SOME HISTORIANS CLAIM that when the members of the Port Phillip Association were naming its lands, they had a disguised agenda – that Wedge adopted Indigenous names wherever he went so that the association identified itself with their interests. For example, the Fawkner party had christened the main river the Hunter, but Wedge called it the Yarra when his Wadawurrung guides seemed to call out ‘Yarra, Yarra’ on their approach. They were actually calling out ‘yarro’, referring to the falls; only afterwards did Wedge learn this was a term meaning ‘rapids’ or ‘waterfall’.
It’s debatable whether Wedge was truly sympathetic – he had shown some interest in the language – or simply disguising his colonial intent by adopting local place names. The issue was symptomatic of the problems this newly ‘acquired’ land would throw up intellectually. Was the land meant, as the association proffered, to be worked in sympathetic cooperation with its local inhabitants or to be seized, cultivated, revamped and Christianised? From the start, the British authorities had tried to mix together two ideas that were logically inconsistent. The association had couched its treaty as a humanitarian effort in order to sell it to senior members of the Colonial Office, many of whom were evangelical Christians. But British government policy told its subjects to go forth and carry their way of life throughout the colonies, with many thousands of free settlers being encouraged to take up land across the Empire. All the while prospective settlers were being told to do this, their government officials were being told that aggressive invasion was clearly politically impossible.
Nobody knew this paradox better than George Arthur, and he played the double game of deracination clothed in Indigenous welfare better than anyone. He had done it all before, sending Palawa people to Flinders Island supposedly for their own welfare and the higher advantages of a Christian education, but really to clear the land for profitable use. When Arthur received the news that Batman had ‘acquired’ land at Port Phillip, he was the closest political leader to the scene. The astute governor knew the treaty wouldn’t be considered politically acceptable by either NSW Governor Sir Richard Bourke or the even higher authority of the Colonial Office in London. But Bourke was a known Whig (liberal), and Arthur believed he could play on Bourke’s liberal views.
Bourke was hardworking and incorruptible. He had been instrumental in New South Wales in improving the lot of convicts while introducing a number of legal, educational and religious reforms. He was adamant (against much opposition) that there should be no official Christian denomination in New South Wales, even if it was dominated by Anglicans; he had seen the sectarianism of his native Ireland and didn’t want that repeated in the colony. He proposed the extension of trial by jury and the substitution of civil for military juries in criminal cases, and successfully brought about the end of military courts in New South Wales. He was, in all, attempting to reduce the military component of governance and increase the civil component. He allowed emancipists to serve on juries and ended the power of local magistrates, many of whom tended to pronounce judgement based on a convict’s former record. In all, he was nothing like Arthur – and he was his superior.
By August 1835 Arthur was stalling. A month earlier he had informed London of the association’s move, but he hadn’t yet told Bourke. Arthur would have known that the association was on Crown land under Bourke’s immediate jurisdiction, but he went over Bourke’s head and straight to the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Lord Glenelg. Arthur knew the official response would take more than twelve months. By that time, there could be thousands of settlers.
Arthur didn’t write to Glenelg asking whether he should take action, but only to seek advice. He argued that the settlement would be highly advantageous to Van Diemen’s Land: ‘Its extensive plains and rich pastures are capable of supporting large herds of cattle and sheep, and given the short distance between the two coasts it might be very rapidly covered with flocks and herds from this colony.’ What Arthur wanted, of course, was to bring Port Phillip into his gubernatorial fold. When he finally wrote to Bourke informing him of the association’s land deal, two months had elapsed since Batman and the Kulin had signed the treaty.
Bourke’s reply ensured there was no misunderstanding. On 1 September he wrote through his colonial secretary that any bargain or contract made with the Indigenous people would be held to be null and void. While the letter said the government had respect for Batman’s association and approved of their regard for the welfare of the Indigenous people ‘it has nevertheless been deemed necessary to announce in the most formal and public manner the right of the Crown of England to the territory in question, and the absolute nullity of any grant for its possession made by any other party’.
The proclamation itself read:
. . . any such treaty, bargain and contract with the aboriginal natives for the possession, title or claim to any lands lying and being within the limits of the Government of the Colony of New South Wales . . . extending from the Northern Cape or extremity of the coast called Cape York, in the latitude of 10 degrees 37 minutes south, to the southern extremity of the said Territory of New South Wales, or Wilsons Promontory in the latitude of 39 degrees 12 minutes south, and embracing all the country inland to the westward, as far as the 129th degree of east longitude . . . is void and of no effect against the rights of the Crown.
In other words, New South Wales from all points north, south, east and west was Crown land, and anyone making a deal with Indigenous people that led to leasing or acquiring it was defrauding the Crown and trespassing.
Batman’s treaty had forced Bourke into a proclamation that while repudiating Batman’s false treaty, he was intimating another longstanding fraud. This would become known as the doctrine of terra nullius, an assertion that Indigenous Australians couldn’t sell or assign land, nor could an individual person acquire it other than through distribution by the Crown. Bourke had no real choice in this matter. It would have been unconscionable for any government to officially recognise Batman’s treaty. If Bourke had done so, this would have repudiated Governor Phillip’s settlement in Sydney in 1788, where there had been no dealings with the local populations at all – and certainly nothing that approximated a treaty. The government couldn’t even say that the treaty Batman had negotiated was unfair or lopsided to the Indigenous people, because doing so would have presumed that a fairer one could have been enacted by government-approved conquerors – including James Cook.
But the proclamation was probably a bit of a laugh to Batman and Arthur, who by now were regularly talking and strategising. One of Batman’s business partners, Charles Swanston, thumbed his nose at the proclamation, saying, ‘It will not deter us in our operations.’ They had expected this, so to them it was now mainly a matter of making the best of a fraudulent deal.
After the publication of the proclamation, Batman realised it would be best if he hunkered down in Van Diemen’s Land for a little while longer, reassuring his investors and privately building further support for his association’s venture. The understanding was that with a little push here and there, it would all work out. Batman knew that Bourke’s unerring position would throw immediate doubt on his plans in the public eye, and he now accepted that there had to be some changes to his monopoly of the land. He and Arthur passed on a message to Bourke: perhaps Batman and the government could do a deal, if Bourke could offer help in the form of a controlling authority. In effect, Batman was telling Bourke that he was saving Port Phillip from the depredations of other settlers who might not share his association’s enlightened principles. What was needed now, Batman argued, was a competent authority to intervene and ensure there was propriety and law in the new settlement.
The hand of Arthur was very strong here in Batman’s plea. This was a done deal whether the NSW government agreed with it or not, so Batman was arguing that they should do it in the correct way, with the power of government behind them. In the message to Bourke there was also a clear implication that the closest governor to the scene, a man with the highest credentials on dealing with Indigenous people, a man of high instruction and impeccable Christian beliefs should be there to manage the whole thing – who else but Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur? Arthur may have realised that this probably wouldn’t happen, but it was worth a try. And so he played games with everybody, including Bourke.
When it suited him he could happily rubbish Batman’s claims and he could do that fairly convincingly as well. He wrote to Bourke saying that of course the treaty was false, and laughed at the association’s expressed intent to civilise the locals. ‘This, of course, is all stuff,’ he wrote, ‘and it is better for all parties to be sincere, and plainly state the occupation of a good run for sheep, has been the primary consideration – if not the only one.’
Bourke knew that a heavy-handed and unequivocal proclamation – that every grain of sand in New Holland was British – wouldn’t do very much to stop the squatters’ boats, nor hinder them from bringing sheep and cattle over. In October, he wrote to Glenelg advising him to grant the settlement official recognition. If this didn’t happen, he warned, there would be the same old evils of uncontrolled squatting, a nightmare for a government that needed to be seen as both philanthropic to the Indigenous people and firm in its control. Later, Bourke confessed in other correspondence that he had been as keen as Arthur to have the area colonised. They were all playing a game of professing to be against the idea of unauthorised colonisation while privately supporting it.
Bourke’s letter to Glenelg would take many months to be received in London. In the meantime, Port Phillip would be a kind of illegal halfway house, a place where squatters could break the law and set up runs while governments looked on haplessly, professing to be unable to intervene.
Perhaps nobody knew this better than John Fawkner, another man who wasn’t afraid to take on the government. He couldn’t have cared less. On 13 October, the very day Bourke sent his letter asking Glenelg to recognise the colony, Fawkner finally landed on the Yarra along with his first stock. His great rival, John Batman, would not be far behind.
*
THE CRACK OF Henry Batman’s musket was the sweetest sound William Buckley had heard in years. ‘Fire a shot if there is good news for me,’ he’d asked Batman as he had pushed the launch onto the beach to meet the incoming Mary Ann. ‘I need to know if I am free.’
It was 13 September, and Buckley had been setting his eyes seawards for several days, watching intently for a ship. Then the Mary Ann arrived and had set anchor about two miles from the shore. When the gunshot came, it was one of Buckley’s proudest moments: he had been reprieved. This ship had brought a pardon, his deliverance from penury and thirty-two years as an exile.
Wedge later showed him the letter he couldn’t read. Arthur had written that Buckley was a ‘fit object for an absolute remission of his sentence’. He was overjoyed and obviously felt honoured. ‘Wedge showed me a free pardon from Governor Arthur,’ he recalled. ‘And a very flattering thanks for my services he wrote.’
But there was a flipside. The Mary Ann also brought notice that the camp would be moved to the Yarra. In two days Buckley would depart Indented Head with a heavy heart, sailing across the bay to the mouth of the Yarra while wondering if he’d done the right thing. ‘My sable friends were not at all pleased with our leaving,’ he wrote. ‘Thinking we might be going away altogether.’ His adopted friends, the Wadawurrung, now realised that the goods that were flowing to them, might soon cease as the party moved away. As Buckley said of the cargo they were enjoying ‘They did not by any means like the idea of its probable escape’. Buckley may have also known this would be his last time living with the Wadawurrung.
We don’t know how his friends took his departure. They likely felt that they were losing not only the man who had arranged excellent booty, but also a respected elder who had made a final choice – not in their favour. There may have been a mixture of sadness and resentment. The ngamadjidj were here to stay and Murrangurk, one of their number, had made his choice.
Buckley’s writing gives the impression that he felt extremely guilty to be leaving them in a very confused environment. He may have told himself that his best work would be done among the settlers as long as he put Kulin interests at the heart of his actions. If he was to influence events and ensure there was no bloodshed between the races, he would have to do it from the colonists’ side.
The trip to the Yarra wasn’t easy – in severe wind conditions ‘they had to beat about the bay for two days’. When the ship arrived at the basin, Buckley described their reception as complete mayhem. There were around two hundred people in the vicinity, with more arriving by the hour. He also noted with trepidation that no women and children were about, a sign that if the locals didn’t get what they wanted, there could be trouble.
The Morgan–Buckley account gives a sense of the colonists’ exposure at this very early part of the settlement. As the ship’s goods were discharged the party set up armed guards who were seriously outnumbered. But Buckley reported that the locals were partially mollified by gifts. ‘This devilry, was, however, neutralised by the gentlemen in charge of the settlement making them more presents of blankets, bread, knives, scissors, and such like useful articles.’ When more ships came, the locals would be promised more gifts. The immediate threat was dispersed.
The birth of Melbourne involved a lot of give and take. The Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung both claimed parts of the area we now know as Melbourne and expected to be heavily compensated – by their standards – for the use of the land. They didn’t appear willing to wait a full year for Batman’s annual gift giving, as promised by the treaty.
The two camps now eyed each other off, with Fawkner’s party occupying Batman’s intended campsite on the north bank, and Batman’s party creating one on the south bank instead. Both sides of the river echoed each other, but Fawkner’s was more advanced, by this time ploughing fields and sowing crops. Batman’s people were setting out to build dwellings and workshops.
It wasn’t Melbourne yet. The village was now named Bearbrass.
*
WHEN JOHN FAWKNER arrived in mid-October, he noted in his diary that there was no ill will against him from any of the local people. Some helped him to unload and erect his house, in return for biscuits, potatoes and clothing. But underneath the apparent calm, there was reportedly a rift among the locals as to what to do with him. It was well known throughout the Batman camp that this wasn’t the man with whom they had done a deal – Fawkner was a transgressor.
Fawkner told the Batman camp that he, too, had done a deal with the Indigenous people, and he told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of their leader’s treaty. Without any government or legal body able to officiate between the claims, who could say that Fawkner was wrong or lying? He claimed he had as much right as Batman to be there, and he had brought his wife, servants and household stock. There seemed to be good relations between his Indigenous workman William Watkins and the locals.
Fawkner and Batman appear to have clashed over their respective Wadawurrung and Woiwurrung guides in order to obtain exclusivity to the trading networks of local clans. As Fawkner wrote in his diary: ‘Mr Hy [Henry] Batman sent blacks out to get parrots, got Buckley to abuse William Watkins [Fawkner’s servant] for buying squirrel skins for me and I found him [Batman] forbidding the natives to sell us any skins or birds. He wants them all himself . . . About 20 blacks here now . . . more blacks came in . . . About 30 blacks about this settlement . . . A number of blacks came in this day and their wives, got 3 kangaroo from them and two fine baskets’.
Fawkner allowed Kulin (including Wadawurrung) people free access to his huts and regularly employed two Wadawurrung clan heads; Baitbainger and Ballyan and two other Boonwurrung clan heads, Derrimut and Benbow, as labourers, guides, and hunters. Fawkner observed they ‘worked well’ at fencing, obtaining bark, guiding the whites to water, warping Fawkner’s vessel up the Yarra River, building huts, acting as messengers as well as providing fish, birds and large game.
But a few weeks later Fawkner noted in his diary: ‘The Blacks we learnt intended to murder us for our goods.’ This message had been delivered to Fawkner by the Boonwurrung man Derrimut, the head of the Yalukit-willam clan, whose land extended from the mouth of the Yarra to what would become the districts of St Kilda and South Melbourne. He said that a large number of men of the Wadawurrung and Taungurong (from the Goulburn River area) were threatening to kill the Fawkner party. Why did Derrimut sound the alarm? It is believed that the Wurundjeri elder Billibellary, a clan head and one of the supposed signatories of Batman treaty, gave him permission to warn Fawkner. After Fawkner heard about the intended attack, his party readied themselves, and the threat of their firepower ‘chased [the attackers] away’.
Within a couple of months, Fawkner would again be under attack – and again Derrimut warned him that some Kulin from the north were contemplating a raid. This time he chose to hit out before he was hit, hunting any Indigenous people encroaching on his property. At one point he and a few others were chasing men on horseback with swords and pistols in hand. ‘We came upon them quite unawares and put them into great fear,’ he wrote in his diary. Derrimut was working with him by then, and the two men were said to have ‘exchanged names’, a ritual of brotherly friendship that would last both their lifetimes.
Unlike Batman, Fawkner hadn’t shown due respect to the Kulin via the tanderrum. Nor had he paid tribute. He had been sparing in his gifts, not offering the highly coveted metal blades – not surprisingly, in the months that followed many of these were stolen from his property.
Fawkner believed Buckley was partly responsible for stirring up the locals. The former publican claimed that Buckley was so incensed that Derrimut had given away the plot that he threatened to ‘spear Derrimut for his giving the information’. But this accusation was preposterous, part of the propaganda Fawkner spread to taint the man he believed was ‘more than half a savage’. The smear that Buckley was somehow behind the attacks would never go away.
Fawkner may have also suspected that Batman’s camp was agitating behind the scenes. Although John Batman hadn’t yet arrived, he and Wedge were corresponding regularly, and Batman wanted Fawkner gone. It was he who had an alliance with the local people, and in a letter to Wedge he said he seriously considered using them to drive Fawkner’s party from what was ‘rightfully theirs’. Wedge baulked at the idea, arguing that if the association used Indigenous people to start a war ‘it will at once open the eyes of the natives, and teach them their power, they will not fail to use it against us’. There were other considerations. If Fawkner and Batman had a turf war, how would that appear to the powers that be who were supposedly assessing the rights of the squatters? Wedge was far-sighted enough to realise that any form of violence – be that between Indigenous people and Europeans or Europeans among themselves – would have a detrimental effect on their aspirations for official settlement. Batman took Wedge’s sage advice and never threatened Fawkner, although he did at one point say that he might let his sheep loose on his rival’s crops. There was never a good feeling between the two archenemies, but at the same time never any evidence of a direct confrontation between them or their parties.
Fawkner and Henry Batman were known to have serious arguments, but they never escalated beyond a legal dispute – with Buckley, however, it was more personal. He was by now famous as Batman’s interpreter and go-between, the only white man who spoke the local language fluently. It seems Fawkner took Derrimut’s messages as veiled threats from his rivals and promptly laid the blame on Buckley, the man with the greatest influence among them. Fawkner held two contradictory ideas: that Buckley was a brainless lump of lard and, at the same time, a deadly enemy, a mastermind plotting the colony’s demise. When asked why Fawkner so disliked him, Buckley wrote that he could never understand it: ‘From some cause or another, and although not knowing much of me, he represented me to be a dangerous character.’
‘He stood six foot five inches in his stockings,’ Fawkner wrote of Buckley. ‘Was not very bulky, nor overburdened with nous. He fell to the level of the blacks, he did not by any means elevate or raise them, or instruct them in any manner.’ Fawkner made his resentment clear when he said Buckley refused ‘to give any part of his local knowledge to those persons not belonging to his co-partners’. Buckley was Batman’s man, and he wasn’t shared out – and it seems Fawkner had great trouble accepting this. ‘Alas the lump of matter was too mindless to yield any useful information,’ he wrote in later years. Buckley, according to Fawkner, was always at ease, and ‘cheerfully supported’ by ‘two gins’ (two Aboriginal women). Fawkner later made an incredible assertion that would plague Buckley’s reputation for years afterwards: ‘He refused or was unable to account for the fate of the two men [McAllenan and Pye] that left the camp with him in 1803.’ This clearly implied that Buckley was a degenerate who had descended into the supposed savagery of the Indigenous people and cannibalised his fellow convicts. And it was nothing more than slander, given that McAllenan had returned to the Sorrento camp with no ill reports about Buckley. Whatever Fawkner’s feelings about Buckley were, he was not the power in this tiny colony. That man had yet to arrive.