– THE PROTECTOR’S ROLE: A History compiled by Dr C.E. Cook
The earliest attempts to colonise the northern east of Australia were made by the British Government, military and convict settlements being established successively at Fort Dundas on Ansley Strait (1824-25) at Raffles Bay (1827-29) and at Port Essington (1838-49). The sites selected were unproductive and the hostility of the native population confined enterprise to the immediate neighbourhood of the stockades. Soon the exuberant growth of Singapore diverted from these outposts the lucrative eastern trade they had been expected to attract and changes in the global political situation robbed them of their strategic value. With the evacuation of Port Essington British efforts to colonise the north came to an end.
The garrisons of these settlements suffered much from the depredations of the aboriginal population and the two races came frequently into violent collision. The native proved to have not the slightest interest in commerce or agriculture and there appeared to be no prospect of inspiring a change of sentiment. Indeed his concept of ordered life was so alien to the European, his reactions to contact with the new social organisation so inconstant and unpredictable, his friendship so elusive and so impermanent, and his hostility so unaccountably provoked that when the settlers were finally withdrawn there had still emerged no clue to an appropriate native policy. To many, armed force it appeared provided the only means of imposing discipline upon him to safeguard the lives and property of the colonists.
In the older Australian colonies settlement had been successful and was soon securely established. Almost everywhere however this success had been achieved at the cost of the degradation, spoliation and ultimate extinction of the native tribes. Mutual suspicion had engendered fear, fear had impelled to precipitate and ill advised attack and resentment to reprisal. Animosity fed by combat grew to hate. Each race, ignorant of the other’s ethical code or outraged by its exercise, came at last to confuse its own values, mistaking treachery for finesse, cowardice for heroism and crime for justice.
With the extinction of the native as an active component, the passions stirred by conflict were extinguished too. Now there was time for quiet reflection and for calm appraisal of the social elements provocative of collision and for reasoned if not impartial assessment of responsibility. There developed in this atmosphere of tranquility a mood critical of the aggressive intruder and sympathetic to the native defender of his heritage.
Might set settlement of the south have been even more successfully achieved without this shameful spoliation and extermination of the native? Might not enlightened study of his needs, his hopes and fears, his prejudices and his impulses, his capabilities and his limitations have permitted the design of some compromise effecting his easy adaptation to and his safe inclusion is the new society as a valued member eagerly contributing to and happily sharing in its greater prosperity?
Stuart’s glowing reports of the country traversed in his transcontinental journey left few disposed to believe that British failure to colonise the north was to be ascribed to deficiency of natural resources in the country itself. Rather was it felt that success awaited only enlightened formulation and intelligent execution of a policy designed to assure the white settler the goodwill and co-operation of the native population. Many there were still who held that armed subjugation was unavoidable but a strong and growing public opinion demanded that any attempt at settlement must be so planned as to assure inter-racial harmony and preservation of the native tribes.
Such were the sentiments and perplexities which engaged the attention of Ministers as the South Australian Government in 1863 set itself to plan the development of its newly acquired Northern Territory. It is not surprising therefore that a Protector of Aboriginals was included on the establishment of the expedition despatched under Finniss in 1864 to select and survey a port and capital in an area promising successful development. Carefully drafted orders too were issued for the guidance of the leader and members of the expedition in their relations with the natives. These orders reflect the philanthropic sentiments of the time but reveal too a lack of confidence in the expectation that the native would respond amicably even to the friendliest advances. Nevertheless their intention and effect were explicit, assuring that official responsibility would not attach to any avoidable provocation.
The orders were prefaced with a warning that available information about the natives was scanty and contradictory, some observers reporting them as friendly and inoffensive, others as treacherous and aggressive. The greatest caution and forbearance therefore was to be exercised in making contact, members of the expedition taking every care to avoid offence whilst omitting no precaution against surprise, being always watchful and prepared for the defensive and never moving unarmed or in small parties. All transactions were to be completed with the most scrupulous exactness. Particular emphasis was laid upon the avoidance of collision – the expedition was above all to abstain from hostilities “avoiding conflict except in self defence and then only in the extremity of absolute necessity”. The guiding principle of the policy was to show the natives that whilst their goodwill and confidence was anxiously sought by kindness and judicious liberality, the expedition was able to repel and punish aggression.
Special orders issued to the Protector of Aboriginals prescribed his duties. He was –
- to create and foster friendly relations between the races;
- to learn the language and act as interpreter;
- to make the natives comprehend that they were British subjects amenable to and protected by the laws of the colony – their lives and liberties being secure whilst they continued peaceable and friendly disposed;
- to study their social organisation, their manners and customs so that the rank and authority of the chieftains could be accorded due respect as far as was consistent with colonial law, and their concurrence secured in the administration of punishment and reward;
- from the knowledge of their customs to advise surveyors in the selection and setting aside of Reserves with abundant water and game for their exclusive occupancy and to make recommendations to the Government Resident for their better protection;
- to prevent interference with their women and their debauching with liquor;
- to foster any opportunity for trade and to police the scrupulous discharge of obligations incurred toward the natives;
- to offer them every inducement to work for the settlers and to police the payment of a proper reward;
- to control the issue of supplies for the sick and needy taking care to give no relief to the able bodied except as payment for a services rendered.
Boyle Travers Finniss was chosen to lead the expedition with the title of Government Resident. He was at this time 57 years of age and had had a distinguished career in the young colony. Educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he had been commissioned as Ensign in the British Army in 1825 and promoted lieutenant 2 years later. He sold his commission in 1835 to emigrate to Adelaide and join the staff of Colonel Light. After a successful career in the Public Service he became South Australia’s first Premier in 1856. He had retained his interest in the Army and in 1854 raised a Volunteer Defence Force of 2,000 men, being appointed to their command with the rank of Colonel by special act of the Local Council.
Finniss was a man of undoubted ability whose record of failure in the Northern Territory derived, paradoxically, from his virtues no less than from his faults. Judged solely on the story of the Adam Bay expedition as related in Parliamentary Papers of South Australia, he appears as a man devoted to the success of his task, cultured, resolute to the point of obstinacy, courageous, ruthless in the enforcement of discipline, contemptuous of inefficiency, indecision or timidity in the discharge of duty and as unquestioningly loyal to his superiors as he expected his subordinates to be to him. He was however, vain and cherished an acute sense of the sanctity of authority and the deference due to rank. This jealous personal and official regard for his infallibility combined to make him intolerant of criticism and exposed him to fallacy in the assessment of merit in his officers driving him towards fatuous confidence in the sycophant and a relentless antipathy to the independent of spirit who ventured, in the discharge of his duty, to voice an opinion contrary to his own.
His officers were not soldiers trained to accept without question Finniss’s standards of official behaviour, nor to endure with equanimity his stinging censures of their shortcomings. His wounding sarcasm and his conception of the appropriateness of authority soon effected his isolation from the companionship of his officers and he found in Capt. Howard R.N. of H.M.S. Beatrice an officer of rank in an armed service, the only congenial society available to him.
The officer chosen to undertake the duties of Protector was Lt. F.E. Goldsmith the medical officer accompanying the expedition as Colonial Surgeon. In selecting the Colonial Surgeon as Protector, the Government may have been influenced by an enlightened prescience. On the one hand the introduction of white settlers from the temperate zone into a tropical area there to live under conditions of primitive sanitation in contact with a native population was fraught with grave risk to the health and success of the settlement. On the other hand the introduction of communicable disease prevalent in white communities to the non-immune black race imperiled survival of the native people. Recognition of the necessity in this situation to appoint a sanitarian to study and remedy the health problems created by inter racial contact and to vest him with powers to regulate the conditions of association between the races may have actuated the Government in its choice of Protector.
At this time however, the science of tropical medicine was not yet born and little enough was known of the control of any communicable diseases. Certain of the tasks imposed upon the Protector required for their successful accomplishment special aptitudes and opportunities not likely to be possessed by more than a few of the more intelligent officers of the expedition preoccupied with special duties. It is more probable therefore that these considerations were decisive in influencing the choice. Some support is lent to this view by the fact that the Colonial Surgeon was also charged with the duty of undertaking a natural history study, collecting and describing local flora and fauna and investigating the acclimatisation of imported plants.
The expedition sailed from Semaphore in “Henry Ellis” 29th April, 1864 end landed at Escape Cliff on June 22nd. Here it was joined by H.M. Schooner “Beatrice”.
The voyage had been of unexpectedly long duration, supplies of fodder and water for the stock proved inadequate and losses were heavy. Finniss was anxious to land the survivors at the earliest possible opportunity and with Captain Howard of “Beatrice” selected for this purpose a point 25 miles up the Adelaide River where fresh water was available. Here he established a temporary camp under Chief Surveyor Manton and commenced the unloading of stock and stores. Meantime he himself set about locating a site for the permanent settlement. Water having been found at a depth of 7 ft. at Escape Cliff, Finniss decided to establish the town of Palmerston there, and commenced the erection of his headquarters.
It soon appeared that Finniss himself leant towards the view that he must, in his relations with the natives, have recourse to armed force sooner or later. During the voyage from Adelaide he had organised a corps of volunteers, issued the men with tropical uniform and commenced their training in squad drill and musketry. His first official act on establishing his camp ashore was to post armed guards and sentries drawn from this corps.
One incident suggests that Dr. Goldsmith as Protector may not have been entirely without influence upon the Government Resident in the first few days at Adam Bay. Before any camp had been established, one of the earliest parties ashore from the boats found and appropriated two spears and a native paddle. Finniss ordered these trophies to be returned to the place where they had been found and left there with some presents for the owners. In making this gesture he may have been carefully avoiding any semblance of provocation and indulging a prudence which characterised all his unhurried dispositions and which was only discarded during fits of rage. The gesture itself however is so alien to Finniss’ sentiments and behaviour before and after the event that one is tempted to see in it the influence of Goldsmith.
A second revealing incident occurred toward the end of July. Finniss during these early weeks spent most of time aboard “Beatrice” or at Escape Cliff. Most of his officers including Goldsmith were in the camp with Manton at the landing depot 25 miles upstream. No exploratory parties were sent out at this time. Irked by the monotony of confinement to camp in such a strange country four officers including Ebenezer Ward the Clerk and Accountant of the expedition, took a small boat on a fishing and shooting excursion 40 miles up river. They missed the tide and were compelled to remain in the bush overnight. They occupied their time studying the country and on his return Ward in his zeal prepared a report which he sent down to Finniss with the request that he forward it to the Colonial Secretary in Adelaide. Finniss was furious. He reprimanded Ward and his companions for a breach of discipline in overstaying leave and needlessly exposing the boat and party to risk. He emphasised that before leaving the camp he had given strict orders for its discipline and made dispositions for its security which took no account of officers absenting themselves from camp without his knowledge. He issued strict injunctions that overnight absence from camp was to be regarded as disobedience and a breach of discipline. “Nothing” he wrote, “but the direct order of the Government Resident will he considered as authority for any exploratory trip or absence from camp of any gentleman or man of the expedition”. Already his anxiety to avoid collision with the natives was imposing on him a policy of seclusion for his party. This policy was later to draw upon him a sharp rebuke from the Colonial Secretary for failing to organise parties for the thorough exploration of the northern coast.
First contact with the natives occurred at Manton’s camp about a week after its establishment. At first the natives visited the camp in twos and threes. They were friendly received and presented with trinkets and food. These small groups would stay until evening, fraternising. It was flattering to the white men’s self-esteem to watch the wonder and admiration evoked in the native by the display of the commonplace objects about the camp and Manton’s party took delight in making the natives gifts of gaudy trinkets, fabrics and food or in exchanging these for native weapons, game, fish or wild fruit. They failed however, to realise that the natives’ sense of value did not discriminate in this lavish display of novel wealth between articles liberally to be distributed and those equally desirable which were always refused. Habituation to gifts engendered expectation of a wider gratification and refusal to extend distribution to all the desirable articles flaunted before them soon stirred resentment. Then acquisitiveness became embarrassing – they picked up objects as they moved through the camp and resisted, sometimes with truculence, the men’s efforts to recover them. Repeatedly frustrated in this way they decided, to take by stealth, and so in the eyes of the European men transformed almost overnight from inquisitive children to inveterate thieves.
As the days passed and the confidence of the natives grew, large parties including women and children came into the camp – sometimes as many as 40 in a single day. Manton now decided not to permit them into the camp and when one day 70, including women and children, came down the guards had considerable trouble in excluding them. Finniss returning about this time doubled the guard. Ebenezer Ward, in recording the incident in his Journal, expresses for the first time some misgiving remarking that if any serious trouble should develop they were but poorly armed, most of the firearms being still aboard “Henry Ellis”. A week later however he reported Finniss had departed again and the natives returned with their families and gave much trouble but were friendly and quite inoffensive. This change of attitude is significant in its timing. Up to the time of Finniss’ visit to the camp the natives were viewed complacently. He saw fit to double the guard and obviously implied misgivings and fear of attack. With his departure once more complacency returned
On August 8th, Finniss at Escape Cliff wrote to Manton informing him that natives had raided his camp the night before and had been driven off by gunfire. He must not trust the blacks who were determined thieves. Two days later he dispatched the cutter “Yatala” up river to commence the loading of stores for the transfer of Manton’s camp to Escape Cliff.
Meantime 40 natives visited the River camp on August 8th about 4 p.m. and ‘as usual commenced to steal’. Everything was eventually recovered and shortly afterwards they moved off into a belt of scrub which lay to the west of the camp separating it from the open plain beyond. With the departure of the natives Manton withdrew the guard from the stores piled on the bank.
Sensing their opportunity, a number of natives under cover of darkness raided the stores slashing the sacks of flour, bran and oats, discarding the contents and retaining the fabric. Two men suspicious of sounds audible from the river bank asked Manton for instructions. He, in conversation with Goldsmith and Ward gave no answer. The men of their own accord went down to the river and discovering the natives looting the stores, dispersed them with gunfire.
Next morning at daylight, Manton sent Pearson and three men on horseback to search for missing cattle and to recover from the black’s camp in the adjoining scrub any stolen property he could find. He gave explicit orders that the party was not to use firearms unless in danger, not to molest or alarm the women and children if they found no men in the camp and not to interfere with native property. As the little posse rounded the end of the belt of timber skirting their camp on its western side, a number of armed natives started up from the scrub and grass yelling and brandishing spears. Pearson’s horse threw him and bolted, one of his party galloping off to recover it. Shower after shower off spears were thrown and a second horse, wounded, bolted back to camp with its rider leaving Pearson afoot with one mounted companion to face their yelling assailants. Pearson himself was wounded three times by spears before he yielded to the entreaties of his companion to give the order to fire.
Meantime the clamour of the conflict had brought men running through the trees from the camp. One, Alaric Ward emerging on to the plain was confronted by a native who menaced him with a spear. Three times he fired, mortally wounding his adversary with the third shot. Seeing their companion fall all the other natives fled and the white men returned to their camp carrying the wounded Pearson and the dying native with them.
The wounded native died soon after arrival in camp and Goldsmith persuaded Manton that a Coroner’s inquest must be held. Of the officers in camp only Manton and Goldsmith were judicially competent to act as Coroner and it was agreed that Manton, having issued the orders precipitating the affray, was disqualified end Goldsmith accordingly presided at the inquest. Six men from the camp and six from the crew of H.M.S. “Beatrice” were empanelled as a jury. After hearing evidence the Jury returned a verdict of “Justifiable homicide” adding however a rider: “Today’s disasters were solely attributable to the siting of the camp on a site surrounded on all sides by mangrove scrub which is on one side only 95 yards from the outside tents – in which the natives may lie in ambush as they did this morning.
Ebenezer Ward went down in the “Yatala” to Escape Cliff next day and informed Finniss of the collision and subsequent inquest. The rider was more than Finniss’ proud spirit and sense of discipline could endure. He had chosen this site as the only possible one for its purpose, after careful observation and thought. It was temporary only, in fact the boat upon which Ward had brought him the news had on the outward voyage carried to Manton his orders to move down to Escape Cliff. This rider would be officially transmitted to the Minister of Justice in Adelaide, a criticism of his judgment voiced by a number of his officers and men. Instead of accepting the rider as a reasonable if ill timed comment upon an unavoidable drawback to the site, he insisted, notwithstanding assurance to the contrary, in regarding it as a direct and calculated personal affront intended to impugn his judgment and discretion as leader. His views repeatedly and strongly expressed were that there was no occasion for an inquest on a native slain in open battle: if an inquest were to be held Goldsmith as advocate for the native was equally disqualified with Manton to act as Coroner.
He set himself sedulously to inquire into the antecedents and circumstances of the inquest and collected from witnesses and jurors statements which finally led him to the conviction that Ebenezer Ward, abetted by Goldsmith had engineered the proceedings for the sole purpose of bringing his authority into contempt. Having obtained from the naval members of the Jury, paraded by their Captain, a statement that there had been no rider to the verdict but only a comment intended to warn the Government Resident of the desirability of moving the camp, and having learnt from others that Ward as juror had asked witnesses most of the questions directed towards developing the rider, he suspended Ward a few days before the sailing of “Henry Ellis” to Adelaide thereby precipitating his prompt departure still vainly protesting his innocence of the charge.
Finniss’ enquiries revealed a strong divergence of opinion between the officers and men of Manton’s party regarding his handling of natives. Litchfield in his personal report to the Government Resident related incidents and expressed sentiments of which he made no mention as a witness on oath before the coroner. He averred for example that on the night of August 7th when he called Manton’s attention to the native raid on the stores, he was ignored. He told the coroner that on discovering the pillage he had fired over the heads of the natives to arouse the camp. He told Finniss that he fired to kill, from a distance of 30 yards and was sure he must have wounded some of the marauders. He added that Manton and Pearson had come down to the river bank on hearing the shots. The latter had angrily exclaimed that he would do his utmost to have Litchfield hanged if any native had been killed. Following this, the men, according to Litchfield had refused to mount guard over the stores and had told Manton he and the officers could protect the stores themselves. Other witnesses emphasised to Finniss the maudlin solicitude of the officers for the natives and contrasted their own attitude of brutal indifference.
In reporting his dismissal of Ward, Finniss confessed that he would have discharged Goldsmith at the same time but was reluctant to take upon himself the medical responsibility for the whole expedition. He next acknowledged however that he probably would dismiss him if any other medical practitioner should arrive in the area. A revealing passage discloses the state of his relations with his party at this tine, a short two months after landing – his only difficulty was with his officers – there were some skulkers amongst the men of whom he would rid himself in time, “but generally speaking the men are devoted to me personally and to the cause”.
His complaint against his officers referred to their attitude toward the natives. It is quite evident that during his prolonged absence from the River Camp, Goldsmith had effectually won over all the officers to the side of sympathy, tolerance, patience and philanthropy in native relations. He had not however won over the men, possibly he had had no opportunity. As Finniss saw it the men were now “distrustful of acting effectively” in their dealings with the aboriginals – “they seem to feel that they are paralysed by having a halter suspended continually over their heads”. Finniss bluntly expressed the opinion that the appointment of a Protector had been better deferred until after secure establishment of the settlement with Courts of Law and a regular Police Force. He insisted that the instruction given the Protector and the circumstances in which the expedition found itself – taking the country by force – were irreconcilable.
Finniss’ military training surprisingly did not assist him to recognise that Goldsmith in advocating patience with the native was conscientiously discharging one of the duties specifically assigned him. The Government Resident would indeed have been more justified in criticising him had he been less active. Unable to rid himself of Goldsmith as he had Ward, Finniss set himself to making his life in camp burdensome and the conduct of his office impossible. Relentlessly he undermined confidence in the Colonial Surgeon’s professional ability, deriding his diagnoses, commenting cynically upon his treatment, ridiculing his recommendations for improving the sanitation and diet of the camp and refusing him labour and assistance to undertake the natural history and acclimatisation studies.
The natives followed Manton’s party down to Escape Cliff. Finniss felt that they had not been intimidated by the conflict in August and that they might he prepared for vengeance.
On September 4th a party of natives carrying light spears was encountered by men a short distance from the camp. According to Goldsmith they were apparently friendly disposed and soon moved on. To Finniss however they represented an armed recognisance presaging an attack upon the camp. He immediately set out with six armed men to drive them off. Goldsmith, learning of this set out to overtake the Government Resident “to watch his movements and hear his orders”. Finniss discovering the Protector “dogging his foot-steps” ordered him back to camp but Goldsmith refused to obey. The former reporting the ensuing argument later explained that he was preoccupied with the tactical disposal of his men anticipating a conflict with the main body of the natives exasperated by Goldsmith’s attitude and used words unsuited to official correspondence to express his anger and contempt. He added that had he put the doctor in a straight jacket it would better have suited the emergency. Goldsmith for his part claimed that he was entitled as Protector to accompany the armed party but was insultingly ordered back and refused to obey. Meantime the natives had disappeared.
During the first few days of September horses returned to camp showing open wounds. The safety of his horses was regarded by Finniss as of an importance second only to that of his men. Upon them he depended for the transport of water and stores. He decided that the time had come to teach the natives a salutary lesson, treating them as armed bushrangers. To this end he sent out a punitive expedition of fifteen armed men under his 18 year old son. Goldsmith asked permission to accompany the party but was refused on the ground that the purpose of the expedition was unsuited to his functions and his presence was likely to prove injurious to the success of the expedition. Evidently for Finniss the identity of the surgeon was by now completely lost in that of the Protector.
This party surprised natives camped on a beach beyond a belt of scrub. The blacks to the number of sixty or seventy were dispersed by rifle fire without throwing a spear. One of them, an old man and unarmed, was shot dead. The party then having secured a great deal of stolen property, collected the greater part of the natives’ property and burned it. Returning to camp they took with them not only the recovered articles but a quantity of nets, bags, knives and axes. According to Goldsmith the Government Resident was delighted, and issued a special spirit ration to members of the party. “They have thus been taught the value of property” said Finniss in reporting the incident to Adelaide and he expressed the hope that a sufficient example had been made to deter the natives from any hostile visit to the camp.
On hearing reports of these proceedings, Goldsmith immediately asked for full particulars to enable him to report the killing of a native. Receiving no acknowledgement next day be demanded a magisterial enquiry. Without waiting for a report from Finniss he laid a charge of murder against the man alleged to have fired the fatal shot. This charge he later withdrew “plainly perceiving that owing to influences I could not control it would be impossible to press to conviction in this territory a charge in which the Government Resident felt bound to support the party implicated”. In point of fact Manton, doubtless with unpleasant recollections of the Government Resident’s violent reaction to his previous acquiescence in Goldsmith’s legal processes, had refused to proceed.
The doctor’s impetuosity gave Finniss a pretext for refusing him any information. This he did on September 10th on the ground that whilst the report was still awaited unauthorised legal proceedings had been initiated. A final request for the information made on the plea that proceedings had been abandoned was refused by the Government Resident who now declined to enter into any further correspondence with Goldsmith owing to the tone he adopted and the defiant attitude he assumed “in respect of my control over you as Protector of Aboriginals”.
In justifying his attitude Finniss stated he opposed the investigation because it was sought solely on political grounds. He feared his men would be disarmed and unprotected in conflict and if inquiry were pressed the Government Resident and sixteen men together with the greater part of the expedition as witnesses and suspects would be required to sail for Adelaide thus ending the expedition.
Goldsmith was particularly critical of Finniss placing the party in charge of his youthful son, Chainman F. R. Finniss. This selection was defended on the ground that there was no officer medically fit who had not shown himself unsuited to the task either by his performance at the River Camp or by views since expressed. As for his son, he was a Sergeant of Volunteers, the best trained soldier in camp and he had complete faith in his cheerful obedience, zeal, discretion and courage. His officers were trying to cause the failure of everything he attempted and he felt that the lives of his men would not be safe under their guidance on such an expedition or that much fatigued and more dispirited than ever they would return from it without finding a single native.
Defending his general course of action he quoted precedents from Fort Dundas, Raffles Bay and Port Essington to support his contention that notwithstanding statements of the natives’ inoffensive nature and aptitude for civilisation, successful colonisation and fraternisation only follow when they have learned to fear the white man and have been subdued by force.
These depredations he decided would continue until the offenders were punished and punishment might lead to retaliation and revenge. Perhaps some would be killed, a most probable occurrence in any attempt to capture the thieves by the means and in the manner permitted by the law. He felt he had taken every possible step to meet the situation. Survey parties had been provided with extra men to mount guard at night and a police force of seven men patrolled headquarters. Following the punitive expedition of last September the natives had been awed but since they had ceased to be treated as enemies they had again become bold and aggressive, in all probability attributing the white man’s forbearance not to kindness but to fear and inability to reach them. Only warlike action could prevent continued plunder and harrassment and possible night attack and massacre.
During the ensuing months the settlement was spared the attention of natives and Finniss had the satisfaction of attributing this to his masterly handling of the problem in defiance of Goldsmith’s pleas for conciliation. The truth was of course, they had moved up river in anticipation of the north west monsoon and its attendant inundation of the river flats. Goldsmith had now no opportunity or occasion to exercise his functions as Protector but the acrimonious relations between himself and the Government Resident were not abated on that account. On the contrary, quarrels now stemmed instead from his activities as Medical Officer.
An outbreak of dysentery doubtless due to bad sanitation and infected food led Goldsmith to question the safety of the well water upon which the settlement relied and to urge Finniss to permit the men to organise fishing and hunting parties to secure fresh food. The latter suggestion Finniss would not entertain – he was too concerned lest his men should be attacked by natives. He did not however give this as his reason for keeping the men confined to the vicinity of the camp. He claimed instead that he was not disposed to direct them to such a task, nor in their weak and dispirited condition to ask them to volunteer for it. And so in a region teeming with game, the men of this ill-starred expedition continued a substandard subsistence on stale and rotten provisions shipped from Adelaide months before and progressively deteriorating under primitive storage conditions in the heat and rain of the tropics.
Upon the question of the quality of the water, Finniss was even more sensitive. He was at this time involved in defending his selection of the Adelaide River site against bitter criticism from Stow, the officially accredited representative of a group of prospective settlers. “We shall feel it our duty” said Stow “to represent the insanity of supposing a settlement can be formed here”. To Finniss’s hyper sensitive egotism, Goldsmith’s aspersions upon the water supply of the camp were a clear indication that the surgeon in pursuit of his purpose of discrediting his superior office at every opportunity had allied himself with the embittered settlers in the hope of effecting the Government Resident’s recall. By an adroit manoeuvre however, Finniss was able to use Goldsmith’s criticism of the water supply to humiliate and discredit him. On the basis of an earlier experience in the West Indies, the surgeon had suggested that the water might be contaminated with copper and had asked for water testing equipment and reagents to test this theory. These were refused. Finniss however surreptitiously sent samples from the well to Adelaide for chemical analysis and as might have been expected, the report was satisfactory. Disappearance of the prevailing gastric disorders synchronised with the arrival of fresh supplies of food and on receiving the analyst’s report, Finniss was able to ridicule the doctor’s ineptitude as a sanitarian.
In May, 1865, Goldsmith resigned and returned to Adelaide, Finniss officially placing on record his personal gratification, adding that he must otherwise have dismissed him. Arrangements were made for Dr. Ninnis of H.M.S. Beatrice to act as medical officer to the expedition in his stead.
The expedition had now been in occupation almost a year and throughout this period no survey had been undertaken and no progress whatever had been made towards development. The Colonial Secretary flooded with querulous correspondence from disappointed settlers and now receiving in ever increasing volume from critical members of the party disturbing information about the conduct of the Adam Bay enterprise, angrily censured the leader for his failure to examine other possible sites or to develop the one selected. He made it quite clear that Adelaide was not prepared to approve Escape Cliff as the site for settlement until the coast had been carefully examined as far as Victoria River. Finniss endeavoured to justify his neglect of exploration by insisting that his orders were only to examine the coast for an alternative site if he were not satisfied with Adelaide River and since he was quite sure from available information that no other site could be as healthy, Escape Cliff remained his choice.
However, satisfied that he had for the time at least intimidated the natives and therefore assured the safety of his survey parties, he organised several parties of exploration inland during the dry season of 1865 and despatched Beatrice to examine the coast from Limmin Bight to the Victoria River.
In May he himself accompanied “Beatrice” on a voyage to the upper reaches of the Adelaide River. It was on the return from this expedition that natives were again seen on the river bank as the vessel disappeared down stream and approached Adam Bay. A few swam out and were welcomed aboard, the crew fraternising with them and finding them docile and friendly, if timid.
From this time forward the natives recommenced their depredations round the camp, a development which Finniss attributed to the folly of the sailors in encouraging them aboard. They indulged their spirit of mischief or their desire for cloth by stealing survey flags and boat awnings and by looting the tents of survey parties whilst the occupants were elsewhere. Finniss sent out party after party to locate them and drive them away or to burn their camps as a reprisal. They were however too elusive and the avengers could never effect contact. Despondently Finniss pondered the disagreeable fact that whilst his men and plant were exhausted by these fruitless expeditions the natives continued to plunder and harrass him and possibly might even attack him encouraged by his failure to reach them.
Such was the situation on August 1st, 1865. The few men remaining in camp were about their various occupations when a strange cry was heard from the direction of the well. They took no notice at the time, nor did they attach any significance to the failure of the shepherd to come to lunch at noon. At sunset a few unattended sheep came back to camp and it was supposed the shepherd would be out mustering the rest. There being no sign of him by 8.30 p.m., parties went out to search for him. They found his body transfixed by a spear, near the well.
Finniss in reporting the incident commented with an air of strong disapproval “the victim went habitually unarmed and held the blacks in contempt apprehending no danger from them”. An idea had gained ground he added, that they were determined thieves but neither ferocious nor blood thirsty. He recounted the incident and expressed his opinion of the behaviour precipitating it without any suggestion of sympathy or regret; always there was the cynical suggestion of negligence and its inevitable and deserved retribution. Perhaps not to dull the point of the moral, perhaps because he did not appreciate it, he attached no significance to the victim’s identity. For it was Alaric Ward who a year before almost to the day had shot and killed the native warrior at Manton’s camp on the occasion of the attack on Pearson.
During August Finniss set out on “Beatrice” to explore the Victoria River. Before leaving he did what he considered necessary to secure the camp. Litchfield, who shared his views on the handling of natives was placed in charge of the “police” and conducted patrols of the countryside to drive the natives away. A stockade was erected round the store and “Government House” with sufficient space to accommodate the tents of the whole party within it.
Finniss returned from the Victoria River early in October, quite convinced that its mangrove swamps entailed such a risk of malaria as to render it far inferior to the Adelaide as a site for settlement. This vindication of his choice and a few days visit to Timor on the return voyage had put him in high spirits and he wrote optimistically and in detail of his plans for the future. His high hopes were dashed by the conditions he found at the depot on landing. There was a general spirit of dejection amongst officers and men. The salt meat had gone bad two months before, the few sheep remaining were emaciated and diseased. The stock of spirits was exhausted. Debilitated by poor nutrition the men rapidly fell victim to fever, diarrhea and scurvy. He had brought stores of fresh food from Timor and the distribution of these effected some improvement. Litchfield, returning from a wide sweep of the surrounding country during which he attempted to intimidate and disperse the natives by burning their camps brought ill news of the survey parties. A spirit of dissatisfaction pervaded, neither officers nor men were disposed to move away from camp, describing the country as inundated on the plains “although it is impossible that inundation can arise from flooding of the river on such plains”. Manton could discover nowhere land fit for a town site – the plains were too wet and the high ground too rocky. The men were thoroughly disgusted with the country – a development which he attributed to disappointment with their position and prospects. Indeed were it not for a few staunch men sufficient to enable him to hold his own to the last, there would be nothing left but to abandon the place.
On November 5th, MacKinlay arrived to undertake a survey of eastern Arnhem Land and his impression of the Escape Cliff settlement as he saw it on that day nearly two years after its inception, provide a useful contrast to the persistent opinion of the Government Resident. “A greater scene of desolation and waste could not be pictured – the whole improvements on the settlement would be much over estimated at £200 exclusive of the wooden houses forwarded from Adelaide. As a seaport and a city it is worthless. Only one in a hundred land holders could make a selection in the surveyed areas where his homestead would not he washed off by floods”. This then was the country called after a year’s occupancy by Finniss “as fine a country as man could desire”.
With McKinlay arrived a Trooper of the South Australian police with warrant for the arrest of two man on a charge of wilful murder, arising from the killing of the native in September, 1864.
There also arrived a letter from the Colonial Secretary recalling Finniss to Adelaide and instructing him to hand over to Manton immediately. So closed a sorry episode in the history of the Northern Territory, the first of not a few of similar pattern, all involving disillusion and ridicule for the bold zealot venturing to apply conventional standards of appraisal and preconceived methods of solution to the problems of this rude country. Much abuse and derision has been the lot of Finniss since. Viewed dispassionately in retrospect it may be conceded that the failure of the enterprise was determined by the unsuitable nature of the country for settlement. Later it was to be found that none of the coastal belt lent itself to ready development by methods then available, and Darwin itself was only saved by the discovery of gold. It was Finniss’ indomitable tenacity of purpose, surely no great falling, which prevented him acknowledging in time the unsuitability of the locality for agricultural settlement. It was his suspicion of irresolution in his men confronted by unexpected rigours and dangers that led him to reject their advice against persevering with the enterprise. And this mistrust of his advisers stemmed from the incident of the inquest at the River Camp and owed its origin and its exuberant growth to the success of Goldsmith’s efforts to inculcate in the men of the expedition sentiments of goodwill and harmony with the native inhabitants. Finniss’ military preconceptions made him suspicious of surrender to hostile interference. To him his expedition was a bridge head in enemy country to be held against enemy action by appropriate military measures. His vanity would not brook question of his authority or dispute of his assessment of the situation. The function of a Protector, as set out in instructions to Goldsmith, were fraught with possibility of friction. Finniss’ reaction to intervention was to reject its validity – further reaction was aggravated hostility and confirmed resolution.
With the departure of Goldsmith from Escape Cliff all pretence of native protection in the administration of the settlement came to an end. No successor was appointed to replace him either as Colonial Surgeon or as Protector of Aboriginals. Finniss arranged with Howard for Dr. Ninnis surgeon to H.M.S. Beatrice, to undertake the medical care of the settlers, detaching him for duty ashore occasionally when it was necessary for the ship to sail on survey cruises.
In 1868 Goyder was sent north to select and survey a new site for settlement in order that the South Australian Government might honour its obligations to intending settlers who had purchased land at sales conducted during the currency of Finniss’ expedition. He chose a site on the eastern shore of Port Darwin and surveys proceeded so satisfactorily that the Government felt secure in making a second attempt at settlement in 1870. Accordingly in May of that year Lieut. Bloomfield Douglas was sent north as Government Resident carrying with him despatches appointing Goyder’s Medical Officer, Dr. J. Stokes Millner Colonial Surgeon and Protector of Aboriginals. The instructions issued Millner to guide him in the discharge of his duties in both offices were similar to those originally drafted for Goldsmith.
The Darwin settlement appears to have escaped the racial collisions which so embarrassed Finniss. Goyder had been working in the locality almost two years and had maintained friendly relations with the Larrakia. It is true that Surveyor Bennett, one of his party had been murdered by Adelaide River natives in 1869 – tragedy perhaps having its origins in the racial feuds of 1864-65. The Larrakia, however, proved more friendly disposed and doubtless this fortunate circumstance had been in no small measure attributable to the less provocative reaction of Goyder’s men to the natives’ unconventional and sometimes disturbing behaviour. Douglas had the additional advantage of a Police Force of nine men under Inspector H.E. Foelsche who by providing a trained and special guard for the protection of the settlement and the new O.T. construction camps, at once reduced the opportunities for native depredation and eliminated the occasion for irresponsible retaliation and provocation by the settlers.
The Protector was provided with no special statutory power to facilitate or guide his control of the natives or to implement measures of protection. He was solely dependent upon the provisions of the common and criminal law applicable to the white community. No doubt it was intended that he should in terms of his orders report and recommend measures to be taken by the Government Resident and from time to time advise or seek special legislative prevision but it does not appear that any need for action was discerned for several years.
The natives were encouraged to come into settlements and to undertake casual work for the settlers. Very soon there was extensive pastoral development in the interior and here native labour was found invaluable the seasonal character of the work harmonising admirably with the natives’ limited tolerance of employment. In the township that developed at the Port and later on the mining fields, work was casual and for the most part domestic. The natives soon settled more or less permanently in the vicinity of white communities and established camps there. A number were accommodated under primitive conditions on the premises of their employers.
No specific conditions were laid down for native employment. Any person could employ any native or any native could offer or accept employment on any terms. Although the Protector’s Instructions provided that he was to safeguard the native from fraud and exploitation, it is difficult to see how this could he achieved, if, as must occasionally have happened, an employer on some pretext, dishonoured his obligations. In the early days when practically all white employers were in the service of the Government Resident, official disapproval of exploitation was probably a sufficient stimulus to conformity with convention and no doubt this consideration made special legislation unnecessary. Later however, as the number of independent settlers, European and Chinese increased, the necessity must have become increasingly apparent. By that time however, other factors defeating efforts at reform had begun to operate.
In 1874 Chinese coolies were introduced to work on the goldfields. With their arrival in increasing numbers as mining and later as railway construction workers, the loose system of native employment introduced new problems. The Chinese both in the townships and on the goldfields procured native women for prostitution and encouraged natives to haunt their camps by liberal gifts of liquor and by inculcation of the opium habit. At this time opium addiction was not an offence and the excise levied upon importation of the drug was an important source of revenue for the young territory. Introduction of the opium habit to aboriginals was a speedy and productive factor in their degradation. It meant too that addicts were impelled to camp more or less continuously in squalid Chinese shanties where the heavy incidence of Tuberculosis and dysentery led to a continuing morbidity and mortality. Later leprosy was communicated to the native in this way.
The native, by inheritance a nomad, had no appreciation of the sanitary obligations of community life, of the hygienic construction of dwellings or of the risks attending insanitary practices. His camp whether in Chinatown, or the white employer’s premises or in the native camping area, was but an improvised structure barely providing shelter from the weather and built of odd scraps of discarded material salvaged from rubbish dumps. The shelters themselves were small, dark, ill-ventilated, unfloored, excluding light and air, over-crowded and providing ideal conditions for the dissemination of Tuberculosis, other respiratory infections and contagious diseases. They were unprovided with water and had no sanitary conveniences. Hookworm introduced by the Chinese must have attained a heavy incidence amongst natives at this time in certain localities yet there is no evidence the Medical Practitioners concerned themselves with the lack of sanitation or its impact upon their charges. Deaths from phthisis, dysentery and the like are reported in medical records with monotonous regularity but no mention is made of any attempt at prophylaxis. It seems logical to assume that habituation to the sordid squalor of the Chinese quarters and the survival of its inhabitants year after year without epidemic catastrophe must have accustomed Medical Officers to accepting it as unimportant and irredeemable. In this frame of mind the adoption of similar living conditions by the primitive native may well have been accepted as a natural step in evolution.
Year after year successive Protectors appear to have over-looked or watched with equanimity the increasing degradation of the native and the progress of disease. Annual reports were meager and uninformative except as records of inactivity. Each was a chronicle of degradation – convictions of aliens for supplying natives with liquor and opium, tardily made illegal, sexual offences against or prostitution of Aborigines, uncontrolled incidence of venereal disease and an increasing incidence of leprosy, first in Chinese and later in natives. No attention seems to have been given to that instruction which imposed on the Colonial Surgeon the duty of preventing the affliction of the native with imported communicable disease and no effort appears to have been made to ascertain the incidence of disease among them. Indeed the annual reports usually contain disclaimers explaining that little was known of the condition of natives outside Palmerston and that even in the town itself the Colonial Surgeon was but rarely consulted by the natives and it was doubtful whether treatment prescribed for them was ever used.
The Protector’s activities appear to have been confined to an annual distribution of blankets on the Queen’s birthday each year, to issuing orders for the supply of flour and tobacco to the aged, infirm and destitute and to arranging for the defence of aborigines brought before the courts.
Successive Government Residents seem to have been content with the routine performance of these duties by the Medical Protector. This may seem reprehensible by modern standards but it is important to consider the outlook of the time. In Finniss’ day there had been an important native problem – preservation of stores from their depredations and safeguarding members of the expedition from attack and murder. The native was a warlike treacherous foe resisting the incursion of the white man into the territory. For the Port Darwin settlement — and the Protector was actually concerned with no other — this concept of the native was but a memory. His friendship and co-operation, such as it was, had been won by encouraging him to live in and with the white settlement under conditions chosen by himself. That those conditions were deplorable endangering his own survival and the self respect of the white intruder was not yet consciously perceived. Even when complaints were first made of the conditions under which Chinese employed natives, these arose not from regard for the exploited and degraded native but from resentment that the Chinese should, by encouraging vice, attract the aborigines away from their white employers.
The spirit of the time was one of contentment with the status quo. Just as the zeal of Goldsmith had irritated Finniss, so the complacency of later Protectors was agreeable to their Government Residents. Even the philanthropic conscience enshrined in Adelaide was still, unstirred yet by the spectacle of the natives’ social and economic degradation and alert only to racial collision.
The first glimmer of an active spirit of sympathy glowing behind the facade of official complacency and political expediency was revealed in 1884 by Dr. R.J. Morice (Colonial Surgeon 1877-84) and like Goldsmith he paid for his unconventional activity with his office.
Prior to 1875 there had been no court of superior jurisdiction in the Territory. Judge Wearing and court officers despatched from Adelaide to hold sessions in the Territory were in February of that year lost in the wreck of the Gothenburg. Later in the year a Circuit Court was constituted under the presidency of Scott S.M. but prisoners facing capital charges had still to be sent to Adelaide for trial. In 1884, Judge Pater arrived in Palmerston as Judge of the Northern Territory. At the same time J. Langdon Parsons arrived to take up the office of Government Resident.
In 1884 four white men were murdered by natives at the Daly River copper mine. The incident aroused a violent hostility to the natives generally in the European population of the Territory and for months a bitter press controversy raged in Adelaide as the partisans of each race endeavoured to affix responsibility upon the other. A number of natives were arrested and charged with murder, not without bitter allegations of atrocities against the arresting constables. The accused were committed for trial and lodged in Fanny Bay prison. As the date of trial approached, Pater wrote to Parsons warning him that there was only one lawyer in the Territory and advising him to secure his services for the Crown at the forthcoming sessions. Parsons influenced by the consideration that the lawyer (Bateman) was already briefed for the defence in certain other cases in which the Crown was plaintiff, decided that the Crown case should be conducted by the Sheriff. The Crown would then not brief counsel either for prosecution or defence. Morice, seeking authority to brief Counsel for the defence of the natives charged with matter, defraying costs from the aboriginal vote, was refused. Informed by Pater that it was his duty as Protector to brief counsel for them and that the natives were in law entitled to be defended by counsel at the expense of the Crown. Morice introduced Bateman to the prisoners and witnessed their marks on papers requesting the Judge to provide defence for them. These were in due course presented to the Judge in Chambers and Bateman was ordered by Pater to appear for the defendants at a fee to be paid by the Sheriff.
Morice accused by Parsons of flouting his authority and bringing the administration into contempt pleaded that he had obeyed his instructions to the letter. It was his duty in terms of the instructions issued to him on his appointment as Protector to arrange for the defence of the natives and he had done so. Parsons had told him not to use the Aboriginal Vote for the purpose and he had not done so. His defence was unavailing, the office of Colonial Surgeon was abolished and Morice’s service was terminated. Parsons suggested that the incident arose as a conspiracy between Pater and Bateman and that Morice was only a tool. However that may be it must be acknowledged that whatever his motive or incentive, Morice was indisputably right in the action he took and he was penalised for performance of a duty imposed by one authority when the discharge of the duty had become repugnant to the policy of another. In this he must join Goldsmith as a martyr to the cause of native protection.
An indication of the extent to which inflamed passions and new racial feuds had impaired the white man’s sense of moral value at this time is afforded by a comment of Parsons in reporting the arrest of the accused natives. Parsons had been Minister in Charge of the Territory and had assumed office as Government Resident to press forward the construction of the Trans-continental railway. Not without reason his appointment was acclaimed by residents of the Territory as promising a new era of expansion, successful development and sound administration. He was capable, enterprising, eager to advance the interests and promote the prosperity of the Territory, and of sound judgment. He proved later to be sympathetic to the natives at a time when the popular sentiment was predominantly one of hostility. In his account of the Daly River murders he described at length the treachery and untrustworthiness of the aborigines involved. Yet he officially reported with approval and approbation duplicity craft in effecting the arrest of the suspected offenders. He related that a Police agent encountering a suspect, represented himself to be a prospective settler and gave the boy a note which he promised on presentation to his partner aboard a boat down river would secure a liberal issue of tobacco for the bearer. The delighted native duly took the note on board and was promptly arrested and clapped in irons in compliance with orders conveyed in the message.
The outrages and the Morice incident had at least the advantage that they stirred in Parsons an interest in the plight of the natives. From Morice’s defence he learned for the first time that the Protector had standing orders from Adelaide for his guidance and he discovered that the Protector had obligations to the Government Resident, to the Minister and to the natives, the discharge of which had never been attempted. Amongst these were the responsibility to furnish the Government Resident with periodic reports upon the condition of the aborigines, to advise the Government upon measures to be taken for their better protection and to co-operate with the Chief Surveyor in the selection of suitable areas to be set aside as Reserve for their exclusive use.
On the departure of Morice who on arrival in Adelaide became an active agitator for better treatment of the natives and a bitter critic of the Northern Territory Police, Parsons transferred Dr. Percy Moore Wood from the goldfields to Palmerston as Government Medical Officer and Protector.
Stimulated by Parsons’ interest Woods (1885-1889) devoted not a little of his time to the interests of the aborigines and it is largely to his reports that we are indebted for our knowledge of the conditions of the native at this time. Woods is noteworthy for remarking in an early report to the Government Resident that it would be better for the natives of Queensland were he Protector for the whole of Australia instead of only for the Territory. The grounds upon which he based this conviction was not evident from the record of his performance as Protector at Palmerston and he did not specifically state them himself.
Wood was largely responsible for planning the early reserves in the Port Darwin, Daly River Victoria River Gulf area but these were not proclaimed during his tenure of office. They were incidentally later described by Baldwin Spencer (1912) as “selected in a somewhat haphazard manner” being for its purpose neither suitable is position nor adequate in size.
During his six years of office he called attention to the incidence of tuberculosis and venereal disease in natives and to the mortality from phthisis and malaria. Smallpox visited Palmerston on a number of occasions but did not extend to the native population. He conducted vaccination campaigns amongst the natives and took steps to segregate them for their protection when cases appeared in the Chinese or white population.
Woods identified ten cases of leprosy amongst Chinese in Palmerston and was responsible for initiating the South Australian legislation providing for the compulsory notification and isolation of the disease, subsequently copied by other States. He established an isolation camp for the lepers on Mud Island, a tongue of land in Port Darwin opposite Fort Hill and separating East and Middle arm of Darwin Harbour.
He was an ardent advocate of an efficient federal quarantine service and called attention repeatedly to the desirability of requiring passenger ships to carry a medical officer.
For years the aborigines vote had been some £350 annually. He pleaded for a more generous allocation and advocated a more liberal supply of blankets, flour, pipes and tobacco, insisting that the current distribution planned in earlier years did not meet the existing demand and invited unfair discrimination.
He deplored the ‘spoiling’ of natives for domestic service by the voluntary and procured prostitution by Chinese and Malays and directed further attention to the need for legislation to permit the Protector to function more effectually. He advocated the imposing of an obligation upon the employers to dress native employees, particularly females, with decency and dignity.
His greatest and most effectual reform attended his efforts as Government Medical Officer. Most of his objectives as Protector were not realised until after his departure from the Territory but to him belongs the credit of inspiring in the Government and in the public a consciousness of obligation to the native people and a realisation that current measures of protection were inadequate.
Wood was succeeded as Government Medical Officer and Protector by Dr. L.S. 0’Flaherty (1890-96). He, like Wood, complained of the inadequacy of the blanket issue. He commented on the fact that European employers of native labour exploited the annual Government blanket issue to secure for their employees some reward for the desultory services rendered.
He too called attention to the magnitude of the opium traffic amongst natives declaring that fines and imprisonment were no deterrent as those unable to pay the fines found better quarters and conditions for subsistence inside gaol than were accessible to them outside.
O’Flaherty reported the first case of leprosy in an aboriginal, a male of the Alligator River tribe, detected in 1890. This patient was transferred to the lazaret at Mud Island where he died in the following year. A second native case was discovered in 1894. This case O’Flaherty decided to return to his tribe.
On O’Flaherty leaving the Territory, the duties of Government Medical Officer and Protector were undertaken by Dr. F. Goldsmith, who like his predecessors claimed to have little knowledge of or contact with natives outside the Port Darwin area. Be was rarely consulted by natives for medical advice and his experience extended chiefly to the very ill or moribund admitted to hospital. The natives of Palmerston he described as for the most part a quiet and law abiding people principally open to criticism on account of their addiction to opium and a natural distaste for manual labour. He remarked too upon the early evidence of impending extinction of the Larrakia tribe as a presented by the paucity of children.
He enlisted the interest of Dashwood (Government Resident 1891-1903) in pressing for legislation to make the nominal protection an effectual reality. In particular he directed attention to his inability to prevent or punish sexual offences against immature native girls. Theoretically the criminal law was applicable and adequate but in fact the impossibility of establishing the age of the child invariably enabled the offender to escape conviction. Dashwood commenced to exert pressure upon the South Australian Government to bring down legislation to define the power of the Protector and to provide legal machinery to establish a system of protection upon an ordered plan and in an effectual fashion. This pressure he sustained until he vacated office. Parsons’ efforts had succeeded in obtaining legal direction for the taking of natives’ evidence but there was still no Act or regulation to enable the Protector to deal with everyday matters of inter racial relationships. Dashwood affirmed it to be indisputable that many of the racial collisions frequently resulting in loss of life or serious injury had their origin in interference with lubras. He drafted model legislation similar to that enacted in Queensland about that time and submitted it for approval and presentation to the House. The proposed law met effective opposition in the South Australian legislature and was referred to a select Committee for investigation. Dashwood complained that the witnesses examined had no knowledge of Northern Territory conditions and were influenced and misled by experiences of entirely different circumstances in the south. Prominent amongst these were well meaning busy bodies and self appointed guardians of the native race who then and in later years by ill advised interference deterred the Government from positive action which, if taken at the time, would have proved of incalculable advantage to the aborigines.
The sections of the proposed Act which provoked the strongest and most effectual opposition were those relating to the regulation of native employment and the prohibition of cohabitation with female natives by persons other than natives.
Here it might seem logical for the philanthropist to have aligned himself with the official Protector to create an effectual force devoted towards compelling an apathetic or reluctant public to equip the latter with the powers necessary for the successful discharge of the task imposed upon him. This expectation was not realized.
The draft Bill provided that natives should only be employed under written agreements between employer and employee, the conditions being specified in the agreement and approved and witnessed by a Protector or a Justice of the Peace. This clause was opposed on the hypothetical ground that it might deprive the native of a free opportunity of employment and thereby expose him to hardship. Dashwood commented that this might or might not be an objection of weight in the southern colony but in the north it was quite specious. Exclusion of the native in the Territory from employment constituted no hardship, indeed it would be better for the native if employment were denied him. The alternative suggested by the critics of this provision was that the Protector should issue certificates of approval to intending employers to serve as guarantees of bone fides for the information of natives seeking employment. How the illiterate native was to recognise or understand this document was not disclosed. There was to be a penalty for employing without such a certificate so that the intention of the law was left to succeed or to be defeated upon the choice of the untutored savage.
The reason advanced for deleting the prohibition of illicit sexual relations with native women was even more fantastic. P.J. Gillan, anthropologist and worker for native welfare stigmatised the provision as unwarranted and a grave moral reflection upon both races.
The nett result of these discussions and dissensions was that the Government shelved the Bill and both Goldsmith and Dashwood were destined to complete their terms of office without the legal power they sought.
Goldsmith reported annually that respiratory diseases, including tuberculosis levied a toll of natives. Phthisis he described as a regular killer amongst Chinese. Leprosy had continued to appear amongst the Chinese and cases were isolated on Mud Island. In 1899 he read a paper before the Inter-colonial Medical Congress at Brisbane in the course of which he stated that leprosy was prevalent amongst natives in the Alligator River but that adjacent tribes were not affected. In 1901 however it was reported that adjoining tribes were becoming involved. Goldsmith expressed the opinion that whilst control would be most difficult it should be attempted before natives frequenting white settlements became infected.
Goldsmith appears to have been the first Protector to appreciate and concern himself with the new and growing problem created by the increasing halfcaste population. As early as 1899 he reported that there were some fifty halfcaste children between Port Darwin and Katherine. He pleaded for their removal from native camps and for their accommodation and education la special schools.
Goldsmith was notable as the most active and enlightened of the Protectors and it is unfortunate that he was denied by lack of legal powers from giving full expression to his initiative and enterprise. He was succeeded in 1904 by Dr. Kennington Fuller who retained office only for a year. Fuller, impressed by the failure of the police enforcement of the existing laws to prevent increasing opium addiction amongst aborigines, advocated total prohibition of the importation and sale of opium. Such a law finding apparently no opposition amongst the self appointed protectors in Adelaide was duly passed by the South Australian Parliament. In his annual report for 1905, Herbert, Dashwood’s successor as Government Resident reported a decided decrease in the traffic and hailed this law as removing one of the worst dangers confronting the native.
When Herbert (1905-09) assumed office as Government Resident there was still no legislation to permit the formulation and ordered administration of a progressive native policy. Employment was still uncontrolled and only too often unrewarded. Herbert directed attention to a particularly grave abuse which had evolved from white exploitation of native reluctance to traverse alone the country of strange tribes. One of the principal objections to native labour was its uncertainty, employees leaving unpredictably and without notice to return to their tribes. It was found that fear of traversing the country of strange tribes made native labour more reliable when employed at a distance from their own country. Herbert stigmatized this as forced labour, deplored his inability to control or prohibit recruitment and pressed for legislation to give him this power.
In his first year of office four Europeans were murdered by natives at Port Keats. A similar experience had led Parsons in 1884 to ponder the causes and possible means of preventing racial collision. His experience had a similar effect on Herbert. He noted that during the preceding 25 years natives on the northern coast in 10 murderous attacks had killed 30 men. In the preceding four years they had murdered 16 men and committed 4 murderous assaults without loss of life, 12 of them not avenged. In each ease no attempt worth the name and in two other cases no attempt at all had been made to arrest the guilty. Police inaction could only be construed by natives as permitting murder with impunity and by the white population as warranting individual intervention and reprisal.
For the next four years Herbert continued to press for native legislation which he represented as urgently necessary. To his previous arguments and those of Dashwood he added, on the advice of Dr. C. Strangman the incidence of venereal disease and the annually more noticeable disproportion of adults to children first noticed by Goldsmith.
In 1908 Strangman surrendered office of Protector as he found it interfered with his practice and Stretton was appointed to the office. At Herbert’s direction he set about improving the sanitation of native camps in the Port Darwin area. He emphasised the depopulating influence of disease and advocated legislation prohibiting cohabitation with lubras. He again directed attention to the inadequacy of the criminal law which permitted offenders to plead consent and confronting police with the impossible task of establishing the lubra’s age. He also urged legislation to control employment. Numbers of natives were removed from the Territory annually to other States. There was no law to check this practice or to ensure the return of the natives. Stretton estimated the population of the Territory at 13,600 full bloods and 200 half castes. He raised anew the problem of half castes advocating, like Goldsmith, their removal from the native camps and accommodated in special homes where they could be schooled.