KANGAROO ISLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1929, Page 10

KANGAROO ISLAND

A HAVEN FOR PIRATES. Strange ghosts went back ?to tjKangaroo Island recently, if all the (phantoms of its past—whalers, ex-convicts, and captured Tasmanian gins— shared the celebration of the present and former residents, says a writer in the Adelaide “Observer.” In 1819, before settlement in South Australia, .Captain George .Sutherland, in an official dispatch, described the settlers of that period as “little better than pirates. Before the dawn of Australia’s history, charred trees and heaps of bones tirhianorpd stranse stories ot

the largest island off the mainland. Captain Flinders, on his voyage to Terra Ajistralis in .1802, marked the signs of former landings, and .pondered, but did not solve the problem of the stricken trees. .Inclined to the theory .that La Perouse had passed that way before him, lie.left the island to .its mysteries, having first given it its name as a “tribute” of gratitude for so seasonable a supply of half a hundredweight of kangaroos’ heads, forequarters, and tails to be stewed for soup. . But others besides explorers discovered the advantages of Kangaroo Island. Crews of whaling and sealingships who stayed behind when their boats deft, escaped convicts and runaway sailors, found it a haven fiom the sea and the requirements of civilisation. Men from Nantucket, add New Bedford joined forces jyith felons from Van Dieman’s Land in one of the most savage white ..com m unities know into, the Empire, in theii time.

Captain .George Sutherland, commander of the brig Governor . Macquarie, made a voyage to the , island -from Sydney in 1819, and gave a graphic,picture of the unofficial settlement.

-“There are no natives on ,the island,” .he wrote. “Several Europeans assemble there, some who have rjin from ships that traded for salt, others from Sydney and Van Dieman’s Land, who were prisoners of the Crown. These gangs joined after a. lapse of time • and became the terror of the ships going to the island for salt, etc., being.little better than pirates. “They are complete savages, -living in bark huts like pirates, not cultivating anything, but living entirely on kangaroos, emus, and small porcupines, and getting spirits and tobacco in barter for the skins which they lay up during the sealing season. They dress in kangaroo skins without .linen, and wear sandals made of seal skins. They smell lij<e foxes.” The gallant Captain Sutherland was a humane man, .especially for .his time, and he records.his horror of the outstanding historical feature of the settlement —tlie savagely inhuman treatment of natives, which was to be reflected later,by a'.series of murders of white settlers along the coastline. Puss and Bet, “the last of the Tasmanians,” wretched .remnants of a dying race, were among the aboriginal

women whose .bones were .left on that alien shore after a life of slavery.

TRUTH IN FICTION. Major Lockyer, in 1827, described the Kangaroo Islanders as “a complete set of pirates going from island to island along the southern coast, from Rottnest to Bass Straits, having their chief resort or den at Kangaroo Island, making occasional descents on the mainland, and carrying off by force females.” He advocated the equipping of a Government cutter of ten guns to check their infamous proceedings. A more intimate picture of the islanders at this period is given in that delightful study, “The Kangaroo Islanders,” by W. A. Cawthorne, which first appeared in serial form in .a. journal called “The illustrated Adelaide Post.” Mr Cawthorne, whose father was the first lighthouse-keeper at Cape Willoughby, was intimately associated with the places he described, and his story, though cast in the form of fiction, is a truthful account of the state of affairs in 1827, when the population numbered 40 sotils, living under the rule of a chief, known as “Abyssinia.” Under the leadership of Captain Meredith, an historical character, the crew of a British bi'ig go ashore at Kangaroo Island and. discover the island homes of a savage colony.

The shuts were of wattle filled with clay, and about them a dozen black .women were preserving skins. The wild scenery, the howling dogs, the .settlers clothed in skins and without, shoes or hats, the swarms of uncouth halLcaste children, were a revelation of a mode of life rougher than the the sailors had ever met with. The, sailors who had visited the mainland had wild tales of ourang-outangs who captured women and made them slaves and drudges.

“.Wrecking was one of the legitimate sources of income according to .the .political and social constitution of the empire of Kangaroo Island. They appointed themselves general receivers of wrecks, and were frequently called upon to exercise their office and peculiar functions to .the /benefit of all concerned ... It was singular how frequently they would kindly pilot a ship .out .of danger of .reef .and current, and yet withal by some unlucky chance, make ship■wreck .of the very .object' of their solicitude.”

Cawthorne, while describing the Islanders as less than human .in ap-i pearance and manners, insists that ; they had some savage virtues. Mur-; der, rapine, and debauchery wqre bah. .anced by .feats of endurance and stubcbo.rn courage. About 1827 the Sydney Government; sent a vessel to remove the worst of-.’ (fenders, and the black women _and. their children were liberated on the; .mainland. When the first official’ white settlers arrived, they found .m (Comparatively orderly communrty. /Robert Warlans, se.lf-styled “Governor, of ythe. .Island,” ruled in place of; Abyssinia of infamous meniqry.. On. the arrival of Mr Samuel .Stephens, ; the first manager of the Sputh Aus-, tralian Company in this State, “at a: meeting of a few scattered inhabitants? -the jsel&eleoted Governor was called! upon to abdicate, which he did, magnanimously.” ■'Kangaroo Island .had ; tjirned its. -face'/towards order and /progress, and speedily .became’ the Arcadian and delightful spot that >it as torday.