I watched The Australian Wars (episode 2) by Rachael Perkins and, from my research, it was an accurate account of what happened in Van Diemen’s Land. I am indebted to the makers of this series for shedding light on this terrible history. Without knowledge and recognition of the Australian Wars we can’t move forward.
I wish also to acknowledge the research and struggle of ordinary first nations people to have this history told. People from WAR – Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance, Bogaine Skuthorpe-Spearim, Callum Clayton-Dixon, Jade Slockee, Meriki Onus and Pekeri Ruska. Also Sam Watson Jnr. who wrote The Kadaitcha Sung which was about the Australian Wars. Without them and other first nations people this story would be hidden from us all.
I know this because my own family (Edward Curr’s family) was involved in the genocide of aboriginal people in the early days of the Van Diemen’s Land colony. Edward Curr was the first manager of the Van Diemen’s Land company (VDL) when the Australian Wars took place in the north-west of what is now known as Tasmania. His family’s house is depicted in Rachael Perkins film; it is called Highfield House and overlooks the Nut, what the north-west tribe of First Nations people call Monatteh.
Highfield House was built by convict labour for the VDL company on land stolen from the Aboriginal people by the crown. The Curr family resided there from 1825 till they left for Port Phillip colony (Victoria) in 1842. At his death in 1850, Edward Curr was referred to as the ‘father of separation‘. The colony of Port Phillip was separated from the colony of Botany Bay. By the 1850s Australia’s federated structure had begun taking shape.
As early as 1824, Edward Curr had identified the owners of the land but could not fully comprehend that he had stumbled upon an ancient civilisation with its own dreaming, a people that managed the land and cultivated its plants for food and medicine.
The Australian Wars
Before and during the ‘black war‘ commenced by Arthur (Governor of Van Diemens Land, 1823-1836), Edward Curr offered a bottle of gin or rum (alcohol) for the heads of aboriginal people. To my eternal shame Curr was also involved in the massacres of aboriginal people on country. As magistrate in the far North West, Edward Curr turned a blind eye to at least one massacre of aboriginal people and downplayed others.
“Now I have no doubt whatever that our men were fully impressed with the idea that the natives were there only for the purpose of surrounding and attacking them, and with that idea it would be madness for them to wait until the natives shewed their designs by making it too late for one man to escape. I considered these things at the time for I had thought of investigating the case, but I saw first that there was a strong presumption that our men were right, second if wrong it was impossible to convict them, and thirdly that the mere enquiry would induce every man to leave Cape Grim.” [See Inward Despatch No.1. Edward Curr to Directors. 2 January 1828. AOT VDL 5/1.}
Edward Curr later wrote to the company’s directors about the genocide: “My whole and sole object was to kill them, and this because my full conviction was and is that the laws of nature and of God and of this country all conspired to render this my duty … It would’ve been good, it would’ve alarmed the natives … prevented them from attempting our huts again, made them keep aloof, given them a lesson they would have long remembered … As to my expression of wish to have three of their heads to put on the ridge of the hut, I shall only say that I think it certainly would have the effect of the tearing some of their comrades, of making the death of their companions live in their recollections, and so extend the advantage the example made of them. ” [McFarlane, “Aboriginal society in North West Tasmania” : 125 as quoted in James Boyce’s Van Diemen’s Land page 205.]
Lieutenant-Governor Arthur declared martial law on 1 November 1828 thereby allowing roving parties to shoot or capture Aboriginal to take the original owners off country for resettlement elsewhere.
Edward Curr was in the far north-west and was at odds with Lieutenant Governor Arthur in Hobart over expanding the grant of land to graze the VDL’s sheep. Curr was withholding information from Arthur about the massacres at Cape Grim. When Arthur was told by by the VDL superintendent, Alexander Goldie, that aboriginal losses were very high and that shepherds had taken a whole tribe by surprise and massacred thirty (30) of them and threw them down a cliff.
Arthur then dispatched George Augustus Robinson as his emissary to investigate. Later between 1832 and 1835, Robinson set about removing from Cape Grim those aboriginal people who had survived the massacres. Robinson used lies, deception and feigned concern for their welfare to achieve the purpose set by Arthur.
The Australian Wars and Terra Nullius
What I didn’t understand is how the settlers and their courts could claim Terra Nullius and, at the same time, wage war against the original owners as described so eloquently by Henry Reynolds in Episode 2 of The Australian Wars. An early version of doublethink?
My brother John Curr (a retired lawyer) wrote this: “I see Robinson as a “Lawrence of Arabia” character in that he establishes relationships and uses them to betray people. His feigned concern for the aborigines was to establish and maintain his position with Arthur and the Colonial Office whose feigned concern never confronted the central truth that the invasion was unlawful, under international law (at the time), British law and Aboriginal law. The consequent theft of land and destruction of culture were always going to result in justified resistance. The illegality was papered over by the bare-faced and outrageous lie which became known as Terra Nullius. The consequences persist to today. “
Henry Reynold’s book “Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement” explains the myth of Terra Nullius in this way. Treating the continent as uninhabited was a convenient fiction which permitted the British to claim the land. However, that was a nonsense because, when Cook claimed it for the Crown he did not have the intention to settle which was a requirement of international law at the time.
When Philip (Governor of New South Wales colony 1788-1792) arrived with the intention to settle, his claim to the whole continent (perhaps excluding what was to become Western Australia ) was also unlawful because his capacity and intention was only to settle around Sydney cove. Even that claim was unlawful because, when he arrived, he ascertained immediately that the land was inhabited and the original basis of a right to claim Sydney Cove and surrounds was false.
Always was, always will be …
Ian Curr
11 Oct 2022