Notice

Norman McVicker

The Wiradjuri Story: Aborigines of Henry Lawson Country by Mudgee’s Local Historian and Writer, Norman McVicker OAM written in 1991. The story is relevant only up to that time as many changes have taken place since.

About Norman McVicker

Norman McVicker OAM, Launched this site on the 20^th February 2009

The Wiradjuri Story cont., P.24

Reprisals

Reprisals on both sides were quick. The settlers called for military support. Parties roamed the countryside killing any Aborigines contacted. The entire countryside was now at war. Aborigines walked their hunting grounds at their peril. The settlers were armed for any attack. The killings were irrational. The Aborigines, inspired by Windradyne, were confronting the white settlers at every opportunity. On one occasion, a party of whites headed by a William Lane, headed off a party of thirty Aborigines, opening fire and killing two girls and a woman. The killings were a reprisal for an attack on a stockman, John Hollingshead, speared in the arm. Five of Lane’s party were sent to Sydney for trial on a charge of manslaughter. The trial was a farce. All five men were acquitted.

The Lesson from the Trial

The Sydney Gazette had made much of the trial asking “How then is it to be expected that man should justify such blood-stained guilt”. The acquittal of the five men taught the settlers and soldiers a lesson. If anyone was going out to kill Aborigines, they had to make sure that no records were kept or reports submitted to the authorities. The ‘Christians’ and the ‘moral guardians’ were portrayed as fools who did not understand the situation. The settlers’ problems could only be resolved by brutal solutions.

Total War

On 14th August, 1824, Governor Thomas Brisbane issued a Proclamation of Martial Law to be in force in all the country west of Mount York. This was Wiradjuri country. The Establishment had now officially declared war against them. Small parties of soldiers set out bent on genocide against the Wiradjuri. The Proclamation said that Aborigine women and children were to be spared. None were. The Proclamation gave the whites the right to kill with no fear of standing trial. It gave the squatters the right to annihilate. No mercy was extended to anyone who came within the range of the guns.

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