ABORIGINES.

Colonist, Volume V, Issue 466, 11 April 1862, Page 4

ABORIGINES.

THE NOGOA TRAGEDY,

Mr. C. B. Dutton, one of the eauliosfc settlers in the neighbourhood of the late Nogoa tragedy, writes thus to the Sydney Morning Herald, under the head of ' Cruelty to the Blacks, and Murder of Mr. Wills and his People' :—

Sir—ln your paper of the 12th December appeared a leader, in which a just discrimination has led you to arrive at the real cause oi' the murder of Mr. Wills and party. Before there were any complaints against the blacks in this district, tiTe conduct of the native police was characterised by the grossest cruelty; the most oppressive and cxasoerating acts, inspiring a feeling of hatred, and desire of revenge, which the conduct of many whites had rather tended to inflame than to soo'he or allay. Being one of the first to settle in this part of the district, and having kad the blacks at my head station since I first came out, I have had ample opportunity of observing the influence upon the blacks of the treatment to which they have been subjected, and it required but little discernment, but little knowledge of savage natures, to foretel that some such dire catastrophe as the Nogoa murders would be the result. How far the following detailed facts will bear me out in my conclusioup, the public will decide. The first act of violence by the native police was on a black who had been employed by me; he was met on the run by two bluemen, who enticed him-to them by an offer of some tobacco. As soon as he came within carbine range they fired at him, both balls striking him in the arm. He, however, succeeded in getting away from them, and has been since some months shepherding for one of my neighbours ; the balls are still in his arm.

The next case occurred at Albinia Downs, where the blacks had shepherded, I believe, nearly all the sheep, besides assisting in lambing, washing, and other work on the station, for five or sis months. A change of managers brought a change of policy, and the blacks were turned out, and not allowed to come on the station. As they had given no cause for such treatment, they thought it hard, and could not understand it. They used frequently to come up to the station, and asked to be allowed on the run. A complaint was made by some one on the station that one of these parties 'looked suspicious,' and 'asked him for monkeys,' on which the police went out and shot some of them. My blacks asked me ' what for policeman shoot him, bail blackfellow kill whitefellow, bail take monkey, bail take ration, what for shoot him? you been yabber blackfellow budgery bail policeman shoot him.'. The blacks in this neighbourhood have frequently told me the Warpahs or Nogoa blacks would kill some whitefellow for those shot at Albinia Downs. Soon afttr this occurrence at Albinia Downs i sent out for soaie blacks who had been woiking for me when I first came out, to receive a gift of tomahawks and blankets ; they came in, eight men with their gins and children, twenty-five in all. The police came up uud declared their intention of turning them out. saying that their orders were to disperse blacks wherever they fouud them, and at once proceeded to drive them out, by threatening to shoot them, carrying off all their implements and burning them ; despite my urgent representations that the blacks were in at my especial request, at the same time pointing out to the officer the outrageous injustice of such a procedure. The answer of our Government to the complaint preferred against the officer in this matter, is that 'they fail to discover anything but a strict discharge of duty on the part of the officer impugned.'

Since the murder on the Nogoa, Mr. Bligh, the commandant, came up to Mr. Steele's station, and drove the blacks away, who were then washing sheep, off the place, although Mr. Steele explained to him that all the blacks then on the place had been camped there, without intermission, for five or six months; that they were one hundred miles from the scene of the murder, and a pt-ifectly distinct and antagonistic tribe. On the same day they met a black woman belonging to a Murray River boy, in Mr. Steele's employment, while out with her sheep; they galloped their hovses over her, bruising and laccerating her dreadfully, one of the horses treacling on her leg below the knee, tearing away the flesh down to the ankle, and almost severing the sinews of the heel. They then came over to mj station, and ('endeavored to drive away the gins belonging to Mr. Walker's boys, who are now out with him in search of Burke; Mr. Bligh threatening, when I put them into the house, out of the reach of his violence, * That if they wore not off by to-morrow they might look out.' Then they hunted some blacks who were shepherding for me away from their sheep, leaving their sheep in the bush. There are many other cases equally violent and unjust, of which, however, I have no personal knowledge, nor any direct and reliable evidence these that I have stated are of necessity much curtailed, but I affirm that, in all essential points, they are substantially correct.

The public but rarely, if ever, hear of the cruelties, persecution, goading (o madness, which the blacks suffer at the hands of the native police. On. the contrary, any net of violence !>y the blacks is quickly known throughout the colonies and without any inquiry into the treatment that may have caused it, a universal cry of execration and hatred follows.

To show that I have long foreseen the effect of such treatment on the blacks, I give an extract from a letter I wrote the commandant of the force on the occasion of the blacks being driven off my Station, and all their things burnt:— ' These blacks, wretched, debased, and brutal as they are, have still one feeling in common with whites, a feeling never dormant in the mind of a savage, that of deep, implacable revenge for unprovoked injury.' And again, in a letter to the North Australian —' Will the blacks exonerate the settler when they know him to receive on friendly terms, and ration the perpetrators of such ruffianism ? No, he seeks the first favorable opportunity for revenge, and some unfortunate shepherd, or unprotected travellers, fallen a victim to the iniiqutoua acts of a force to which we are told to look for protection.'

An honest and impartial inquiry into the acts and general working of the police force would suffice to convince any man not warpid by prejudice, or blinded rage, that the whites have suffered neither more nor less than rstribvtive justice 5 though, as too often happens in these cases, it has fallen on innocent persons.

From day to day there is a gathering upon credible evidence of wanton cruelty, sufficient I trust to arouse the public mind from this longsustained torpor, that humanity may insert its rights, and stem the current of irresponsible vvro doing.