostly a tale of tragedy. It is a story of the white man's folly, and the black man's ungovernable rage. It is a history of treachery— but not one-sided treachery. It is a record of ghastly murders in which the innocent, more often than not, paid for the sins of the guilty. Finally it is a story of hatred, and terror, and ceaseless warfare between the black owners of the country and their white conquerors.

The West Coast black sinned, and sinned deeply. But his greatest sin was that he could not, or did not, discriminate between those who were guilty and these who were not. But neither, very often, did the white man.

Before I begin to tell you of the things the black man did when he set out to make himself a blood-thirsty nuisance. I want you to meet him as he was before the white settlement was established— as Goold saw him in 1823; Tod when he explored the Lincoln country before the whites came in 1839, and as Nathaniel Hailes knew him when he moved among him as a sort of protector in the early days of the settlement.

"The natives," wrote Goold, "were numerous and peaceful. They assisted us in carrying water for the ships, and in other matters. For a little tobacco, and with kind treatment, they would work well."

Tod relates how, when the blacks saw the whites first, they were overcome with fright — as naturally they would be. But later, when the superstitious children of the bush found they were not evil spirits, or unapproachable gods, they piloted them about the country, and pointed out where water was obtainable. In both these cases — and one could quote many others in support— the big ebony giants had ample opportunity to gratify their bloodthirsty passions had they been the sort of demons history has painted them. It was only after they had suffered the ill-treatment and humiliation which the whites inflicted on them that they asserted their manhood, and hit back in the only way they knew how. And they hit hard.

Native Passions

To understand the outrages for which the Port Lincoln blacks became infamous you must understand some thing of the passions of the natives themselves. Nathaniel Hailes, who got to know them pretty well, and went amongst them even when the settlers were gathering behind the gaol walls in daylight, and barricading themselves in their thickly-shuttered huts at night, as I shall describe presently, studied the savages carefully.

“I never detected in any of these natives," he states, "a feeling amounting to ferocity. They were excitable, impulsive, and uncontrollable in their rage, but I never found them cruel, cold-blooded or malicious. I have seen them when greatly enraged hurl at the offender every disposable article within reach, fragile or otherwise, even wrenching shrubs from the ground in default of other weapons. In these siroccos of passion they would scream, tear their hair, cut their own flesh, and spume bodily contortions befitting demons, a resemblance which dilated and fire -flashing eyes intensified. Once I saw a woman in this state of mental and physical tempest for the space of an hour, by which time she had reduced herself to such complete exhaustion that she remained in a condition bordering on torpor for several hours."

Now, Hailes tells us — and you and I know it was perfectly true — that most of the troubles between the whites and the blacks originated over women! And if it is right for you and I to defend the honor of our wives, daughters, and sweethearts, is it a crime on the part of the black man that he should do the same? Billjim had only to brood a little on his wrongs and he saw red, with a capital 'R.' It was then he seized his spears and his wommeras, and sallied forth, looking for the gore of his enemies. That he was not particular who it was he slew, so long as the color was white, was unfortunate for his innocent victims. But slay he must — or bust.

Francis Hawson: Hero

"Yes." I can hear you say, "but don't forget that Biljim's first murder was his worst — the slaying of a small child in the very worst circumstances of treachery." I have thought a great deal about that murder of young Francis Hawson 93 years ago. I will tell the story presently. Just now I want to put to you for what it is worth my own theory regarding the murder of this 10-year-old boy. You must remember that up to that time the niggers had never killed a white; that the natives were hopelessly superstitious; that they regarded the pale face as a superior being from another world (as, in fact, he was as far as they were concerned), and that they were probably extremely doubtful about their ability to kill a white man.

If you grant that mixture of fact and premise then what is more natural than that, having determined that the time had arrived to seek satisfaction for his wrongs, Biljim decided to try an experiment in the matter of killing these all-important, god-like whites. So, instead of turning his prentice hand against a fully grown specimen of the greatly feared race, who could wield a "firestick" with quick and deadly result, he chose the youngest example he could find for his initial outrage. Having found that a white child was not invulnerable. Biljim turned his attention to the adults of the species— and the reign of terror of the early forties followed.

Tragedy Of The Bush

As you swing round Kirton Point to your anchorage in Boston Bay you will see on an eminence a small white obelisk. It encloses a casket containing all that is mortal of Francis (Frank) Hawson. When you stand on the site you are on historic ground, for just below you is the original grave of young Frank, and below that again buried in the scrub, the remains of the original Hawson homestead. All that is left of the building today is the stone-lined cellar, almost filled with debris.

This homestead on Kirton Point was the headquarters of the Hawson station. You will remember that I told you last week that Henry Hawson was one of the original shareholders in No. 1 Special Survey at Port Lincoln. Frank, the hero of this story, was the youngest of six sons, and one of a family of 13 children. He was the first white murdered by the blacks on Eyre Peninsula.

The tragedy occurred on October 5, 1840. The scene was Little Swamp, a small sheet of water which you may see plainly from the top of Winter's Hill. It is about three miles distant from Port Lincoln. Frank and his elder brother Edward were camped in a hut on the swamp, an out station of the Hawson property, when they ran out of provisions. Edward decided to go into the township for supplies, leaving Frank, 10 years of age, in charge of the hut. Up to this time the blacks, although always a nuisance, had shown no disposition to attack the whites. Nevertheless in those day adventure and disaster were never far away, and as a precaution Edward left a gun and his father's sword with his child brother.

Edward was scarcely out of sight before a party of a dozen aboriginals, big, powerful fellows, armed with long barbed spears, stole out of the scrub, and surrounded the hut. They demanded flour and meat. The child gave them what flour he had, but told them he had no mutton. As the bucks refused to leave the youngster picked up the gun, whereupon the savages scattered into the bush. They knew what that "firestick" could do, and they were taking no chances.

After an interval they came back, but this time they did not approach the hut. Instead they stood at the edge of the scrub. Presently they sent a child of about Frank's own age, armed with a small spear, to play with the white boy. The little native offered to show Frank how to throw a spear. Frank was a child of rare courage, and up to this time he had been standing at the door of the cabin, gun in hand, facing a dozen or more blacks of great stature and perfect physical fitness. Never suspecting the boy native's bona fides, Frank laid his gun against the door post, and advanced into the open to see if he could hurl the spear. Before he could do this the treacherous niggers launched their attack, driving two barbed weapons into the boy's body. Then they decamped.

"I Am Not Afraid To Die"

It was now Frank showed his courage and his fortitude. He crawled back to the hut on his hands and knees, the 1 ft. lances in his little body dragging painfully behind him. He locked the door. Then he endeavored to pull out the weapons. Failing in this, he dragged himself to the fire, and burnt the shafts in the hope of being able to free himself. He failed.

It was somewhere about 10 o'clock at night when Edward returned to the hut to find his brother in a serious plight. The child was suffering the agonies of the damned. He was hurried into Port Lincoln. Dr. J. B. Harvey, a kind of Government pooh-bah, whose acquaintance we shall make more intimately later on, declared it meant immediate death to the boy to extract the spears. But, he added, it was death in any case.

Little Frank smiled. "I am not afraid to die," he said.

Mortification set in, numbing the child's body, and easing his agony. He died four days later. He was buried near the family homestead at Kirton Point. Seventy years later his skeleton was exhumed, placed in a casket, and enclosed in the monument which now dominates the point. The obelisk bears the inscription —

You will note the inscription refers to Frank being buried in Trafalgar street. It is a fact that he was interred in a public road, and that is why his remains were removed to their present resting place. You see, Trafalgar street in 1840 was just a name in the bush — for that matter it still is — an unmade road running down Kirton Point to the sea. It is today much in the same state of nature as it was when Winter, the surveyor of the town, marked it on his plan in 1839. When the Hawsons buried Frank they did not know it was a public road. They thought it was part of their own estate.

Black Terror

Black brother had made a discovery. The magical white was not magical after all. He was mortal. He could be slain like other enemies. True, he could handle that dreaded "firestick" quicker than Biljim could poise and hurl a spear, but that disadvantage could be overcome by strategy— by stealing on the white man unawares. The main thing was that the white man could be killed.

So Biljim went on the warpath, and to such good purpose that within a very short period he had the tiny settlement of Port Lincoln in a state of "nerves." There was only a "handful" of whites; there were thousands of blacks— big, burly fellows as physically perfect as any human God ever made. And when those blacks camped round the little town and their hundreds of campfires punctuated the darkness of the nights on that far-away coast, where no help was to be had, the whites shut themselves up when dusk fell, and the silence of death brooded over the land. And it was not a great deal better by day. The small population lived in constant dread of a massed attack on the town.

A gaol was hurriedly erected, with massive stone walls- eight to ten feet high, decorated at the top with ugly, sharp glass, behind which the whites were advised to retire in the event of black brother swooping down on the port in his thousands to massacre the twenty-odd Europeans who then comprised the settlement.

Portions of the old gaol still exist, but you would never recognise it for the fortification it used to be. It has been converted into offices for the Waterworks Department. Externally its appearance scarcely differs from the newer buildings surrounding it. But the old cells and the old stables are still there, and if you take enough trouble you may find portion of the old wall still carrying its crown of broken bottles. You will find a picture of this section of the wall in the supplement.

Murder Of John Brown

But black brother had no intention of attacking the settlement en masse. He was naturally a cautious beggar and prepared to do his slaughtering in the comparative safety of the wilds. He began harassing the squatters, who, taking their lives in their hands had established isolated stations in the bush, or at places distant some miles from the centre of things. So followed in quick succession two murders which threw the struggling settlement into a hopeless panic— the killing of John Brown, and the massacre on the station of Thomas Biddle.

The holding of John Brown, who came to South Australia from Shields was located near Mount Gawler. It is said to have been the first sheep station established in the Port Lincoln district. Except for the nuisances to which all settlers were subject at the hands of the aboriginals — wholesale begging, and wholesale thieving — Brown had experienced no troubles with the natives during his three years occupancy of his lonely outpost.

Then suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, trouble came. One day, March 2, 1842, a horde of shouting and gesticulating savages swooped down on the hut which Brown shared with a boy employe named Lovelock. Brown saw them coming, and there was no doubt of their hostile intentions. It is not known to this day why the niggers suddenly took it into their heads to raid the station.

Brown ran for his gun, and was just in time to seize it when the first of the blacks attacked him at close quarters. The station-owner knocked him over with the butt of his musket. But that was the sum total of Brown's resistance. Before he could recover from the initial attack an overwhelming number of bloodthirsty warriors threw themselves upon him, and he fell to the ground, wounded in many places.

But he did not die immediately, though mortally injured. He struggled to his knees, and was in an attitude of prayer when he was given the coup de grace. Lovelock, of course, shared the fate of his master. After this tragedy the murderers took to the bush, and nothing further was heard of them for a month.

Raid On Biddle's Station

Thomas Biddle, the next victim in this reign of terror, held a station property about five miles distant from Brown's run. There were on the place, in addition to himself, a shepherd named James Fastings and an elderly married couple named Stubbs. Mrs. Stubbs was verging on her 70th year. The homestead, like all similar buildings of those primitive days, was a humble affair — a hut surrounded by a small garden, enclosed by a paling fence, with various outbuildings scattered about. The roof of the hut was a tarpaulin.

One fine day in April, 1842, James Fastings was passing the fowl shed, thinking about nothing in particular, and least of all about Australian savages, when without warning, several spears flashed past his body, and one lodged in his leg. As fast as his wounded limb would permit he ambled to the hut, and gave the alarm. The occupants scarcely had time  to arm themselves before the blacks were upon them. Finding the occupants ready to defend themselves, the blacks retired for a parley.

They returned an hour later armed with firesticks, with which some of them attempted to set fire to the canvas roof, while others went to the open window, through which they hurled spears at the occupants. Biddle was armed with a pair of pistols, and Stubbs with a double-barrelled gun. Firing through the window. Biddle brought one of the aggressors to the ground, but a moment later himself received a spear through the heart, and fell dead. Stubbs and Fastings, however, continued the fight, while Stubbs's terror-stricken wife hid herself under the bed.

Crawled Miles For Help

Using the gun with cool deliberation, Stubbs sent one of the niggers to Kingdom Come, and qualified another for hospital attention. This appeared to check the aboriginals. Taking advantage of a lull in the fighting, the brave old man went across to Fastings to endeavor to wrench the spear out of his leg. While he was doing this he was knocked unconscious by a flight of lances hurled through the window. At the same moment Fastings was killed by a spear, and fell sprawling across the head of Stubbs. This circumstance saved the latter's life.

As soon as the blacks saw that resistance had ceased they forced in the door and poured into the room. They dragged the half -dead old woman from under the bed, and stabbed her to death with a handy pair of shears. Others, procuring hatchets from a shed, smashed in the heads of their victims until their faces were unrecognisable. Only Stubbs escaped this onslaught, his head being buried under the body of Fastings.

When Stubbs regained his senses a fearful sight met his gaze. The hut was a shambles. His wife and his comrades were dead. Everything portable had been carried off by the murderers. He himself was in a sorry plight. Nevertheless he gritted his teeth, and crawled painfully across country to the neighboring station of White brothers.

These were the same Whites who, as I told you in my Wirrabara article, abandoned their West Coast holdings on account of the ferocity of the natives, and it was probably the fate of John Brown and the Biddle household which decided them to do so.

It so happened that the Resident Magistrate of Port Lincoln was visiting the Whites when Stubbs crawled into the homestead with news of the tragedy. A punitive expedition was formed immediately, and set off into the bush in pursuit of the raiders. They sighted the enemy, but as soon as the blacks saw them they abandoned their plunder and bolted for their lives. None were caught — not on that occasion.

"Forward, 96th"

So far no official attempt had been made to capture the perpetrators of these outrages. But the massacre on the Biddle station brought the crisis to a head. The Port Lincoln settlers went about their business in daily terror. They never knew when they got up in the morning whether they would be alive to go to bed at night. Their representations to Governor Gawler on the subject lacked little of candor. They declared that if nothing was done they would take the law into their own hands. The result was the dispatch of portion of the 96th Regiment of foot to Port Lincoln, with orders to apprehend the murderers.

That sounds simple enough. But the  commander of the soldiers was so hedged round with restrictions by the Governor that he scarcely knew how to handle the culprits when he got them.

Now there are still old residents in Port Lincoln who remember "Rotten Row," though every vestige of its existence has disappeared this many a year. "Rotten Row" was the set of temporary barracks erected for the accommodation of these heroes of the 96th what time they were not marching through the bush in military formation in quest of blackfellows whom they had as much chance of catching as they had of apprehending the man in the moon. "Rotten Row" was located on a site at the back of the present Memorial Hall. It consisted of a row of buildings, put up by the soldiers themselves, composed of slabs, roofed with broom bush.

I ask you, can you conceive of anything more ludicrous than a company of soldiers marching through the bush in strict military formation in search of native murderers? Yet that actually happened at Port Lincoln. And they got some, too — three out of some fifty or sixty concerned in the attack on the Biddle homestead. These niggers were shot in trying to make their escape. But, if the police work of the 96th was a farce, it at least had one desirable result — it impressed the blacks, and from that time onward there was a steady diminution in the number of native outrages.

How Darke Was Killed

At the home of Mr. J. K. Bishop, Port Lincoln, I met Mrs. C. Theakstone, daughter-in-law of John Theakstone, second in command on Duke's tragic exploring expedition of 1844. You will remember that John Darke, who assisted in surveying the city of Melbourne, came to South Australia to explore the unknown country to the north-west of Port Lincoln, and was treacherously murdered by the natives while doing so. The township of Darke's Peak, on the railway line to Kimba, marks the locality of the tragedy.

Darke was very well-known at Port Lincoln in the forties, having made the settlement his headquarters. In his youth he had rather a romantic career in New South Wales and Tasmania, and became a past-master in the science of bushcraft. It was in August of 1844 that Darke and his party set out for the north west country. For two months they never saw a native.

But suddenly, on October 22, strong party of them made their appearance at the surveyor's camp. They were kindly received, and given presents of sugar, damper, and a few knick-knacks which had taken their fancy. They spurned the damper. This it was assumed, was because, following the murder of John Brown, a number of niggers had been poisoned through eating damper which contained arsenic. I cannot tell you how the poison got there —but it did. However, the blacks seemed satisfied with their treatment, and went off without creating any impression of hostility.

But the following morning, just as the explorers were preparing to move off, tragedy overtook the little party with the swiftness of the unexpected. One of the men had gone off to get the bullocks, and Darke strolled a little distance from his companions, alone and unarmed. Theakstone saw him for a moment standing behind a tree, and then turned his attention elsewhere. There was no sign of niggers in the vicinity.

Suddenly Theakstone heard Darke utter a cry, a combination of surprise and pain. Running to the spot the men found their leader transfixed to the ground by three spears, and in terrible agony. One of the men, seeing an aboriginal in the act of hurling a spear, fired at him and missed. About twenty blacks then showed themselves for an instant, before disappearing into the scrub. The surveyors let them go, and turned their attention to their wounded chief.

Darke had received one spear through the abdomen, one in the hip, and one in the knee. The spears were withdrawn from Darke's body, but the operation caused him excruciating pain, particularly the weapon in the knee, which was barbed. Fears were entertained for the safety of the man who had gone for the bullocks, and who had been absent a long time. Moreover the explorers were waiting for the oxen to begin their sad journey back to Port Lincoln, over 100 miles away. They heaved a sigh of relief when, half an hour later, the absentee safely led his animals into camp.

Buried In The Bush

Darke was placed in a bullock dray, and the party started for Lincoln. The leader knew that he was dying, and was anxious to reach civilisation before he breathed his last. He had a strong aversion from being interred in the wilderness in which he had spent so great a portion of his life. He suffered terribly from the jolting of the dray over the rough country, so that his companions were forced to improvise a hammock to lessen the pain.

But the day following the tragedy it was obvious that Darke would never reach Port Lincoln. Mortification had set in. He died towards midnight. Much as the men desired to honor the request of their leader to be buried in the settlement, or on the coast, the rapid decay of the body made compliance impossible. So Darke was buried in the bush. A big patch of grass was burnt round the grave so that the natives would not be able to find the spot, and disturb the remains.

The rest of the party struggled on to wards Port Lincoln, enduring hardships from thirst and fatigue that beggar description. They were mere gaunt skeletons covered with skin when they reached their goal, so much so that, when Theakstone encountered a friend who knew him well, he had to explain who he was before he was recognised.

NEXT WEEK:  STORY OF PORT LINCOLN (continued).

Images:

• Exhumation of the remains of Frank Hawson, murdered by the blacks 93 years ago. The story of the tragedy is told on this page.

• All that remains of the original Hawson home at Kirton Point, Port Lincoln, where the boy, Frank, died in 1840.