R.N. Richard Sadleir

“ Down fell the spears, and the impulsive natives rushed forward to embrace relatives and friends, while the chiefs grasped each other’s hands in brotherly embrace. It was a jubilee of joy. A feast followed, and a corroboree closed the eventful day. Well may Robinson say this was the happiest evening of his life.
These poor people had fought for the soil; numbers had perished. They had resisted 3,500 men well armed, but pacific measures had subdued them: a noble victory of moral influence. The tribe had yielded as friends, not captives. ”

“ In one of these battles, three natives were killed and several wounded. Amongst these Bennillong was dangerously wounded, and probably died. Thus perished Bennillong, as a drunken savage, after all the advantages he had had of visiting England, and living at the Governor’s House. Nor is this a solitary instance of these savages who have enjoyed like advantages.
We have here the failure of mere civilization, which produces only outward effects. Religion alone can reach the heart. The gospel is the power of God to the salvation of all who believe in and know it. ”

“ The Queensland Government should be strong in the administration of justice, tempered abundantly with mercy, along the line where white and black are struggling for supremacy, and not merely able to grapple with questions of tariffs and mail contracts in Brisbane. It is a disgrace to a civilized people to be represented by many of the ‘boys’ who are employed to hasten the extinction of their countrymen in the far north. ”

“ Westgarth does not appear to be over-attached to these unfortunate people, and considers, with many others, it is the decree of Heaven that they should perish before the civilized population. But this is merely an excuse for the demoralizing influence of civilization, with its multiplied evils, for we have the fact before us in the Sandwich Islands, Tahiti, and where there has been a native society under missionary enterprise, that this was not the case, but that life and morality would be fostered with the advance of civilization under the power of Christianity. ”

“ Whatever benefit the civilized world has acquired in opening up a new territory for their over-peopled state, the poor unfortunate aborigines have had to suffer increased misery, wretchedness, and gradual extinction.
The Bishop of Perth has well put the question: “The darkness they were in in their original condition was the darkness of ignorance—dark indeed, but far darker is their state when to the darkness of ignorance is added the degradation of the acquired vices of civilization.” ”

“ Thus the aboriginal natives melted away like snow before the sun; from no congenial heat, but from the practices of inhuman selfishness.
What a contrast the European settlement in 1858! Scarce a black in existence for 3 miles, while the white population numbered 488,769 souls, with 4,000,000 sheep, 400,000 head of cattle, 184,000 horses, with imports and exports of £14,000,000 and £13,000,000 respectively, on the graveyard of the aborigines.
The earth was never intended to be kept waste, but the evil is as to the way of settling it—this is the perplexing question. ”

“ Death is certainly a terrible visitor, and people of all nations seem to desire to retain the identity, as it were, amongst them. They do not like to consider the separation as final, and the being with whom they have been so familiar as removed from all intercourse. On the death of a husband, the widow is not permitted to look at any of the relatives for some time. Should she meet with any of the relatives, she immediately prostrates herself on the ground and conceals herself in her cloak. In some districts they bury the body in a sitting posture. ”

“ Acknowledging the law of retaliation, blood for blood, they seldom feel secure.
It would appear that the aborigines of the sea-coast had never ventured far inland, and had never passed the Blue Mountains, as they held to the belief that the interior was inhabited by white people, and that there were large lakes and inland seas.
They are a very law-abiding people; the tribes are under government of the chief elders, who are chosen or elective; they are the leaders in war, and in fact rulers of the tribe.
One of their laws is that none but native weapons shall be used in their battles ”

“ Did mere possession confer a title so absolute that British colonization must be ranked as a national crime? Surely no rational man can defend such a view as that. The blackfellow’s title to the country was destroyed by his savagery. Nature gives everybody a chance of some kind, and the blackfellow had his chance. ”

“ Sir Richard Bourke had established in Melbourne an Aboriginal Institution, of which the Bishop says, “Some of the boys appear to be acquiring some knowledge already, and of the most elementary truths of religion, which it may be hoped will lead to their future improvement; but there are no apparent signs as yet of any impression having been made upon the adult natives, many of whom are attached to the place, and derive advantage from the stores of provisions which are distributed amongst them; but they have in no respect broken off their savage usages.” ”

“ The numbers now within the influence of the white population, embracing Port Phillip and Moreton Bay, cannot be less, I conceive, than from eight to ten thousand souls, for I found within a given space near Wellington Valley, in 1826, nine tribes, consisting of 1,658 souls.
That a dreadful destruction of life has taken place since, there is no doubt; but that still in the interior, within the reach of the white population, a considerable body of natives is to be found, I feel myself borne out by the various inquiries I have made. ”

“ Stripped of all exaggeration, the story of what is happening in the remote districts of the neighbouring Colony has a horrible sound to Southerners who have no environment of savagery, and to whom peace and plenty have become monotonous and undervalued privileges. Yet the far north of Queensland is not being stained more terribly with aboriginal blood than has been our fair New South Wales. ”

“ From these extracts we learn that the employment and the working of the institution is the practical success of the power of religion. The mission is still making its way, and an influential committee has been formed in Sydney to promote its interests.
The other missions in Victoria and South Australia I have already described. We see, after all the failures, that the cause is not hopeless.
First, we must not be satisfied with civilization. Religion can alone change the native. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, but God can change the heart. ”

“ They possess all the tender feelings of our common humanity, weeping over each other’s afflictions, as fellow mortals mourning with those who mourn. Exposed to danger and treachery, they are watchful; the rustling of a leaf will make them start to their feet. ”

“ The natives always mention his name with reverence.
The reverend writer’s opinion is that Nurundere is some deified chief. The natives regard thunder as his voice in anger, and the rainbow as the production of his power. It is evident that they look to [15] some creative power; although, in this instance, the more intelligent blacks told the missionary that Nurundere was a chieftain who led the tribes down the Darling to the country they now inhabit, where he appears to have met another tribe and had with them a battle, in which he and his tribes were victorious. ”

“ When a man dies they conclude that sorcery has been exercised, so the nearest relative lies with his head on the corpse so that he may dream of the sorcerer. Next day the body is raised on men’s shoulders on a bier, and several names are called out as suspected persons until the impulse of the dead body, which the bearers pretend they cannot resist, confirms the name of the sorcerer.
In some of the tribes the body is placed over a slow fire until the outer skin is blistered, when it is rubbed over with grease and red ochre and placed within the wurley in an upright position. ”

“ Those within the pale of white population must, within a very few years, be utterly destroyed, if the most prompt measures be not taken, so much so that I conceive that there is scarce an alternative between coercion and destruction. I would therefore beg to recommend a clause to be introduced into the Vagrant Act, empowering their transportation, under peculiar circumstances, to distant parts of the Colony—say Moreton Bay, Port Phillip, &c. ”

“ While, thirdly, as a question of humanity, nothing can be more dreadful to contemplate, or more disgraceful to a Christian and civilized nation, than the wholesale destruction which has been going on for the last fifty years, and must continue, unless some plan be devised to prevent it, for the next hundred years. While, fourthly, as a matter of self-interest, it is a strange contradiction of things to be destroying, on the one hand, thousands of our fellow-creatures, who may be made useful members of society ”

“ The whole no doubt is mysterious, but we hardly think that these people could be entirely destitute of some form of religion, when we take these cave figures into consideration, with the ceremony of initiating young men to manhood, the exclusion of women, prohibition of certain food, their belief in spirits and a future condition, the deification of their chiefs into stars, the deification of heroes, and even of the lowest reptiles and animals. ”

“ A writer in 1842 says that, about 200 miles from Sydney, they assembled for a corroboree for rain, and described God as a great blackfellow, high up in the clouds, having arms nine miles long, eyes the size of a house, ever in motion. He never sleeps, flashes lightning, and dries up the waterholes as punishment. They have their songs and festivals for dry weather when on journeys, thus indicating a higher state of things.
Every tribe has its ngaitye or tutelary genius or tribal symbol, in the shape of a bird, beast, fish, reptile, insect, or substance. ”

“ Back of the brute there was, no doubt, the germ of manhood; but a creature with only an undeveloped germ of manhood cannot live among men. The blackfellow shrank from men, preferring to dwell with marsupials. He did not understand, he did not like man—using the word in its large sense. He fought against him as a wild brute would fight—treacherously, savagely. In the far north, to this day, he is not averse to eating the colonist. ”

“ The Narrinyeri tribes point out several stars, and say they are deceased warriors who have gone up to heaven. These are Wyungare and Nepelle, the Manchingga, and several others; and every native expects to go to Wyirrewarre after death, so that there can be no doubt of their belief in a future state. They also believe the dead descend to and walk the earth, and that wicked men will injure them. They are very much afraid of ghosts, and seldom venture in the scrub in the dark, yet they travel long distances to surprise an enemy. ”

“ As the blacks could not read, as Tom said, sign-boards were put up exhibiting blacks spearing whites, and then hanging to a tree; the Governor, with a cocked-hat and uniform, with soldiers superintending; white women nursing black babies. How the blacks must have been convulsed with fun, and turned all into a corroboree!
Then came the Line scheme. Captain Welsh and Mr. G. A. Robinson succeeded even at this early period in opening friendly intercourse with one tribe, but this seems to have been objected to, as not driving the natives far enough away. ”

“ English settlers go forth to exercise their freedom, and the Government does not strictly watch their actions, while it makes no particular law for the aboriginal races suitable for their particular situation.
English law is forced upon them; whereas the French and Dutch Governments watchfully manage and regulate everything—the governing power goes with them; the roads, police, everything is kept under the governing power, even the aborigines are under the same. ”

“ The very licentiousness under heathen dominion, and the very cruelties of heathen rites, the degradation of the female sex, and constant wars, have all a downward tendency. So that however high Greece and Rome rose, they had within them the germs of decay. Hence the value of missions for conveying civilization and moral exaltation, renewing as it were the life of man upon the earth, regenerating humanity. ”

“ While they allow polygamy, they do not permit marriages within a certain descent, and it is a crime worthy of death to marry one of the wrong sort; the distinction of tribes by name is the distinction of marriage. ”