From the Edge
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81 http://www.janesoceania.com/australia_aboriginal_history/index1.htm
82 Brisbane Courier, 26 November 1880, p. 2.
83 ‘Oral history of Cape York’, compiled by Duncan Jackson, Cooktown Shire Council, 1989, Cooktown Library.
84 The Queenslander, 26 June 1897, p. 28.
85 John Shay (ed.), Cooktown through the Years, p. 72.
86 Hugh Henry, ‘Cooktown Then and Now’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 November 1941, p. 11.
87 ‘Palmer Gold Diggings: J. A. Binnie’s Memoirs’, Townsville Daily Bulletin, 11 June 1953, p. 7; ‘Cooktown: Spencer Browne’s Memoirs’, Townsville Daily Bulletin, 11 December 1952, p. 6.
88 ‘non-Aboriginal space’, in McKay, p. 13; ‘all these people gone’, the words of Roger Hart, in John B Haviland with Roger Hart, Old Man Fog and the Last Aborigines of Barrow Point, Crawford House, Bathurst (Smithsonian Institute, 1998), p. 161.
89 ibid., Haviland & Hart, p. 162.
90 John Shay (ed.), Cooktown through the Years, p. 59.
91 Eric Deeral’s remarks appear on a panel in the James Cook Museum, Cooktown; Noel Pearson, A Rightful Place, pp. 24–7, and Up from the Mission, pp. 14–16, 26–7, 32–4.
92 Eric Deeral, interviewed by Phillip Connors, 28 September 1999, held at National Library of Australia, TRC 5000/58; also see Haviland & Hart, pp. 133–4.
93 Alberta Hornsby to me, Cooktown, April 2016; Noel Pearson, A Rightful Place, p. 27; on white victimhood in Australian history, see the two key works by Ann Curthoys, ‘Whose Home? Expulsion, Exodus, and Exile in White Australian Historical Mythology’, Journal of Australian Studies, No. 61, 1999, 1–18.
94 Geoff Weingarth, in Gretchen Miller (producer), ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Radio National, ‘Earshot’, 15 September 2015.
95 Alberta Hornsby explained to me that Yaparico was not in fact his name, but meant ‘older brother’.
96 All of this section is drawn from Cook’s and Banks’s journals, 16 June – 19 July 1770, in Parkin (ed.), pp. 328–70; also, Phillip Parker King, p. 212–26, 364–74; one of the best sources on Cook is Nicholas Thomas, Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook, Allen Lane, Penguin, London, 2003.
97 The Canberra Times, 14 July 1973, p. 11.
98 ‘Life in the Cape York Peninsula’, The Age, 18 December 1954, p. 13.
99 ‘Australia’s Land of Mystery: Cape York Peninsula’, Chronicle (Adelaide), 27 December 1934, p. 44; The Australian Women’s Weekly, 16 September 1981, p. 14.
100 The Canberra Times, 20 March 1990, p. 6.
101 Gordon Grimwade & Anne Meiklejohn, Cooktown Heritage Study Volume 1, Resource Consultancy Services, Cairns, 1993, p. 20; Bev Shay (ed.), 50 Years of Discovery Festival and Re-enactment at Cooktown, Cooktown Historical Society, 2009, p. 1.
102 The Canberra Times, 14 January 1970, p. 8.
103 The Cooktown Historical Society has a permanent exhibition in Cooktown, which includes text on the 1970 royal visit; also see John Shay (ed.), Cooktown through the Years, pp. 78–9.
104 ibid.; also see the Queen’s speeches 1954–1992, MS 9174, National Library of Australia.
105 Grimwade & Meiklejohn, p. 20 and Bev Shay (ed.), 50 Years of Discovery Festival and Re-enactment at Cooktown, p. 1.
106 Queen Elizabeth’s speech in Melbourne, 6 April 1970, in MS9174, National Library of Australia.
107 ‘Oral History of Cape York’, compiled by Duncan Jackson, Cooktown Shire Council, 1989, Cooktown Library.
108 Cooktown Historical Society, permanent exhibition, Cooktown.
109 The Australian Women’s Weekly, 13 September 1967; also see Bev Shay (ed.), 50 Years of Discovery Festival and Re-enactment at Cooktown, p. 5.
110 Alberta Hornsby to me, Cooktown, April 2016.
111 Bev Shay (ed.), 50 Years of Discovery Festival and Re-enactment at Cooktown, pp. 13–14.
112 John McDonald to me, April 2016.
113 Phillip Goad, ‘Cultural Endeavours’, January 2002, http://architectureau.com/articles/cultural-endeavours/
114 Alberta Hornsby to me, Cooktown, April 2016.
115 Eric Deeral, interviewed by Phillip Connors, 28 September 1999, held at National Library of Australia, TRC 5000/58.
116 Alberta Hornsby & Loretta Sullivan to me, Cooktown, April 2016.
117 On the dictionary, Alberta to me, Cooktown, April 2016; as an ‘unlettered historian’, ‘Cook in Cooktown’, Radio National, ‘Earshot’, 15 September 2015.
118 Eric Deeral’s text as it stands today in the James Cook Museum, Cooktown; Alberta Hornsby’s text; Alberta Hornsby to me (authorised by Alberta) 2016; Eric Deeral’s text is also reproduced in Lisa Chandler (ed.), East Coast Encounter, pp. 28–31. I have left spelling discrepancies as they stand in the originals.
119 Cook on the country, 4 August 1770, in Parkin (ed.), p. 386; and claiming possession, 22 August 1770, p. 442.
120 Eric Deeral, text, James Cook Museum, Cooktown.
121 Loretta Sullivan, Radio National, ‘Earshot’, 15 September 2015.
122 John McDonald to me, April 2016.
123 Alberta Hornsby to me, Cooktown, April 2016.
124 Iain McCalman, email to me, July 2014.
125 Eric Deeral, interviewed by Phillip Connors, 28 September 1999, held at National Library of Australia, TRC 5000/58.
126 ibid.; and Alberta Hornsby to me, Cooktown, April 2016; Noel Pearson on his layered identity, A Rightful Place, pp. 29–32; for an inspiring example of the work of one Cooktown resident, painter and botanical collector Vera Scarth-Johnson, see her National Treasure: Flowering Plants of Cooktown and Northern Australia, Vera Scarth-Johnson Gallery Association, Cooktown, 2000; where possible, Vera sourced the Aboriginal names for all the plants she collected.
Acknowledgements
From the Edge is the first of two books that explore Australian history through place. Over the last four years, I’ve travelled to the far corners and centre of the continent in an attempt to write these histories from the ground up. Each place demanded a different angle and approach. The road in was not always easy to find. I had to write both from the inside and the outside. I had to be true to each place. And there was always more to know. The more research I did, the more the history of each place expanded. Without the generous support of friends, colleagues and my family, it would have been impossible to find the necessary time to travel and write.
To my fellow travellers—John Blay, Edwin Ride, Ben Armstrong, Christine Freudenstein, Moya McKenna, John Carrick, Geraldine McKenna, Iain McCalman and my family, Fiona, Siobhan and Claire—thank you! Sally Heath at MUP read chapter drafts as they appeared and supported me from the inception of the project. The close working relationship I’ve developed with Sally, Louise Adler and MUP over the last six years has made an enormous difference to my work. The same applies to my literary agent, Lyn Tranter, who has supported my work since 2006. Thanks, too, to copyeditor Meaghan Amor.
Every work of history is the product of a community of scholarship that stretches far beyond the author’s place and time. I owe a great debt to the work of many historians and writers who have provided me with valuable research, insights and advice. Conversations have mattered as much as words on the page. John Blay, Iain McCalman, Peter Read, Bruce Birch and Ken Mulvaney read chapter drafts and provided valuable feedback. As well as my friends and colleagues mentioned above, I would also like to thank Tom Griffiths, Ann Curthoys, John Docker, Stuart Ward, Jan Bruck, Henry Reynolds, Drusilla Modjeska, James Curran, James Warden, William Mulligan, Frank Bongiorno, Alan Atkinson, Shane White, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Ben Wellings, Shanti Sumartojo and Bain Attwood. John Mulvaney’s path-breaking book Encounters in Place (1989) has been a constant source of inspiration.
From 2012, an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship gave me valuable research and writing time. I’ve also been fortunate to work in an extremely supportive and collegial environment—the University of Sydney’s History Department. There are a number of people who deserve special thanks. On
the 1797 walk: John Blay, Grace Karskens, Kirsten McKenzie, James Luddington and the Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston. In Scotland, Angus Martin and Jean Glen and the National Archives of Scotland in Glasgow. On Port Essington: Bruce Birch, Edwin Ride, Warwick Anderson, Robert Aldrich, Nick Eckstein, Francoise Barr at the Northern Territory Archives, Michael Wells, Peter Gartlan, Ros Coggan, Darwin and the Propaganda Fide Archives, Vatican City, Rome. On the Burrup Peninsula and the Pilbara: Ken Mulvaney, Mark O’Neil, Mandy Leeming, Brad Beaumont and Sally Culver at the Karratha Library. On Cooktown: Alberta Hornsby, Loretta Sullivan, John MacDonald, Iain McCalman, Ray Evans, Catherine McGrath, Russell McGregor, Kate Eastick at the James Cook Museum and Diana Burns at Cooktown Library.
Finally, heartfelt thanks to my friends and extended family who have listened patiently to my stories over the last four years: Ockert and Meiri Meyer, Ross Gengos, Michael Joyce, Martin Dwyer, Catherine McGrath, Sharon Ride, Rory Slater, Lyn Turner, Mark and Ingrid O’Neill, Phil and Kimberley Dodd, Sue Hill, Martin Harris, Louise Hopson, Tim O’Rourke, Brad Tarlington, Robert Morrell, Dirk Neldner, Odette Bereska, Ronald Kruger, Dave Clarke, Jennifer Balint, Peter and Genief Koutsoukis, Alastair McKenna and Clare Branch, Chris McKenna, Deborah Hoffman, Adrian McKenna, Kieran and Carolyn McKenna, Virginia and Steve Churchill and Kathleen Dowse.
The photographs throughout this book are by Mark McKenna with the following exceptions: Eyeing the Country—Botany Bay, New South Wales 2004, Jesse Allen, Digital Globe. Chapter One—Nadgee River, with permission, John Blay. Chapter Two—Turkey Bush, with permission, Edwin Ride; ‘Specimen of the Aboriginal Language or Short Conversation with the Natives of North Australia’, Port Essington, 1847, with permission, Propaganda Fide Archives, Vatican City, Rome; Oswald Brierly, Native Bier, Port Essington (1853), image extracted from page 526 of A Visit to the Indian Archipelago, in H.M.S. Meander, with Portions of the Private Journal of Sir James Brooke by Henry Keppel, original held and digitised by the British Library, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:A_visit_to_the_Indian_Archipelago_(1853)_by_KEPPEL#/media/File:KEPPEL_(1853)_pg526_NATIVE_BIER,_PORT_ESSINGTON.jpg. Chapter Three—Rio Control Room, Perth, with permission, Rio Tinto; Climbing Men and Karratha Gas Plant, with permission, John Blay; Fred Williams, Mount Nameless, Afternoon 1979, with permission, Lyn Williams. Chapter Four—Charlotte Street, Cooktown, Courthouse, Grassy Hill, and Queen Elizabeth on the steps of the James Cook Museum, all three images with permission, James Cook Museum and the National Trust, and Eric Deeral, with permission Nellie Pratt/Newspix.
As I turn to write the second book, I know the conversations with my family, friends and colleagues will continue to sustain me.
April 2016
Index
Aboriginal Heritage Act, WA 1972, 150
Aboriginal people: children traded and abducted, 174; Clark describes, 22; extinction seen as natural destiny, 182; as founders and pioneers, 144; negotiating with mining companies, 155; race relations since Mabo and Wik, 155; see also Native Title; Western Australia; walk from Ninety Mile Beach, Vic. to Sydney
Aboriginal people, culture: ancient paths, 25; artefacts in museums, 107; burning of Country, 103–4; bushcraft, 77; cannibalism reported, 50; and Catholic missionaries, 88–9; and contact with Europeans, 69, 120–1; creation stories, 101, 107–108; disposing of the dead, 99–100; Eora ‘Welcome to Country’, 34; European clothes, 72–3; and government ‘protection’, 183, 184; historical and press coverage, 60; infanticide, 100; knowledge of ‘Country’, xviii; language recorded, 166, 204; loss of languages, 184; payback killings, 85; rights, xviii–xix; settlers’ attitudes to, 77; stone ceremonial circles, 25;Wandandian people, 33–5; warfare, xviii; see also rock art
Aboriginal people, early encounters, xviii; Botany Bay, xi, xii–xiii; British attitudes to, 82–5; Clark’s walking party, 20, 21–2, 23, 25, 26–8, 31–2, 33, 36, 40; debate the killing of settlers, 137; early explorers, 4; exhibited as a ‘civilized savage’, 84; missionaries, 88–9; oral history of landing, xiii; pastoral workers, 150, 151; settler treatment of, 137; Victoria, 2; violence, xiii, 170
Aboriginal people, Western Australia: communities ‘fall apart’, 152–3; and Harding River Dam, 153; impact of first settlement, 144; and mining boom, 150, 152, 153, 155; pastoral workers, 150, 151; pearling industry, 136–7, 138, 152; Roebourne Reserve, 150, 152–3; see also Flying Foam Massacre
Aboriginal women: on abandonment of Port Essington, 103; Clark describes, 26; friendship with settlers, 142; and marines, 103; songlines, Central Australia, xviii; traded and abducted, 53, 74
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Royal Commission into, 152–3
Ah Leong, 180
Ah Sam, 180, 182
Allen, Jim, 78
Alligator, 67–8, 72, 74
Angel Island, WA, 131, 133, 163; tablet stones, 159–60, 159; thylacine engraving, 160, 161, 162; see also Flying Foam Massacre
Angelo, Edward H, 144
Armstrong, Captain Archibald, 45–6, 47
Armstrong’s Channel, 59
Arnhem Land, xvi; Aboriginal art, 70, 109; Indigenous Countries and languages, 70; Makassans, 70; see also Cobourg Peninsula; Port Essington
‘Arrimi’, 175
Astrolabe, 78
Atherton, Ken, 61
Atkins, Judge Advocate Richard, 47
attachment to place, xvi–xvii
Australia: a ‘British’ society, xv; ‘countries’ of, xvi; European explorers’ reports, 116–17; first links with Europe, xv; foundational history, xvi; French imperial ambitions, 78; ‘keeping it white’, 146; national identity questions, xv–xvi; racism, xviii; ‘real’, xvii; tyranny of distance, xvii
Banks, Sir Joseph, 48; and Aboriginal people, xi–xiii, 112; on Cooktown, 189–91; journal, 166; telescope, xii–xiv, 111–12
Barker, Captain Collet, 72, 73
Barnett, Colin, 160–1
Bass, George, 4, 39, 61; and Bass Strait, 49, 59; and escaped convicts, 49–50; excursions into interior, 60; search for coal, 41
Bass Strait, 1, 2, 49, 59; longboat crossing, 16, 17–18, 41, 45, 46, 47; sealers, 53, 54; see also Preservation Island, Bass Strait
Batemans Bay, 3–4
Baudin, Nicolas, 53
bêche-de-mer trade, 69, 180, 184
Bedarnik, Robert, 150, 158
Begun Shaw, 8
Bennet, John, 9, 21, 34, 35, 36, 37, 46, 51
Birch, Bruce, 92
‘blackbirding’, 138
Bloomfield Mission, 183
Bolte, Sir Henry, 196
Botany Bay: Cook names, 4; first encounter with Aborigines, xi, xii–xiii; landing re-enactment, 197
Brady, Bishop, 89
Bramble, 85
Breem, George, 128, 129, 130, 131
Bremer, Captain James Gordon, 66, 67–8, 74–5, 76
Brierley, Oswald: on Aboriginal society, 98–100; artist, Great Barrier Reef survey, 98; on McArthur, 97; Native Bier, Port Essington, 1853, 99; Port Essington, 95–7, 98, 102, 103; photographer, 98
Britain: attitudes to Aboriginal people, 82–5; failed settlements, 104; take possession of Australia, 66–7; trade networks, 4
Britannia, 48
Britannia (Royal yacht), 197
Britomart, 67–8, 81
Broughton, Bishop William Grant, 72
Bungaree, 117, 118, 119
burning of Country, 103–4
Burns, Sister Denise, 182
Burrup, Henry, 147
Burrup Peninsula, 145; first European settlers, 116; landscape, 112–13; industrial plants, 114, 115–16; North West Shelf Gas Project, xx, 114, 147, 158; rock art, xx, 113, 114–16, 115; traditional owners, 116; see also Murujuga
‘bush’, xvii
Calcutta, 5; Black Town squalor, 6; British presence, 5–6; Campbell & Clark, 7, 8; East India Company, 6, 7; Fort William, 6; liquor trade with Port Jackson, 7–8; White Town mansions, 7
Campbell, F (Yarralumla), 58
Campbell, John, 5, 6, 7, 51, 58
Campbell, Robert, 8, 48, 58; Calcutta wine and goods trade, 51, 54–5; and Governor Hunter, 52; oral history of Sydney Cove, 59; and Port Essington, 68; Sydney real estate, 54
Campbell and Clark, Calcutta, 7, 8, 51
Campbell & Co. sealskin trade, 53
Campbeltown, Scotland, 4–5
cannibalism by Aborigines reported, 50
Cape Barren Island, 53
Cape Bedford Lutheran Mission, 174, 175, 182, 184
Cape Howe, 4, 24
Carly, David, 139
Carnegie, Roderick, 153
Central Australia, xvi, xviii; Cleland Hills petroglyphs, 114–15, 115; death of Leichhardt, 88; womens’ songlines, xviii
‘Charlie’ (Ngulunhtul), 175
Chinese population; Cooktown, 169, 172, 183, 184, 196–7
Christophersen, Carol and Don, 107
Churnside, Robyne, 156
Cilento, Sir Raphael, 167
Clark, John, 8, 57; Calcutta, 5, 6, 7, 51; death, 55; return to England, 55; Scottish homeland, 56; trade with Port Jackson, 8; will, 55–6
Clark, Margaret, 5
Clark, William: Calcutta, 5–81; death in Calcutta, 55; longboat, 16, 17–18; Preservation Island, 14, 17; scarred by time in the wilderness, 55; Scottish background, 4, 5; Sydney Cove, 37–8; Sydney Cove voyage, 8, 9–10, 11–13; trade with Port Jackson, 8
Clark, William, leads walk to Sydney, 5, 6; and Aboriginal people, 26–7, 30–1, 40, 61, 63; beauty of countryside, 24, 28; on the carpenter, 41; deaths on journey, 50; discovers coal, 41, 61; journal, 21, 22, 35–6, 48, 51–2, 55, 56, 62–3, 71;journal excerpts published, 51–2; knowledge of coastal lands, 60; leaves the carpenter and Thompson, 36, 37; on passage between Van Diemen’s Land and mainland, 39; rescue by fishing boat, 37; reunited with Hamilton, 47–8; saving the cargo at Preservation Island, 47; speared, 34, 45–6, 48; vain hopes for passing ship, 37
Clark, William (Snr), 5
Clark, Campbell & Co., 4
Clarke Island, 59
Cleland Hills petroglyphs, 114–15, 115
‘Coalcliff’, 48
Cobourg Aboriginal Land and Sanctuary Act, 1981, 106–7
Cobourg Peninsula, xix–xx; climate and conditions, 64–5; current Aboriginal residents, 107; Garig Gunak National Park, 107; legacy of British, 106; smallpox epidemic, 196; tribes mapped, 92; wetlands, 77; see also Port Essington