Accounts of Waterloo Bay 'Massacre'

' Friendly desire ... led him to raise the plane of discussion from fact to fancy.' — Finlayson, in "The Red Centre."

The earliest written account of the Waterloo Bay " massacre" appears to be in the ' Observer ' of August 14, 1880 under the significant heading 'The Sketcher,' and is an article by 'H.J.C.' Are these initials also significant ? ' H.J.C.' was ' the possessor of a facile pen and fertile imagination ' (thanks to the 'Advertiser' Centenary souvenir paper for this apt expression).

The writer stated that he went to Port Lincoln to learn sheep farming in 184 . . . and went to Callala, the head station being Yellowna. There were not a dozen settlers in the whole of the Peninsula. He then details how to arrive at Capt.'B ? (I suppose Beevor's name is suggested. — J.D.S.), where the captain had squatted with his two or three men and two or three thousand sheep and felt perfectly secure. Then he relates the murder of Captain B. by the natives.

"Elated with their success and maddened with the sight of blood," he said, "they started in search of fresh victims," first rifling the hut of its contents. The sacking of the hut is told very graphically, as is also, the trail left by the flour leaking out of the bags ; "from thence, in a body, they proceeded to the next station, Lake Hamilton, 18 miles distant, where a man with his young and pretty wife had charge of a flock of sheep."

WIFE SUSPICIOUS

Multulti, the black chief, the owner of two lubras or wives, was on the lookout for another young and handsome wife. "The shepherd's wife had attracted his eye and inflamed his passions." This black would doubtless be Mululta, who was arrested for the murder of John Hamp but apparently never brought to trial. Previously the shepherd's wife had been suspicious, and advised her husband, who forthwith drove the black chief from the station with a warning if he reappeared at the station he would be shot. "Multulti nursed his revenge and stirred up the blood of his tribe, until now it had burst forth."

The shepherd's wife, unsuspicious, was preparing some little bush dainty for her husband on his return, "when she became aware of the black in the doorway, seizing a spear made of a shear blade, she tried to bar the entrance — tried to fight, but the black seized the weapon and turned it against herself. She fell fainting to the ground. Speedily she was aroused by the cries of her child, who had been snatched by her murderers from its slumbers and he now stood by the stone chimney poising the child by its heels ere striking the blow: which should rob it of its life. With a scream poor Mary tried to rise to the succour of her babe; but the effort was in vain, and she saw the scoundrel dash out its brains against the mantel. The next moment a heavy blow fell upon her own head, shutting out the light of life for ever."

After robbing the hut, the natives proceeded to another station a few miles distant, where "they found the hutkeeper busily engaged outside cut ting wood with a crosscut. Pouncing on him with a yell, ere he was aware of their presence, some of them held him to the ground while two others seizing the saw, proceeded to cut his head in half while yet alive." Night drawing on, the natives proceeded to a promontory on the coast, a point well chosen for concealment.

DISCOVERY OF MURDERS

"During the hours of the afternoon the several victims remained where they had fallen undisturbed. The murders were discovered simultaneously. The hutkeeper was found by the returning shepherd who immediately started for the homestead with the news; the captain was discovered by his men. The story of the return of the husband of Mary is almost too pathetic to tell— as 'H.J.C' told it. Instead of a welcome smile, on passing the threshold he "beheld her dead form, stiff and cold — soaking in a pool of her own blood ; while their cherished babe whose "brains were spattered around, lay a little distance away."

Away he went to muster a party for the pursuit and met ten men already on the warpath, some on horse, some on foot, gathering; more volunteers for the attack. As night closed in 25 men, fully armed, had gathered. A Sydney black had been sent out scouting and returned with the news of the blacks' camp. Daybreak the following morning saw the whites on the way. The hot headed were anxious to rush the murderers at once ; the cooler heads prevailing, marched the party slowly and quietly, knowing that the blacks with their booty would not stir for a day or two.

Midday saw them within a quarter of a mile of the camp. Then follows a picturesque description of the blacks' camp on the promontory. The avenging party spread out and advanced — a sentinel being left on a good lookout point. Some black children gave the alarm, the blacks rushed for their spears, and a volley came from the whites. The blacks, encouraged by Multulti discharged volleys of spears, and at tempted to break through the line of fire which encompassed them; in vain.

Why continue the tale of slaughter? — How Harry the husband of Mary, ran berserk and the natives continually tried to break through the ranks, until the whites broke cover and rushed upon the natives "and after a few moments' hand-to-hand encounter drove them headlong over the cliff. A few moments more, and all those who had fallen under fire were buried after them and there remained no trace of the natives save a few pools of blood, some broken spears, the remains of camp fires and plunder."

Harry, the husband of Mary, was restored to life from a blow from a native but his senses were gone, and he spent the remainder of his life wandering from place to place in search of vengeance. Multulti, with four others and a boy escaped. Hunted from place to place until surprised by the horse police, four were taken, Multulti and the boy escaping. Of the four prisoners, two died in goal and two were condemned to be hung in front of Capt. B — 's hut "and between two sheoak trees they expiated their crimes." Multulti, some years afterwards, was captured by the police and taken to Adelaide, where, doubtless, he ended his life.

COCKBURN'S ACCOUNT

This is the gist of the story told by ' H.J.C.' — not very pleasant, and it will take more than the quotation at the head of this article to erase the impression sent out to the world. It will be noticed in this tale that no mention is made of the head in the camp oven. When that story originated I do not know, but when I was in Port Lincoln the tale of the "head in the oven'' was quite common. Years after ' H.J.C's.' account, Rodney Cockburn compiled his Nomenclature of South Australia (1908) ; the official correspondence was not then available, for the Archives as now constituted only came into existence in 1920, so Cockburn had to rely on the current tales. Before I tell his then views, let me state that in 1929 he wrote of those tales "The greatest joke ever handed down from pioneer times." However, in 1908 he recorded, "it is said that Waterloo Bay, on which Elliston stands, was so called because the settlers drove the blacks, who had been very hostile, over the high cliffs at the southern end of the bay (Cape Wellesley)." That quotation was supplied to Cockburn by a person who shielded himself under the nom de plume, 'Resident of Yankalilla.'

When Cockburn came to the name Waterloo Bay he wrote, "Waterloo Bay is reminiscent of early days on the West Coast, where the blacks were trouble some. Their depredations and want of respect for life had become so flagrant that the white settlers determined to teach them a salutary lesson. A real campaign was organised and in a fight which resulted the natives were practically exterminated. Those who were not killed outright in the affray were driven over the high cliffs.'

MYTH FURTHER SUPPORTED

The next trace of an account that A. T. Saunders could find was in the 'Bulletin' of May 22, 1924, "The law- was slow in avenging the murders of white shepherds in outlying stations on the West Coast, so settlers mustered the blacks — tradition says that there were over a hundred of them — and rode or drove them over the cliffs of an inlet ever since known as Waterloo Bay." In the issue of the same paper of June 26, 1924, another writer gives the following details. He said, "I have stood in the ruins of the hut where the murder took place which led to such terrible reprisals. Two brothers returning with the sheep towards evening, met some 'niggers' who laughingly told them, that they would "find 'em plum pudding alonga camp oven." On entering the hut they found no sign of the hutkeeper (their father) till the lid was lifted from the oven. There was his freshly severed head! Mustering every available settler in the district and armed with rifles and shotguns, they rounded up the blacks, some 80 or 90, I am informed by an old settler, and the massacre began. Cut off from retreat to the bush, the natives were forced towards the cliffs, at this point about 70 feet high and were either driven over or shot on the edge and fell to the rocks below. I have, at low tide, seen the crevice amongst the boulders still carrying a fair quantity of whitened bones and that was 50 years after the occurrence.'

(Another Instalment Next Week.)