LA TROBE AND THE BUREAUCRATS: How the Best of Intentions Failed to Protect the Aboriginal People of Port Phillip by Frances M. Thiele Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats CONTENTS Abbreviations Conventions List of Illustrations Preface Introduction 1. Reforming Social Consciousness 2. Evangelical Credentials Established 3. Confronting Aboriginal Peoples 4. Devising a Plan for the Protection of Aboriginal Peoples 5. A Challenging Beginning 6. Unfulfilled Expectations 7. The Real Circumstances Exposed 8. Enforcing Misguided Philanthropy 9. La Trobe’s Disillusionment Conclusion Appendices Bibliography Notes Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats ABBREVIATIONS ADB Australian Dictionary of Biography HRA Historical Records of Australia, Series 1 HRV Historical Records of Victoria ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography PRO Public Records Office London PROV Public Record Office Victoria V&P Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council, New South Wales SLV State Library of Victoria Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats CONVENTIONS Except where they appear in quotation marks, all references to Aboriginal names and languages use the spelling set out by Ian Clark in his book Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800-1900. Where quotes have been taken from original manuscripts I have expanded abbreviations and symbols. Where an accurate expansion of abbreviated words was in doubt I have put square brackets around the inserted letters so show this editing. Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Sir Francis Grant (1803-1878), artist, Samuel Bellin, engraver, [Charles Joseph La Trobe], c.1855, H15575, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 2. [Heroes of the Slave Trade Abolition], Unknown artist, wood engraving, NPG D9338, reproduced courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 3. Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846), artist, [The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840], 1841, oil on canvas, NPG 599, reproduced courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London. 4. William Nicholas (1807-1854), artist, [Portrait of Sir George Gipps, late governor of New South Wales], [Sydney: W. Baker], 1847. PIC U5875 NK720/21 LOC NL shelves 56, reproduced courtesy of the Natio9688nal Library of Australia. 5. John Skinner Prout (1806-1876), artist, [View of Melbourne, with Aboriginal family group in foreground], 1847, H92.334/2, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 6. [George Augustus Robinson], c.1852-1866, P-330, reproduced courtesy of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats 7. Photograph, [Photograph of a portrait miniature of Charles Wightman Sievwright], original picture oil on ivory, c.1825, artist unknown, H2007.67, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 8. Davies & Co., photographic studio, [William Thomas], c.1860, H2002.87, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 9. Thomas Foster Chuck (1826-1898), photographer, [Edward Stone Parker (1802- 1865)], H28015, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 10. Richard Daintree (1832-1878), photographer, [Aboriginal farm at Mount Franklyn], c.1859-1863, H7679, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 11. Richard Daintree (1832-1878) and Antoine Fauchery (1823-1861), photographers, [Group of Aboriginal men, women and children, standing in front of slab hut, wearing European clothing, all whole-length, full face], c.1857-1859, H84.167/42, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. 12. Batchelder's, photographic studio, Hamel & Co, lithographer, [Governor Charles Joseph LaTrobe], c. 1860, H29543, reproduced courtesy of the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats PREFACE The account I present here is an administrative and necessarily white history of the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate. I make no claim to represent Aboriginal people or to have written on their behalf because as a non-Aboriginal historian I do not believe it is appropriate for me to do so. I hope, instead, that I have made a contribution to our understanding of the British Government’s motives to which Aboriginal people can add their own stories of this time. History is a cooperative venture in which we all share and to which we all contribute irrespective of skin colour or heritage. I could not have completed this work without all the writers, storytellers and historians who have considered this subject before me and to them I give my thanks and appreciation. For most of us it is difficult to fully comprehend the irrevocable impact of colonisation on the Aboriginal people who were alive at the time. The European colonisation of Australia remains an event that haunts our political and cultural landscape shaping contemporary views of Aboriginal people. Ultimately, there are many ways to look at the past and no definitive ‘truth’ only the desire to seek answers through the rigorous collection and analysis of evidence and an earnest attempt to transcend our own cultural biases to understand the lives of others. Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats INTRODUCTION In the late 1830s the sea voyage from London to Sydney took three to four months as ships sailed from Portsmouth to Botany Bay via the Canary Islands, Rio de Janeiro, the Cape of Good Hope, around the southern part of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and up the eastern coast of Australia. The route for the first part of the trip was a well- established sea journey that aimed to ‘follow the currents, sail before the winds and follow the paths of seabirds’.1 For the passengers and sailors aboard ship the journey was also an extremely perilous one. While the route to the Cape of Good Hope was well- known, the passage across the Southern Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean to the Van Diemen’s Land coast was particularly treacherous. The winds that gusted across the great expanse of ocean from the Cape to the Australian shores, nicknamed the ‘Roaring Forties’, were excessively strong making the waves large and unpredictable. In the storms that followed the sea battered the sides of ships and water crashed over deck making life for those on-board a desperate struggle for survival for hours or days on end. The resulting lack of hygiene was a huge problem and disease spread rapidly in the confined spaces. Water invaded every nook and cranny below deck leading to spoiled food supplies and freezing conditions. The decision to make such a trip was done voluntarily either in ignorance, desperation or with a strong sense of purpose. In any case the voyage was a test of endurance and for many in the nineteenth century, a test of faith. For the well-educated and staunchly religious Charles Joseph La Trobe the sea journey to Australia was definitely in the latter category. On 3 October 1839 La Trobe arrived in Melbourne from London via Sydney after the British Colonial Office appointed him 1 Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats superintendent of the newly created Port Phillip District of the Colony of New South Wales (now called Victoria). He was to represent the British Government as their highest authority in the District managing its development and burgeoning immigrant population. The position was one of considerable social status with an income of 800 pounds a year.2 To take up his post as a colonial administrator La Trobe had travelled thousands of miles spending one hundred and twenty three days at sea with his wife Sophie and young daughter Agnes, who was only a toddler. He was thirty-eight years old and a man who keenly felt his separation from society at home. He wrote to his friend John Murray: ‘You, my dear Sir, 16,000 miles from civilization, and cannot imagine what it is to be cast so far beyond the reach of the thousand daily means of improvement and enjoyment which they possess who breathe the air of Europe’.3 The decision to venture to the Australian shores was not taken lightly by La Trobe nor was he without trepidation about the future - so what was it that drew him to Australian shores? La Trobe’s motivation for accepting the post of superintendent was born of practical, worldly considerations in the form of the need for employment, but he was also substantially driven by his spiritual aspirations.4 In La Trobe’s mind the role of superintendent had the potential to reach far beyond that of a mere administrator of public affairs and settlement. In Port Phillip, a British colonial outpost on the edge of the ‘civilised’ world, La Trobe had an opportunity to impress upon the immigrant population the importance of Christian morality in what he thought of as a dissolute and largely heathen country. When La Trobe arrived, Melbourne was still a small, frontier town marred by ‘quarrels between settlers; drunkenness and disorder’.5 European residents were ‘overwhelmingly former convicts’ often of ‘dubious background’. Few of the 2 Thiele – La Trobe and the Bureaucrats individuals who had brought sheep across the water from Van Diemen’s Land or overland from further north to graze on the extensive grasslands around Port Phillip Bay had yet decided to live in the District. Instead most livestock owners left the management of their sheep to their employees - shepherds and farm hands from the working classes. Of the twenty eight people who owned sheep herds grazing in Port Phillip in 1836, twenty two were acting as agents ‘for other people or were in partnership with one or more other persons’.6 At this early stage of settlement the Port Phillip District was little more than a ‘grazing annex to Van Diemen’s Land’.7 In 1837 Captain William Lonsdale, appointed by the Governor of New South Wales as the first Police Magistrate and commandant of the Port Phillip District the year before, complained that very few ‘respectable’ or ‘desirable’ members of the community were immigrating to the District.8 The reason for this was probably as much to do with the lack of facilities as the perceived objectionable company.