True Stories of Early Australia by Richard G Tomkies

Author:Richard G Tomkies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cannibals, plane crash, australian, australian aboriginal, australian goldfields, australian pygmies, first car to drive up cape york peninsula, living with aborigines, shipwrecked survivors on the queensland coast, travel by horse and coach
Publisher: Richard G Tomkies

More remains were found…

…including the skull of Captain Stratman

These included the skull of Captain Stratman, identified by his false teeth…all signs of a cannibalistic feast. On some nearby islands the bodies of three more men from the Maria were found.

Of the seventy six men who sailed on the brig from Sydney only forty survived to return to Sydney, with thirty six either being killed by Aborigines or drowned.

It was later reported that Sub Inspector Johnstone exacted revenge for the killing of the white men, by, as he put it, “severely punishing” all those natives whom he found...this being his terminology for exterminating all the Aboriginal men, women and children in their camps, whether they were deemed guilty or not. One of the men his trooper killed was a large Aborigine who was wearing Thomas Ingham’s elastic belt as a trophy around his head. It is said that he fought desperately, right to the last. Sub Inspector Johnstone is reported to have returned the belt to its rightful owner who kept it as a memento of his time and experiences among the little pygmies who had befriended and cared for him.

Thomas Ingham, the red-haired pharmacist from Sydney, eventually returned to the far north of Queensland to the Palmer River goldfields to open a small chemist’s shop there. Strangely enough, the red hair that he sported during his time among the natives and that fascinated them so much, faded to a light brown for the rest of his days. Eventually, it is said, he sold his Palmer River pharmacy for some sixty ounces of gold – the equivalent of about 240 pounds at that time or some $480 in today’s currency. He moved to the central Queensland town of Rockhampton where he once again set up a pharmacy before finally ending his days there.

In a somewhat amusing epilogue, it is worth recording that not long after the final recovery of survivors and remains of the men of the brig Maria, Captain Moresby, in a show of gratitude, once again landed near the site of the pygmy tribe’s camp but found it deserted – possibly because the little people had heard news of the ferocity of Sub Inspector Johnstone’s troopers at Tam O’Shanter Point. However, the good Captain and his men left a supply of blankets for the friendly pygmies, along with some ‘ship’s biscuits’ (renowned for their hardness!) and a quantity of canned meat.

The gesture was well meant, but no doubt the biscuits and cans of meat would have proved baffling to the recipients who would have had no inkling what was inside the metal containers – and without the means to open them they would be unlikely to ever find out. The hard biscuits were evidently treated as toys – for a later report described them being rolled along the beach by the natives!

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.