Volume II Part 31 (2/2)

Habgood; many Europeans were present, amongst others a constable; but there was no interference on their part until eventually the life of the woman was saved by the courage of Mr. Brown, a gardener in Perth, who rushed in amongst the natives and knocked down the man who was holding her; she then escaped into the house of the Messrs. Habgood, who treated the poor creature with the utmost humanity. She was however wounded in several places in the most severe and ghastly manner.

A letter I received from Mr. A. Bussel (a settler in the southern part of the colony) in May 1839 shows that the same scenes are enacted all over it. In this case their cow-keeper (the native whose burial is narrated above) was speared by the others. He was at the time the hired servant of Europeans, performing daily a stated service for them; yet they slew him in open daylight, without any cause of provocation being given by him.

Again, in October, 1838, the sister of a settler in the northern district told me that, shortly before this period, she had, as a female servant, a most interesting little native girl, not more than ten or eleven years of age. This girl had just learned all the duties belonging to her employment, and was regarded in the family as a most useful servant, when some natives, from a spirit of revenge, murdered this inoffensive child in the most barbarous manner, close to the house; her screams were actually heard by the Europeans under whose protection and in whose service she was living, but they were not in time to save her life. This same native had been guilty of many other barbarous murders, one of which he had committed in the district of the Upper Swan, in the actual presence of Europeans. In June 1839 he was still at large, unmolested, even occasionally visiting Perth.

CAUSES OF THEIR ATTACHMENT TO THEIR ROVING AND SAVAGE LIFE.

Their fondness for the bush and the habits of savage life is fixed and perpetuated by the immense boundary placed by circ.u.mstances between themselves and the whites, which no exertions on their part can overpa.s.s, and they consequently relapse into a state of hopeless pa.s.sive indifference.

I will state a remarkable instance of this: The officers of the Beagle took away with them a native of the name of Miago, who remained absent with them for several months. I saw him on the north-west coast, on board the Beagle, apparently perfectly civilized; he waited at the gun-room mess, was temperate (never tasting spirits) attentive, cheerful, and remarkably clean in his person. The next time I saw him was at Swan River, where he had been left on the return of the Beagle. He was then again a savage, almost naked, painted all over, and had been concerned in several murders. Several persons here told me, ”you see the taste for a savage life was strong in him, and he took to the bush again directly.”

Let us pause for a moment and consider.

Miago, when he was landed, had amongst the white people none who would be truly friends of his. They would give him sc.r.a.ps from their table, but the very outcasts of the whites would not have treated him as an equal, they had no sympathy with him, he could not have married a white woman, he had no certain means of subsistence open to him, he never could have been either a husband or a father if he had lived apart from his own people; where amongst the whites was he to find one who would have filled for him the place of his black mother, whom he is much attached to? what white man would have been his brother? what white woman his sister? He had two courses left open to him: he could either have renounced all natural ties and have led a hopeless, joyless life amongst the whites, ever a servant, ever an inferior being; or he could renounce civilization and return to the friends of his childhood, and to the habits of his youth. He chose the latter course, and I think that I should have done the same.

SUGGESTIONS ON THE MEANS OF PROMOTING THEIR CIVILIZATION.

The information I had collected regarding the Aborigines of Western Australia encouraged me to address a report to Lord John Russell, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, embracing the general principles which I considered would best promote the civilization of the race. This report having been approved, copies of it were sent to the Governors of the Australian and New Zealand settlements, and with a transcript of it I shall now conclude my work:*

(*Footnote. [This letter has subsequently been printed for Parliament at page 43 of the Sessional Paper Number 311 of 1841, the Colonization of New Zealand. ED.])

Mauritius, June 4 1840.

MY LORD,

I have the honour to submit to your Lords.h.i.+p a report upon the best means of promoting the civilization of the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, which report is founded upon a careful study of the language, prejudices, and traditional customs of this people.

Feeling anxious to render this report as complete as possible I have delayed transmitting it to your Lords.h.i.+p until the latest possible period; portions of it have in the interim been laid before some of the local governments in Australia, and a few of the suggestions contained in it have been already acted upon.

But as so small a portion of Australia is as yet occupied, and the important task of so conducting the occupation of new districts as to benefit the aborigines in the greatest possible degree yet remains to be performed, I have thought that it would be agreeable to your Lords.h.i.+p to be put in possession of all such facts relating to this interesting subject as are at present known.

None but general principles, equally applicable to all portions of the continent of Australia, are embodied in this report; and I am particularly solicitous that that portion of it which commences at the 21st paragraph should receive consideration from your Lords.h.i.+p, as the whole machinery required to bring this plan into operation now exists in the different Australian colonies, and its full development would entail no expense whatever upon either the Home or local Governments.

I have, etc.,

(Signed) G. GREY,

Captain 83rd Regiment,

Commanding Australian Expedition.

Right Honourable Lord John Russell, etc. etc. etc.

REPORT UPON THE BEST MEANS OF PROMOTING THE CIVILIZATION OF THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF AUSTRALIA.

1. The aborigines of Australia having hitherto resisted all efforts which have been made for their civilization, it would appear that, if they are capable of being civilized, it can be shown that all the systems on which these efforts have been founded contain some common error, or that each of them involved some erroneous principle; the former supposition appears to be the true one, for they all contained one common element, they all started with one recognized principle, the presence of which in the scheme must necessarily have entailed its failure.

2. This principle was that, although the natives should, as far as European property and European subjects were concerned, be made amenable to British laws, yet so long as they only exercised their own customs upon themselves, and not too immediately in the presence of Europeans, they should be allowed to do so with impunity.

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