Edward Shann

“ In the interim, before such a policy bore fruit, the older warriors, accustomed to spear all animals they found in the tribal forests, would have destroyed the last resources of the colonists, their daily source of food, A distant Home Government, though it bade them forbear from violence, and treat every black man as a fellow-subject, would not at once recoup the losses likely to occur before the experiment succeeded, It might mean to do so, but the settlement would have come to final disaster before it could hear of the need, let alone act in remedy. ”

“ Fanny Bussell, writing from Augusta in 1835, after mentioning the military escort stationed at the Vasse, 'consisting of four soldiers', tells that the natives 'are numerous and at first showed some disposition to be hostile, but they are now on very good terms.' The reported hostility may, however, have existed chiefly as a reason for increasing the 'military escort' — a useful source of labour power — from two soldiers to four.* There is nothing to support it in the three accounts of the landing from the 'Ellen', written by John, Alfred and Lenox. ”

“ Hunter or farmer must hold the land. If the hunter, the colonist must go. If the farmer, he could provide, out of his increased production from the soil, a better and steadier living for the black man. But first, before the ideal of providing for the invaded could be within reach, the live-stock of the colonist, without which they could not live, must be secure. ”

“ A fiery, reckless old warrior, Gaywal, spears a calf. If the crime goes unpunished, pride and the admiration of his fellow-hunters for such daring will prompt him to repeat the coup. Police, says the Governor, must be named to keep the peace by civil means, and to prevent a fearful upheaval. Big Dawson has been named as constable; he sets off with a posse of settlers and soldiers to arrest the culprits. It is hardly the country for handcuffs, and the Government Resident is at Augusta. ”

“ When he was present relations with the natives were almost uniformly peaceful. Rations were given to those round 'Cattle Chosen' and a tradition of kindness still clings to the name 'Mowen' by which they called him. Charles Bussell, however, whose influence was uppermost during John's absence, held, and held vehemently, that intimidation was the only way by which the isolated and numerically inferior whites could establish and enforce the respect for stock and other stored property, without which a European economy could not be set going to win that surplus. ”

“ To the mentality of such hand-to-mouth huntsmen and scavengers, the refusal of settlers, possessed of an apparent abundance of stores, to give them flour was beyond all understanding, and when they found a whites' camp weakly held they mildly imitated the practice of sealers in similar circumstances and carried off what they needed. Fannie Bussell records such a visit to the house at Augusta in January 1834, when the boys were all absent getting in the last harvest at 'The Adelphi'. 'We had a visit or rather an invasion from a number of natives. ”

“ Signs of friction multiply, however, in 1837 when from one reason and another, the farms at the Vasse, during April, were denuded of many defenders. John had gone to England to bring out his wife. Lenox, reported by Charles, just after John's departure, to be 'big with magisterial honours', was in poor nervous health. Charles, though coming over from Augusta at frequent intervals, by a lonely bush track, was always ready to counsel war, and the Vasse natives were besetting the weakly held farms as though they expected them, like many at Augusta, shortly to be abandoned. ”

“ Each side tries stratagem in an effort to ambush the other, and impose its will by a crushing blow. 'Everyone' among the whites may be as 'unwilling to take life' as Miss Bessie believes, but such a guerilla warfare, once begun must, for the safety of the whites, be quickly stamped out. Intimidation by the guns of the white men is inevitably the means employed. ”

“ Sometimes they content themselves with fern roots and grubs which they display great, I was going to say, instinct in finding about the grass tree. They are here at present very peaceful, and yet there is something that makes one shudder when he crosses unawares in his path the naked "Lord of the forest." ”

“ The soldiers pretended they would shoot, but after thoroughly frightening her she was released. A great many of the men came up to assure us they were not in fault, and in the true spirit of the sex, all the blame was attached to the gentler species. So much for our adventure with our sable friends.'
In April of 1834, Bessie Bussell, describing to Capel Carter the Vasse country 'a beautifully undulating grassy lawn, between the huge tooart trees', writes that kangaroos 'are seen in herds, which accounts for the natives being so numerous. ”

“ Lenox, ex-naval officer, and irritable at times, had little patience with the blacks. In a disjointed journal of a search for cattle which had strayed from 'The Adelphi', he complains bitterly of his guides' leading him on the trail of kangaroos, to the neglect of the tracks of the cows even after they had picked these up. Evidently he fell out with 'Wooberdung and Gallipot' very early, through refusing to share his damper with them. Accustomed to hunters' communism, the natives were quite unable to grasp European rules of property. ”

“ Natives broke windows ' — an irritating piece of mischief, windows being hard to come by. On 26th September 1835, 'Natives stole an axe and were fired upon.'
In October of 1834 at what was known as the 'Battle of Pinjarra', near Perth, a police force, backed by the military under Governor Stirling himself, crushed the resistance to white settlement of the aggressive Murray River tribe, at the cost of many native lives. ”

“ Here were communities attempting to live upon the same land, between whose methods of life there was a fatal conflict. Powerfully armed strangers, living by a careful husbandry of tamed beasts had built their farm-houses in the very centres of the natives' hunting-grounds. ”

“ The suspicion of all whites which their raids aroused may be read between the lines of young Vernon Bussell's letter, written at 'The Adelphi' early in 1833:
'The natives are very friendly here. They come sometimes to see us. ”

“ After 'turning the house upside down to get everything in apple-pie order for their return', Miss Bessie made 'two plum puddings, and William' (the King George's Sound native) , 'who was told to make some very good soup which would keep and gellatinize, put into the huge cauldron all the kangaroos. [4] The soup of course was excellent, and in the evening we strained it into a jar. The natives really completely beset us. ”

“ Eleven days later, on Sunday, 30th July, natives were heard shouting on the estuary. Everyone immediately armed themselves, and in a little while we heard the firing of guns. After two hours' absence, they returned amidst crowds of natives. I fear more women were slain than men. ”

“ I am afraid, however, their eyes are getting open to the superiority of our food, and they will soon find out means to get bread, if they are denied it after their repeated exclamations "Bread, bread, yulibue, yulibue", which means they are very hungry. ”

“ He is obliged to eat his seed wheat on which he has bestowed great labour to get it pure and good.↑ There is a tradition that at one point, finding himself beset by natives, Mr. Turner scared them away by brandishing his stick with his wig on the point of it!↑ The soup is usually made from the tail only.↑ Wilga was a red pigment mixed with grease with which the natives smeared their bodies.↑ Presumably a native doctor or magician, called a 'Mulgarradock'. ”

“ On 4 May 1837 some natives brought word that a whale had been thrown up on the beach. Alfred and Dawson inspected, but reported small hope of obtaining oil from it. 'The scene on the beach seems to have been most disgusting. Men and women tearing off immense pieces of the whale, putting these into the fire, and setting them alight ”

“ Charles, Dr. Green, Dawson, the two Corporals, and McFarlaine went off early escorted by Dr. Miligan, to find Gaywal and sons. They succeeded in finding the track and caught 3 kangaroos. One might almost as well be campaigning. We live now in a council of war. Dawson and Alfred have been walking sentinel all day.
'Tuesday 18th. Lenox, Mr. Green, Dawson and four soldiers went out with Dr. Miligan to continue the search, and succeeded in capturing 4 women and a child. We retain them in the hope that the men will come to their rescue. Made 131⁄4 lbs. ”