Wannua and the loss of Barmup

An Alternate View of the Mokare Era

A chronology of events at earliest Albany: 1827-1843

(Long piece in progress – Expected time of completion March 2027)

Almost all studies of NSW era Albany focus on the relationships Mokare conducted with the sequence of senior officials at the garrison and during the period of Alexander Collie’s tenure as original Swan River Colony Resident Magistrate. Mokare’s influence was overwhelmingly benign and he is rightly regarded as an agent of acceptance with regard to the arrival of the Europeans. There is a parallel narrative, however. One which focusses on the behaviour of Wannua, one of the most active others described across the literature. The story of Wannua is the very first of dispossession in Western Australia and through it we witness the turmoil and resistance demonstrated by Mokare’s contemporaries as his acquiescence permitted appropriation of the most desirable natural living place in the surrounds of Mount Clarence. A place called Yaramal, part of which the military came to call The Farm, and after all that happened there as a result, what the King George’s Sound Aborigines then came to call Barmup – Place of Farm.

As settlement at Albany nears its 200th anniversary, the Old Farm at Strawberry Hill is being renovated and refurbished. Closed for the remainder of 2025 there is significant anticipation between Indigenous and government interests as to what the upgrade will reveal. This is because the twin names of Strawberry Hill and Barmup represent two entirely different stories. Strawberry Hill represents the optimism and desire brought by the Swan River Colony’s earliest settlers as they sought to bring the new townsite of Albany into the fullness of British-bred being, albeit struggling dreadfully as they went, while Barmup is a literal translation of The Farm, a place upon which the tragedy of the original Albany Menang played out. The Old Farm at Strawberry Hill may look a quaint transplant of English countrified living with its own tale of colonial hardship to prop it up, but as Barmup it holds a story of deceit, exclusion and loss for an entire clan, among which one man played a singular role of defiance and against-the-odds survival.

This previously untold version of the Barmup story acknowledges all King George Sound Aborigines who lived through the devastation of that time.

 

Above:  There came to be two points of focus for the military during the garrison period, these were the site of the garrison itself, very close to Point Frederick on the waterfront, and The Farm, on the northside of Mount Clarence. During his term, Captain Collet Barker identified multiple localities important to the Aborigines, including Yakama and Yaramal, which comprised the marshy low land on the north side of Mount Melville and Mount Clarence. Yakama was called the Albany Plains on early maps while Yaramal was the valley between Mount Clarence and Strawberry Hill, fronted to the west by Craggy Bluff (Kangas Rock) and to the east by Lake Seppings and Middleton Beach. The Aboriginal name Yakama survives today as Yakamia while Yaramal was forgotten in favour of various English monickers including Strawberry Hill, Middleton Road and Mira Mar. Image: This map is from Alfred Hillman’s 1835 town drawings, by when The Farm had been bought by Sir Richard Spencer, Resident Magistrate from November 1833. Under Spencer family ownership The Farm moved from source of produce to genteel countrified home, preferred image for most town residents today.

 

 

Introduction

 

Mokare is King George Sound’s best-known historical Aboriginal figure. He and his wider family were custodial inheritors of the Mount Clarence and Mount Melville areas and held presence within all the land between Princess Royal Harbour and Oyster Harbour, taking in as far north and west as the King River and Mount Wilyung (Woolyongup). This may be described as Mokare’s Estate (Ferguson).  Mokare’s kalla, his localised or home fires, seem to have been located on the shadowed north shore of Princess Royal Harbour, future site of the town of Albany. All around burned the campfires of his kin. His sisters, half-sisters, brothers and half-brothers. His grand relatives, uncles, aunties, nieces, nephews and cousins.  Sixty odd people (LeSouf), probably more, though Mokare had no children of his own and neither of his parents are animate in the texts.

At the foot of the northern slope of Mount Clarence, exposed to the fullness of the day’s sun and largely sheltered from the southerly and westerly weather, lived Wannua (Mulvaney & Green). Wannua was either half-brother or first cousin to Mokare. They were close in age. Wannua’s kalla comprised maybe 250 acres. Located on the opposite side of Mount Clarence to Mokare’s, it was a sheltered, fertile plain fed by drainage and natural springs. Set between two dramatic granite-laden slopes it served as an east-west conduit of direct light from the very crack of dawn. Though without a view, it was a rich source of sustenance and shelter and therefore a correspondingly attractive place to base a camp. Mokare’s moort gathered there, at least from the time of the garrison, staging not only standard tribal ceremonies, but important inter-tribal assemblies when matters central to the order of things needed to be addressed.

As The Farm became more important to the newcomers, so did its importance to its traditional owners.

The Farm was viewed by the Menang as a place of mutual or combined living, representing a permanent alliance the Aborigines thought they had secured by accepting the settler presence. But as the garrison era gave way to private ownership, full control became central to the agendas first of Dr Collie (on behalf of James Stirling) and then of the Spencer family. From this time Aboriginal access to the area, though difficult to police, became managed.

Tightly bound to traditional beliefs and codes of behaviour, while recognising the value of the military and settler presence to himself and his clan, Wannua repeatedly displayed his confusion, anger and contempt at having to meet the expectations of the newcomers. Behaviour which ran counter to that practiced by Mokare. While Mokare appears convinced of the benefits adaptation would bring, Wannua was more attuned to the appropriation he witnessed. The conditional supply of favour. Like Nakina, Wannua was suspicious of the newcomer’s motives and not impressed by their notions of superiority. Nor by the authority their command structures afforded them.

Wannua resisted. Indeed, he drew all he could from his indigenous instincts and inclinations in order to overcome Mokare’s influence and maintain his own particular Aboriginality. Thus, Wannua spent progressively less time mixing with the settlers, consequentially avoiding contraction of their diseases and coming to outlive Mokare by ten years.

 

   *  *  *  *  *

Chronology

 

Under Lockyer: 25th Dec 1826 – 3rd April 1827

 

When the NSW military first established at King George Sound, it was set back from the waterfront at Point Frederick. Major Lockyer, whose job it was to establish the garrison and who, in line with his written orders was cognisant of future development, liked this location as viewed from the harbour, thinking the rising ground was like an amphitheater suitable to the establishment of an attractive new town.

No sooner had Lockyer set himself and a few men ashore in order to commence operations, when one of his prisoners was speared three times by a group of eight Aborigines. One particularly aggrieved attacker picked up a used spear and threw it a second time. Half of those who carried out the attack had only just been rescued from Michaelmas Island, something Lockyer had initiated himself after noticing a signal fire when they entered the Sound the day before. Crucially, Lockyer suspected something was up and instructed his men not to retaliate, thus allowing the story of the Breaksea Island sealing gangs to emerge without further harm.

In the following days, in addition to commencing work on temporary shelters for themselves and their supplies, Lockyer directed his men to prepare a patch of land immediately behind the garrison site for use as a garden and corn field, an essential life-supporting action which he was also specifically tasked to complete.

 

(For comprehensive coverage of the sealing gangs active along the South Coast between 1824 and 1840 click on the Sealers and Sealing tag under categories in the right-hand side bar. The Black Anderson series covers wave two (1833-1840) while the series titled Lockyer’s Pirates examines the industry’s Australian origins and wave one (1824-1827))

 

Above: As evidenced, the garrison at Point Frederick (Parade Street) faced eastwards toward the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour. Immediately behind it, to the west, the ground was cultivated with the expectation it would generate vegetables and grain. Ultimately, however, the site was abandoned due to ongoing poor results. Image: Cut from Ensign Robert Dale’s 1834 published Panoramic View of King George’s Sound. Source: This image is one of a series of personal photographs taken of the large format backlit reproduction of Dale’s Panorama displayed at Albany Public Library.

 

 

From the moment Lockyer landed he sought to make sure he had found the best place to situate what he continuously called ‘the settlement’, a condition of which was proximity to fresh water and some agricultural land as they brought with them livestock and seeds from which to gain a future fresh food supply. After climbing Mount Clarence and observing all around, then walking halfway to Oyster Harbour and back, Lockyer concluded he could do no better than the landing point directly opposite his ship’s anchorage. Nonetheless, seventeen days later he went back to an appealing stretch he remembered west of Lake Seppings and examined the area more closely. Lockyer noted in his rough journal he was looking for construction timber, and thought the place of tall trees and nearby grass would make ‘most excellent ground for a farm’.

 

Above: Lockyer’s rough journal entry for 12th January 1827 records his impression of the taller timbered and grassy land west of Lake Seppings. Image: Screenshot taken from the Historical Records of Australia, Series 3, Vol 6, Page 469.

 

 

Above: Three months after his January 12th entry, having left King George Sound aboard HMS Success with the single-minded Captain James Stirling in command, Major Lockyer dated an important report to Alexander McLeay, Colonial Secretary to NSW Governor Ralph Darling at Sydney. Here, Lockyer officially asserts the location ‘behind the lake, toward the settlement’ as ‘an excellent spot for forming a farming establishment‘. Occupation and commencement of work did not begin until August that year, however. Almost eight months after he first identified it. Image: Historical Records of Australia, Series 3, Vol 6, Pg 531

 

 

 

There were two reasons Major Lockyer and then Captain Wakefield did not move more quickly on the Barmup site. The first was lack of confidence caused by violence carried out on the Aborigines by the Breaksea Island sealing gangs, as fear of further reprisal required Lockyer to issue his men with an armed guard. The second was the need for lime mortar. Derived from seashells best obtained on the southern shore of the harbour near a place they called Little Grove, procurement demanded he operate in that area. As there was also good timber at Little Grove it therefore made sense to direct his men there for that purpose too. It would appear Lockyer wanted to be able to see what was going on around him so he could report upon it with clarity, and through what he had to say not be reckoned as foolish. Lockyer’s concern for the safety of himself and his men is most evident in his actions. His record keeping was necessarily directed at his superiors, and it was essential he portrayed himself as cooly following orders.

Having made the decision to focus on land away from the affected Oyster Harbour area, Lockyer also instructed his men to cultivate a small garden at Little Grove as a hedge against potential failure of the initial plot at the garrison. John Brown, a gardener, had been sent as part of the convict detail, and it was his job (presumably) to oversee the cultivations.

At the same time, the observing Aborigines took great interest in what was going on. Their previous experience of white men in uniform did not involve alteration of the landscape by way of cultivation and construction, nor the use of forced labour in that process. To them the construction process must have been a curiosity. Exciting as much as threatening.

Both groups were in a state of dissonance. The military on an uneasy footing regarding their security, though with their ship still in the harbour having the means of refuge and escape. For the Aborigines, the white presence they had been experiencing over the past year, in the form of the sealers and the French visit of Dumont D’Urville & the Astrolabe, had taken a significant new step. First, their trust had been betrayed by the sealers and now the behaviour of these new visitor’s suggested neither were they leaving anytime soon.

It’s essential to elaborate on these circumstances.

Following the spearing of Dineen, a stand-off between the Aborigines and the military held for 18 days. The writing indicates there was zero contact between the two groups across this near three-week period. The apparent thaw occurred on January 13th when five Aborigines peacefully approached the garrison. A few days prior a boatload of destitute sealers had come in from Breaksea Island and revealed the detail behind what had taken place. The Aborigines had noticed the sealers arrival and had come to enquire after the women taken by them. Clearly, they understood the garrison was central to any resolution. Notably, one of the Aborigines, who Lockyer said he hadn’t seen before, was ‘very sullen’ despite the others being delighted when given presents of blankets and tomahawks.

Lockyer considered his options and was able to explain to the Aborigines what he thought was the case regarding the women’s whereabouts. He then ordered a boat to be sent to Eclipse Island to recover whoever might be found there. The boat returned late in the afternoon with one missing woman, an unknown girl, and the handcuffed sealer Samuel Bailey. Lockyer said the Aborigines expressed great pleasure at the return of their woman, then left and went with her across the hill towards Oyster Harbour.

Above: This photograph of old Albany town is taken from Point Frederick, not far from where the Frederickstown barracks, what Lockyer termed ‘the settlement’, was built. It looks northeastward toward Munster Hill and Mount Clarence, beyond which, and wholly out of sight, lay that ‘most excellent ground for a farm’. Clearly showing the early cart tracks that led from the foreshore up and over the hill in the direction of The Farm, these tracks were originally Aboriginal bidis, walking paths between areas of living, connecting small family groups which comprised Mokare’s wider moort. As The Farm was developed, turned into a summer residence for the governor and then sold to the Spencer family, two four acre lots (diagonally opposite and also out of view) were granted to the Jenkins and Newell families. Both families were closely associated with the Spencers, which the positioning of their grants reflects.  Source: Unknown. Drawn courtesy Historic Albany webpages. Facebook.

 

 

Two days later, twelve large fires surrounded the garrison to the rear. According to Lockyer, the fires burned at a distance of about two miles apart, forming a complete semicircle. January was Birak, burning season, so the fires themselves were common enough, but the apparent scale and organisation of these was sufficiently unnerving for Lockyer to record it. The back of the encampment was ground to the west, southwest and northwest. This is significant because it indicates the prevalence of activity west of King George Sound, rather than the admittedly obscured north where the kidnap and murder had taken place. This level of activity indicates the closeness of contact between the Aborigines who kept their fires around the shores of Princess Royal Harbour.

Two days later again, and for three days running, Aborigines started approaching the camp. Lockyer distributed tomahawks and blankets as per his instructions. The gifts were accepted and Lockyer felt hopeful of an all-round reconciliation. His entries reflect growing degrees of relief.

However, six days later again, on January 24th, just as the Amity left the harbour to return to Sydney, leaving the garrison without means of refuge, eight or ten Aborigines, amongst them three described as ‘strangers’, approached the garrison. The strangers were given tomahawks and blankets before making their way. Lockyer’s mention of the strangers reflects a degree of apprehension which manifested the very next day when 13 Aborigines approached a group of protected convicts cutting timber on Mount Melville at a site close enough for Lockyer to view through his spy glass. The Aborigines had their spears shipped, with one man in arrears carrying a bundle of reserves. Upon being seen by a look-out, there was an affray in which a couple of spears were ineffectually thrown and the Aborigines, after attempts to apprehend some of them, broke free and ran off. Shots were fired but no one was hit. Lockyer wrote in his rough journal that he thought shooting one or two Aborigines might have served as a deterrent to future attack, but in his fair copy, which was sent as part of his report back to Sydney, he says he was glad missing had caused no further mischief.

In his reports, Lockyer had to exhibit the kind of leadership his superiors demanded. His rough journal entries contain more immediate emotional responses and in doing so reflect the level of stress he was under. The attack came so soon to the departure of the Amity the suggestion is it was a deliberate response. 

In the lead up, Lockyer had decided timber could be cut from somewhere nearer the garrison and sent his sawyers to work, though still under armed guard. And luckily so. The implication here is that the attacking Aborigines were intent on causing harm, though very much aware of guns and their effects if turned on them. There is anger and anxiety in Lockyer’s rough journal recounting of the tale. Across his entries, he employs both nonchalant and defiant tones, attempts to display firmness and unruffled authority in the face of attack. Nonetheless, the incident itself proves the garrison was far from safe.

Lockyer said the offenders were ‘very fierce‘ and belonged ‘to a tribe from the borders of the lakes. . . ‘ Though he also says most had visited the garrison. This makes it clear Aborigines from beyond the immediate area were attracted by the garrison’s presence. Knowledge of the whereabouts of the attacking men’s kallas came from known Aborigines. Men Lockyer was to some extent familiar with. Those who rather than angered or circumspect were now appeased and agreeable.

 

Above: Major Lockyer started noticing Aboriginal fires effectively surrounding his garrison from mid-January 1827 after he rescued a local woman from the clutches of the sealers. It was burning season, but Lockyer might not have known this. Rather, he appears to have seen the fires as a show of numbers and interpreted them as a warning. Lockyer had identified the Barmup site as suitable for a farm but neither he nor Captain Wakefield could bring themselves to start working land out of sight of the garrison, unless security could be guaranteed. This is why, once the garrison garden was declared a failure, the next attempt centered on Green Island in Oyster Harbour. Image: Self-doctored cut from Google Maps view of greater King George Sound.

 

 

In his rough copy, Lockyer’s attempt to describe where the lakes lay is confused. He can’t place them properly because he doesn’t know the lie of the land beyond the two harbours. However, in his fair version he is decisive the lakes were to the west and south of Mt Melville. Lockyer implies he learned the next day (through whom he now calls the Oyster Harbour Aborigines) the offenders were from the area known today as Elleker (Lake Powell & Mannerup Lagoon). At the time this area was known by the Aborigines as Kiangadarup.

The day after the attack, Lockyer scouted Mt Melville and found two abandoned spears in the area where the sawyers had been at work. The Sydney Aborigine who had come into the garrison with the sealers then helped Captain Wakefield track the offending Aborigines and came across three of them who Lockyer said ran off in a fright upon being called. It is clear the soldiers were ordered to try and capture the offending Aborigines, not summarily punish them.

On the same day (Jan 26th), Lockyer says a party of Oyster Harbour natives, including two very old men, came into the garrison ‘as usual’.

While considering the political circumstances into which he had inserted himself, Lockyer confided, ‘each tribe acts independent of the others’. In the same paragraph he considered the need to be careful about issuing punishments if some greater defensive measure was required. Already, Lockyer was being drawn into an alliance. In keeping with the colonial superiority narrative, he  was of the opinion resistance toward his invasive behaviour warranted ‘punishment’, although he was prepared to work willingly with any Aborigines he could bring under control.

We can only assume Lockyer was correct in thinking the attacking Aborigines were from the west, as his rough journal entry, with uncertainty, indicated the area was ‘behind’ Mt Melville. If his interpretation of what the Aborigines were trying to tell him was wrong, it might have been the lakes far to the north that were being spoken of. Mount Barker (Pwakkenbak), Kendenup (Moorilup) and Cranbrook are directly behind Mt Melville when considered from the garrison, and we know there was much animosity between Mokare’s moort and certain Aborigines of that area recorded by Dr Nind at the time and by Captain Barker from three years later.

All that considered, we don’t know the precise reason why the so-called Lakes Aborigines decided to make an attack.

Following the kidnap/murder/marooning episode, the affected Aborigines had been quick to administer their punishment, carrying out the spearing of Dineen immediately upon being returned to the mainland. If all eight men involved were Oyster Harbour/Emu Point Aborigines (which does not appear to be the case), they did so outside the locality of their home fires. Which is to say there was no barrier within the King George Sound Aboriginal world strong enough to prevent them carrying out their will. The thwarted stealth attack four weeks later further illustrates the freedom of movement and action small Aboriginal groups had across their known territories. Ultimately, however, to the Aborigines most affected by the sealer’s crime, Lockyer and his soldiers’ acceptance of the spearing of Dineen, along with the return of one of their stolen women, not only looks to have resolved the immediate crisis but created opportunity for the two groups to come together amicably.                                           

Despite the obvious need for ongoing vigilance and preparedness, Lockyer’s judgement, openness and instructed generosity, albeit motivated by a nefarious end goal, helped form a bond. The beginning of a partnership Mokare’s moort must have thought would be useful to them in regard to their own personal and political affairs.

Such was the footing of the originating relationship.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

 

                  Above: Lockyer came to the conclusion the group of Aborigines who attempted to attack the sawyers he had stationed on Mount Melville on 25th January 1827 were from the locality of Kiangadarup, known today as Elleker. This view looks over the garrison to the west and south of Princess Royal Harbour toward West Cape Howe and Mount Lyndsay but does not indicate the nearer water of Lake Powell at Elleker. Lockyer noted on 15th January that twelve fires, at intervals of about two miles, burnt in a semi-circle to the back of the garrison. The Aborigines west of Albany belonged to the Murrum tribe and though friendly with Mokare’s moort were a different people. Source: This image is a stitched sequence of personal photographs taken of the large format backlit reproduction of Dale’s Panorama displayed at Albany Public Library.

 

 

In the following week, while there were no visits from the Aborigines, Lockyer didn’t fail to note the presence of fires running from Mount Gardner (eastern head of King George Sound) all the way round to West Cape Howe, as if the garrison were hemmed in by them. His entry for Sunday 28th January wonders at how numerous the Indigenous population was in order to stage such a display and the next day he worries the Aborigines are doubtful of his intentions. It wasn’t until 8th February, when two Aboriginal men visited the garrison, that he relaxed a little and decided to make an excursion up the Kalgan River, where, upon meeting three others he said were from the Oyster Harbour group, he made every attempt to explain they were going exploring and would be away for a period.

Lockyer later included an appraisal of the Kalgan River trip in the fair copy of his journal declaring the land on the right side as you enter the river was a place he’d select for a farming establishment, adding that he thought the settlement would be better placed there than at Princess Royal Harbour only Oyster Harbour was too shallow to accommodate shipping.

Lockyer was acutely conscious of the need to reinforce positive relations with the Aborigines he recognised and made every effort to appear friendly and of assistance. Worried and afraid though he was, deception remained the name of the game. The Aborigines were to be made feel at ease with the white presence, that association with them would only bring betterment.

It was on this trip that Lockyer named Private Deane in his rough journal as coming down with ague after a spell of heavy rain. It can only be this Deane who gave his name to the shallow recess on the northern side of the channel leading into Princess Royal Harbour, though we don’t know the reason why. Barker refers to Deane’s Harbour in his journals during June 1830. Deane’s illness affected Lockyer’s determination to explore further, and he cut short the trip.

On 14th February, when Lockyer’s touring party returned, they reached the locality of Deane’s Harbour in the channel to discover the schooner Isabella had arrived from Sydney. This was of great relief to Lockyer not only as his supplies were running low but because it showed the Aborigines the white presence was being reinforced. The garrison had not been abandoned and the men left to fend for themselves. The vessel was to pick-up Lockyer’s son who had been at the garrison as assistant storekeeper, while Lockyer was ordered to return to Sydney on HMS Success when it called on return from an objectified mission to the Swan River.  It is likely Lockyer knew something of Stirling’s intentions and Darling’s support for him. Also, critical to Lockyer’s optimism, more sealers had returned to the area, having made their way back from the Recherche Archipelago with the missing Oyster Harbour woman; second of the two who were kidnapped. Lockyer was deeply frustrated these men did not remain and bring the woman in. However, the looming possibility of returning her to her people, no doubt improving trust between his group and Mokare’s moort, buoyed his confidence.

By 21st February the Aborigines were ‘again constant visitors’. Lockyer seems reassured but by stating there were ‘no new faces’ suggests the many surrounding groups remained hesitant or doubtful about the garrison and its purpose. Lockyer, now approaching two months at Point Frederick, remains worried about their acceptance by the wider tribe.

By the end of the second week in March, the rain which came the previous month had not benefitted the garrison garden. Lockyer kept bringing boatloads of limestone and shells across from the south side of the harbour to burn for lime as well as keeping the sawyers cutting construction-timbers on that side. His thoughts are concerned with cultivation, and he makes an entry on 5th March to the effect the garrison side of the harbour is better suited to it, but more on the plain, where he says, ‘cattle could graze in perfect security’. This is first mention of the plain Barker later called Yakama. Also, Lockyer is content to note ‘strange natives’ came that day. The pigs are thriving, but the sheep are down sixty percent in number since arrival.

On 6th March, Lockyer entered in his fair journal ‘the natives come every day’, citing one in particular. ‘A tall, well-made, fine-looking man’ who took more interest in examining the camp and its items of construction and daily living than any other. Perhaps this was Nakina. Lockyer says a ‘stranger’ had the previous day, without asking, ‘slunk away’ with an axe belonging to Dr Nind. The next day, 7th March, the axe was returned by ‘two of the tribe’. This looks to be the first instance of Mokare’s moort ingratiating themselves with the garrison.

The next day again, five natives ‘of a tribe we have not seen before’ entered the camp. They were all fine tall men, one six foot two in height who Lockyer came to recognise as one of the four who had been taken off Michaelmas Island. Lockyer made the man aware that he recognised him, but the man did not like being recognised so got up and left. Perhaps he was the particularly sullen one amongst the visitors the day after the sealers came in. The men returned the next day, Lockyer determining they were there to solicit tomahawks, which he freely gave. Lockyer’s faith in them was growing, remarking that ‘in the morning they walk in with great confidence’, and that he now expected them to ‘continue peaceable’.

Then, on March 10th, after a day of heavy weather from the south-east, the remaining sealers emerged from the mists in two boats. How much of a good thing this was is difficult to determine because it swelled the number of sealers by twelve, bringing the total in all to twenty. Bailey had been shipped back on the Amity, but that still left an additional 19 persons added to the settlement number. Far greater than the provisions were calculated to cover.

On 16th March, Lockyer entered in his rough journal that the French/Kalgan River was the place for agriculture, not the site of the settlement. This is significant as it shows he cannot easily decide on where to establish the farm. Lockyer seemed to recognise land to the north of the garrison was more suitable but couldn’t bring himself to position his men anywhere out of sight. Somehow, he feels safer working across the water on the southside of the harbour than just the other side of Munster Hill.  After more than 80 days, the site just west of Lake Seppings he excitedly identified as ‘most excellent ground for a farm’, remained unmentioned since.

The following day Lockyer say about 60 Aborigines, women and children aside, were wading and spearing fish in the shallows at the western end of the harbour. These were likely a visiting group. Lockyer had his soldiers throw their seine net closer to the garrison and about half the Aborigines watched and helped drag it in. It was a good catch, and the fish were shared amongst all at the settlement. This was a good day for Lockyer and his confidence soared. Within a few sentences he is ‘nearly certain’ he could make workers of the Aborigines. The irony is not lost. Lockyer vacillates between deep worry and elation at his prospects. He is consumed by the need for the relationship to work in his favour. It is critical the Aborigines fall under the influence of the garrison, but at the lowest cost possible. ‘A little flour, meat or fish’, is what he proposes. Lusting after success, Lockyer has learned food, rather than blankets and tomahawks, is the preferred currency of exchange.

The Aborigines were hunters and gathers, the earliest form of human subsistence. Their entire means of existence was based around fashioning simple but efficient tools that enabled them to hunt and gather food. If they were not occupied in that mode, then they were putting up shelters, managing their environment through the use of fire, and resting, or else they were engaged in social activities practiced over the entirety of their evolution to refine nimble, agile, and durable physical qualities in their men and healthy childbearing and childraising women. Among the men, these social practices, fueled by emotion and fear-based spiritual beliefs, were largely based around the art of throwing and dodging spears. A consequence of which was a death rate facilitating low population density. The difficulty Lockyer and his men were experiencing in getting their garden into production is consistent with a generally negative appraisal of Western Australia as agriculturally suitable and bears out the existence of the Aborigines as a mobile people of low-density population who required a large area to sustain their lifestyle. When a new human entity enters that domain with technologically advanced tools (guns & fishing nets) along with a stored food supply, and with the procurement of salt the ability to store more, recognition of the ability to at least partially withdraw from unwavering adhesion to age-old daily practices is of profound and far-reaching consequence.

The visiting Aborigines lingered, making their way in and out of the settlement as they pleased, quite aware of its vulnerability, yet a source of interest and easy feeding. Lockyer became frustrated. He was bound to share the garrison’s stored food supplies with them but had to be prudent about it too. They had been expecting HMS Success to arrive daily since the Isabella departed and Lockyer was of the opinion it may have met with an accident. This made him want to conserve food but there were now many more Aborigines than before and they were all hungry. So much so, Lockyer wouldn’t allow the livestock away from the settlement for fear of them being speared and eaten.

By the end of March Lockyer was convinced the garrison garden couldn’t sustain growth. The seeds sprouted but the plants didn’t grow, the marshy nature of the site not being conducive to introduced plant life. Almost within the same thought process, Lockyer then contrasts that disappointment by saying the Aborigines appeared quite free from disease, noting their skin was perfectly clean without any irruption or blemish, which he considered extraordinary given the weather and their ‘hard mode’ of living. In his 18th April report Lockyer affirms this appraisal, saying none presented an unhealthy appearance, that they were above middle size, well-made and were good looking. Lockyer was fully three months at the garrison by this time and will have come to recognise Mokare among the regular visitors, allowing us to think Mokare was at that time not the sick and dying man Captain Barker later got to know.

HMS Success finally arrived at King George Sound on 1st or 2nd of April and Lockyer made for Sydney aboard her on the 3rd. Success was commanded by Captain James Stirling and his excursion accomplices, each of them sold on Stirling’s vision of the promised Swan River Colony and subsequently in a state of hysteria regarding its attributes. How could anyone look at the flora about Albany and say it ‘fatigues the eye’ and not say the same or worse about the baking sandplain the suburban Perth was later built upon?

Stirling’s ability to captivate those disposed toward his colonial dream was evident from the very moment he arrived in Australia, NSW Governor Ralph Darling first and foremost affected. Both Darling and Stirling had met Captain D’Urville in Sydney, just a matter of months after he and the Astrolabe had visited King George’s Sound. On the back of concerns the French were seeking to acquire the western side of New Holland, Lord Bathurst and the Admiralty back in London issued Darling with instructions to plant an outpost there. The outpost that Lockyer was now commanding. But Stirling’s plan was to create a colony and in his mind’s eye there was no hindrance to that. All he had to do was keep playing on the fears of French occupation and to keep building the idea the west coast, not the south, was a gigantic economic opportunity simply begging to come into existence.

It was General Darling who gave Stirling loan of his Colonial Botanist and Colonial Artist, both of whom were at the Sound at this time. Aboard HMS Success too was a dedicated clerk, Augustus Gilbert. Stirling’s plans for the Swan River Colony were fixed well ahead of his arrival in Australia and the job of persuasion was his primary goal. Gilbert’s “An Account of the Expedition of H.M.S. Success, Captain James Stirling, RN., from Sydney, to the Swan River, in 1827”  illustrates just how much he, Fraser and Garling Jnr had been influenced. Fraser’s overtly optimistic view of the Swan River’s agricultural suitability, along with Garling’s Romantic imagery and Gilbert’s derisory comments on King George Sound and the state of the military establishment there (such as it was after just 98 days), are direct reflections of Stirling’s strategy of redirecting both London’s and NSW’s view on Western Australian occupation from the South Coast up to the West.

 

Left: One of the earliest watercolours of old Albany, previously attributed to both Nind and Lockyer, now looks to have been the work of Frederick Garling Jnr, NSW Colonial Artist aboard HMS Success when it arrived at King George’s Sound early in April 1827. John Dowson has traced the providence of this simple unfinished work back to Garling and will feature it in his soon to be released new edition of the Old Albany photograph book.  Image: Flagstaff and Garrison at Frederickstown, Old Albany, April 1827, taken from Lost Albany facebook page, posted by John Dowson. 

 

During the 24- or 48-hours Success was at anchor in Princess Royal Harbour, the assuming commander of the garrison, Captain Joseph Wakefield, a self-determined victim of all-round bad timing, engaged in conversation with Stirling, Fraser, Garling, Gilbert and Lockyer regarding the Swan River, quickly realising the future of the garrison at King George Sound was far from certain. Indeed, the increasing brevity of Wakefield’s reports back to the NSW Command suggest he became resigned to thinking his would not be an important tenure.

Thus, from arrival of HMS Success, we no longer have daily journal entries to deliver the level of detail Lockyer provided. Until we pick up with Captain Barker’s journals, which commence in January 1829, the best part of two years ahead, far less informative quarterly reports, occasional diary pieces, letters from visiting persons and Dr Nind’s submission to the Royal Geographical Society, provide what continuity there is. Fortunately, it’s enough to flesh out the gap in terms of how the garrison got on, but not so much in terms of how the Aboriginal population responded. To both those ends, Wakefield’s contribution is an abject disappointment.

 

To read about Stirling and his motivations and struggles to establish the Swan River Colony, along with his relationship with the South Coast once the Colony was underway, read the two-part ‘And he sailed in a ship called Success‘, which takes an in-depth look at James Stirling and how he brought the colony into being.

 

Above: Mokare’s moort had been experiencing visits from men aboard larger sailing ships for at least 30 years before establishment of the NSW garrison at Point Frederick/Residency Point. One of these visits occurred in October 1826, just a few months prior to the arrival of the Amity when the Breaksea Island sealing gangs were resident in the area. This view looking north across Ataturk Channel to Deane’s Harbour and Mount Clarence appears to capture the sail-mending site set up by the visiting artist Louis de Sainson‘s ship mates aboard the Astrolabe. The positioning of Aborigines in the foreground reflects their presence on both sides of Princess Royal Harbour and their relative ease in the company of visitors. Lockyer’s garrison was positioned further inside the harbour under Mount Melville, the peak to the far left of the painting. In June 1830, Collet Barker, while sailing out of the harbour one day, noticed Wannua camped by the water at Deane’s Harbour. Image: Observatoire de L’Astrolabe au port du Roi Georges, vu de la presqu’ile Possession. (Nelle Hollande), courtesy of Antique Print & Map Room website.

 

 

Under Wakefield:  3rd April 1827 – 4th August 1828

 

Captain Joseph Wakefield (later Lieutenant Colonel Wakefield) was a career Army Officer born near Birmingham, Warwickshire, in 1793. He had just turned 34 years old when he took over the garrison command. Wakefield had bought a second-Lieutenant’s commission when he turned 21 and within a year had taken part in the Waterloo victory, soon after being promoted to Lieutenant. At age 26 he bought promotion to Captain in another regiment. Three years later, the 19th Lancers Corp being disbanded due to the Military’s overall post-Napoleon downsizing, he was transferred to the 39th Regiment and retired on half-pay, which he quietly endured for another three years. Late in 1825, Wakefield was reactivated and joined one of four companies of the 39th ordered to serve as convict escorts aboard transport ships to Australia and to serve similarly while remaining in service to the NSW government for a term. Within a year of leaving England, he had spent five months in Sydney before being made second in command to Major Edmund Lockyer and sent out to King George’s Sound by the Amity. After three months under Lockyer, Wakefield spent a further sixteen as lead officer of the outpost. It was a period of uncertain future at King George’s Sound, something Wakefield met with dreary persistence.

 

Continuing the chronology, we learn from Captain Wakefield’s debut report, dated 21st May 1827, to Secretary McLeay at Sydney, that ‘we have completely failed in every endeavour to raise vegetables’. As result Wakefield recommissioned the half-acre garden on the south side of the harbour at Little Grove, after which he stated, ‘ I should conceive it absolutely essential to form the farming establishment on the South side of the harbour, where the soil is much better.’ These comments reflect the failure of the garrison site to produce but is otherwise out of synch with Lockyer’s parting summation, despite gardener John Brown still overseeing proceedings.

Wakefield’s first statement on the Aborigines, more than six weeks after Lockyer’s departure, reveals a few are living almost constantly at the garrison. He is intent on making it clear to his superiors the Aborigines were not freeloading but employed as collectors of firewood. Those ‘few’ will have included Mokare.

Wakefield also tells, with relative detail, of the Aborigines retrieving some tomahawks/axes stolen by others who had come into the camp to visit. This is a repeat episode of what Lockyer recorded on 7th March only this time Wakefield writes the offending Aborigines were within a few days punished by spearing as well as the tools being returned. It’s important to time stamp this occurrence. By end of May, five months into the occupation, such was the value of the garrison’s comfort, real divisions were occurring within the Aboriginal grouping. We don’t know who the offending Aborigines were, in terms of where their fires burned, but it seems more than reasonable to assume those ingratiating themselves toward the garrison were those who’s kalla’s burned nearest to it, who were spending the most amount of time there, and who stood to gain most from the association.

Wakefield was also concerned with the camp’s health and what he considered the necessary draining of the swampy ground it was built on, which he said was both a health hazard as well as detrimental to plant growth. Wakefield was also focused on turning the initial shelters into more solid structures, ones that that might last ‘a few years’. This reflects the progress made by the sawyers in cutting construction timbers and of the lime-burners in establishing a mortar supply, but all-the-same, the command was furnished neither with the materials nor expertise to complete high quality permanent buildings and was not expected to do so.

Wakefield concludes by saying plentiful fresh provision had been gained by catching mutton birds at an island ‘about four leagues to the westward’. This was Muttonbird Island at Torbay.

Wakefield’s second report, dated 10th July, is brief. It makes reference to improved gardens but not at present delivering much benefit. We also learn that John Brown, the designated convict gardener, had died of an inflamed liver. Perhaps symptomatic of an alcoholic life. Wakefield said the sheep had improved since he took them to the South Side of the harbour. There is no mention of the Aborigines. The season was Makuru, winter, and they were most likely somewhere upriver.

Wakefield’s third report, dated 19th August 1827, is beset with anxiety over how to report they were still without any home-grown vegetables, something that prolonged the very serious threat of scurvy. The report sets out on a positive note with regard to animal health but quickly conjures worry as the existing gardens have still yielded zero results. Wakefield confessed, ‘I have by mistake omitted to put down maize’.

The garrison procured some horse manure from the Amity, which had returned with more supplies on 22nd July. Combined with some decent topsoil, they dug a hundred holes (presumably in the now drained garden at the garrison) and filled them with that material, in which Wakefield said they were to plant pumpkins from seed. The optimistic expectation was an abundant yield within three months.

The important news in this report is that Wakefield, clearly pressed by the gardening fiasco, had turned to Green Island as a third venture and planted it to cabbages and lettuce. As if clasping at straws, this is additional to a previously unmentioned 16th of an acre he suddenly remembered and described as ‘very productive’, 

Once again, the site just west of Lake Seppings identified by Lockyer as ‘an excellent spot for forming a farming establishment’, was rejected. The precedent of planting at Green Island is uncertain. Philip Parker-King in January1818 said Vancouver had planted vegetables there back in 1791, but Vancouver’s journal says the island was, ‘covered in a luxurious grass and other vegetables’, meaning other natural vegetative matter, not cultivated material. He doesn’t speak of planting anything. Indeed, Flinders in 1801 said Green Island was ‘covered in holes’ and showed no signs of European interference. Flinders described finding the remnants of a garden laid by the master of the Elligood, Captain Dixon, at Oyster Harbour but this was on the eastern side of the entrance channel, around the same place P.P. King planted in 1818 but which was burnt out when he returned three years later. Lockyer had earmarked Green Island as a potential garden site (and prison too) but Wakefield’s decison to plant looks to have been original.  Green Island was free from Aboriginal occupation as it was only accessible by boat, albeit one which had to make its way from Princess Royal Harbour via the Sound to Oyster Harbour, a journey of multiple hours, and which also had to carry barrels of fresh water in lieu of rain. This made its cultivation impractical but, on account of its security, Vancouver’s ‘little verdant island’ became the preferred choice.

What we don’t know is the extent Wakefield investigated the future Barmup site in the lead-up to making that decision. Had he gone there and seen it occupied by Aboriginal huts and decided appropriating what he needed would only add to the worry of protecting those he would have to send there to work?  Or was it because the ground at the garrison had failed along with the Little Grove plot too, causing Wakefield to doubt the capacity of any patch of land in the area? Whatever way Wakefield came to his decision, the plain on the far side of Mount Clarence remained too big a risk.

The emerging story here is that the garrison’s decision to delay planting at Yaramal gave rise to King George’s Sound developing a reputation for being utterly destitute of good soil. Had the sealers not interfered with the Aborigines and Lockyer not met with the spearing incident on arrival it seems likely he will have directed his men to Yaramal to cut wood there and cultivate the Barmup site soon after the garrison site showed signs of failure. Notwithstanding the need to clear a cart track between the farm and garrison. Had this happened, reports back to New South Wales will have presented King George Sound as a fertile location and perhaps given Captain Stirling a little more of a run for his Swan River money.

There are other items in Wakefield’s August report but nothing further of relevance. Notably, almost three months had passed and there was still no mention of the Aborigines. The season was Djilba, Spring, and the colour of wildflowers will have begun to spread. Mokare’s moort may have been back at their home fires, but Wakefield had very little to say about anything.

 

Wakefield’s fourth report, dated 27th October 1827, is spectacularly dull.  Unlike Lockyer, Wakefield either considered report writing too much of a chore or else that, for him at least, it was a next to pointless task. Wakefield didn’t have the same writing skills as Lockyer. His ability to communicate in a manner which reflected the strength of his command, as much as his zeal for it, is such that he probably learned it was better to say as little as possible. Something that seems in keeping with the equally probable belief the Swan River Colony was soon to be approved and the King George Sound garrison either moved to the West Coast or abandoned altogether. At this time, nothing going on around Wakefield appears to be of interest to him, least of all the garden and farm, yet, staggeringly, he had finally cleared land and planted maize. Possibly at the future Barmup site.

In the report, Wakefield nonchalantly declared, ‘a garden of near an acre promises a speedy and permanent supply of good vegetables’ but failed to say which garden. It was probably the garrison acre, but he adds, ‘about an acre of maize is planted, and I shall use every endeavour to double that quantity before the season is too far advanced’.  This additional acre, with a plan to double it, may mean he had gone to work at Yaramal, the plain behind Mount Clarence. At long last, failure of the livestock to thrive had pressed home the need to plant a reliable food source for them.

With regard to the Aborigines, all Wakefield could bring himself to say in his fourth submission is, ‘We continue on the same friendly terms with the natives.’

Fortunately, in the meantime, the Isabella had arrived from Sydney via Melville Island bringing with it Mr Tallemache, a commissariat assistant, who took the place of Lockyer’s son, Edmund Jnr.

 

Mr G. Tallemache to Deputy Commissary General Laidley, 29th October 1827

George Tallemache, the newly appointed storekeeper, arrived by way of the Isabella from Melville Island and started reporting back to the Deputy Commissary General, Mr Laidley, from late October. Among Tallemache’s first words was a declaration that land in the immediate vicinity of the garrison was ‘of the very worst description. . .  that will never grow grain of any kind’. Tallemache said there was an acre of vegetables planted, ‘the soil obtained from the islands’ and ‘about one acre of Indian corn is likewise planted’, though he doesn’t say where. The implication being both are at the garrison site.

Tallemache reveals himself an accomplished writer of Army communiques, though not quite in Lockyer’s league. His talent for ingratiating himself and his diligence before the eyes of his superiors is extravagant compared to Wakefield. 

 

Wakefield’s fifth report, dated 15th January 1828, although similarly brief, begins in earnest and is upbeat despite there being more bad news. ‘I am happy to say that this settlement is extremely healthy and the natives as usual very friendly, he exudes, only to follow directly with, ‘We have had considerable loss of pigs owing chiefly to the want of maize.’  Then, ‘We have about 30 acres of very good land about two miles from the settlement; several acres are already cleared.’

The future Barmup site, an area of about 30 acres at the same location Lockyer first identified more than 12 months previous, had finally been put to work. In the same breath, Wakefield warned the existing corn crop, the one he endeavoured to double in size ten weeks earlier, was doomed to fail. The debacle which was the order to plant maize had continued apace, but at least in this report we have confirmation of The Farm finally coming into existence.

Regrettably, Wakefield felt no inclination to describe when and how he made that decision, not even to indicate he had acted on Lockyer’s notion. The impression is that he was embarrassed by the garrison’s continuing failure to establish its own fresh food source over the course of a full twelve months. Especially after having been issued with a dedicated Gardner.

Layering that sense of failure is the notion of futility. By the time of the maize field announcement, Wakefield was nine months in command at King George Sound, first settlement on the western seaboard of the Australian continent, and his enthusiasm for it is nonexistent. There is nothing in Wakefield’s communications to suggest he knew he was playing even a small part in history, nothing to suggest he was relishing his role as Commander of troops and convicts alike, nothing to suggest he was proud of the buildings he put up, and nothing to suggest he remotely valued the friendly relations with the Aborigines he had overseen since Lockyer’s departure. Wakefield’s writing suggests he was working hard just to tread water during a frustratingly inconsequential episode in his colonial career. With the land so agriculturally bereft, the buildings he put up of such rough wattle and daub they were unlikely to stand more than a few years, the Aborigines, rather than threatening, becoming possessive of his materials, his shelters and, above all, his stored food supply, and with the promise of James Stirling’s looming Swan River transfer still ringing in his ears, Wakefield appears to have been unimpressed and uninspired by any of it.

At least by way of his official reporting.

What we can draw from this, as far as establishment of the farm is concerned, is an easing of the fear over Aboriginal attack. The decision to clear and plant at Yaramal is an obvious statement regarding the ever increasing need to feed the livestock a trusted source of nourishment, but so too is it an overcoming of the garrison’s resistance to working in a place they felt was unsafe.

Wakefield opens with an off-guard quip regarding the natives being, ‘as usual very friendly.’  He doesn’t appear to realise it, but it is two days since the anniversary of ‘the thaw’, the day the Aborigines came into the garrison to enquire after the women stolen by the sealers. The moment at which, it may be said, positive cross-cultural relations commenced. Eighteen days after the spearing of Dineen. Wakefield is fully nine months in command now and, apart from the ongoing gardening and corn planting tribulation, has wrestled the place under control. Everyone is healthy and everyone, it appears, is getting along. Wakefield is not aware of any concern on the part of Mokare or his moort that commencement of clearing and occupation at Yaramal is problematic.

On the other side, the Aborigine’s are in all likelihood thinking the working of the ground and apparent importance of growing plants at Yaramal will lead to more shared benefits.

With Mokare and others having been resident, on and off, at the garrison over the course of a full Calander, worries over what might happen on the other side of the hill two miles away had been salved sufficiently for Wakefield to give the order. Without apparent resistance, and therefore as first sign of Mokare’s acquiescence to expanded occupation, the garrison took new ground. Not a barren swathe of open hillside looking out into the windswept entrance of the harbour, but a thirty-acre nook tucked away in the valley behind Mount Clarence where food, water, shelter and wood for construction as well as fires, all could be found.

January 1828, already under the influence of James Stirling, was when the settlement at Albany took its second decisive step toward bedding down. Importantly, the Aborigines who set their mias at Yaramal were not mentioned, let alone identified. Indeed, Wakefield across all five reports did not put a name to a single Aborigine, not even Mokare. The agenda is made clear. There is no partnership, no arrangement. Wakefield is continuing the Army’s singular work, the goal being to create a sustainable British settlement and that is all.

In this fifth communication Wakefield also declared Green Island was, ‘commencing to be of great service’, and that pumpkins and potatoes looked like they might survive at the garrison plot. At last, the drive for fresh produce was paying off.

 

Wakefield’s request for transfer out of King George’s Sound, dated 12th June 1828. Based upon arrival of a letter (dated 11/3/1828) from the NSW Colonial Secretary advising him that Lieutenant Sleeman (at the Raffles Bay settlement) had been appointed as successor to his command, Wakefield penned a request for transfer back to Sydney on the next available vessel. The incoming letter advised Wakefield he should leave by the Governor Philip, which left Sydney close to the date of the letter, bound for Melville Island, then King George’s Sound, but it was the Governor Philip which delivered the letter and not Sleeman. Instead, Major Campbell of Melville Island was being returned to Sydney. Wakefield’s curt request comprises a single paragraph effectively demanding exit by the next vessel and would appear to have been written in frustration. Sleeman did not arrive at King George Sound until 3rd of December, Wakefield giving up his command to him on the 6th.

The crux of this communique is that by mid-June 1828, Captain Joseph Wakefield knew he was leaving on the next vessel and was therefore, from that time forward, in a period of waiting.

 

Wakefield’s sixth reports, dated 30th June & 4th August 1828 tell firstly of his expedition to the ‘Purrengorep’ range. There were ten men on the excursion which was planned to last five days. Of the ten, three were once again unnamed Aborigines.

It had taken 18 months of getting to know each other before the first journey beyond the immediate surrounds of King George Sound involved both groups. Wakefield ‘ascended’ the range with one of the Aborigines and Mr Tallemache. They then walked back toward Woolyungup (Mt Wilyung) where they camped and from where they trod the nine odd miles back to the garrison. This trip is important as it reflects the continuing development of positive relations between the two groups. Mokare and his family are now bringing their Whiteman friends out on country and communications are advanced enough for Wakefield to comprehend distances, direction, the nature of the land lying there and the nature of relations between Mokare’s moort and the Aborigines living that distance away. The Aborigines are placing their trust in the soldiers, trading information and security for the benefits of a settled lifestyle.

Indeed, this is first indication Mokare’s family line extends inland along the Kalgan River to Kendenup. On the trek, Wakefield learned about ‘Mordellawa’ about 50 miles N.N.W. of the garrison which was close to a large lake and a river running to the westward. This sounds like Moorillup and crucially the message Wakefield receives is that the Aborigines there are friendly and favourably disposed toward the newcomers. Wakefield is of the belief the country there is agriculturally rich and that it probably extends as far as the Swan River.

Wakefield’s August report is extremely brief. It encloses Dr Nind’s resignation as Asst Surgeon to the Colony and states that the garrison was in very good health and tolerably well supplied with vegetables, chiefly from Green Island.

 

Wakefield’s exit and the arrival of Lieutenant Sleeman.

Introduction to Dr Isaac Scott Nind

Nind’s submission and what we can draw from it.

Barker’s arrival and the Wilson excursion.

Barker’s journal and the emergence of Aboriginal personalities.

And onwards. . . 

 

Dr Isaac Scott Nind’s submission to the Royal Geographical Society (1827-1828)

 In many respects the situation proved eligible; but in the most essential thing, good water, it was very deficient. Neither was there any timber found near the place that was serviceable for erecting buildings. And the want of these two important articles was a great drawback to the settlement, particularly in its early days.

The soil in the immediate neighbourhood of the encampment proved to be very unproductive, for on turning it up a few inches beneath the surface, it was nothing but a pure white sand. In the bogs or swamp, however, the subsoil was found to be of a peaty nature. The poverty of the soil, therefore, offering great difficulties for the cultivation of a sufficient supply of vegetables, various spots were selected for the purpose, among which the little islet in Oyster Harbour, Green Island, small as it is, turned out to be the most productive.

So favourable, however, is the clime to vegetation, that where a small supply of manure could be obtained, the crops were not only certain but luxuriant. The vegetables that were raised consisted of peas, potatoes, cauliflowers, cabbage, cucumbers, &c.; melons, pompions, water melons, and maize also succeeded without forcing when the season was warm, but these latter vegetables could not be depended upon.

The island in the Sound produced sowthistles, mallow, and wild celery, which were used by the colonists during an attack of scurvy, and proved to be very serviceable in removing the disease. The sowthistles and celery grew also on the sea-beach^[2].

 

 

Under Sleeman:  10th December 1828 – ??? November 1829

 

 

 

 

Wakefield communications between 21st May 1827 and 4th Aug 1828

What we don’t have any information on is the degree of intertribal conflict prior to and at the time of first settlement. However, Dr Nind during Captain Barker’s tenure we become aware of the feud between Mokare’s moort and families to the north described as the Wills men. These descriptions help us understand just how much violence there was, and, along with other investigations across the colonised world, reveal such conflicts were integral to tribal living among all Indigenous peoples.

From the very beginning, the dynamics of cautious colonial installation and intertribal affairs influenced the relationship between Mokare’s moort and the newcomers. The patriarchal world of the Aborigines, heavily influenced by the perpetual immanence of conflict and death, demanded a stark outward ferocity, a propensity for quick and terrible violence, while still housing the inner tenderness necessary to bind individuals into cooperative family units. This tenderness, encouraged by Lockyer’s apparent compassion for the Aborigines affected by the murder/kidnap ordeal, allowed the two groups to tentatively coexist. So long as the garrison acted in the interests of the Aborigines it moved in with, they would remain welcome.

This was the basis of the alliance and starting point from which Mokare and Wannua grew in different directions. Mokare, by nature more inquisitive and introspective, was also compassionate and therefore open. Mokare’s spirituality, evident in his conversations with Captain Barker, was cosmic. Wannua, on the other hand, was defensive and spontaneous, highly active and expressive. Open to, if not demanding of, payment for favours provided, he remained closed to notions of altering his beliefs and remained steadfast in his adherence to the traditional way of life.

 

5th March Lockyer notes there is a great plain..

 

Lockyer then decided it worthwhile to station a man on tiny Green Island, at Oyster Harbour, which was even more impractical by way of access, and also required additional men to row barrels of fresh water out there in order to supply both attendant and plants. Green Island was safe, however. the Aborigines didn’t live there, or even go there, and there were no animals (other than birds) to eat or disturb what was planted. Green Island soon proved a success, so was justified and maintained. They were still farming it across Barker’s tenure, but it came at the expense of time and personnel.

 

.

Lockyer also confessed fears kangaroo and other animals would eat the young plants before they could fence off the Yaramal area. Lockyer referred to the site where the farming establishment should be formed as ‘the plain behind the high hill‘ and that the job of clearing a track to that place was, at the time, a significant undertaking. However, these two fears were applicable to the tending of any chosen site, except Green Island. The lime kiln, at this time, was a priority building asset, and this led to the idea of both gardening and sourcing timber from the south shore of the harbour. Additionally, Lockyer considered Green Island a potential prison for what he called ‘incorrigibles’, so when the practicality of gardening and felling timber at Little Grove loomed too large perhaps that secondary motive drove the decision to plant there. (HRA, S3,Vol6, pp467)

Above: The acreage immediately to the west of the garrison was cleared and turned over to growing maize and vegetables from the very beginning of occupation at Albany, but despite years of tillage, enrichment and even contract to manage by George Cheyne in 1832, the work to reward ratio resulted in it being abandoned. This painting looking east toward the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour gives good representation of the amphitheater-like setting Lockyer recognised from the Amity‘s position at anchor, as well as the land they prepared in order to try and grow vegetables and grain. Image: The painting is believed to be the work of Dr Isaac Scot Nind in 1828. This version courtesy Art Gallery of Western Australia.

 

 

Soon after cultivating the west side of the garrison, a second or supplementary growing plot was attempted at Little Grove on the south shore of the harbour. This came about because of the source of limestone and shells and the siting of a lime kiln there, but that garden was also unsuccessful.

Next, waterless Green Island in Oyster Harbour was planted and generated good results but at the expense of considerable time and energy. While tending Green Island urgency drove Captain Wakefield to begin work preparing the land Lockyer had pointed to eight months earlier. Here the soldiers constructed two weatherboard huts, stationed their livestock and cleared two acres ready to plant maize and more vegetables. Lockyer had noted the land they cleared on the west side of the garrison buildings was in part intended to grow maize. Captain Wakefield later reported suffering considerable loss of pigs ‘owing chiefly to the want of maize‘ and it was this by then critical need which led to the tall timbered stretch of Yaramal finally being commandeered.

We will follow progress from that point and reveal the outcomes.

On May 10th, 1830, Yaramal was mentioned in the texts for the first and only time. Captain barker described it as the place where Talimunde’s sister and Mokare’s sister, Mullet, were located. Despite continuing references to Mullet’s mia being located near or adjacent to the farm, Barker’s reference to Yaramal is singular.

For purposes of clarification, we understand Mullet was a wife of Nulloch’s, a King River man, and Mokare’s sister. Information Barker provided in his entry for May 9th, in which he says Mullet was expected to come into the garrison the following day (but didn’t). In the vital May 10th entry, Barker clarifies with himself that, contrary to what he thought, when Nulloch came to King George Sound (on this occasion with two of his children and another wife, who Barker said had no children of her own) they all slept together in one little hut. The implication here is that the two children, Condilyan and Poondyatrite (both ‘fine little girls’), belonged to Mullet and Nulloch and were, thus, Mokare’s nieces.

For our own purposes, the essential element of this entry is use of the place name Yaramal to describe the location of Mullet’s mia as ‘near the farm’. The question of how near is academic. Fifty yards? A hundred? Two hundred? The point is the farm usurped the tall timbered, fresh watered grove which would have had ten thousand or more mias set in and around it over the millennia the Menang inhabited the area. That Mullet and Wannua lived ‘near’ the farm at the time the military decided to occupy that space is a semantic claim to property as practised by the Commanders in their reporting. As far as the Albany Aborigines were concerned, everywhere was theirs and where they built their mias was a matter of temporary convenience, albeit mostly associated with familial territorial custody. Thus, Yaramal was in all probability the name applied to the eastern end of the marshlands northside of the two hills.

In further entries Barker describes Wannua as having three mias between the garrison and farm. Multiple references also state Wannua lived ‘near the farm’ and is mentioned as either having been at, presently at, or going to, the farm. As Yaramal is the only Aboriginal place name associated with the farm I am determining that Yaramal, like Yakama, was not a single water source or other precisely defined site, but a general area associated with the marsh lands between rising ground to their north and south. Marshlands the military called the plains and which subsequent Swan River Colony officials called The Albany Plains.

As far as Mokare’s moort were concerned, it may have been they were more concerned with the sheltered, lit and resourced nook at the back of Mount Clarence than the sandy, windswept acreage at Point Frederick. As the military could put up strong weather resistant buildings, being exposed to the southerly and westerly weather was less influential to the soldier’s decision making than the need to be placed in proper view of the harbour. To Mokare’s moort then, the soldier’s choice of site had no particular implication, so resistance to the garrison being built there was little. In effect, the garrison was somewhere the Aborigines could come to and go from, rather than somewhere they considered of personal importance.

Scott Nind, the original British Doctor at the garrison, tried to articulate what he had learned about the Menang and their habits in the form of a letter directed to the Royal Geographic Society. Nind seemed to suggest the Aborigines lived in groups comprising between five and fifty people depending on the location and time of year, referring to these groups as families. Nind said at King George Sound the families were largest in the autumn when the weather was often still and the fishing at its best. He said the groups dispersed when ground water was scarce and also in the winter when they tended to separate and go inland. This description allows us to imagine places like Yaramal housing a village at select times while perhaps retaining just a handful of true locals during less favourable seasons.

However, Nind’s description doesn’t sit exactly with what we infer from Barker who indicates camps comprised just a handful of people and that the total number in the region of King George Sound amounted to around sixty. When Philip Parker King visited in 1821 he noted the groups comprised three or four men (or boys) who went back to their camps after spending their days trying to get aboard his ship. The women and little children were not seen but the understanding is there were at least as many others back at the camp.

It seems few, if any, lived alone. With regard to Wannua, his brother Patyet and unnamed mother were frequently mentioned in association with him, and often in the area of Yaramal.

It is not explicit in the reports Wakefield and Lockyer made, but there was a high degree of sensitivity toward Aboriginal relations in the very early stages of the garrison’s presence. The soldiers were under orders to work with the Aborigines, to foster good relations, and they brought with them blankets, tomahawks, knives and biscuits for exactly that purpose. Lockyer was acutely conscious of establishing positive relations, which is why he handled the situation with the Aborigines marooned by the sealers (and their violent response to it) so well. There is reason to suspect Lockyer reasoned against appropriating Yaramal so early in the peace not entirely because of the need to clear a track, nor the animals that might feed on the rootlings, but on account of recognising just who’s place he had landed at and how precarious a state it was in visavis its Indigenous inhabitants. Perhaps Yaramal was just a little too far for comfort.

Lockyer departed for Sydney in HMS Success with none other than James Stirling during the autumn of 1827. Perhaps he and Wakefield witnessed a larger number of Aborigines at Yaramal than others did in following years. Lockyer appears conscious of ‘the natives from Oyster Harbour‘ as a group with their own identity, in his eyes denoted by their distance from where the garrison was located.

By the time Captain Barker took over from Lieutenant Sleeman on 3rd December 1829, both Green Island and The Farm were producing in abundance. So much so Barker homed in on The Farm, abandoning Green Island on account of the impracticality of maintaining it. Within six months of his arrival, developments at Yaramal led to serious disruption within Mokare’s moort. Wannua and Mokare’s sister, Mullet, who were known to keep their fires at Yaramal, clashed at a tribal gathering at Woolyongup. Wannua speared three people, including Mullet and one of the children under her care, setting in train a series of events that would further schism the group. 

Above: During Alexander Collie’s only summer at Albany, and in the wake of both Mokare’s and Nakina’s passing, Governor Stirling brought his Swan River executives down to King George Sound with exploration and development in mind. Amongst the group was Ensign Robert Dale who made his famous panoramic drawing from the summit of Mount Clarence. One of the panels comprising the panorama depicts Craggy Bluff, Strawberry Hill and a patch of cleared land illustrative of The Farm. Dale’s panorama is a representation, not an accurately scaled drawing, but what we do get is fair indication of the clearing and building at Yaramal, first step in its transition from traditional Indigenous living place to English style country house and gardens. Image: This version from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Mokare established a positive relationship with the military leadership probably in the Autumn of 1827. This relationship comprised a general exchange of knowledge and permission for food, blankets, tools, etc. Mokare’s moort, under Captain Wakefield, had conceded limited exploitation at Yaramal as part of this arrangement, but we can only assume this. Prior to the arrival of Barker we know very little about what was going on at an interpersonal level within the local Aboriginal world. Just over three years in, when Barker’s journal commences, however, The Farm was a vital military asset ear-marked for further development and the social dynamic within Mokare’s moort had changed significantly, not least because Mokare himself had become pinioned with disease.

Dr Nind’s report, read at the Royal Geographical Society in London during February 1831, described illness among the Menang. Ominously, Nind wrote, ‘cold, sore throat and bowel complaints, . . .  are frequently terminated by death, particularly with children‘, apparently reflecting the yet to be gained knowledge that European germs were causing these infections. From the outset of Barker’s journal we are also met with a great deal of death.

Nind also referred to the way the Aborigines behaved during times of war. Conscious of the combat going on, Nind described the settlement of quarrels (war) through spearing contests occurring between individuals or perhaps two members each of opposing families. He was of the opinion conflicts were between individuals and families rather than anything larger scale. While Nind witnessed clashes firsthand he did not name any individuals involved, despite the frequency. Alongside this, Nind took time to try and comprehend the spatial world of the Aborigines, attempting to identify and describe surrounding tribes and territories while trying to understand what he called their attachment to ‘supernatural agency‘ as well as their social system of phratries and subdivisions.

Tellingly, Nind did not, as Barker so clearly did, point toward the northern Wills tribe as the main source of communal disruption. From this we might consider that trouble was more recent, possibly relating to the extended presence of the military and the resulting denial of certain courtesies ordinarily granted to visiting Aborigines. Certainly, there were visits from many different people over the course of Barker’s entries, sometimes in groups of up to twenty people. There is no doubt Mokare’s daily routines had changed out of sight since the garrison had established, but while Nind provided some insight to the first three years with regard to how Mokare’s moort went about their living, it was and remains an essentially blind social overview. All we know is that there was conflict.

Importantly, Nind recognised Wannua as someone who had been bitten on the finger by a snake and, after a period of increasing visible frailty, shook off the effects and strengthened. This is important as it indicates Wannua was a strong and notable personality. Important also because in Barker’s journal early in March we witness the death of Mokare’s younger brother, Taragon, who was also bitten on the finger. To Wannua, as to all of Mokare’s moort, surviving the bite of a poisonous snake was to overcome the work of rival magic. The profound anger and sorrow which engulfed the camp following Taragon’s death (which took four days from the time of the bite) a year or so after Wannua’s escape will have resonated deep within him. Wannua was not easily to become a victim.

Nind was at the garrison for three years, from establishment until October 1829, less than two months before the arrival of Captain Barker. Barker’s notes, commenced late in January 1830, illuminate the cross-cultural dynamic to an extraordinarily intimate extent, thereby providing us with the ability to build on Nind’s overview and to incorporate other important figures into the narrative. On two occasions, Barker described the position of Wannua’s mias (huts) and the location of Yaramal.

Violence is as fundamental to the nature of the Aborigines at this time as it is to the story of Wannua. Spearing served as essential hunting practice, as sport (including tournaments), as means of organised or accepted punishment and as retributive action motivated by both vendetta (simple payback), and spiritual or supernatural belief (complex payback). Also, as with all weapons, it was means of causing injury and/or death by sheer malicious intent. The application of spearing was governed by local events and levels of acceptable practice. Accordingly, there were different types of spears. Some designed to inflict maximum damage. Importantly, spearing was not contained to the adult male domain and women and children were not uncommon targets.

Regarding supernatural belief, the Aborigines of this time practiced magic, something reflected in the appointment of their Mulgarradocks and Wiragos (medicine men and witch doctors). The influence of those possessed of these titles should not be underestimated. Doctor Uredale was the local Mulgarradock at King George Sound, though his Estate comprised the south side of Princess Royal Harbour. Dr Uredale was probably Mokare’s father’s brother. After his spearing of Mullet, Wannua was described by Mokare as plenty sick. This was not a reference to his physical condition, but that he was under the psychological sentence of death from which there were extremely limited means of escape. Barker said Wannua was doomed to die and that if he did not, ‘then Patyet would, and if not Patyet, then Numal. (Patyet and Numal were Wannua’s brothers.) Indeed, Nind had earlier written, ‘when a man is seriously ill, and fancies he shall not recover, he will attempt to kill somebody, in hopes thereby of recovering‘.  In order to survive Wannua had only one out. The death of a near relative could lift the curse.

Soon after, Wannua and his brother Patyet went away to Torndirrup together only for Wannua to come back alone. Wannua told Barker Patyet, ‘had speared a large fish out in the bay opposite Eclipse Island (Jimmy Newell’s Harbour) and being in the water a heavy wave rolled in and broke over him. The returning wave carried him out into deep water where being unable to swim, he was drowned’. Baker wrote, ‘his body was not washed in.’

The world of Mokare’s moort, at least the one Barker allows us to imagine and interpret, swung wildly between abject terror in the face of perceived immanent attack, ferocious retributive anger in the wake of it, and a strange state of dissonance where ‘sick’ people waited to see what might happen around them to enable escape. But there were plenty of regular times where small parties of men simply patrolled their collective Estates in search of enemy outcasts or else just to hunt, gather and welcome friendly travelers. As families lived and moved, there were buoyant, heartwarming scenes of love and joy. One on 13th November 1830 when Barker witnessed Wannua travelling with his family along the banks of the King River.

Worn down from three years exposure to foreign germs, by the time Barker properly introduces us, Mokare’s health is poor. In need of comfort, Mokare stayed close to Barker, listening to him speak against the violence and understanding as the lectures continued that the Whiteman were not going to leave. It seems Mokare understood the Whiteman’s presence was permanent. Mokare learned to speak broken English and appears to proselytize younger male members of his family in the presence of Barker. The bible was a constant feature of recital and conversation and Mokare was to a degree interested. Mokare’s clan witnessed this. Some with acceptance, others with contempt. 

Mokare, sick and dying within the garrison, doubtless convinced it was the work of rival magic, might have wished for no more than an end to all the fear and retribution, the constant threat of wounding or death.

Outside the garrison, most of the Aborigines continued their lives essentially unchanged, cruelly punishing those they did not like or putting to death those they did not trust. Collectively they paid scant regard to the Commander’s disapproval, nor Mokare’s. Nor Doctor Collie’s disapprobation either, when he assumed control from March 1831. On one occasion, after Wannua had once again been accused of stealing from The Farm, Nakina, in tandem with Wannua, led Collie on a merry dance, mocking his authority.

Then Mokare died.

Then Nakina died.

Subsequently, Collie composed an extended piece on the best way to manipulate the Aborigines into accepting the Whiteman’s encroachment, his appropriation of their territories.

A new follower was found. Manyat.

 

Background

1.  The line of communication
   
   1. Captain George Vancouver; Sept-Oct 1791
   2. Captain Matthew Flinders; Dec-Jan 1801/2
   3. Captain Nicholas Baudin; Feb 1803
   4. Philip Parker-King; Dec-Jan 1821/2
   5. Jules-Sebastian-Cesar Dumont d’Urville; Oct 1826
   6. Louis Auguste de-Saison; Oct 1826
   7. Major Edmund Lockyer; Dec-Apr 1826/7
   8. Dr Isaac Scott Nind; Dec 1826 – 
   9. Captain Joseph Wakefield; Dec 1826
   10. Dr Thomas Braidwood Wilson; Dec 1829
   11. Captain Collet Barker; Dec 1829
   12. Lieutenant Governor James Stirling
   13. Ensign Robert Dale
   14. John Septimus Roe
   15. Dr Alexander Collie
   16. George Cheyne
   17. Captain Sir Richard Spencer
   18. Captain Alexander Cheyne
   19. Captain George Grey
   20. Captain George Egerton-Warburton
   21. John Randolf Phillips
   22. DCCP James Brown
   23. William Nairne Clark

The Aborigines of Western Australia’s South Coast lived much the same as the general Noongar population of the entire Southwest corner. Existing for tens of thousands of years outside the European economic paradigm, they eschewed material ownership beyond what they could carry, held little interest in commerce or technological superiority beyond crafting time-honoured weapons and tools, and did not organise in a social sense beyond small family groups living in relative proximity to each other, apart from periodic regional gatherings largely intended to arrange marriages, to conduct youth initiation rites and ceremonies, to tournament with spears, and to settle disputes.

A review of the writing about King George Sound and what happened here shows the local Aborigines were cautious in protecting their women but otherwise were welcoming and adventurous, especially toward military ships that brought men wearing colourful uniforms. Ships bringing white men in uniform appear to have been met with confidence and enthusiasm, partially because they were friendly and would barter with food for artefacts, partially because their uniforms inspired the Aborigines by way of formal or ceremonial dress, and partially because some of the Aborigines perceived the visitors as being the returned colourless deceased (djanga) and, therefore, of supreme spiritual significance.

The Noongar clan or kin system did not provide for organised rank or leadership but allowed larger personalities, usually male, to emerge and influence. This is evident in the writing of Scot Nind when referring to Mokare and Nakina. Men commonly had multiple wives but had to wait until they were around thirty years of age to receive them. When a man received his wife, she was deemed to be ready but could still be very young. Some of the literature relating to King George Sound suggests as little as ten years of age. Marriage arrangements did not preclude younger men from sometimes having relations with women. Some marriages did not function very well, and often older husbands were away or fell sick or were injured or died. Although it carried the risk of transgressional punishment, younger men sometimes brazenly ran off with another’s wife or else, due to less dangerous circumstances, found themselves in a position to take advantage.

Traditional Aboriginal families, therefore, tended to sprawl in size and structure, though knowledge of the family of Mokare shows that first or own brothers and sisters look to have held closer than with their wider stepsiblings and cousins.

 

Above: A collection of Aboriginal dwellings or huts known as turloit or mia were sketched and then water-coloured by John Sykes, First Mate aboard George Vancouver’s Chatham & Discovery ships on their 1791 visit to King George Sound. Vancouver Beach on Vancouver Peninsula is where the ‘village’ was found. The trees in this later engraved image are not indicative of the true landscape. This south-eastern portion of King George Sound was described by Collett Barker in 1830 as Cormo, home territory of Dr Uredale and his family.  Source: This image copied from Art Gallery of Western Australia website.

 

 

The literature surrounding the garrison era and immediately following it allows us to determine at least five families living in the area of Princess Royal Harbour. These families belonged to Nakina, Dr Uredale, Metyalpin, Tulicatwali and Wannua. There were plenty of other individuals, but Barker doesn’t comment sufficiently on their identity to allow them to be attached to any of the five, even though they almost certainly were. The point

 

Above: Close reading of the literature regarding garrison era Albany reveals five Aboriginal families based around the shores of Princess Royal Harbour. There is nothi

 

 

 

In keeping with general human behaviour, hostility played a determining role among emerging Aboriginal men seeking to gain or express dominance. Aggressions on the part of the King George Sound Aborigines appear to have focussed primarily on difficult-to-identify kin living to the north, otherwise described as the Wills or Will men. Two core family units living about the base of Mount Clarence seem to be most closely connected with this violence. These were the families of Mokare and another well known Menang man, probably a stepbrother or cousin, named Tulicatwali.

 

Through the surviving literature and many published discussions and assertions based on it, we have come to build a reasonable understanding of three broad or wider family groups representing King George Sound and the adjacent territories. Bob Howard’s study of the Aboriginal heritage at Barmup shows Mokare’s family to be the inheritors of King George Sound, Wabbinyet’s family to have occupied Torbay and Denmark (Warrangain) to the west, and Nebinyan’s family to have lived in the area of Two Peoples Bay (Yilbering) to the east. These conclusions were drawn first from the work of the NSW garrison officers during the late 1820s and early 1830s, and then of Daisy Bates, which she set down during the first decade of the 1900s after she met Nebinyan at Katanning and then Wabbinyet and Jakbam at Albany in 1908.

 

Within Mokare’s clan, we can discern five core family units living in the vicinity of Mount Clarence and Mt Melville. The leading character, by a considerable margin, was Mokare.  Mokare’s father, Patet/Patyet, was alive in the period leading up to the arrival of the NSW garrison as his portrait was drawn by Louis de Sainson, the French artist aboard the visiting Astrolabe during October 1826, and probably formed part of the group living about Mount Clarence during the early garrison years. However, there is no mention of him, nor of Mokare’s mother specifically, from the time the story of military occupation commences. Mokare was a single man in his mid-twenties, though he was said to have a wife promised to him as soon as she came of age.

 

Threads relating to the lives of Mokare’s contemporaries are, albeit to a lesser extent, also discernible. This interpretation of the records is intended to reveal the dilemmas faced by Wannua, a lesser personality than Mokare, but one deeply affected by the arrival of the British and by Mokare’s inclination to incorporate the new presence into his, and therefore the clan’s, daily life.

 

For purposes of simplification and continuity, I have used the singular spelling W-A-N-N-U-A (pronounced Won-Oo-Ah) throughout this text. References to Wannua vary in spelling as they come from multiple sources, including Isaac Scot Nind, Collet Barker, Alexander Collie, Alexander Cheyne,  John Septimus Roe, Richard Spencer, James Broun, Revett Henry Bland, William Nairne-Clark and editor of the Perth Gazette and West Australian Journal, Charles McFaull.

 

In this work I refer to the Albany Aborigines of the time as the ‘King George’ Aborigines. This is because the word ‘King‘ appears to have found its way into the vocabulary of the Albany Aborigines by that time. I do this in partial deference to Tiffany Shelham, whose ‘Shaking Hands on the Fringe‘ continues to be a very useful study of the interaction between the Aborigines and garrison soldiers at King George Sound, who decided ‘King Ya-nup‘ was the name she would apply to the same group. Through my own reading it is clear the Aboriginal boys described in the literature of the time grew up to call themselves ‘King George Men’, altering their language so as to incorporate the new name they accepted for the wider place they lived.

 

This, I believe, was also the case for Barmup, which quite simply means ‘Place of Farm’. As with the letter x, there is no sound for the letter ‘f’ in Noongar language. The significance of what occurred at King George Sound occurred in a more focused way on a pocket of land within it which the soldiers called The Farm, thus resulting in identification of that place as Barmup by those who lived about it at the time, as well as those who continued to live on and around that place as it transferred into private ownership under the Spencer family and then, in 1889, to the family of Francis and Maude Bird. It was through the writing of Bird family that the name Barmup was first found. That none of the garrison era writers, nor the subsequent Resident Magistrates at Albany who reported back to government on a frequent basis, ever mentioned the term Barmup, is fair evidence the term did not come into use until, at the very earliest, after settler occupation.

 

If anything, the area now known as Barmup was considered part of Yakama, which seems to relate to the natural drainage system running along the northern side of Mounts Melville and Clarence. Otherwise described as a series of swamps occupying low points running westwards from Lake Seppings via Barmup to Cull Park, then through the Centennial Park area taking in what is now known as Yakamia Creek, and further along North Road via Duck Lake at the roundabout and further, following the old Perth Road (Albany Highway) through McKail and Warrenup. These fresh water sources were natural living/camping places for the Albany Aborigines.

 

Shelham, in Shaking Hands on the Fringe, identifies Wannua’s living place, his fire or kalla, as Yaramal, but reckons it to be over the hill behind Barmup in the area of Spencer Park, but this is incorrect. It is clear from Barker’s writing that Wannua had three mias between the garrison buildings at Parade Street and the Farm. Also, Wannua’s presence at the Farm through-out Barker’s and Collie’s texts, as we shall see, clearly illustrates his attachment to it.

 

 

 

Through the literature we learn that by late 1829 (three years into the military occupation), Mokare is decidedly unwell. He is frequently described by Captain Collet Barker as sick and often appears tired. There seems little doubt this affected his willingness and ability to participate fully in the tribal activities of his kin. Instead, Mokare preferred to stay close to the military camp where there was shelter, where food was plentiful and where he was shielded from having to react to the threats of his enemies.

 

It is clear Mokare was intrigued by the Europeans. Once the New South Wales-based soldiers set up their convict outpost, he and his older brother, Nakina, took their time in assessing the intent of the newcomers before engaging in more trusting exchanges. Soon enough, however, Mokare recognised the military were looking for an intermediary, someone who could act as a buffer between them and the outside Aboriginal world, and that this intermediary only had to place his confidence in one or two men: the garrison’s leading officers. This concentration of effort afforded binding communication, mutual interest and, ultimately, genuine friendship and care.

 

Through patience and perseverance, Mokare eventually understood that rather than benign and transitory, the white presence was not only permanent but expanding. Through the writing of Captain Collet Barker and Dr Alexander Collie, I think it is evident Mokare made attempts to prepare his own people for the future.

 

It appears Mokare was tired of the wild swings between terror and anger his tribal way of living generated and was open to the efforts of Barker and Collie to effect change. Attempts to mediate the violence exemplified by Wannua is a feature of Mokare’s final year, though the traditional way of life, for a time longer anyway, was effectively resistant.

 

If there is a contrariness to this tale, it is that the peacemaker falls a decade before the foe. Even though he lived in a very dangerous world, Wannua’s disassociation with the colonial entity prevented him from falling victim to its diseases. In the early months of 1843, Wannua was reported as killed at Nornalup by the Murray or Murrum men, whose coastal territory stretched as far as the Blackwood River at Augusta, while Mokare passed away from pneumonia in one of the garrison buildings at newly named Albany during the winter of 1831.

 

As one of Mokare’s most active and often mentioned kin, Wannua’s behaviour marks him as an aggressive warrior type who could not successfully mix with the soldiers and convicts comprising the garrison personnel. Particularly through the writing of Collet Barker, Wannua presents as reluctant to integrate with the foreigners, displaying resentment at the superiority they exuded by way of physical and moral imposition and the advanced weapons they carried. Also, the sheltering, food gathering and food storage processes they employed.

 

Wannua did not like the idea of giving up his kalla to the newcomers, nor did he like the coercive conditions they placed on him to conform to their ways. Indeed, Wannua resented the enforcement of European morality and reacted most violently when his own kin displayed blatant symptoms of conversion. To that end, Wannua was appalled not only by the loss of his living place but the change coming over his kin as a result of colonisation.

 

Wannua was both a resistor and resistant. He did accept the onset of colonisation as an inevitable end to traditional living and fought against it. Not as a direct enemy of the colonisers, but as an agent of internecine feud. As an objector within his own group.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Now, because Wannua was a violent man, and because violence was a feature of the King George Aborigine’s lives, it is important to understand something about tribal conflict behaviour in pre and early-settlement Australia.

 

Indigenous Australian Laws of War, a 2021 academic paper by Samuel White and Ray Kirkhove, explores the research and thinking on inter-tribal conflict in hunter-gatherer societies. The authors determined there were;

 

 ‘four main types of traditional Indigenous Australian warfare: formal battles, ritual trials, raids for women and revenge attacks’.

 

The following assessment by White & Kirkhove generalises what was going on within Wannua’s and Mokare’s moort (family) prior to and during the very early days of the South Coast’s British inrush.

 

“Indigenous Australia was never State-organized. Rather, it comprised networks of small, inter-independent peoples to which individuals were aligned, and by which they were divided, through complex self-identification: totemic, kin and other ties.”

 

According to White & Kirkhove there were;

 

“. . . two main types of inter-tribal confrontation. . . The most common . . . seems to have been stealth attacks. . . raids or. . . secret or revenge expeditions. . .  These were usually small parties. . . who would sneak deep into enemy territories to commit assassinations or theft (usually of women). 

 

In contrast to raids there existed what we can call open, regulated battles (some prefer the word “tournaments”), which were much more formalised and lengthy events . . . drawn from several allied groups.”

 

Following Albany’s dismal commercial beginnings, in August 1839 came Captain George Grey. Spending much of his time at King George Sound indulging his interest in native language and customs, Grey wrote of Boylyas, men of mysterious dread. Otherwise, Boylya Gadaks, men who transported themselves through the air at their pleasure, rendering themselves invisible to all but other Boylyas.

 

Boylyas were a kind of Mulgarradoc, an Aboriginal doctor who practiced psychic means of causing harm. Grey noted;

 

“All natural illnesses are attributed to these Boylyas, or to the Wauguls, hence the reason of some native being killed when another dies. The individual dies either by the hands of another native, from the effects of accident, or from some natural cause. In the first case his death is avenged on his murderer, or on some near relative of his; in either of the other two cases it is avenged on some connexion of the supposed Boylyas against whom they have a spite.“

 

Grey drew his clumsily worded inference from having observed the death of a Whadjuk (Swan River) Aborigine named Mulligo, who had fallen and broken his back, and of the reaction to it by the women closest to him and then the reaction of the men the women were related to. Mulligo’s death resulted in another Whadjuk Aborigine, Weenat, being targeted in a revenge attack.

Above: King George Sound Aborigines camped on the south-east facing slope of Mount Clarence, looking out to Vancouver Peninsula, Bald Head and King George Sound.  Numal, Wannua’s gentle brother ‘who would never hurt anyone’ was said by Collet Barker to have had his camp in this area. Source: Print from an engraving by John Carr Armytage 1875. Courtesy Art Gallery of Western Australia

 

 

As we shall see, these descriptions applied to the experience of the King George Aborigines in relation to their own affairs and in relation to certain events that occurred between them and the new foreign presence. As far as the King George Aboriginal experience was concerned, they had their internal issues to contend with, as well as the foreign imposition. The foreign impact came in two forms. First, via raids and exploitation by itinerant boat dwellers (both large and small), some of whom temporarily occupied islands on the periphery of their territory, and second, on a much larger scale, through direct organised settlement by colonists.

 

In the case of the itinerant boat dwellers (the sealing gangs), abductions of Aboriginal women and deaths of men resulted from their raids, and these were punishable by fatal spearing. The King George Sound settlers, however, did not abduct nor physically attack the Aborigines, so no Aborigines died as a result. This meant the settlers remained free from attack themselves, and it was this which kept the peace at Albany for so long, despite the settlers spreading disease wherever they went.

 

Most of the King George Aborigines described in the surviving literature lived with violence, and it appears much of their time and energy was spent managing their own initiatives in this regard, as well as coping with the threats and actions laid against them. But, as we shall also see, not every man was a quick-to-anger retaliator. Some by nature, such as Wannua’s own brother Numal, were benign.

 

Outside of warring behaviour, the Aborigines were acutely perceptive, particularly in relation to the nature of the seasons, the physical nature of the surrounding country and the sky above. Dreamtime stories of creation and moral guidance, relative to the local landscape, had drifted down over millennia, and notions of good and evil were understood and practised in deeply traditional, perhaps even psychic ways. Indeed, as Grey’s anecdote reveals, rival sorcery, or magic, was believed to be in play when people died from accidents or illness, and physical attacks were carried out in revenge.

 

To that end, the vendetta or payback system was so embedded in Aboriginal daily living that women, the elderly, and even children were legitimate targets. Depending on an individual’s relationship with the accused, no one was safe.

 

Despite this, the Aborigines held a reverential sense of continuity generated by the memory of their ancestors and so governed access to and management of their inherited territories through established rules and protocols.  At King George Sound, Mokare’s older brother Nakina appears to have been the dominant physical presence and lead custodian of his father’s and grandfather’s kalla (place of main fire or fires). This territory comprised the southern slopes of Mounts Melville and Clarence (and between) down to the shore of his water (Princess Royal Harbour).  Exactly where Major Edmund Lockyer established the New South Wales military garrison and convict outpost very late in December 1826.

 

Nakina’s and Mokare’s family members had their fires at locations extending to the opposite side of the harbour and down the promontory known as Vancouver Peninsula to Bald Head. Also, northwards extending to Oyster Harbour and the western banks of the King River as far as Mount Wilyung.  Both men would also have been known, or (hostilities aside) accepted, by wider kin in the country ranging as far eastwards as the Pallinup River, as far northwards as the Gordon River and as far westwards as the Frankland River, territory now generally accepted as belonging to the Menang language group.

 

Though they may soon have discarded the notion, some of the Aborigines thinking the white men were ‘djanga’ (the colourless dead returned) should not be underestimated. Openness in this regard provided those inclined to do so with a fascination and vulnerability that promoted interest and opportunity while at the same time exposing them to gross exploitation.

 

The cross-cultural encounters to late 1826 described in the introductory dates of the timeline are the only ones of significance we know of before permanent settlement by the British. However, due to the scale and positioning of King George Sound, many other ships took shelter there, too. Particularly since the occupation of Australia’s East Coast from 1788. We should, therefore, remember that, while still susceptible to deception, the King George Aborigines had learned to recognise boats that brought benevolent visitors from those who could not be trusted.

 

Trust is central to the story of Wannua. Questions relating to who could be trusted within his Aboriginal world and for how long interplay with questions over the imposition and reliability of the foreigners. The apparently beneficent soldiers, solving problems relating to warmth, food acquisition and distances between territories to be covered, slowly appropriated Wannua’s living place and ultimately excluded him from it.

 

Wannua’s world, revealed as one comprising close family association and loyalty, wider comradery and joy, as well as want, anger, cunning, lust, treachery, isolation and outright deadly violence, portrays his position in the existing order of things at the time of first settlement, the tragedy of his dispossession, his attempts to reclaim status within his group, his spurning by the settlers, and finally, attempts to write him into history by those settlers as the worst of the old savage kind.

 

While the South Coast Aborigines were exposed to European culture ahead of their inland contemporaries, and quickly adapted their language and behaviour to accommodate, they remained fundamentally bound to their customs, culture and kinship until the twin tides of disease and disenchantment exacted their terrible toll.

 

All the writing of this period comes from the pens of the invading force. I am therefore conscious this is a work of interpretation drawn from the various journals, diaries, letters, official reports, newspaper reports and general newspaper comments, as well as opinions and intelligence gathered from other writers who have taken interest and expressed their views over the years. I write here as a white Australian of immediate Irish descent intending to elucidate what happened at Albany and do so to make known the Aboriginal and cross-cultural history I have found.