This article was published on page 20 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 19th of February 2014, under the heading A new look at our Aboriginal past.

After setting out to write a history of the early contact between Aborigines and settlers on the Hawkesbury in 2002, Windsor Downs historian Barry Corr found the documents were one-sided, full of gaps; and dates, events, people and places were all over the place. So he shifted his focus to look at the ways the early documents were written to try and understand not just what happened, but what people thought was happening on the Hawkesbury 1788-1910. Here he reveals a number of Hawkesbury landmarks that show how complex the early settlement was.

It is curious that in a place so rich in colonial heritage such as the Hawkesbury, so little of its Aboriginal story is known or visible. The one place in the Hawkesbury which tells me most about this story of our shared past is an old stained glass window in a Hawkesbury church. It shows Jesus, lantern in hand, looming out of the darkness, to knock on an overgrown door that can only be opened from the inside. In the Hawkesbury, we don’t open that door on our past much, even though we do not have to look far to see the Aboriginal presence.

When we think about what we now call Thompson’s Square, we rarely consider that it was originally a parade ground. Captain Macarthur sent soldiers of the NSW Corps there in 1795 “for the express purpose of defending the Settlers from the attacks of the Natives in consequence of the representation from the Settlers that they were in Danger of being murdered by the Natives.” We only have to look around to see where the commissary store, barracks and officer’s quarters were and close our eyes to imagine the soldiers and settlers marching out on their expeditions.

There are several graveyards only a short distance from Thompsons Square that tell us that relations between Aboriginal people and the settlers were not all violent. In the old cemetery by South Creek lie the remains of five years old John Pilot Rickerby, a child of white and Aboriginal parents who was taken in by the Rickerbys. Further up the hill and just outside the west door of St Matthews Church according to oral tradition, a convict and his Aboriginal wife are buried. Their tombstone is long gone.

Heading to Richmond, we pass the gates of Kamilaroi, Ben Richards’ old mansion. The name Kamilaroi can be traced back not to the Kamilaroi people of the Hunter, but to one of Richards’ horses that came from the Hunter. A short distance away in St Peters cemetery, Joseph Hobson’s tombstone still stands testimony to his spearing in July 1816. He was the last of five white people killed on the Kurry Jong Slopes in 1816. A week after Hobson’s death, four Aboriginal men, Cockey, Butta Butta, Jack Straw and Port Head Jamie were hung in a line from the Grose River across the Slopes to where Comleroy Road joins Bells Line of Road. Comleroy Road once was the only road out of the Hawkesbury into Kamilaroi country in the Hunter Valley.

Further up Bell’s Line we come to Bilpin. According to Wikipedia, Bilpin was originally “Bell’s Pinnacle”, and was named after young Archibald Bell, who passed by in 1823; but the name more likely comes from Pulpin, who was awarded a brass breastplate by Governor Macquarie in 1816. Travelling across country to Sackville cemetery, one can find the grave of Martha Everingham, who died in 1926, supposedly the last Aboriginal person on the Hawkesbury. A little further downstream on Cumberland Reach there is a memorial to the Aboriginal people who once lived there on the Sackville Reach Aboriginal Reserve. For

many Hawkesbury people, Martha’s death and the knocking down of the memorial in the old reserve meant that the Aboriginal people were all gone and could be forgotten. The door was closed and the Hawkesbury went to sleep. Even the horror of the fearful old man and his stained glass window were forgotten.

Barry’s book on our early history is called Pondering the Abyss and is available online at www.nangarra.com.au. This is a free resource and Barry said he “welcomes constructive criticism in an effort to open some doors and make some connections”.

The Gazette will feature articles by Barry this year which he said would “allow readers to appreciate both the light and dark sides of our shared history”.

This article was published on page 58 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 14th of May 2014, under the heading Darug contact was cordial.Early contact between settlers and Aboriginal people on the Hawkesbury was well intentioned but confused.

The settlers found Aboriginal people to be quite puzzling. Aborigines did not want trinkets; had no chiefs who could be seduced or killed; and had no temples, priests or idols to be overthrown. Nakedness and the lack of herds and crops defied the Book of Genesis.

Aboriginal people were equally mistaken. They shouted at the newcomers Worra Worra Wea & seem quite surprised at not being answered. Escaped convicts were told that they were undoubtedly the ancestors of some of them who had fallen in battle, and had returned from the sea to visit them again. Aborigines thought that the newcomers were not strangers, but unwelcome relatives.

Governor Phillip’s early attempts to find a river and farmland led to a lot of confusion. Twice in March 1788 he unsuccessfully tried to find the river in Broken Bay. In April he climbed a ridge where he saw the Grose River Valley. He called the northern side the Carmarthen Hills the southern side the Lansdowne Hills, and a hill in-between, Richmond Hill.

When the Sirius returned from the Cape of Good Hope in May 1789, Phillip used the ship’s boats to explore the Hawkesbury. Captain Hunter puzzled over how Aboriginal people could exist at any distance from the sea: for the land, as far as we yet know, affords very little sustenance for the human race. Phillip rowed upriver as far as the entrance of the Grose River. He finally settled the name Richmond Hill upon its present location, and what later became Windsor, he called the Green Hills, for its similarity to the Thames Valley. Others noted Phillip’s references to the Thames River and added The Terrace, Ham Common and Enfield to the Hawkesbury landscape. On this journey he gave the Blue Mountains their present name, and the names, Carmarthen and Landsdowne Hills disappeared. Later in 1789 Governor Phillip visited the river found by Watkin Tench flowing north along the foot of the Blue Mountains and named it the Nepean River, even though he believed it flowed into the Hawkesbury.

In April 1791 Governor Phillip attempted to return to Richmond Hill by land. He took Colebee and Boladaree with him, possibly as guides and possibly for protection. Colebee and Boladaree were unclear as to the purpose of the trip and had a good time laughing at the difficulties of the explorers as they made their way to modern Pit Town. Near Bardo Narrang

Creek Colebee and Boladaree introduced the Governor to Gombeeree, his son Yellomundee and grandson Deeimba. It was to be a most important meeting, for this family went out of their way to form good relations with the settlers. Ten years later Yellomundee appeared to have taken up residence around what was called Yellow-Mundie-Lagoon and is now called Yarramundi Lagoon. He probably sold eels from the lagoon to the settlers. In 1804 he was described by the Sydney Gazette as a Richmond Hill chief who helped stop the fighting between Aborigines and settlers. Yellomundee’s daughter, Maria, was born around 1808 somewhere near the Lagoon. In 1814 she was the first student in Governor Macquarie’s Parramatta Native Institution, where she learnt to read and write well. Her brother, Colebee, worked on Cox’s road in 1814, served as a guide on punitive expeditions in 1816, was a sailor on the sealing ships and a constable in the 1820s. Maria became the first Aborigine to marry a European, Robert Lock, a convict carpenter, on Australia Day, 1824. In 1831, in a beautifully composed memorial to Governor Darling, Maria requested ownership of a land grant made to her deceased brother, Colebee. In the memorial she described herself as an Aboriginal native, of New South Wales, becoming the first Aboriginal person to do so. Maria and Robert had ten children and many Australians trace their ancestry back through Maria, to Yellomundee and Gomberee.

This article was published on page 24 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 11th of June 2014, under the heading Deaths underestimated to London.There was a link between the killings on the Hawkesbury, expanding settlement and drought. Settlement grew rapidly around Windsor between one drought that started around 1794 and another that finished in 1799. Governor’s despatches, journals, private letters, and the transcript of a murder trial record that 14-16 settlers were killed and four wounded, 1794-99. All the settlers killed were men, except for the Rowe infant. At least 28-31 Aboriginal men women and children were killed and several wounded in the same period. Probably three of these killings involved attacks upon sleeping camps.

The first Aboriginal person was killed in April 1794. In August 1794 an Aboriginal boy was killed on Argyle Reach, leading to Aboriginal warriors plundering huts and wounding two settlers. In response settlers killed 7-8 Aboriginal people and took a number of children.

Joseph Burdett was the first settler killed in late 1794 where South Creek and East Creek meet. In February 1795 the store house was built and Serjeant Goodall and six privates were sent “for the express purpose of defending the Settlers from the attacks of the Natives”. In March 1795 Thomas Webb’s farm on the left bank of Canning Reach was plundered and soon after he was speared and mortally wounded. Wilson and Thorp were killed in June on the other side of Canning Reach.

In June 1795 Lieutenant Abbott and sixty soldiers were sent to Hawkesbury “for the purpose of driving the natives away”. Officially the soldiers killed seven to eight people taking corn from a paddock and captured a number of men, women and children. However, a private letter tells of settlers and soldiers forcing an Aboriginal boy to take them to a camp of friendly Aborigines and killing them. After William Rowe and his infant son were killed on their isolated farm near North Richmond the soldiers went out again. In December 1795 the Addys Creek farms at Sackville were burnt out. Five Aboriginal people were reported killed in a reprisal raid.

John Lacey was mortally wounded in a boat in January 1796; the two Hyndes’ brothers were killed on their Bushells Lagoon farm a month later. In April 1797 a settler’s farm and wheat

were burnt. In October 1797 one boat was taken and the crew killed and the crew of another boat repelled an attack, killing some attackers.

Mary Archer reported in September 1799 that two Aboriginal boys, Little Jemmy and Little George, had been murdered on Constable Edward Powell’s Argyle Reach farm. If not for this trial we would know nothing of many of the Hawkesbury killings. The trial showed that the NSW Corps kept no records of expeditions against Aboriginal people, perhaps not surprising given their large land-holdings along Freemans Reach.

The trial showed that relations between settlers and Aboriginal people were complex. In February 1798 Hawkesbury Aborigines, Major White, Terribandy, Little Charley, Little George and Little Jemmy helped kill three settlers on Tarlington’s Prospect farm; they killed a settler on the Race Ground (Mulgrave) and wounded David Brown on his Wilberforce farm. In late 1798 a settler killed an Aboriginal man on the Race Ground in an argument over a kangaroo. Despite these conflicts, in March 1799 Aboriginal people warned settlers of approaching floods.

Trouble flared in early August 1799 when Private Cooper killed an Aboriginal woman and child. There were attacks along the road to Parramatta. In the midst of this trouble, Hodgkinson, an Argyle Reach farmer engaged Little George, Little Jemmy and a third Aboriginal lad to act as guides on a hunting trip. The lads absconded after they saw that Wimbow, another settler, was going too. Terribandy and Major White took their place. Terribandy was Little Jemmy’s older brother and the father of the Aboriginal girl living with Wimbow. Hodgkinson and Wimbow were killed on the southern side of the Grose Valley, probably because of the failure of Wimbow to honour the reciprocal arrangements involved in living with an Aboriginal female.

In September 1799, Major White, Little Charley and Little Jemmy and others plundered Blady’s South Creek farm. A few days later Little Charley was captured and Cappy wounded on Burnes’ South Creek farm. Around the same time, Jonas Archer, who had also engaged Major White to go hunting with him, asked Yellowgowy to arrange for the return of Hodgkinson’s musket. Little George, Little Jemmy and a third lad turned up on Forrester’s farm with the musket. Little George and Little Jemmy were killed by a group of settlers and buried on Powell’s farm. The third lad escaped. Despite a guilty verdict, Powell, Freebody, Metcalfe, Timms and Butler were pardoned. Forty years later, Hawkesbury men were involved on both sides of the court in the Myall Creek massacre trial, with very different results.

This article was split and published on page 24 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 9th of July 2014, under the heading Death on both sides and on 16th of July 2014 under the heading Deaths underestimated to Lndon.Windsor Downs historian Barry Corr continues his series on early contact between Aborigines and settlers.

Fighting stretched along the length of the Nepean-Hawkesbury Rivers in 1804-05. Again it was a time of drought as settlement moved downstream towards the MacDonald River.

In May 1804, Matthew Everingham, his wife and servant on their Sackville Reach farm; and John Howe on his Swallow Rock Reach farm were wounded. Governor King sent troops with orders for constables and settlers to support the Portland Head settlers. In June a settler was

speared; the farms of Bingham and Smith were plundered; John Wilkin was speared and the farms of Cuddie and Crumby on South Creek, at what is now Llandilo, were burnt. Joseph Kennedy fired on Aboriginal people taking corn from his fields on the Upper Crescent Reach, as did James Dunn on Portland Reach. The 1804 fighting stopped in mid June with the killing of Major White and Terribandy somewhere around Richmond Hill.

In the autumn of 1805 fighting broke out again across the Sydney Plain. In April 1805 Branch Jack killed John Llewellen on his Lower Half Moon Reach farm, wounded his servant and killed Adlam and his servant on Adlam’s Upper Half Moon Reach farm. In April an attempt to board the William and Mary at Pitt Water failed.

Governor King ordered soldiers to the outlying farms, Aborigines were banned from approaching farms and settlers were ordered to co-operate to repel natives approaching farms.

In May 1805 Andrew Thompson destroyed a camp at, or near, Shaw’s Creek at Yarramundi. Another expedition killed Talboon, one of the warriors wanted for killing two of Macarthur’s stockmen at Cobbity in April.

In June Henry Lamb’s house, on Portland Reach was burnt and William Stubbs accidentally drowned following the plundering of his farm on Upper Crescent Reach. Also in June, the farms of Cuddy and Crumby were burnt for the second time. William Knight’s farm was plundered and his musket was taken by Branch Jack. Abraham Youler’s farm at Portland Reach was burnt. In July Mosquito was captured and sent into exile. Peace descended upon the Hawkesbury in September 1805 when Woglomigh was killed and Branch Jack wounded in a failed attack upon the Hawkesbury at Mangrove Point.

There are many gaps and puzzles in this historical record. In 1803 a settler and Aboriginal people hunting Kangaroos together at Agnes Banks found the lone survivor of a failed convict attempt to cross the Blue Mountains to China. In 1804 Major White and Terribandy, sheltering in the bush surrounding a Richmond Hill farm, were killed by three shots fired by the NSW Corps, suggesting an execution, not a fire-fight. In 1804 about 150 warriors plundered and burnt the South Creek farms of Cuddy and Crumbey, yet they let the convict servant escape. Also in 1804 a small party of settlers pursuing one group of Aboriginal warriors were suddenly confronted by a group of 300 warriors, yet they managed to retreat unharmed. In 1805 two convict salt boilers thought killed at Pitt Water were guided back to Sydney by Aboriginal people. Also in 1805, Jack, an Aboriginal crewman on the Hawkesbury sloop Nancy, returned to Sydney with goods he had salvaged after the ship was wrecked. Whether the two Aboriginal guides in Andrew Thompson’s attack on an Aboriginal camp near Yarramundi in 1805 were volunteers or were forced is uncertain. Yaragowby, who had acted as a bridge between Aborigines and settlers for six years was killed in that attack. Whether the Aboriginal guide on Major Johnston’s 1805 expedition voluntarily shot Talboon, or was forced to do so, is another mystery.

There are many errors of location in Governor King’s despatches and George Howe’s Sydney Gazette. In 1804 the Gazette correctly located Cuddy’s and Crumby’s farms on South Creek, however, in 1805 they were shifted downstream to Portland Head. Major White and Terribandy were active in the Windsor area, yet Governor King identified them as “Branch natives”. Similarly Andrew Thompson’s attack on an Aboriginal camp at Yarramundi was described as being an attack on “Branch natives”. These “mistakes” only make sense in the light of Lord Hobart’s orders to conciliate the Goodwill of the Natives and Governor King’s

constant worries about his personal finances. Governor King wanted to give the impression to London that Richmond Hill and the Green Hills were settled and that the troubles were caused by the “Branch natives” from Colo River.

Governor King only reported a small number of Aborigines and settlers killed in the troubles of 1804-05. Probably many more Aboriginal people were killed because there was no more major fighting until 1816 and even then the soldiers and settlers were chasing around only a dozen warriors.

Perhaps the biggest mystery surrounds the burnings of the Lamb and Youller farms in 1805. According to the Gazette, warriors burnt both farms and Henry Lamb followed their tracks to the south. However, when both the Lamb and Youller families moved in with Thomas Chaseland; a young Aboriginal girl taken by Henry when he was a soldier was discovered attempting to start a third fire. Her fate is unknown.

Read more on Barry Corr’s website www.nangarra.com.au.

This article was published on page 22 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 3rd of September 2014, under the heading From Bush to the Gallows.Musquito was popularly remembered as an Aboriginal warrior of the Hawkesbury, whose last words on a Hobart gallows in 1825 were, “hanging no good for blackfellow”. The little we know about him comes from his links to other more famous people. Samuel Marsden knew Musquito on his South Creek farm in the 1790s. Mosquito’s story is linked to Tedbury, Pemulwuy’s son. Tedbury spent a number of years on and off with John Macarthur. Both Musquito and Tedbury met their ends through the Luttrell family.

In reporting Tedbury’s capture near Parramatta, the Sydney Gazette on the 19th of May 1805, also recorded that Mosquito told the settlers in good English of his determination to keep fighting them. On the 7th of July 1805, the Sydney Gazette reported conflicting stories of Musquito’s capture. Shortly after, Tedbury was released while Musquito and another young Aboriginal man called Bulldog were sent to Norfolk Island without trial. In 1813 Musquito was sent to Tasmania. Several requests for his release were declined as his skills as a tracker were too valuable. At some point Musquito walked into the bush and joined up with the Tasmanian Aborigines. After attacks on settlers in 1823 and 1824, Mosquito was shot, wounded, captured and executed.

While we know the bare bones of his story, it is possible to flesh it out. Musquito’s capture had a lot to do with Samuel Marsden, the Parramatta minister, magistrate and landowner, who knew Musquito on his South Creek farm in the 1790s. In one letter he described Musquito as “a mad savage”. Musquito may have been one of many young Aboriginal people who resisted Marsden’s attempts to civilise them. Marsden had a long record of failed attempts in this field. One young Aborigine, named Harry, ran away. Another died around 1810. Tristan, who had been “taken from its mothers breast”, ran away from Samuel Marsden in Rio de Janerio in 1807 when being taken to London – possibly to be shown off to William Wilberforce. Tristan was brought back to Sydney by Captain Piper and died shortly after. Both Tristan and Tedbury shared a fondness for spirits. Both John MacArthur and Samuel Marsden were known as Master to Tedbury and Tristan.

Given Marsden’s nature, there is a strong possibility that he may have arranged for a group of Aboriginal hostages to be taken in exchange for the capture of Musquito and release of Tedbury.

Musquito’s capture in Tasmania had a Hawkesbury connection. The man who shot him was Teague, an Aboriginal man who had been taken to Tasmania with Edward Luttrell. Edward Luttrell, a surgeon, arrived in Sydney in 1804 bringing his wife and eight children with him. Despite coming as a settler and despite being given a generous grant at Hobartville, Luttrell spent most of his time at Parramatta working as a surgeon. In 1816 he moved to Tasmania. Teague may have been captured as a child during Andrew Thompson’s attack on an Aboriginal camp near Yarramundi in 1805. Musquito and Teague may well have known each other.

The Luttrells did not have a good record when it came to Aboriginal people. In 1810 Tedbury was shot and wounded at Parramatta, by Luttrell’s son, also named Edward. The young Edward was lost at sea in 1811. Robert Luttrell was killed, attempting to steal Aboriginal women, probably near Penrith in 1811. Alfred or Oscar Luttrell led one of Magistrate Cox’s punitive parties in 1816. Oscar, was killed by Aborigines in 1838 near Melbourne.

Teague had been promised a whale boat by Colonel Arthur for capturing Musquito. He never received his reward and fretted himself to death.

This article was published on page 28 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 22nd of October 2014, under the heading Massacre after a long march.In 1816 a four year drought came to an end with heavy rains in January and floods in February, June and December.

Fighting started on the Nepean in 1814 and spread down the Hawkesbury in 1816; along the Lane Cove ridge; and across the Blue Mountains to Cox’s River. It was the first time Aboriginal warriors had used muskets against settlers.

As the 1867 flood shifted the Nepean further to the east it is now difficult to locate Kearn’s Retreat farm, which was once on the junction of the Grose and Nepean Rivers. Around 25th March 1816 the wife of William Lewis and their convict servant were killed by Aboriginal people on Kearn’s Retreat. She was decapitated and the convict servant’s body mangled. Years later Archibald Bell told Commissioner Bigge they were killed because the promised payment for some work was refused “with very rough usage”.

Macquarie planned a co-ordinated sweep with soldiers of the 46th Regiment, European and Aboriginal guides against Aboriginal people on the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers that would strike Aboriginal people “with Terror”. Captain Schaw was ordered to march to Windsor and to scour Grose Vale and the banks of the Grose River. He was then to march south to the Bringelly district where he would join Captain Wallis’s and Lieutenant Dawe’s units. Around Richmond we know that Captain Schaw was seeking Cogie, an elderly man; Corriangii alias Cobbon Jack; My-ill, who had grown up with the Bowmans and his brother Yarranbii who had grown up with “Old Mick at Freemans Reach”; the brothers Toongroii and Worlorbii; and Donmorii.

Captain Schaw arrived at Windsor on the 11th of April and met with the magistrates. On the 12th, with constables, settlers and additional guides he marched to Bell’s farm at Richmond

Hill. On the 13th, he marched to the Grose River, followed it upstream before swinging north to Singleton’s Hill, where Benjamin Singleton had built a mill on Little Wheeny Creek in 1811.

His Aboriginal guides pointed out tracks and led him to an empty camp, but no contact was made. On the 14th, despite splitting his party, no tracks were seen. The reunited party slept that night at Howe’s farm on Swallow Rock Reach at Ebenezer. He returned to Windsor on the 15th and commenced his march south to Bringelly; but a summons from Doctor Arndell, told him that farms around Cattai were being attacked, so he marched north to Arndell’s Cattai farm. In the early hours of the 16th he failed to surprise an encampment and spent the rest of the morning pursuing fifteen warriors. After resting his men who must have been exhausted, he came to Douglas’s farm and was told a neighbouring farm had been plundered. Once more he attempted a surprise attack on a camp, sending out a detachment in the early morning of the 17th. However, after marching nine miles, the guide, “a white stock man ... declined leading the Party to the spot, affecting to be ignorant of that part of the Country.”

On the 18th Captain Schaw led his men south. On the previous day Captain Wallis had found an Aboriginal encampment and killed fourteen Aboriginal people in a gully near the modern Cataract Dam. The heads of two Aboriginal men were chopped off and sent to the phrenologist, Sir George Mackenzie in Edinburgh.

Despite showing considerable skill and fortitude Captain Schaw failed to make contact with an elusive enemy. His account raises important issues. At Grose Vale he found one set of tracks, one camp and no Aboriginal people. On the other side of the river he pursued some fifteen warriors and attempted attacks on two camps, one of which was at least nine miles from Cattai. His account suggests that there were fewer Aborigines on the Hawkesbury than in previous years.

Any Aboriginal relief at escaping the soldiers was to be short-lived. On the 4th of May 1816 Governor Macquarie issued a Proclamation that banned the carrying of weapons by Aboriginal people within a mile of any farm or settlement. No more than six Aborigines could approach a settlement or farm together. Gatherings for ritual punishments were banned. Settlers were empowered to drive off hostile natives; magistrates and troops at Sydney, Parramatta and Windsor were ordered to support settlers in this.

This article was published on page 20 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 5th of November 2014, under the heading Retribution swift and final.Fighting on the Cumberland Plain continued after the sweep of the Sydney Plain by soldiers of the 46th Regiment in April and May of 1816. Governor Macquarie’s proclamation of 4th May 1816 empowered settlers to drive off hostile natives and ordered magistrates and troops to support them. Fighting continued along the Grose River and on the Kurrajong slopes. Two convicts, Cooling and Gallagher, were killed on the 19th June on Mr. Crowley’s Grose River farm, upstream of where Mrs Lewis and her convict servant had been killed earlier in the year.

We know from Magistrate William Cox’s reports to Governor Macquarie that he had found accommodation for Sergeant Broadfoot and a party of soldiers near Richmond Hill on the 6th July. On the 8th July, Magistrate Cox formed a party of eight settlers, led by one of the young Luttrells, to join two constables, and the Aboriginal guides, Colebee and Creek Jemmy, at Crowley’s on the Grose and to make a sweep to Singleton’s Hill on Little Wheeny Creek.

Joseph Hobson, a settler on the Kurrajong slopes was killed that day. A stockman reported seeing four Aboriginal men near Singleton’s Hill on the 10th. On the morning of the 11th, Magistrate Cox “immediately sent two young Men who I had ready (Carver & Blackmans sons) with a Native across the River to Mr Bells with directions for them to find the Serjt on the track where these 4 natives were seen at day light this morning and if they found it to pursue it.” On the 15th of July 1816 Magistrate Cox advised Governor Macquarie that “Cockey, Butta Butta, Jack Straw and Port Head Jamie” had been killed.

It is possible to piece together an account of the capture and killing of these four Aboriginal men from five different accounts written between 1827 and 1910. The last and most unlikely was written in 1910 by Alfred Smith, the foster son of George James, a convict assigned to William Cox who later the Hawkesbury’s first policeman. Smith was nearly eighty when he wrote in theWindsor Richmond Gazette, that an Aboriginal man, Old Stevey, “knew their whereabouts and told Mr James, and he, with old William Carver, came on them early one morning while they were asleep.”

Samuel Boughton gave two different accounts in the 1904 Hawkesbury Herald. The first was the same as Alfred Smith’s: “They were given up by members of their tribe.” In his second account he wrote that “an old man named Carr” told the authorities where the wanted men were.

Boughton also described their execution. Cockey, was hung from a dray at what is now the corner of Bells Line of Road and Comleroy. Another was hung at Thompson’s Ridge and another where Mrs Lewis had been killed on the Grose River. The fate of the fourth man is unknown. All were shot as they hung.

Boughton’s went on to write that: “Although the old man Carr escaped being killed by the blacks on this occasion, it was not long before he was done for by members of the same tribe at Putty.” Boughton’s account can be confirmed by two much earlier accounts.

In 1839 George Bowman described how: “In 1825 a party of natives from Richmond and another from the Hunter met at Putty on the old Hunters River Road and killed one man and left the other as they supposed dead… This murder was supposed and believed to be true from Information recd from other natives, to have taken place through those two men, having been instrumental in having some of the natives apprehended in 1816.”

Peter Cunningham in his 1827 book, Two Years in New South Wales, described how a group of Hunter River Aboriginal warriors killed two settlers on the Hunter, went down to the Hawkesbury and on their return attacked three white men at Putty who were known to them. One they killed, one was badly beaten and another escaped to Richmond. An armed party was sent after them and attacked a friendly Aboriginal camp near Putty.

The suffering of Aboriginal people on the Hawkesbury did not end with the deaths of Cockey, Butta Butta, Jack Straw and Port Head Jamie. Worse was to come.

This article was published on page 30 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 19th of November 2014, under the heading Aboriginal massacres hidden.This article brings together for the first time in print the scattered reports and records of a third and devastating military expedition in the Hawkesbury in 1816.

In July 1816, a week after Magistrate William Cox advised Governor Lachlan Macquarie that the Aboriginal warriors, Cockey, Butta Butta, Jack Straw and Port Head Jamie, had been killed, Governor Macquarie stationed soldiers “on the River Nepean, Grose and Hawkesbury to be ready to assist and afford protection to the Settlers whenever Occasion may require it.” He outlawed ten Aboriginal warriors. Five of them, Miles, Carbone Jack, Narang Jack, Bunduck and Kongate were Hawkesbury men.

Cox probably did not react well to the killing of a shepherd and 200 sheep on his Mulgoa estate in August 1816. Parties were sent out but there were no reports of their activities.

In mid September Cox reported to the Governor plans for five parties of soldiers, settlers and native guides to sweep the Nepean from Wallacia and Bringelly; along the Grose River across the Kurrajong Slopes; and down the Hawkesbury to the MacDonald River. The parties were still in the field in late September. After that there were no further reports on the parties, their activities, or any Aboriginal casualties.

While Governor Macquarie’s April 1817 dispatch made no mention of lives being lost in “disarming the Natives”, evidence gradually mounted over the next seventy four years that something horrendous had happened. There are records of payments and land grants to authorities, settlers, soldiers and guides. In late October, 1816 Governor Macquarie paid Magistrate Cox “£76.10.7 Sterling, for his expenses incurred during the recent Warfare with the Hostile Natives.”

In December, 1816 Governor Macquarie paid Serjeant Broadfoot, of the 46th Regiment, “Fifteen Pounds Sterling, as a reward from Government for his recent very active and useful Services in pursuit of the Hostile Tribes of Black Natives, along the Rivers Hawkesbury, Nepean, and Grose.”

In February, 1817 William Cox was paid “£179 – 8 – “ for his road-building expenses, and for the costs of provisioning “the Military Detachments sent in pursuit of hostile Native Tribes”. On the same day Serjeant Broadfoot received another fifteen pound for his “active and zealous exertions in the execution of the Public Service after the hostile Natives.”

William Stubbs received a 60 acre grant “as his reward and remuneration for his prompt assistance to the police and aid in pursuit of the black natives at the time of the eruption and disturbance in 1816” He also received “a certificate from Captain Cox, formerly Magistrate at Windsor, under whom Wm. Stubbs served in the war.” Ralph Turnbull received 100 acres in 1818 “as a reward for chasing the Natives when hostile.”

There were also various accounts from others that indicated a disaster had hit the Aboriginal population. In late 1817 one of John Macarthur’s sons on his return from England wrote: “when we returned to the colony, late in 1817, I was greatly surprised to observe how much the natives were thinned in their number.”

In 1836, the surveyor, William Romaine Govett, recorded that: “Throughout the county of Cumberland in 1816, … the most dreadful excesses were committed by them till hunted down.”

The missionary Lancelot Threlkeld, visited Arndell’s Cattai estate in 1817 and recalled: “When he came to this place about twenty-two years ago, he was astonished to hear a man boasting how many blacks he had killed upon his land.” The Reverend Dunmore Lang who held the first communion service at Ebenezer, in 1814 reported that: “He had been shown places on the Hawkesbury, where the “commando” system had been carried on, and the natives literally hunted down and shot.” At an 1824 murder trial as part of his evidence William Cox testified that “the settlers did never attack the black natives alone without a Magistrate.” Unsurprisingly there are no records of such parties.

In his account of 1816 George Bowman wrote: “The military did not attempt to take the Blacks and make prisoners of them but shot all they fell in with and received great praise from the Governor for so doing.”

In the Windsor and Richmond Gazette, 25th October 1890, Prosper Tuckerman, reminiscing about his Sackville childhood, recalled his father telling him: “The Aborigines had grown troublesome in the valley … Not less than 400 blacks were killed in that expedition.” No one denied his account.

The settlement of the Hawkesbury was completed in 1816. In less than thirty years disease and killings had destroyed one culture and replaced it with another. 2016 will be a challenging bicentenary for the Hawkesbury.

This article was published on page 10 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 19th of February 2014, under the heading A new look at our Aboriginal past.

This article was published on page 20 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 24th of December 2014, under the heading Disease devastated Aboriginals.For most of the Nineteenth Century science had little knowledge of how diseases spread or how to treat them. Settlers often blamed the harshness of the climate and alcohol for the devastating effects of European diseases upon Aboriginal people. “The contagion is going through the natives with the most fatal ravages, and will more certainly put an end to them, more certainly than sword or musket … the cause of which can only be discovered in that extreme rigour of life, of cold, hunger, and nakedness, in which they pass many of the winter months.”

In 1789 small pox moved from Sydney Harbour to Broken Bay and up the Hawkesbury River. In April 1791 Governor Phillip met Gomberee, a smallpox survivor, whose face was scarred by small pox.

Sometime after returning from England in 1817 one of John Macarthur’s sons wrote, “I was greatly surprised to observe how much the natives were thinned in their number.” He blamed the “bad habits and excessive sloth” of Aboriginal people for their being “swept off in numbers by every epidemic.” His observation that “influenza is always very fatal and They appear to suffer much under any cattarrhal affliction,” indicated how quickly colds turned into influenza, which in turn, led to tuberculosis in a population that had no resistance to these diseases.

Gonorrhoea and syphilis were sexually transmitted diseases that came with the First Fleet. Non-venereal syphilis, an infectious skin disease, was already present among Aboriginal

people and probably offered some protection against the venereal syphilis carried by Europeans.

Gonorrhoea is a more common sexually transmitted disease than syphilis because it has a longer infectious period than syphilis. Left untreated it can result in sterility among females. Macarthur provided an accurate observation of the spread of gonorrhoea amongst Aboriginal people without realising the causes. “The women producing few or no children, there are none growing up to supply the places of those carried off by disease.”

In 1820 an outbreak of influenza “raged throughout the Colony for many weeks with increased violence, and particularly among the scattered tribes of natives.” In another report the “natives of Broken Bay, and other tribes, not very distant from Sydney, reported that the calamity had proved fatal to many of them.”

Captain Bellingshausen, a Russian Antarctic explorer, noted tuberculosis and dysentery among Aboriginal people in Sydney in 1820.

The French naval surgeon René Lesson, reported that measles and scarlet fever were absent in Sydney in 1824, but most Aborigines had chronic cattarah and some women had consumption.

Another wave of influenza started in 1828. The missionary Lancelot Threlkeld wrote “In the past year, death has under the form of influenza, made sad havoc amongst the Aboriginal tribes, nor have Europeans much better escaped.”

Elizabeth Wilberforce, daughter of a ‘White man” and an “Aboriginal native” died in January 1829, probably as a result of influenza. She is buried somewhere in Wilberforce cemetery.

In 1831 Captain Cyrille Laplace visited Sydney and stayed at Sir John Jamison’s Regentville property. He wrote “Not long ago, one encountered plentiful tribes of natives around Sidney. Today one scarcely discovers but a few families, and soon the immoderate consumption of alcohol and epidemic illness brought from the Old World will have wiped them out.”

There was another influenza outbreak in 1838. Hospital Gully, on one of Mangrove Creek’s tributaries was the site of a temporary tent hospital for Aboriginal people. At least two Aboriginal people are buried there alongside Owen Maloney who drowned in 1843.

The pages of the Windsor and Richmond Gazette in the 1890s provided ongoing evidence of health-related problems amongst Aboriginal people. The paper regularly reported cases of Aboriginal drunkenness. There was one report of a female suicide and another of insanity.

The editor of the Windsor and Richmond Gazette wrote in 1890 ‘In a year or two hence, rum and "civilization" will have cleared this district of the few genuine aboriginals who remain, and perhaps it will be a good thing, too, not only for themselves - as they most, most assuredly, hang out a most miserable existence - but for our boasted civilization, - as it will have removed one of the eyesores which most people who believe this is an age of progress and enlightenment see in the remnants of an ignorant, uncultivated, unintellectual and inferior race.’

Of the approximately 4,000 people on the Hawkesbury in 1901, only 110 were identified as being Aboriginal.

Barry Corr’s online history is at www.nangarra.com.au .

This article was published on page 24 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 11th of March 2015, under the heading Original names all but a thing of the past.The Hawkesbury stands out from many other places in Australia because there are few surviving Aboriginal names. Most Aboriginal names in the Hawkesbury are found in the rugged catchment areas and around the mouth of the Hawkesbury.

Curiously, Bardo Narrang Creek, meaning little water, probably best preserves its original pronunciation and meaning. Bardo Narrang was where Governor Phillip met Gomberee and his son Yellomundee in 1791, and was the place first settled in the Hawkesbury. Yellomundee’s Lagoon later became Yarramundi Lagoon. The original form of his name, Yellomundee, was recently restored with the creation of Yellomundee Regional Park.

Some names and their meanings did not survive settlement. Gabramatta, the original name for Wilberforce, is long gone. Bungool, which may have meant big rock, or echoing rock, is now known as Swallow Rock.

We have no idea of how the Aboriginal name of the Hawkesbury was pronounced. David Collins recorded it as De-rab-bun in 1802. Later spellings included Deerubbin in 1816, Venrubbin in 1888, Deerubbun in 1910, Deerabubbin in 1952, Durububbin in 1956 and Derrubin in 1971.

Often the same name can be found in different forms across the Hawkesbury. Bardo and Putty are variants on the same word, meaning water. Bulga is a local Aboriginal word meaning a ridge or high ground. The Putty Road was originally the Bulga Road. Archibald Bell in his 1823 journey recorded the names Coolmatta, Coolematta, Bulcamatta and Coolmatta to describe the approaches to Mount Tomah. When George Bowen took up his grant at Berambing in 1829 it had become Bulgamatta.

Some Aboriginal names have been anglicised. There is a creek, upstream of Berowra Creek, which in 1814 was called Mahar Creek, or Mother Mahar Creek. It has now been restored to Marramarra Creek, a place of many fish.

Some Aboriginal names have been claimed to English in origin. Bilpin is not a contraction of “Bell’s Pinnacle”. Bilpin is an Aboriginal name, possibly a variation on Pulpin, a guide in the 1816 military expeditions.

Some names, such as Calna Creek, Maroota, Mooney Mooney and Mount Wondabyne, still exist but their meanings have been lost.

It is unclear whether many Aboriginal names are the actual name of a place or a description of what is found in the place. Akuna Bay, near Coal and Candle Creek, means flowing water. Berowra, on the Lower Hawkesbury, is supposed to mean place of many winds. Mareela Reef, on the southern end of Dangar Island means mullet. Mogo Creek which enters the MacDonald River upstream from St. Albans is one of several Mogo Creeks along the east

coast of NSW. They are all named after the Aboriginal stone axe which was made from basalt stones found in the creek beds.

Some Aboriginal names are only recent additions, and probably have nothing to do with the original name or language. Dharug National Park on the north side of the Lower Hawkesbury is on Darkinung land, not Darug land. Maraylya was known as Forrester, but in 1920 the local Progress Association changed the name to Maraylya. The meaning of Maraylya appears to be unknown.

There are many creek names in the Hawkesbury that appear to be variations on the same name for creek. Wianamatta is the Aboriginal name for South Creek. Wine and Weni were early variants on Wheeny Creek, which drains into the Colo River and was first recorded by John Howe in 1819. Werine Jerime, south of Scotland Island, meaning a network of creeks, was anglicised to Windy Jimmy and later became The Maze.

Some Aboriginal names on the Hawkesbury originate in other places and come from white people. John Ellis, looking for a name for his Upper Crescent Reach ski gardens renamed Bennetts Wharf, Port Erringhi in 1950. Erringhi was a famous Hawkesbury steamer, originally built on the Hunter. The name Erringhi comes from the Hunter and refers to black swans.

Bombi Point and Bouddi Peninsula at the mouth of the Hawkesbury are both onomatopoeic, that is, their sound resembles the thing they describe; in this case the sound of water swirling or breaking over rocks.

Sailing vessels coming out of the Hawkesbury River in poor light always ran the risk of sailing into Little Pittwater, between Hungry Beach and Challenger Head on Broken Bay. In 1835 Little Pittwater was known as Nerang Pittwater. The combination of the Aboriginal Nerang, meaning little with Pittwater, suggests that there were people on the Hawkesbury in the early 1800s using a mixture of English and Aboriginal words in their day to day language.

In 1900 the Federal Electorate Commission divided NSW into 26 federal electorates. Tomah was considered as the name for one of the electorates but the Hawkesbury Advocate was able to triumphantly report that the proposal to give Aboriginal names to the electorates had been rejected, “and not without reason for the names are hideously unmusical, and have no recognised bearing, beyond being an unnecessary attempt to preserve the aboriginal dialect of the degraded blacks.” Little wonder so few Aboriginal names survive on the Hawkesbury.

Barry’s online history can be found at www.nangarra.com.au.

This article was published on page 24 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 10th of June 2015, under the heading: Window with a dark past.

The first sermon in Australia was one of thanksgiving, drawing upon Psalm 116, thanking God for delivering his people from the Egyptians. It was the beginning of a long tradition of settlers using the Bible to justify their actions.

Reverend Samuel Marsden continued the imagery of the Promised Land, calling his South Creek property Mamre, after the place where Abraham received a divine visitation. In the 1830s Marsden preached that “Abraham was a squatter on Government ground”.

During the 1820’s and 1830’s droughts Hawkesbury families moved with the frontiers of settlement and conflict followed. The 1901 Memoirs of William Cox, borrowed Old Testament imagery to describe how “the squatters, in the genesis of the world, selected their stations. … But so also did William Lawson and George Cox.” Fighting soon broke out and martial law was declared at Bathurst and Mudgee in 1824.

The Hunter Valley was settled in the early 1820s; and the settler’s herds moved on to the Namoi and Gwydir after the native grasses were destroyed and Aboriginal resistance crushed.

In the drought of 1838 Thomas Simpson Hall was wounded and two of his stockmen were killed near modern Moree.

In 1838, after a few months in Victoria, William and George Faithfull “abandoned their squattage on account of the depredations by the blacks who murdered six of their men.” The Reverend Joseph Docker, onetime curate of St. Mathews at Windsor, followed and settled in their abandoned slab hut at Bontharambo. Unlike the Faithfulls, Docker got on well with local Aboriginal people and prospered.

Further to the south, Oscar Luttrell, the fifth of Edward Luttrell’s sons, was killed by Aborigines in 1838 near Melbourne.

There were many Hawkesbury connections with the 1838 Myall Creek massacre where 28 Aboriginal people were hacked to death on Henry Dangar's run.

The leader of the killers, and the only free-born man, was John Henry Fleming, the youngest grandson of Joseph Fleming, a NSW Corp soldier and early Hawkesbury settler. William Hobb, Henry Dangar’s superintendent, informed the authorities of the massacre and was sacked by Dangar. Hobb later became a constable at Wollombi. When John Henry Fleming learnt he was a wanted man, he fled to the Hawkesbury. No one claimed the £50 reward issued for his arrest in September 1838.

Edward Hyland, a Richmond landholder and William Johnston, a Pitt Town blacksmith, were both jurors in the murder trial that saw seven of the Myall Creek killers hung. Five of the hung men worked for prominent Hawkesbury families: the Bowmans, the Coxs, the Flemings, the Halls, Eatons and Bells.

The remaining four men were released and Fleming’s arrest warrant lapsed after a key witness disappeared. Fleming married Charlotte Dunstan in 1840 in the Wilberforce school house and Fleming went on to become a church warden, member of the Benevolent Society, justice of the peace and magistrate.

As a pillar of St. John’s church at Wilberforce, John Henry Fleming probably noticed some parallels between himself and St. John. Both shared a common first name and a common birth-date. St. John’s feast day is the 27th of December and John Henry was born on the 27th of March 1816. St. John was the youngest of the disciples. John Henry was the youngest of four brothers. St John was the only disciple to die peacefully. John Henry also died of natural causes. John Henry may not have dwelt too much on the fact that St. John was the only disciple to stay with Christ at the crucifixion.

In 1877 John Henry Fleming donated to St. John’s church a stained-glass window of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist. Most windows of St. John show him with a Bible, an eagle or at the Crucifixion. The unusual subject of Fleming’s window comes from the myth of St. John converting the pagan priest of the temple of Diana at Ephesus to Christianity. The pagan priest challenged St. John to drink from a poisoned cup. Two slaves died after drinking the poison. Fleming’s window shows the moment when St. John blessed the cup, turning the poison into a dragon which flew away. St. John brought the slaves back to life and the priest converted. Crowned by the New Jerusalem of Revelations, the window draws upon two sets of Biblical verse: Revelations 12:7-9 and Luke 10:18-19, both describing how Satan, “the Great Dragon” was cast out of heaven and the disciples were given power over serpents and scorpions.

The rare eight-petalled flowers at the bottom of the window belong to genus Dryas; so named because their leaves resemble oak leaves, and oaks were the homes of the Dryads, or tree nymphs. Diana, the goddess at Ephesus, was a nature goddess and a favourite of the Dryads. The unusual nature of John Henry Fleming’s window, staring directly at the pulpit, suggests that he had no remorse for Myall Creek.

Balancing Fleming’s window and looking across to it from the sunlit northern side is another stained-glass window. It shows Jesus, lantern in hand, looming out of the dark, knocking on an overgrown handless door that can only be opened from the inside.

Whether Fleming ever opened the door is unknown. He died in 1894 and his wife Charlotte in 1908. Charlotte’s name, in accordance with Christian tradition, faces the rising sun and resurrection. John Henry’s, on the other side, looks into the setting sun.

Barry’s online history can be found at www.nangarra.com.au.

This article was published on page 20 of the Hawkesbury Gazette on the 1st of July 2015, under the heading: Series had merits despite fact flaws

The Secret River: a review

The Secret River TV mini-series is the story of a thief, who at a terrible cost, ends up a respectable member of society.

The Secret River while fictional draws upon historical fact. While rare, it did happen that a wife could be assigned her convict husband. When Smasher talked of manuring the ground with the bodies of Aboriginal people he used the words of one of the Cox family. Joseph, the young Aboriginal man working as a shipping clerk was based upon James Bath who worked for William Miller at The Rocks.

Our interest in the story begins with Will Thornhill working as a waterman on the Hawkesbury River. He took up land somewhere near what is now Wiseman’s Ferry and began clearing and planting. Tensions with Aboriginal people escalated and Will took part in a massacre with other ex-convicts and convicts.

The story concludes some twenty years later. Will and his wife did not return to England as planned, finding instead wealth and prosperity on the Hawkesbury. However, their success came at a price. We have a sense that their relationship has changed. Will’s daughter, Mary,

knows nothing of her father’s secret. Will’s oldest son has not spoken to his father since the massacre. Long Jack, the lone survivor of the massacre mirrors Will Thornhill; parroting and mocking THornhill’s claim that Thornhill Point is “My place”.

While The Secret River successfully identifies the issue that continues to haunt Australia, that is, stolen land; there are historical problems with the mini-series. From the 1790s onwards there were many Aboriginal people around the farms, particularly young people. There were complex interactions, for example, there are several accounts of Aboriginal people successfully treating snake bites. Aboriginal people did not simply mimic the settlers, reflecting back what was said to them – they learnt English very quickly. While it is commendable that The Secret River uses the Darug language, alerting the viewer that the Darug language is not dead; it robs Aboriginal people of agency by not using sub-titles. Aboriginal issues are only explained to the viewer by white characters, which only perpetuates the problem that continues to plague us all.

It would have been nigh on impossible for Will Thornhill to establish a farm during the 1813-16 drought and 1816 floods. After 1810 Windsor was no longer called the Green Hills. By 1816 the colonial schooners, many of which carried Aboriginal crewmen, would have dwarfed THornhill’s little boat. Settlers did co-operate closely, such as in sharing a pig, however, even in 1816 there was still a gender imbalance on the Hawkesbury. There was no “South Arm” on the Hawkesbury. Small pox and tuberculosis, were the big killers of Aboriginal people in the early years not measles.

Hunter’s 1796 orders, King’s 1805 General Orders and Macquarie’s 1816 Proclamations gave settlers virtual immunity in driving Aboriginal people away from the farms, however, there is little historical evidence of emancipists and convicts carrying out massacres on the Hawkesbury. This is not to say it did not happen. There are oral accounts regarding massacres at Bungool Rock and Lover’s Leap. However, as the years progressed, most killings involved soldiers and free settlers. We know that the convict settlers carried out killings in 1794 on Argyle Reach. The NSW Corps carried out the killings along Freemans Reach in 1795. The NSW Corps was active on the Hawkesbury in 1804-05. In 1805 the Sydney Gazette reported that Andrew Thompson led a party which destroyed an Aboriginal camp at Shaw’s Creek. This party probably included soldiers. There were few actively hostile Aboriginal warriors left on the Hawkesbury in 1816. Captain Schaw unsuccessfully chased about a dozen Aboriginal warriors around the Hawkesbury in 1816. The red coats did not aimlessly row up and down the river. Magistrate William Cox supervised parties of soldiers, free settlers and Aboriginal guides in a drive using boats that stretched from Bringelly to the Colo in the second half of 1816. There is no record of a settler defending Aboriginal people in an attack on a camp on his farm.

Several historical accounts of massacres share common elements. They show that settlers and soldiers crept up on sleeping camps; fired a volley and then charged in with bayonets and cutlasses. Settlers had very few pistols. Firearms terrified Aboriginal people. It was common for women and children to be shot down after climbing trees in terror. Infants were rarely shot. Their brains were dashed out. Some children were taken alive by settlers for various reasons. Rape was probably common, but not recorded. There are records of bodies being decapitated and the heads being sold to phrenologists in Britain.

In historical terms The Secret River would have had greater resonance with historical facts if it had been set in the 1790s on Argyle and Freemans Reach, rather than 1816 and around Wisemans Ferry.