“we have at various times had stories told us of the treatment the blacks are subjected to in the bush, and it behoves the government to make strict inquiry into the whole question. by the way, where is the protector of aborigines, and what has he got to say in the matter?
“oh it’s only a nigger, you know;
it’s only a nigger, you know;
a nigger to wallop, a nigger to slave,
to treat with a word and a blow.
“it’s only a nigger, you know;
a nigger, whose feelings are slow;
a nigger to chain up, a nigger to treat
to a kick, and a curse, and a blow.
“it’s only a nigger, you know;
it’s only a nigger, you know;
but he’s also a brother, a man like the rest,
though his skin may be black as a crow.”
“bacca.”
from the “lantern,” south australia, 1889. 216
“mount silver,
“august 8th, 1889.
“mr. richard shaw, te renga-renga, drury, new zealand.
"d
ear dick,—in my letter to the ‘mater’ i have set forth all those of my experiences, up to date, that i consider of most interest to the gentle female mind, and have omitted certain others of a more painful character. for you, old man, i preserve the honour of participating in the ‘noble indignation’ which at present suffuses the soul of ‘yours regardfully,’—the outcome of my present surroundings of many most un-english institutions. for my pericardiac region is sickened and disgusted with certain ‘goings on’ in this fair colony of the british crown, and i would fain burst into poetry—after the whittier style—only that i am well aware that my knowledge of the properties of the hexameter is considerably less than my acquaintance with those of the lactometer.
“but ere i launch into these matters, i will roughly sketch out my doings since i posted my last letter, which i wrote at the pretty, sand-surrounded, and ‘quite too awfully’ tropical little port of cairns.
“australian hospitality is proverbial, but i have to withdraw myself as much as possible from the217 ‘here’s-a-hand-me-trusty-fren’ kind of thing, as i find it means participating in an unlimited number of ‘nips’ of ‘stringy bark,’—a curious combination of fusil oil and turpentine, labelled ‘whisky,’ or of a decoction of new and exceedingly virulent rum, much patronised by the inhabitants of these sugar-cane districts. however, whilst arranging the necessary preliminaries for my journey at this little inland township, i have made several acquaintances. one, a mr. feder,—the manager of a german-lutheran mission station about fifty miles from here,—who, it appears, knew my uncle dyesart some few years back, and may prove useful to me in my search after billy. i have also come across an inspector of police, by name john bigger, who, although i have certainly not returned his advances with much warmth, for i think him a silly old swiper, is everlastingly thrusting his companionship, upon me; and, although he is apparently doing his best to make my stay here agreeable, one can have too much of a good thing, especially when the said good thing suffers rather from ‘furor loquendi,’ in other words, is a confounded old bore.
“this inspector introduced himself to me as a friend of one inspector puttis, whom he says was a friend of uncle’s. this puttis sends word that billy has disappeared from murdaro station; but as i never mentioned the fact that i wanted to find billy to any one here till after i received this message, i am rather at a loss to understand it altogether.
“now my other acquaintance here—the missionary cuss i mentioned—curiously re-echoes the last words in uncle’s letter, namely, to distrust the police. and218 in faith i believe they’re a bad lot entirely, although i suppose there are some exceptions.
“it is partly in consequence of this that i have not accepted an invitation to go shooting with the inspector to-day, and am writing to you instead.
“my old miner friend got bitten by a large poisonous black spider at cairns, and is hors de combat. so i have been obliged to leave him behind for a time with don, who is turning out a grand little fellow. these two will follow me to mount silver next week, when i shall start for murdaro station immediately. i am not wasting my time in the interim, although i itch to start, but am making myself acquainted with the ways of station-life and mining matters in this wild part of the world. if billy arrives at the mission station, as mr. feder thinks he probably will, i shall be communicated with at once. but ‘how do i manage without my little henchman don?’ you’ll be after asking. well, that brings me to the main subject matter of this epistle. i have a second ‘boy friday’ now; and what is more, he’s black as a crow, and, moreover, i bought him. yes, in the year of our lord, 1889, in the civilized street of a town in an english colony, i followed the custom of the place, and purchased the little black specimen of humanity that is now amusing a party of his aboriginal friends, over there by the town well, by imitating with a piece of stick the way i brush my teeth of a morning, which operation i noticed has amazed him muchly, and is probably indulged in by few of the whites about here.
“i travelled alone as far as this place, being anxious to get on here; and my obliging host—who talks broad scotch, although he is by two generations a219 colonist—advised me to get a ‘boy,’ as all black servants, regardless of age, are called here, to look after my two horses. well, to cut the story short, i paid ￡2 for little joe to a carrier whom ‘mine host’ informed of my wants. joe is a great help, and according to the unwritten law of the place,—which appears to be supported by what little pulpit power they have here,—my ‘boy’ is, in this free land, my property, body and soul.
“yes, coming here from new zealand one feels as if he had somehow descended into the slave countries of mrs. beecher stowe, and the odd part of it is that its very existence is unknown in england, neither in sydney nor brisbane to any great extent. but these places, it is true, have their own little white slaves ‘always with them,’ as my experiences amongst the newsboys, when i got little don, has taught me.
“although i did pander to the local custom, against which i am speaking, in buying joe, i trust to do something good for him to cover this sin of mine, and will bring him back to new zealand with me.
“any one who boasts of being the ‘free-born son of an englishman’ cannot look coolly on at the treatment of the unfortunate blacks up here in queensland. the poor wretches one sees forced to work by brutal squatters, carriers, ‘cockatoo’ settlers, and others, have no hope to cheer them like those mentioned by your old american poet-friend, john greenleaf whittier:—
“‘o’er dusky faces, seamed and old,
and hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,
with hope in every rustling fold,
we saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.’
220
“no, the (five) star-drop flag of australia, heralding the (three) star-drop (whisky) of the advancing army of locust-squatters, brings no hope, or mercy either, to the poor devils whose ancestral domains become their fields of unceasing and ‘unpaid toil.’ all the horrors depicted by mrs. beecher stowe, all the sorrows sung of by the immortal whittier, are rampant around me as i write. and it seems that it is in vain that the immorality of the horrible traffic is thundered into the ears of the various governments—who after all are but the representatives of the squatter-kings—by various southern papers from time to time. read the following first-rate article upon the subject, by mr. rose, the editor of the brisbane courier, the boss paper of the colony, which appeared on september 16th, last year.
“‘communications that have lately reached us from the north show too clearly that our people have not yet been educated to the recognition of the human rights of the original possessors of australia. a correspondent forwards descriptions of atrocities of alleged frequent occurrence in the northern districts, the bare recital of which is enough to make one’s ears to tingle. nor are we allowed the common consolation of ignorance or sentimentalism or exaggeration on the part of our informer. for our correspondent is a well-known pressman, who has done a bit of exploiting both in australasia and new guinea, who admits that he has himself shot natives who would otherwise have shot him, and of whom we can readily believe that, as he says, he is “not particularly prejudiced in favour of the natives or very soft-hearted.” he even tells us that he is not himself a religious man, and yet 221 declares that he would not think the future commonly assigned to the wicked by religious people as too condign a punishment for atrocities that have come within his knowledge. his indictment touches mainly the districts lying between cairns and georgetown, where, he says, the blacks are being decimated, and by government servants in the shape of black troopers and their masters, whose “dispersion” of the aboriginals in particular localities has simply come to mean their slaughter. he speaks of men being kept for the sole purpose of hunting and killing the aborigines; he gives instances of their camps being surrounded, and men, women, and children massacred for killing cattle, when, through the white man’s presence, they could no longer find game; and he tells in detail one story of the extermination of a camp simply because some blacks had been seen passing a mining station where nothing had been stolen for months. roundly he charges the “grass dukes” and their subordinates with “murdering, abducting children for immoral purposes, and stockwhipping defenceless girls,” and he condemns “each government that comes into power for winking at the slaughter of our black fellow-subjects of the queen as an easy way of getting rid of the native question.” the northern miner asserts that this picture is not overdrawn, and that the atrocities mentioned have even been exceeded. it refers to squatters branding blacks, keeping harems of black gins, and finding their slaughtering record no bar to advancement to high office in the state. the black trooper system is, in the view of this paper, legalized murder, which reckons the life of a bullock of more account than that of a score of black fellows.222 we do not vouch for the truth of these serious charges; but, if true, the horrible demoralisation of such a system on blacks and whites alike it is difficult to over-estimate; and cry exaggeration as we may, it is clear that enough remains to call for the immediate and earnest attention of the government. sir thomas mcilwraith will earn the gratitude of the colony to all time if he will but exert himself for the aborigines of australia—whose country after all we have simply taken from them by force—as sir samuel griffith exerted himself for the kanakas. surely there is as much call for a commission of inquiry in the one case as in the other. the recently inaugurated society for the protection of the aborigines has its work cut out for it, and has not been formed a moment too soon. we hope that the statements we have referred to will waken our people to the fact that there is a much louder call and a great deal more room for this kind of protection than is commonly supposed. we must add that the northern miner, referring to the circumstance that the americans have tried to stay the extinction of their aborigines by granting them large reserves, scattered all over the western states, pleads, and surely with reason, that a similar course should be followed with ours. we can do it more easily now than it can be done in future generations. most of their vices, and the very thefts for which they are so terribly punished, come from the contact with the whites into which they are driven by want, and an occasional outburst of not unnatural vengeance. if the aborigines’ protection association will add this to the otherwise admirable programme of their operations—if indeed it is not already practically included—published 223 by us the other day, and set themselves vigorously to carry their plans into effect, they will earn the gratitude alike of whites and blacks, and aid in removing a stain which will otherwise blot and burn into our future history.’
“mr. feder, my missionary friend, who gave me this newspaper clipping, says that thadeus o’kane, the proprietor-editor of another influential paper, the northern miner, has taken up the subject warmly at various times, but with little or no good resulting therefrom.
“but although i know that,—
‘the age is dull and mean. men creep,
not walk; with blood too pale and tame
to pay the debt they owe to shame,’
and that this community is too much enfeebled by its tropic habitat to make an energetic move against the shocking system that its landholders have introduced, even if it wished to do so, yet i am at a loss to understand why that spirit of the age, trade unionism, has not risen against this slave business. surely labour, whose power, at any rate, in the southern parts of australia is immense, must be aware of the benefit that must accrue to white workmen if the ‘unpaid labour’ of the blacks, now forced to work by squatters and others, were made illegal. chinamen and kanakas are hounded down by the australian working-man with a certain amount of reason, for beastly immorality, combined with oriental diseases, are things to be avoided in a young colony, where all men should be healthy voters and thinkers. but why should the ‘horny-handed’ keep silent when the paths of labour224 are clogged by the slave system,—which obtains, i believe, over a large and growing portion of australia,—and yet shriek wildly when coloured labour of another sort competes with them at a wage only a little less than that demanded by whites?
“before i close with some of my ‘personal experiences,’ i want you to note the missionary side of this question. you know i’m too disgusted with the greedy way various missionary societies have gone in for land-grabbing and land-dealing in new zealand to be much of a philo-missionist, and we both know something of mission work in the south seas, and that too much humbug and too many tares among the wheat—
‘of generous thought and deed were sown;’
yet i feel very friendly towards the little circle of men who have taken up the cause of the unfortunate natives of australia. the revs. j. b. gribble, r. j. flanagan, fyson, j. flierl, and my friend feder here have made a hard fight for it; and a most dangerous and unthankful position these men occupy, in the midst of squatters and squatter-commissioned police who watch their every action. as it is, the fund secured to preserve and protect the natives is apparently almost entirely derived from europe, and half of that amount i believe from germany. are these natives worth preserving? well, when the colony of victoria a few years back—as i see by a government report—adopted a new system of education, the first school obtaining one hundred per cent. of marks was the ramah yuck school of aborigines, gippsland. this, i believe, is a fair sample of what225 can be done with the ‘niggers’ if properly handled, and all agree that the northern blacks are a finer race than those of the south; and, speaking of my personal acquaintance with them, i can say they compare in intelligence very favourably with our ‘noble savage’ in new zealand; in fact, are, i think, much ‘cuter.’ now, at the risk of making this letter too long,—and if so you can take it in instalments,—i’ll just give you some of my ‘personal experiences’ to show you to what an extent slavery and murder obtains in queensland.
“i had been introduced a few days since to a cockatoo-squatter, who holds a small run within thirty miles of one of the civilized (?) municipalities in this district.
“‘come out and stop a few days with me,’ he said, ‘and if you want any native curios, or a skull or two, as you’re a scientist, i’ll see if sergeant bedad can come up with his “boys.” no end of sport, can assure you.’ i thought he was making a grim joke,—but you will see. a town councillor who was going my way, to visit a goldmine up on the ranges beyond my destination, offered to show me the way. we started together, and, after about two hours’ ride, as we were entering a piece of scrub, mr. councillor pulls out a long-barrelled revolver from his dust-coat pocket, and motions to me to be quiet. thinking he saw a wild pig or cassowary, i let him go on by himself a bit.
“‘i saw two niggers here, last time i was passing,—last week,’ he explains as i overtake him,—‘they were getting grubs out of that rotten tree, by the bush-layers there; but they cleared off before i could get a fair shot at them.’ i needn’t tell you, old man, 226 that i was astonished at what my companion said; and, getting off my horse to see if he was ‘having me,’ found the print of the niggers’ feet in the black soil, the hole in the rotten tree which they had made in searching for grubs, and lastly, the most circumstantial piece of evidence to prove he was not joking, but terribly in earnest, the bullet-hole of the shot he had fired in a tree stem close by.
“arrived at the little station, i was introduced to mrs. cockatoo-squatter. she was a tall, dark, ladylike person, with something particularly gentle and womanlike about her, that was very charming after the specimens of the weaker (?) sex one generally sees up this way. but she was the next one to startle my new-chum anti-slavery notions. she had no children of her own, but was possessed of two little child-slaves, who, she informed me, the local sergeant of black police had kindly ‘saved for her’ out of a camp of blacks he had destroyed four miles down the river. i saw the remains of the ingenious fish-weir erected by these unfortunates one day when out for a ride. these blacks had apparently never injured any one; but, as mrs. cockatoo informed me, with a gentle smile, ‘they were always singing or making a noise of some sort, and disturbed the cattle,’ which liked to stand in the shallows near the camp, in preference to merely taking a drink at the steep banks of the other parts of the river frontage. ‘the niggers frightened them; besides, the blacks are always a nuisance.’ so the camp was surrounded one night and ‘dispersed,’—the meaning of which word, in this part of the queen’s dominions, i have already explained to you.
227
“these child-slaves, whose baby-love for each other was most touching, were naturally very pretty, as most of the native children i have seen are; but they were sadly neglected, and very cruelly treated. their sole garment consisted of an old sack, stiff and coated with dirt, the bottom of which was perforated with three holes, one for the head and two for the little black arms. although only six or eight years of age, these children had to chop up the firewood used in the house, fetch the water from the river, etc., and were often cruelly beaten for trivial offences. in fact i left the station, after spending three days there, chiefly on account of the painful sight always before my eyes of the cruelty inflicted upon these unhappy little ‘niggers.’
“mrs. cockatoo told me a pleasant story, too, the first day i was at her house, illustrating the ‘annoyance’ the blacks had been to her husband and herself, ‘till dear inspector nemo cleared the niggers off the hills’ that surround the run. ‘it was january, i think,’ she said; ‘yes, the end of last january. i hadn’t had topsey and turvey (the two slave-children) very long, and i was cleaning some fish that we had got out of a net we sometimes run across the river at the old fish-weir. bob (her husband) was away, and there were only two white men near the house. they were fencing round the dog kennel there. bob hadn’t got the dogs then,’ my fair hostess added, turning her gentle eyes towards the two magnificent bloodhounds which were sunning themselves by the ‘lean-to’ door, and whose use i was afterwards to learn.
“‘well, i was at work, just as i am now,’ she went 228 on, ‘when i chanced to look up, and i saw two old niggers coming up from the river, and walking across the paddock towards the house. bob had told me not to allow any niggers to cross the run or “come in” (come and work as slaves) to the station; so when they came near i told them to go or i’d shoot them. they, at least one of them did, kept on saying, “me very good boy, me very good boy,” and “me velly hungey,” and they wouldn’t go away. so i got the gun, that one with the broken stock,—bob broke it finishing an old rascal of a nigger, last time he was out with inspector nemo,—and i told them to go, but they knelt down and wouldn’t go. so i had to shoot them, and get the men to throw them into the river. bob said i had done quite right, but i’m afraid you don’t think so.’ this amiable couple, for they were really amiable and good-hearted in every other respect than their treatment of niggers and animals, had destroyed by poison, shooting, and hunting with ‘the dogs,’—whose ‘score was only four at present,’ mrs. cockatoo informed me, laughing,—about thirty or forty aborigines in the six years since they had taken up the small run. mr. cockatoo reminded me, in his conversation, much of that old periander, the tyrant of corinth, we used to read about at school, who, you will remember, although as cruel and devilish an individual, perhaps, as ever sat on a throne, yet patronised the arts, was fond of peace, and said ‘that not only crime, but every wicked and corrupt thought, ought to be punished.’ he was one of the ‘seven wise men,’ too, i think.
“both my friend the cockatoo-squatter and periander of old evidently are examples of sufferers from that229 horrible disease, cerebral hyper?mia, that dr. junelle, whom i met on board the boat coming up the coast, and whom perhaps you recollect at mercer, told me of. but this letter is far too long to be ever all read by a lazy old fellow like yourself, so ‘so long,’ old boy.
“yours till death,
“claude angland.
“p.s.—by-the-bye, how is the little iron-grey filly shaping? i mean the one out of the three-quarters-bred mare i got from matata. she ought to jump well. she’s by that big chestnut horse, saint patrick, as i suppose you know.”