Buckley's Chance

by Garry Linnell

  But amid all this bonhomie emerges a darker sign of things to come.

  One of those present for Derrimut’s visit is the English botanist Daniel Bunce, who years later will travel with Ludwig Leichhardt during his second attempt to cross Australia. Bunce, who will go on to marry one of Batman’s daughters, will record in his journal the arrival in Hobart of ‘some distinguished visitors from Port Phillip, which had just been discovered by Mr John Batman, in the persons of two of its princes, or chiefs: Derrimut, King of the Werriby District; and Betbenjee, of the adjoining district, two brothers …

  ‘Of the two native chiefs, a singular instance of the effects of strong drinks may be related. On their arrival they both got extremely intoxicated and they both felt the sickening effects the following morning. Poor Derrimut was induced to taste “a hair of the dog that bit him” and recommenced his debauch, and still continues a drunkard to this day.’

  Well, John Fawkner is right about one thing. That cold day when he stares into the grave, wondering how many more in the fledgling settlement grog and its evils will send back to the soil? Derrimut has had a taste of it and, like so many of his people, will never escape its hold. Fully in its grip he will earn a reputation as a dangerous drunk, violent at times and difficult to control. The grog will add to his growing disillusionment with white people. They will no longer fascinate but disgust him. He will stand up to them, arguing his people should be left to live peacefully on their tribal lands. But despite his efforts the remnants of his tribe will be forced to settle on a mission station north-east of Melbourne by the early 1860s.

  But before then the new parliament of Victoria will hold an inquiry into the condition of the state’s remaining Aboriginal people. One of those to appear before it in 1858 is the politician William Hull, a man who, like Fawkner, has earned much of his living by selling grog.

  Hull relates a recent encounter with an embittered and fatalistic Derrimut and his evidence will become one of the saddest and most poignant tales about dispossession in Australian history.

  ‘The last time I saw him was nearly opposite the Bank of Victoria,’ says Hull. ‘He stopped me and said “you give me shilling, Mr Hull.”

  ‘“No,” I said. “I will not give you a shilling. I will go and give you some bread.”

  ‘He held his hand out to me and said “Me plenty sulky you long time ago, you plenty sulky me; no sulky now, Derrimut soon die” and then he pointed with a plaintive manner, which they can effect, to the Bank of Victoria.

  ‘He said “You see, Mr Hull, Bank of Victoria, all this mine, all along here Derrimut’s once; no matter now, me soon tumble down.”

  ‘I said “Have you no children?” And he flew into a passion immediately.

  ‘“Why me have lubra [woman]? Why me have picanninny? You have all this place, no good have children, no good have lubra, me tumble down and die very soon now.”’

  Derrimut dies in 1864 in the Benevolent Asylum, a broken and embittered man in his early 50s. His body is interred in the Melbourne cemetery and Fawkner chips in for a tombstone to commemorate the man he claims helped save the early settlement. But there is nothing remotely Aboriginal about his funeral. Derrimut’s coffin will be lowered into the deep ground, down there among the waiting worms, accompanied by the usual solemn Christian rites.

  In death, as in life, still trapped between two worlds.

  26

  TEARS AT FAMILY REUNION; RAPE; A NASTY RUMOUR SPREADS

  The lengths some people will go just to lay eyes on the wild white man of Port Phillip …

  The unpredictable waters of Bass Strait have become a tempest. Howling gales have whipped the sea into a swirling froth. Waves crash against the side of the boat. This is no place for a hardened sailor, let alone a lawyer with a cherubic face, tousled blond hair and doe eyes. Joe Gellibrand should be back home in his sitting room in Hobart, reading poetry and listening to his wife play the piano. But no, the man has insisted on voyaging to Port Phillip and he will get there no matter what is hurled in his way.

  Joseph Tice Gellibrand may have the soft hands of a lawyer who works indoors but he is not a man to back down from a fight. He is a controversial figure in Van Diemen’s Land. Sacked as Attorney-General by George Arthur, he has been described as a ‘vulgar’ attorney by the island’s Chief Justice. He has much at stake in the future of Port Phillip. Back in the 1820s he and his friend John Batman had applied unsuccessfully for a land grant to run sheep and cattle in the region. Now the opportunity has come to reverse that refusal. Besides, Gellibrand is the author of Batman’s ‘treaty’ with the Kulin. The man wants to see what his words have bought him, and how this whole scheme has managed to conjure up the almost mythic figure of William Buckley.

  But first, Gellibrand and William Robertson, another member of the Port Phillip Association, must survive this horrendous late-January crossing of Bass Strait. It’s a ship of horrors. More than 100 sheep perish by ‘injuries and suffocation’. The storm also wreaks havoc with hay supplies and they are soon forced to feed the surviving sheep flour and water. Forced to land at Western Port, the party decides to make the 90-kilometre trek to the new settlement overland. Gellibrand may be a good lawyer but a bushman he is not. ‘In passing through one of the valleys I found the gleams of heat extremely oppressive and which brought on violent palpitations and a termination of blood to the head,’ he observes in his diary.

  He is forced to lie under a tree to recover and then turns to the most reliable medicine of the era – calomel tablets. Made from mercury chloride, calomel is often used as a purgative and its popularity will not wane until the end of the 19th century when its toxic effects are finally discovered. But all that is a long way in the future for Gellibrand. ‘I lay down for about two hours and finding the heat very oppressive I took three grains of calomel and in half an hour afterwards took another pill.’

  Six days later the tired party finally reaches the Yarra – saved only by a series of Aboriginal water wells – and discover a fledgling settlement of about a dozen turf huts. The next morning, still recovering from the hot trek and anxious about hundreds of sheep that have gone missing because hired shepherds have not watched them closely enough, Gellibrand holds his first meeting with the Association’s prize asset – its wild white man.

  He finds you to be ‘of nervous and irritable disposition and that a little thing will annoy him much’. These are traits you often show when meeting people for the first time. It has been six months since you walked out of the bush and when you are not feeling like an exhibit in a sideshow, then you are refereeing disputes and trying to keep the peace between two colliding cultures. But unlike many of his colleagues Gellibrand peers a little deeper, putting down your ‘irritable disposition’ to the ‘peculiar situation in which he has been placed for so many years’.

  Out of all the characters and people you will meet, Gellibrand will come the closest to understanding your moods and motives.

  ‘I am quite satisfied that he can only be acted upon by kindness and conciliation, and that by those means he will be an instrument in the hands of providence in working a great moral change upon the Aborigines. He is not at all desirous of occupying any land or having sheep but is highly pleased at the idea of being appointed superintendent of the natives with a fixed stipend so that, to use his own expression, “he may know what he has to depend upon” and be enabled to make a few presents to his native friends.’

  Gellibrand wants to journey to Wadawurrung country and asks you if you would like to accompany him. ‘He seemed very much pleased at the idea but stated he did not think he could walk so far. I then proposed he should ride, which seemed to gratify him very much and in consequence I engaged a large cart horse of Mr Fawkner’s for that purpose.’

  A few days later the Gellibrand party reaches Indented Head and he learns ‘to my extreme mortification’ that the local Aboriginal people have fled the small base after being threatened with guns for stealing a sack of potatoes. ‘Th
ey had pulled up the roots and taken the potatoes and then planted the roots in the earth again thinking they should not be discovered …’

  The next morning – 5 February – they set out to find the Wadawurrung. To ensure they are not frightened by a group of armed men on horseback, Gellibrand directs you to advance while the rest follow a safe distance behind.

  ‘Buckley made towards a native well and after he rode about eight miles we heard a coo-ee and when we arrived at the spot I witnessed one of the most pleasing and affecting sights.

  ‘There were three men, five women and about twelve children. Buckley dismounted and they were all clinging round him and tears of joy and delight running down their cheeks. It was truly an affecting sight and proved the affection which these people entertained for Buckley. I felt much affected at the sight myself and considered it a convincing proof of the happy results which will follow our exertions if properly directed.

  ‘Amongst the number were a little old man and an old woman, one of his wives. Buckley told me this was his old friend and with whom he had lived and associated thirty years. I was surprised to find this old man had not a blanket and I enquired the cause and was much concerned to learn that no blanket had been given him because he did not leave that part of the country and proceed to Dutigalla [a Kulin word for ‘tribe’ and one of the early colonial names for Melbourne] …’

  Gellibrand has few blankets of his own but insists on handing one to you to give to the old man. Apart from the joy he expresses at your family reunion, Gellibrand has also noticed something else about you.

  ‘[As] soon as Buckley crossed the saltwater river and obtained a view of his own country, his countenance was much changed and when we reached Geelong he took the lead and kept us upon the trot. He seemed quite delighted and proud of his horse.’

  How could you not be happy? Gellibrand’s son, Tom, shoots a large musk duck for your dinner. The next morning you get to lead these men through your homelands, back among familiar territory. You lead them up river to the place now officially known as Buckley’s Falls, show them a hollow tree that often provided you shelter at night, explain to them the art of catching eels. And while you admire Gellibrand, another member of the party begins to earn even more of your respect.

  William Robertson, a tall Scottish grazier who provided much of the funding for Batman’s first expedition to Port Phillip, is only a few years younger than yourself and his strength and endurance impresses you. Robertson and Gellibrand do not have horses and have been walking for the past six days while you take the lead on Fawkner’s large draught horse. Gellibrand is still a tad worse for wear after that crossing of Bass Strait. He can probably feel more ‘violent palpitations and a termination of blood to the head’ about to occur and, according to one report many years later, Robertson carries Gellibrand’s knapsack for him.

  This is where another of those stories about William Buckley begins. The rumour will spread that Robertson’s display of chivalry so captivates you that you give the man thousands of acres of land. Right here, on this spot among the Barrabool Hills just to the west of what will become Geelong. Legend will have it that you will tell Robertson the clans of the Wadawurrung gave you this large tract of land and that this is now his land. It is a story hard to believe but it will spread for years. Perhaps it explains why Robertson will be so generous when you and John Morgan sit down to write The Life and Adventures. Other graziers, jealous about Robertson’s growing empire, will reportedly ask his permission to enter this land before taking their herds or flocks through it.

  Exhausted or not, Gellibrand is pleased with what he has seen; enormous plains ideal for grazing sheep, gentle rolling hills and enough water on the 40,000-acre allotment Wedge has measured for him to sustain a decent business. ‘I consider the representations of Mr Batman fully borne out and from the account given by Buckley I have every reason to believe there are millions of acres of equal quality extending to the westward.’

  He is just as impressed with the Indigenous people: ‘a fine race of men, many of them handsome in their persons and all well made. They are strong and athletic, very intelligent and quick in their perceptions. They have fine foreheads, aquiline noses, thin lips and all of them very fine teeth. I did not observe a single man with a decayed tooth … I feel not the slightest doubt but they may be all brought to habits of industry and civilisation …’

  But by the time the party returns to the settlement on the Yarra, Gellibrand the explorer with blistered feet quickly becomes Gellibrand the attorney, a man quick to get up on those sore feet. About 150 Aboriginals have gathered at the settlement ‘and I learnt with much concern that an act of aggression had been committed upon one of the women which required my immediate attention’.

  Gellibrand finds a young Aboriginal woman lying on the ground, covered with a kangaroo rug and suffering from a ‘violent contusion’ on the back of her head ‘which I understood had been inflicted upon her by her husband’. He learns the woman had been making her way to the settlement to visit her mother when a shepherd on one of the adjoining allotments had seized her, tied her hands behind her back and taken her back to his hut. He had kept her there all night ‘and either that night or the next morning abused her person’.

  After finally reaching the settlement she has told her friends about the incident ‘and they immediately apprised Buckley of it to obtain redress.

  ‘The natives are particularly jealous respecting their women,’ writes Gellibrand in his diary, ‘and they consider any intercourse of this kind as a contamination, and in every case punish the women, frequently even to death.’ Gellibrand addresses the 100-strong assembly with you translating, telling them he is determined to punish the white man responsible for the initial assault and ‘protect the natives to the utmost of our power’. But Gellibrand the lawyer must also point out that white man’s law does not yet extend to this new settlement and the guilty party would have to be sent ‘to their own country to be punished’. He is a man with unusual views for his time. Years earlier, when George Arthur had declared martial law and escalated the Black War, it had been Gellibrand who stood up at a public meeting in Hobart and expressed concern that Arthur’s move was officially condoning the murder of Aboriginals.

  Two men are hauled down from the shepherd’s hut and held before the young woman, who has been lifted from the ground.

  Your turn to be the attorney, William. You ask her if either of the two men before her is guilty of the assault. She says no – but they were in the hut when another shepherd had brought her in, tied up. Gellibrand orders an immediate search for a third man before stepping forward to address the two shepherds.

  ‘I then explained to the two men the wickedness of their conduct and how justly they would be punished if the natives had inflicted an injury upon them and gave orders that as soon as fresh shepherds could be obtained they should be removed from the settlement under the terms of their indentures. I directed the other man to be immediately sent for and if the woman identified him as the aggressor that he should be removed from the settlement by the first ship … and publicly taken away as a prisoner.’

  Gellibrand turns to Buckley to explain ‘to the whole tribe the course which I had directed to be pursued and I could perceive by the expression of their countenances that they were highly satisfied. I then endeavoured to make the poor woman understand how much I commiserated with her situation and I tied around her neck a red silk handkerchief (with which she appeared much gratified).’

  Gellibrand is soon on a boat back to Van Diemen’s Land, along with Batman and his wife and children, who will finally return to settle permanently in April. The lawyer returns a few weeks later with more of his sheep – this time finding the Bass Strait journey more to his liking – to discover the young woman reconciled with her husband and living at the settlement because it is ‘a place of security’. He learns that the offending shepherd has already been removed to Van Diemen’s Land and ‘Buckley informed me that the meas
ures which had been adopted respecting this transaction had given great satisfaction to the natives generally’.

  A job well done. But Gellibrand can’t help but wonder at the limitations of the law in Port Phillip. The shepherd was back in Van Diemen’s Land and likely to go unpunished. ‘It was in fact all the punishment which we had the power, but not all that we had the will to inflict.’ If Gellibrand feels handicapped by the lack of law and order, he remains optimistic about the future of what will become Melbourne. In early 1836 anything seems possible – the settlement, he writes, could ‘render this in a few years one of the most important colonies under the British crown’.

  And in William Buckley he believes they have a man to help make it happen.

  Funny how men can look at the same thing and come away with such different conclusions. When Gellibrand looks at you, he sees a large tool to be used, a key that can help unlock millions of acres of grazing lands without staining it red by going to war with the natives.

  But other men see you so differently. George Russell is one of them. Scottish born, he arrives in Port Phillip as yet another prospective grazier. He first sees you on the banks of the Yarra as his boat pulls in. He is not in the best of moods. The schooner Hetty, which carried Russell and 800 of his sheep across Bass Strait, began taking on water in the bay after its inexperienced skipper beached it the day before. The sheep were landed and Russell has now made his way to the settlement in a small boat. He has already heard plenty about the wild white man and will be one of many to repeat a suspicion that is probably started by Fawkner – that you murdered and ate your fellow convicts after escaping from Sullivan Bay.