Most of what we know about the people involved in the Australian Frontier Wars, and the massacres that unfolded, comes from the journals of those who were involved in them; that is, European settlers, pastoralists, and government officials. They also come (especially with regard to the massacres) from Aboriginal oral histories, which continue to confirm and complement archaeological finds across Australia.
For decades, the narrative sponsored by white Australia has focused on one side and largely overlooked the other. For decades, the stories and actions of Aboriginal leaders such as Multuggerah, Tarenorerer, Yagan, and Pemulwuy, have been ignored, their existence denied by the kind of colonial narrative determined to portray Aboriginal people as a vanishing race unable to resist the encroachment of Western values. This is far from the truth, and what this article will explore.
Frontier Wars or Aboriginal Resistance?
James Cook claimed Australia for the British Crown in 1770. Eight years later, on January 20th, 1778, the First Fleet landed at what is now Botany Bay. This marked the establishment of the first penal colony on Australian soil, which in turn marked the beginning of the Frontier Wars (now also known as Australia’s “Undeclared War” or “Aboriginal Resistance”).
From the 1790s onward, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders responded to European encroachment with guerrilla warfare tactics. Relying on their deep knowledge of the land, they blocked routes (especially stock routes), scared off settlers’ cattle with dingoes and fire, and ambushed British soldiers, settlers, landowners, miners, and stockmen, either killing them or preventing them from entering their territory (like the Jagera people did in September 1843 during the so-called Battle of One Tree Hill in the Darling Downs area in Queensland). To each attack, the white population responded with (bloody) punitive expeditions.
The Frontier Wars were especially violent in Queensland between the 1830s and the 1890s, with a peak between the 1830s and 1860s. Here, the Native Mounted Police carried out hundreds of killings, which according to today’s standards are nothing less than genocidal acts. Their objective was to protect the lives and property of settlers in the Outback against the incursions of Aboriginal people, and they had official orders to “disperse and dispatch” any Aboriginal group they encountered. “Disperse and dispatch” was a euphemism for killing.
Across Australia, the Native Police also consisted of detachments of Aboriginal troopers, who partook in the massacres acting under the orders of white, often British officers. The Native Police was, for all intents and purposes, yet another colonial tool that operated on both a physical and psychological level in the disruption of Aboriginal society, exploiting (and highlighting) the existing conflicts between Aboriginal tribes.
Australian historian Henry Reynolds has described the Native Mounted Police as “the most violent organization in Australian history.” Sometimes, in their “war” against Aboriginal people, settlers resorted to poison, as happened in Queensland between 1842 and 1847.
In 1842 at Kilcoy, in south-eastern Queensland, a group of shepherds fled their station after a series of Aboriginal attacks. They left behind poisoned bags of flour which ultimately killed around sixty people of the Giggarbarah and Woogunbarah clans. Five years later, from fifty to sixty Gubbi Gubbi people at Whiteside Station were poisoned with arsenic. In some instances, settlers also poisoned Aboriginal waterholes and deliberately offered local Aboriginal people poisoned food.
We know when the Frontier Wars began, but when did they end? Some historians believe it ended when the Native Mounted Police was disbanded in 1904. Others maintain that their end coincides with the Coniston Massacre in 1928, the last (or at least the last to be officially recorded) massacre of Aboriginal people on Australian soil. On this occasion, at least 31 people of the Warlpiri, Kaytetye, and Anmatyerre clans were killed in the area surrounding the Coniston Cattle Station in the Northern Territory, although Aboriginal oral histories maintain that the number was closer to 200.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders maintain that the Frontier Wars never really ended. To quote Bob Spearim from Common Ground, “ … it is important to remember that just because Europeans stopped killing First Nations people under the Frontier Wars, it doesn’t mean that First Nations people have stopped dying as a result of British invasion and the ongoing processes of colonisation.”
1. Pemulwuy (1750-1802), the Bidjigal Warrior From Sydney
In 1802, the head of an Aboriginal man preserved in spirits was sent to Joseph Banks (1743-1820) in England. The man’s name was Bembilwuyam, but he was known to Europeans as Pemulwuy. He was born around 1750 in the Botany Bay area of Sydney and was a member of the Bidjigal clan of the Eora Nation, the first people to encounter the British of the First Fleet in 1788.
European beliefs and worldviews immediately clashed with those of the Eora. In 1790, Pemulwuy and a group of other Bidgigal people killed John McIntyre, Governor Arthur Phillip’s gamekeeper. The convict was particularly hated by the Eora (including Bennelong), and suspected (by his own men) of having murdered some of the Bidgigal. Retaliation followed, but the expedition, the largest up to that point, was a failure. British officials were unable to locate Pemulwuy and his men.
The killing of McIntyre marked the beginning of what historians have re-named “the Pemulwuy war,” which was to last up until he died in 1802. Over the next twenty years, Pemulwuy established himself as a leading figure of the Aboriginal resistance.
With his men, he conducted a series of raids on British settlers and convicts, ambushing them, killing their livestock, and burning their crops and huts. They methodically raided the region around the Hawkesbury and Georges Rivers (the latter part of the ancestral lands of both the Eora and Yuin Nations), as well as the area now occupied by the Sydney suburbs, and the so-called Northern Boundary (or Northern Farms), around present-day Carlingford and Oatlands, an area recently opened up to British settlement, north-east of Parramatta area. It was here that the so-called Battle of Parramatta took place on March 21, 1797.
At dawn, Pemulwuy marched into the settlement with a group of at least 100 Bidjigal warriors threatening to spear whoever tried to stop him. They were equipped with spears, boomerangs, and stones. The British soldiers stationed there eventually opened fire on them, killing five of them instantly. Others died later. Pemulwuy was shot seven times but survived. The British transported him to the hospital. A few weeks later, against all odds, he recovered and fled, unhindered by the cuffs around his ankles.
The Battle of Parramatta sealed Pemulwuy’s reputation. Many believed him to be immune to British bullets. And he was — until 1802 when he lost his life to a bullet fired by British sailor Henry Hacking. His head was severed and Philip Gidley King (1758-1808), the third Governor of New South Wales, shipped it to Joseph Banks with a note that read: “Although (Altho) a terrible pest to the colony, he was a brave and independent character.”
2. Yagan (1795-1833), the Noongar Leader From Perth
The figure of Yagan is inseparable from the early years of the Swan River Colony (or Swan River Settlement) in present-day Western Australia. The colony was established in 1829 in Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Whadjuk Boodjar by its Traditional Custodians) along and around the banks of the Swan River. According to Aboriginal tradition, the river was created by Waugul (the Rainbow Serpent) during the Dreamtime era. Three years later the settlement was renamed the Colony of Western Australia.
Unlike the penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (today Tasmania), it was a “free” settlement. Around 15,000 Aboriginal people were living in the area. Its capital, Perth, was founded in August 1829. By 1832, around 1,500 Europeans had already moved to the area despite threats of starvation. From 1850, a new influx of Europeans arrived, mainly convicts, brought in to build roads and infrastructure, to make life liveable for fellow Europeans. More lands were fenced off, and more Aboriginal people were displaced.
The Noongars responded to European encroachment on their lands by carrying out attacks on their lands. They mainly “stole” livelihood and cattle in what they initially saw as a justified system of reciprocity.
Yagan, the son of Midgegooroo, a renowned Whadjuk Noongar Elder, was a famous figure among the Noongar and the Europeans alike. According to an 1833 article in the Perth Gazette (the same newspaper that condemned Yagan’s killing as a “treacherous act”), he was a “master of ceremonies,” and extremely talented in performing corroborees. In his journals Advocate General George Fletcher Moore describes him as an imposing figure with “a distinctive tribal marking on his right shoulder and down his back,” who was often seen wearing “a soldier’s old coat under his kangaroo cloak to hide his mark, to avoid recognition by settlers.”
The misunderstandings caused by the Europeans’ disregard for Aboriginal customs and traditions define Yagan’s life and death. In 1832, a group of Noongar people “trespassed” on the property of Archibald Butler and raided his potato patch. One of the man’s servants shot them. In retaliation, Yagan and his father Midgegooroo speared and killed another servant of the Butler’s household. It didn’t matter that he was innocent. From the Noongars’ perspective, his death was justified by tribal law.
In June 1832, Yagan speared and killed William Gaze, as he was sowing a field of wheat near Kelmscott on the banks of the Canning River. Yagan, now one of the most famous outlaws in the Colony of Western Australia, was captured three months later, and taken to the Round House prison in Fremantle. He was later exiled to Carnac Island, from where he managed to escape, along with two other Noongar prisoners.
Yagan was killed in July 1833 by two shepherd boys on the Upper Swan. One of them died in the fight that ensued. The other, James Keats collected the reward before leaving for England, which is where, several months later, Yagan’s head was shipped. It arrived in Liverpool in September, where it was put on display as an “anthropological curiosity.”
According to historian Neville Green, author of Broken Spears, between July and September, Yagan’s severed head had been first hidden in a hollow trump and then preserved through the smoke of gum leaves. It was repatriated on September 1, 1997, 164 years after Yagan’s death. In July 2010, it was finally buried in the Swan Valley, on land that only two centuries earlier had been owned in its entirety by Yagan’s ancestors.
3. Tarenorerer (1800-1831), the Female Warrior From Tasmania
In her lifetime, Tarenorerer was one of Tasmania’s most feared warriors. She was a member of the Tommeginne clan, who, according to the AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia, were the Custodians of the lands on which major cities like Burnie, Devonport, and Ulverstone were built in the 19th century, in the northwest of Tasmania.
At the time of Tarenorerer’s life and death, the island was a penal colony known as Van Diemen’s Land (it was named Tasmania, after the Dutch explorer, only in 1856). Most of the information about Tarenorerer’s life and death comes from the impressions that preacher and master builder George Augustus Robinson (1791-1866) recorded about her in his diaries. Obviously, these were tainted by Robinson’s perspective as a white, British-born man and colonial official who had been called to Hobart to try and negotiate peace between Aboriginal Tasmanians and European settlers.
Tarenorerer was likely born at present-day Emu Bay around 1800. Her people were the Traditional Custodians of Table Cape, a strategic area that provided access to Robbins Island, where they would gather shells and fish. For centuries, since 1606, her ancestors had traded kangaroo skins for tobacco, tea, and flour with European sealers. Around 1825, Tarenorerer suffered the fate of many other Aboriginal women from the North West Nation. She was enslaved and held against her will by white sealers until 1828, when she finally managed to escape.
While enslaved, she became familiar with firearms and, upon her escape, she reportedly spoke English fluently. By then, the individual skirmishes between settlers and Aboriginal people had escalated into the so-called Black War. Clans were decimated. Aboriginal people were executed point-blank during the so-called “Black Line,” a march planned and carried out by settlers across the whole island looking for Aboriginal people to kill.
Colonists continued to kill kangaroos for sport, which constituted a major offense for Aboriginal people. In 20 years, from an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 Aboriginal people living in Tasmania around 1803, the Aboriginal population had been reduced to 1,000. Tarenorerer quickly established herself as the leader of the Plairhekehillerplue, the clan (or collection of clans — historians and linguists are still debating) living around Emu Bay, her homeland. She taught them how to use firearms. She instructed them to aim for the settlers’ livelihoods and cattle. She taught them how to respond to colonial propaganda and manipulate white fears. She knew how to incite revolt.
According to historian Valorie Castellanos Clark, “Once ensconced on a Swan Island reservation, Tarenorerer began circulating a story that Robinson was bringing in soldiers to either jail or kill all Aboriginal people. Naturally, this caused unrest, especially because Robinson had expressly promised the people living on Swan Island that they would be safe there. Exasperated, he sent Tarenorerer away.”
Tarenorerer died in prison in late May (or early June 1832) on Gun Carriage Island, sick with influenza. Aboriginal resistance continued after Tarenorerer’s death and saw other leaders, such as Tunnerminnerwait (1812-1842) and Maulboyheenner (1816-1842) wage war against settlers, robbing stations and stealing ammunitions, and asserting their right to continue living on the lands of their ancestors.
4. Multuggerah (1820-1846), the Yagera Fighter From Queensland
The lives and stories of Tarenorerer, Yagan, and Pemulwuy are part of what Australian anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner (1905-1981) once described as “the great Australian silence.” So is Multuggerah, the mastermind behind one of the most significant Aboriginal victories during the Frontier Wars, the so-called Battle of One Tree Hill in 1843. Multuggerah was born in the 1820s in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, in present-day southeast Queensland.
Enclosed by the Great Dividing Range, this area is among the most fertile in the whole world and the ancestral home of the Ugarapul people, who identify as part of the Jagera (Yagara or Yugara) language group. The Battle of One Tree Hill represented the direct response to the Kilcoy massacre and the culmination of a long period of guerrilla warfare between the local Aboriginal people and pastoralists, who since 1840 had been settling in much of southern Queensland and establishing large cattle stations.
On February 1, 1842, two shepherds employed by Evan MacKenzie at the Kilcoy station gave the local Aboriginal people flour laced with strychnine. Sixty of them died in the following days. Many mass poisonings occurred before and after the Kilcoy, with settlers secretly poisoning waterholes and putting arsenic, prussic acid, and corrosive sublimation in the food they knew Aboriginal people would consume.
On September 12, 1843, warriors belonging to the mountain tribes alliance led by Multuggerah ambushed a group of squatters and settlers on their way to the Lockyer Valley. The previous day they had placed logs across the road and blocked its sides with saplings tied to the trees. When the settlers stopped to remove the logs, the Aboriginal warriors attacked. Some sources indicate that there were at least 100 of them. The settlers fled and left everything they had behind them — drays, supplies, and bullocks.
After sacking the drays, Multuggerah and his men retreated up One Tree Hill, also known as Tabletop Mountain, or by its Aboriginal name, Meewah. When the Europeans attempted to climb up, they rained stones and boulders on them.
The Aboriginal victory in the Lockyer Valley owes much to Multuggerah’s genius, as he managed to bring together people from different tribal groups, much like Shawnee leader Tecumseh did in North America. To put it with Uncle Wayne Fossey, Elder-in-Residence at the University of Southern Queensland and fierce advocate of Indigenous land rights, “he was able to unite people, which was pretty challenging at the time. Given the blackfella ways then, crossing into someone else’s territory could get you killed.”
Today, a sign at Tobruk Memorial Drive Lookout, in Toowoomba, was recently erected to commemorate Multuggerah’s leadership. The local community and the Battle of Meewah Commemoration Committee fought hard to have it replace the older and cracked one.
From the narrative of victimhood that has dominated Australian history, the stories of Multuggerah, Tarenorerer, Yagan, and Pemulwuy create a different opposing narrative. Aboriginal warriors did exist. Aboriginal resistance did take place. It was bound to fail, perhaps, as spears and stones could not win against European rifles, but that doesn’t mean that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders did not have the knowledge and capacity to found coalitions, and organize carefully planned and highly-organized attacks on European settlers. They did.
