The existence of the river, which became known as the Fitzmaurice, remained unknown to the colonial settlement of Australia until 1839. In that year Stokes and Wickham, aboard the Beagle ventured into the area with a view to completing a more detailed survey of the northern coast. The Victoria and the Fitzmaurice Rivers were both named by Stokes during this exploratory trip. The latter river being given the name of assistant surveyor L. R. Fitzmaurice on the Beagle, who led a small party 30 miles up river to confirm its existence and chart its lower reaches. No mention is made of any Aboriginal presence on the river at the time.[8][9]
The next European visits occurred some 17 years later when the redoubtable A. C. Gregory and party traversed the Macadam Ranges and crossed the Fitzmaurice on their journey south to the Victoria River. They make mention of the difficulties of finding a suitable route through the rugged topography, but report only two brief encounters with local Aborigines, both evidently in the Majalindi valley which extends from the northern banks of the river.
Steering north-east and east for three miles along a salt creek, came to the termination of the salt water, where we saw four natives digging roots; on observing us they decamped.[10]
Near the creek we saw a native man and two women, who were much alarmed at the sudden appearance of the party, and retreated across the plain.[11]
One of the consequences of Gregory’s extensive explorations in the Fitzmaurice and Victoria River region, were his favourable reports for the prospects of rich grazing lands which lent weight to the increasing calls in southern capitals for the north to be opened up and developed. It wasn’t until the early 1880s, however, that colonial interest was translated into practical effect through the burgeoning pastoral industry. Within a decade a series of pastoral runs was carved out on the land and large numbers of cattle introduced into the region. They included the huge Victoria River Downs (1883) and Auvergne Station (1886), and a string of other stations such as Leguna, Bullita, Delamere, Innesvale and Bradshaw’s Run, Lissadell and Newry stations among others.
The consequences of pastoralism and the pressures placed on local Aboriginal populations in the region were little short of devastating and resulted in a major decline in population through a combination of introduced diseases and the ‘clearing’ of the land through shootings and reprisals. Between the 1880s and 1920s Aborigines across the region were rounded up and ‘quietened’ down on the developing stations[12] (see Shaw 1980, Riddet 1988, Rose 1991 and McGrath 1987 for examples). Ernestine Hill gives another insight in to the flavour of the times in her 1951 history of the Territory,
To the new station you brought working blacks from some far country – no conspiracies, they were terrified of the ‘bush niggers’, and for protection of your ‘muckity’, musket, never ventured out of your sight. There was quiet nigger country and ‘bad nigger’ country….[13]
The great influx of cattle into the region provided local Aboriginal populations with an inadvertent new source of meat protein, which they took to securing with great alacrity. Indeed the spearing and later shooting of cattle was one of the major sources of friction between the settler pastoralists and the Aborigines. Massacres and murders of local Aboriginal groups suspected of cattle duffing or the intentional wounding of cattle went largely unreported although it is a theme frequently cited in local oral histories.[14] ‘Dispersal’ was the widely adopted euphemism of the times to describe the use of guns against any ‘problem’ Aborigines. As Hill has noted, ‘[A] big item on the books was ammunition, and it was not for shooting kangaroos’.[15]
On Bradshaw’s Run, established in 1894, and which originally extended from the Victoria River to well north of the Fitzmaurice River into what is now the Daly River land trust, the story was little different. In a diary entry for April 1896, for example, it is noted that;
…the myalls made themselves obnoxious by spearing horses and cows so had to be dispersed near the stockyard at Angle point (Bradshaw Log Book 1894-1901)
The high number of rock paintings across Bradshaw station, which depict examples of carbines and other guns, is a striking if mute testimony to the importance and impact local Aborigines accorded this weapon (field observations 1996-98). However, it is also the case that most of the pastoral and mustering activity on Bradshaw’s Run occurred in the southern part of the lease in the vicinity of the Victoria River that served as the supply route. The Fitzmaurice River region to the north remained for the most part a distant and largely unvisited region for European settlers.
In the turmoil of the frontier during this period into the early 20th century, the choices for surviving Aboriginal groups were limited. The distinction between the ‘quietened down’ blackfellas living in the comparatively safe haven of work camps on the station,[16] and so-called ‘myall or bush blacks’ who remained largely outside the pastoral system but foraged on its fringes, represented an uneasy compromise. Bush Aborigines maintained constant, if furtive, connections with the station camps that evolved within the pastoral leases.
From the early days of contact, tobacco figures as a major enticement for Aborigines to approach the European settlements, stock camps and mining areas. It is this theme which punctuates the following description of the life of old Pat Ngulunung whose ancestral lands lay in the middle Fitzmaurice River.
Old Pat, he born Kartinyen.[on the Fitzmaurice] When he was a lad, till he come big kid, just around Fitzmaurice … Kimul. Till he come big boy. Took him from there to Bradshaw ... big station there. He stop one week, workin tobacco, they off again. Pat’s father worry about bush, want to go back bush again. He trying to take Pat with him. Early day whiteman been there, they like those kids too. Stop them to make ringer. They caught Pat to hang on there. Pat’s father take him away. All the time every night, take him to bush again. Take him level to Fitzmaurice again – Kartinyen. Big mob always bin there. Hang around there again. Follow that tobacco. When they come too short, they off again. All the family go, Pat’s father take him down to Bradshaw get more tobacco. They never go daytime. Sneak in there in dark. Relations there. Come to them boy, get little bit tobacco, tea, then off bush to Fitzmaurice again. Round there they follow tobacco … used to worry for tobacco. (Translated by Captain Waditj)[17]
The pattern described here for Pat Ngulunung was a common experience for all the groups and families living along the Fitzmaurice from the late 19th century. The river and its rugged dissected hinterland remained a comparative safe haven from which local families and individuals made forays across the frontier to engage the European settlers and hopefully profit from association. Unlike the violent encounters of early pastoralism and the notorious police ‘dispersals’ on pastoral leases along the Victoria River and beyond, the Aborigines of the Fitzmaurice do not appear to have been coerced from their riverine homes. Rather, as the anthropologist, Stanner, who worked in the region during the 1930s and 1950s (1936, 1950) has put it, ‘there is no evidence ... that the exodus was other than entirely voluntary’.[18] Drawing on Aboriginal explanations he notes that:
They say that their appetites for tobacco and, to a lesser extent, for tea became so intense that neither man nor woman could bear to be without. Jealousy, ill will and violence arose over the division of small amounts which came by gift and trade. The stimulants ... were of course not the only, or the first, European goods to reach them...but it was the stimulants which precipitated the exodus. Individuals, families, friends ... simply went away to places where the avidly desired things could be obtained. The movement had phases and fluctuations, but it was always a one way movement.[19]
Although there is no clear record on the process of exodus from the Fitzmaurice, it is apparent that by the turn of the 20th century, an extensive migration of the riverine populations was already underway.[20] In the upper Fitzmaurice people sought connections with Dorisvale and Claravale Stations in the east, Coolibah, Bradshaw and Auvernge Stations in the south and Leguna Station in the west across the Victoria River. Legune in particular attracted and retained a large population of Aboriginal groups from the Fitzmaurice and Macadam Ranges area. Known collectively as Garamau, and probably comprising Murrinhpatha and Murrinhkura speaking language communities, they utilised seasonal footwalk trails, which criss-crossed the western corner of Bradshaw’s run, to move between Auvergne or Legune Stations and the Fitzmaurice River region. The practice of seasonal Aboriginal residence following the end of the annual cattle muster continued for decades as locals returned to live on country and attempted to maintain ritual links to ancestral estates. However, this pattern had little impact on the general trend of out-migration and the long-term demographic decline of the area as a focus for residential and ritual practice.
Just as local indigenous populations were moving away from their clan estates for extended periods, eventually all but abandoning them, the Fitzmaurice region also took on the reputation and status as a sanctuary or hideout for Aborigines evading capture or retribution. During the early 20th century, the so-called ‘Blackfella wars’ resulted in significant bloodletting between remnant populations of Aboriginal residents throughout extensive areas of the Victoria River District. This took the form of retaliatory killings and the mutual abduction of women from adversary groups. Social dislocation and the disruption brought about by pastoralism clearly exacerbated the situation. Some insight into this period is expressed in Shaw,[21] reporting the memory of a Jaminjung man from Bradshaw Station:
All our people, the Yilngali, died out because all the blackfellas were killing, sneaking. That other mob who were in that country, the Garamau, they were the blackfellas who were running around the country murdering one another in the early days … The Garamau people were silly by killing my father, and then the Yilngali did the same. They were cruel. They smashed everything, his head. All my people, we were in the bush. If they lost a countryman, a brother or uncle like that, they’d come back and kill other people in cold blood. We wanted to kill that mob for our people, our mates.[22]
The emergence of the Fitzmaurice River region as an Aboriginal sanctuary for evading European legal and extra-legal process was based to a significant extent on the limited appeal of the region for settler society. The huge expanse of the riverine country of the Fitzmaurice, with its broken, rocky topography and tidal flats was never attractive grazing country and no serious attempts were made to settle the area. European incursions remained sporadic and usually ill fated. Indeed, until well into the 20th century the threat of untimely death from murder and misadventure on the Fitzmaurice tended to confirm the continuing frontier reputation of the river. By way of illustration one well-reported incident that exemplified this reputation was the spearing murders of two European prospectors on the river in 1932.
Late in that year during the seasonal ‘build up’ of stifling humidity and big thunderstorms prior to the onset of the wet season proper, Alfred Koch, otherwise known as Alfred Cook, and his Russian colleague, Charles Arinski, (aka Stephans), set out on the motor vessel Maroubra from the Victoria River Depot to pursue prospecting interests on the Fitzmaurice River. They did so against the advice of the local policemen, Constables Fitzer and Langdon, who warned them against the dangers of their proposed venture. Aborigines of the Fitzmaurice River region were known to be ‘particularly hostile to whites at the time’.[23] Undeterred, the prospectors arrived at the mouth of the Fitzmaurice where they lowered their supplies into a canoe and paddled away.
Some months later concerns were raised about their safety and, in the continuing the absence of any news, it was generally concluded that they had probably met their deaths.[24] Still, it was not until nearly a year later that the Timber Creek Police initiated a patrol to investigate their disappearances.
In October 1933 Constables Fitzer and Langdon left Timber Creek with four black trackers and a pack of horses and mules bound for the Fitzmaurice River. They covered some 100 miles of rugged sandstone country to the north and then spent eight weeks in the area tracking down likely suspects and interviewing witnesses. Deciding that the prospectors had indeed met an untimely death at the hands of local Aborigines, they set about rounding up eight offenders and six witnesses to the murders of Koch and Arinski. Following several gruelling months of travel, made difficult due to wet season flooding, they brought the accused Aborigines into town and ‘to justice’.
The case was tried in the new courthouse in Darwin. The eight accused appeared ‘with tousled hair and woolly whiskers wearing handcuffs attached to bright new chains’.[25] The eight included, Tiger (alias Tappin), brother of the even more notorious Nemarluk[26], Barney (Waddawurry), Chugulla, Chalmar, Fryingpan (otherwise Chiniman),[27] Alligator (or Woombin, or Coonbook), Maru (otherwise Leon) and Harry (or Walung). All were charged with having feloniously, wilfully and with ‘malice aforethought’, killed and murdered the two prospectors.
Evidence during the case certainly identified Tiger as a primary participant in the murders, the motive for which was said to be desire for tobacco, flour and rations. One witness stated that ‘Tiger and Barney bin chukem spear. Three spears hit short fellow (Koch) and three the longfellow (Stephans)’. The bodies of both men were carried to the bank [where they were] hacked to pieces by Tiger with an axe taken from the canoe. He cut off their heads, arms and legs, the severed portions being placed in the canoe’.[28] The canoe was then sunk in the river.
It is apparent from the newspaper reporting of the trial that the prosecution evidence was contradictory and at times ‘most unsatisfactory’ with the Barristers ‘experiencing considerable difficulty in getting coherent replies’.[29] Nevertheless, and despite strong argument by the defendants’ counsel, the Judge duly found that ‘a cold-blooded and diabolical murder had been committed and there were no extenuating circumstances whatever’.[30] A sentence of death on all accused was pronounced, later commuted to life in prison and, indeed further commuted as all were subsequently released after serving up to 10 years in prison.
As an Australian version of the theme of the conquering victim,[31] the case of these murders on the Fitzmaurice in the 1930s is an exemplary text of its time. It provides a snapshot of social conditions in the region, the uneasy relationship between Aborigines and settler Australians and the contested nature of the colonial frontier. At the same time the qualities of the riverine environment as an Aboriginal sanctuary and hideout in the context of an inexorable depopulation are also exemplified. Living as they did on the northern margins of the pastoral grasslands of the Victoria River District, the Fitzmaurice River people escaped some of the worst excesses of colonial violence and invasive pastoralism, but ultimately they could not resist its subversive attractions.