Van Diemen's Land by Murray Johnson

Author:Murray Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNSW Press
Published: 2015-11-03T05:00:00+00:00

10

THE PORT PHILLIP INTERLUDE (1839–1842)

George Augustus Robinson’s appointment as Protector of Aborigines in the Port Phillip district (future Victoria) was a lucrative one indeed, attracting an annual salary of £500. Robinson also had the support of four assistant protectors — Charles Sievwright, James Dredge, William Thomas and Edward Parker — all of whom received annual salaries of £250. Unlike Robinson, however, the assistant protectors were appointed directly by the British government and had no previous experience of Australian conditions or the Aboriginal people. Three of them were Methodist ministers, while the fourth, Charles Sievwright, was a former military officer who had been forced to sell his commission to pay off gambling debts.1 These four men arrived from England via Sydney in advance of Robinson, and despite their lack of experience they were to prove more than worthy subordinates. Indeed, and notwithstanding the damning assessments by Superintendent Charles Joseph La Trobe and Governor George Gipps,2 it would be fair to say that without their combined efforts Robinson would have achieved very little during his 11 years at Port Phillip. Although he undertook a number of significant overland journeys to South Australia, New South Wales and the Western District of Port Phillip (in the latter case accompanied by Pevay from Van Diemen’s Land) — as well as a few exploratory trips throughout the hinterland — the valuable information Robinson compiled was only of benefit to posterity: it had little resonance for his own contemporary society. And Robinson’s attempts to ‘civilise’ the Indigenous people of the southern Australian mainland proved to be an abysmal failure. Unlike their Van Diemen’s Land counterparts, the Victorian Aborigines were not confined to a relatively small island and usually not shot on sight. To a certain extent they were able to come and go as they pleased.3

When Robinson arrived in Melbourne there were very few Aborigines to be found as a serious epidemic of influenza had swept through the fledgling European settlement, claiming a number of Aboriginal victims and sending the survivors fleeing into the interior. Robinson was so ill himself that it was four days before he could step ashore, and bearing in mind that he may have become ill in Sydney before sailing south to pack his belongings at Wybalenna, it is possible that Robinson was the source of the fatal contagion which gripped the Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island in February 1839.4 The Aboriginal absence from Melbourne was merely temporary, however, and by the time Robinson had regained his strength the Indigenous people had begun returning to the European settlement where they camped on an area of land that is now the site of the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was there that Robinson and his family occupied a small cottage while the Van Diemen’s Land Aborigines were left to build their own shelters from grass. As soon as he had established himself, Robinson and the assistant protectors held a feast for the Victorian Aborigines, providing lavish quantities of beef, mutton and bread. Competitive games were

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