By Lynley A. Wallis and Heather Burke
The Moreton Bay Pastoral District is located in the extreme southeast of Queensland, taking in contemporary Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich. After initially serving as the location for the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement — established in September 1824 and closed in 1839 — the region was officially opened for free settlement and declared a pastoral district on 5 May 1842. Within six years, 18 runs had been taken up by rapacious squatters moving north from New South Wales (NSW) looking for new opportunities.
Moreton is bound on the east by the ocean, west by the Great Dividing Range and south by the NSW border. Originally, the northern border of the district was simply “the limits of colonisation” (NSW Government Gazette, 10 May 1842, 689), with this boundary later defined by the headwaters of the Brisbane River. As well as encompassing the islands of Moreton, North Stradbroke and Bribie Islands, Moreton incorporates the Brisbane, Stanley, Pine and Bremer Rivers, along with Lockyer Creek. Worthy of note here is that the district is home to the bunya pine, Araucaria bidwillii, an important Aboriginal food source that supported annual gatherings of hundreds of people.
White Exploration
Captain James Cook charted Moreton Bay during his 1770 journey, with Matthew Flinders providing greater detail through his 1799 efforts. They, however, were concerned only with the coastline and waters, and it was several decades later before the hinterland was investigated, though on 17 July 1799, Flinders landed briefly at present-day Woody Point, which he named Red Cliff Point.
In 1823 John Oxley was sent to Moreton Bay on the brig Mermaid in search of a location suitable to establish a penal colony, subsequently identifying the Brisbane River and recommending it to Governor Brisbane. In his report Oxley stated:
The natives, in the intercourse we had with them, appeared to possess a most friendly disposition. They are very numerous, and are, to a certain extent, superior in their domestic habits to the savages inhabiting the more southern coasts (Oxley 1825:22)
John Uniacke (1825) was also a member of the Oxley expedition, and stayed at Bribie Island while the other members of the party went in search of a suitable large river. His relationship with the local Kabi Kabi and Joondoburri people was excellent, and upon the party’s return he published a detailed account, entitled “Natives of Moreton Bay, 1823”, drawing also on information provided by John Finnegan and Thomas Pamphlett, two ticket-of-leave convicts who had been shipwrecked some six months earlier.
As the penal colony was being established (originally called Edenglassie), further explorations occurred. Major Edmund Lockyer navigated the Brisbane River in September 1824, again using the brig Mermaid (Kerr 1988:1). He reached approximately 240 km from the mouth of the river, surveying what was to become Lockyer Creek, the Stanley River and Mount Brisbane, from which he had a good view of the countryside. As well as reporting on the lands and waters, he was directed in his endeavours by Governor Brisbane to report on the local Aboriginal people, “Noting their disposition, complexion, size, dress and customs, with their means of hostility and defence”, with specific instructions to “use your best endeavours to conciliate their goodwill, both by present and a kind and humane behaviour towards them by yourself and every one of your party” (as cited in Lockyer 1920:62). The latter instructions were followed to the letter, and only positive interactions were reported from his party.
John Oxley returned again in 1824 on the vessel Amity, with botanist and surveyor Allan Cunningham. Together they carried out more detailed explorations of the Brisbane River. Cunningham later explored the Moreton Bay coast and hinterland in detail in July and August 1828, and in May 1829 explored the upper part of the Brisbane River Valley. During his travels, Cunningham had two comparatively negative encounters with local people (Steele 1972:152), which seem largely to have been demonstrations of European superiority designed to ensure Aboriginal people knew they could not better the white men.
Another key figure in terms of white explorers of the Moreton district was Patrick Logan, the Commandant of the Penal Settlement. While in command he undertook numerous explorations, particularly around Ipswich; it was during one of these expeditions in 1830 that he was killed by Aboriginal people in the Mount Beppo area (see below).
Key pastoralists and stations
Cressbrook station, widely credited as the very first run in the Brisbane Valley, was taken up on 15 July 1841 by David Cannon McConnel, backed by substantial family funding from England — David had only arrived in Sydney 18 months prior, in February 1840. Originally established as a sheep station, cattle were soon introduced and agricultural efforts pursued. His brother John later came out and joined him in partnership. John went on to have a political career, sitting as a member of the Qld Legislative Council from 24 April 1861 to 16 July 1868. When the Archer brothers sold out to move to the Burnett district (see later), it was the McConnels who bought them out. The Cressbrook homestead, incorporating the early 1840s slab hut originally built by David, is inscribed on the Queensland Heritage Register.
Just a month after McConnel had arrived with his sheep, brothers Charles, John, James and Robert Balfour took up Colinton station, on the Brisbane River, on 19 August 1841. Just a month after their arrival a group of several hundred Aboriginal men made off (temporarily for the most part) with more than 1000 sheep, and in the days and months thereafter made repeated additional attempts. Eventually the following year a shepherd was fatally speared, and the Balfours temporarily abandoned part of the run later than year (Kerr 1988:5). In 1853 George Edward Forbes joined as a partner in Colinton with John McConnel.
The Archer brothers, Charles, John, David, William, Archibald, Thomas and Colin, took up Durundur (from an Aboriginal word for the Moreton Bay ash tree), comprising 38,400 acres on the banks of the Stanley River, moving up from NSW in September 1841. As Durundur proved not to be particularly good sheep country, the brothers expanded their holdings, also taking up Emu Creek (aka Djuan Djuan, comprising 128,000 acres) and Cooyar (nearly 72,000 acres), both on western tributaries of the Brisbane River, in 1845. Of the brothers, Archibald, Thomas, Alexander and Colin remained in Australia the longest, with Archibald entering politics for a time. The brothers later left the Moreton District and took up runs in the Burnett River, and then, most significantly, the Gracemere station on the Fitzroy River in the Port Curtis district further north. Cooyar was transferred to Louis Hope and Robert Ramsay in August 1859.
Mount Brisbane (aka Goodwood) on the Stanley River and adjacent to Kilcoy station, was taken up by brothers Frederick and Francis Bigge in September 1841. Francis Bigge was a key player in the Separation movement. The adjacent property Mount Esk was originally taken up by Gideon Andrew Scott in 1842; Scott sold the run in 1849 to the Bigge brothers, and the two leases incorporated into Mount Brisbane on 1 January 1869 (Kerr 1988:7). The BIgge’s former manager, William Bowman, joined the brothers in partnership later that year (1869), until the partnership ceased on 31 December 1889.
Wivenhoe station (originally known as River station) was initially leased by Richard Jones, though after he was declared insolvent it was taken up by Edmund B. Uhr and John Stephen Ferriter, who, until that time, had been at Tent Hill (Kerr 1988:10). Uhr’s two sons, Wentworth D’Arcy and Reginald, both later joined the NMP. When Ferriter and Uhr dissolved their partnership and moved to the Burnett, they sold Wivenhoe to the North family.
Kilcoy was taken up by Colin John McKenzie and his brother Sir Evan McKenzie. In April 1846 Evan inherited the family baronetcy and returned to Scotland, and by June 1852 the property been taken over by Charles A. Atherton, who just two years later sold it to Louis Hope and John Ramsay. As the scene of particularly sustained conflict, Kilcoy is discussed in more detail in the ‘Conflict Events’ section.
Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior took up the Bromelton run on the Upper Logan River in the 1840s, selling out of sheep in 1858 and turning his attention to banana farming. He later became a long-serving member of the Queensland Legislative Council, serving from 22 February 1866 until 31 December 1892. The Bromelton lease appears to have been taken over by John Vaughan by at least 1857 (though it is not clear if he was the owner or manager). Vaughan appears to have been sympathetic to Aboriginal people, giving evidence in a poisoning case in early 1858, with others suggesting he had “fostered and protected” Aboriginal people at Bromelton (North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser 9 August 1859, p3). The station then either passed to John Cameron, or the latter was co-owner with Vaughan.
James Canning Pearce originally took up Crows Nest in the west of the District, located atop the range, although the run was later passed to Jacob Levi Montefiore, a squatter and trader from NSW. George Gershon Mocatta originally took up Grantham and Helidon stations in 1841, Pearce then purchasing Helidon from Mocatta (c.1843 or 1844); Pearce in turn then sold the run to Montefiore. While a large run, Helidon was said to be “very much confined by scrub, and a great part of it unavailable for grazing purposes” (Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 1848, p2).
Buaraba on Logan Creek was taken up initially by John James Malcolm Borthwick in partnership with William Elliot Oliver in 1841. The two men also took up land further north in the Burnett District in 1842 (Kerr 1988:8), with Oliver establishing the Nanango station. The Buaraba licence was transferred to Edward Carleton Atkinson, and was then transferred in 1852 to June Smith and FA Forbes.
Coochin Coochin was also known as Dalhunty’s Plain. It was taken up in 1842 by David Hunter and his partner James Fyffe, but the lease was transferred to John Kent in 1844, who commenced using the traditional name for the area. By 1848 the run was transferred to George Frederick Burgoyne and Samuel Hill; by 1851 it was in the hands of brothers Walter and George Leslie (the latter of whom represented the Pastoral Districts of Clarence and Darling Downs in 1851-1855) and by 1859, Leonard Edward Lester.
Andrew Gregor was the first settler to take up a run (for cattle) near Caboolture, with the property later known as Forgie. Andrew Gregor and his housekeeper Mary Shannon were killed by Aboriginal people on 18 October 1846.
Eskdale, described in 1848 as “very ridgy” (Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 1848, p2), was taken up by James Ivoryand David Graham in 1843; Graham withdrew from the partnership in 1852 (Kerr 1988:8). Owen Daly, a resident on Bundamba Creek from about 1853, in giving evidence to the 1861 Select Committee Enquiry in the NMP, alleged that “Mr. Ivory and his superintendent or stockman” had hunted Aboriginal off the local waterholes, destroying their camp and property, and that Ivory had said “he would never allow them [Aboriginal people] on his run; he considered that they disturbed the cattle” (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:69).
Fassifern was taken up initially by John Cameron and then transferred to William Kent by 1848. By the time of the 1861 Enquiry, the lease was held by John Hardie, who gave evidence to the Select Committee. He reported that during that and the preceding year Aboriginal people had been spearing cattle and robbing huts at Fassifern and that he had communicated his situation with NMP officer Frederick Wheeler, who came to the station. Hardie denied that any Aboriginal people had been “dispersed” at Fassifern, only willing to concede that he had “heard that one or two of them were dead, but I don’t know how they were killed” (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:98). Henry Challinor, who had held the inquest into those deceased Aboriginal men, was not impressed with Hardie; as reported in the Inquest, he had subsequently written to the Attorney-General impugning Hardie’s evidence and, and charging him with falsehood. In response, Hardie declared that he had not taken any notice and stated, “I look up on the whole thing as a downright lie” (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:98). Hardie asserted that the squatters treated Aboriginal people kindly, and that he had “never heard anything of the sort” when asked if any of his neighbours had been “cruel to the blacks, or have shot any of them?” (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:98). He was clearly a man who held steadfastly to a ‘cone of silence’ and ‘what happens on the runs stays on the runs’ kind of approach.
Jimboomba (aka Gimboomba) was originally taken up by Dowse Thomas and later passed to Donald Coutts.
George Thorn took up Normanby (south of Ipswich) in the late 1840s.
Joseph Phelps Robinson and William North were both attributed as the lessees of Laidley in the 1840s, with it being unclear who held the station at what time.
Macdonald, Macquarie and Campbell took up Dugandan, the scene of multiple instances of conflict, in 1848.
Maroon was taken up by Carden Collins, who gave evidence to an NSW inquiry into the native police. He claimed that the previous year (1860) he suffered a great deal of stock loss, with at least 20-25 head of cattle killed and many others injured, to the value of £500 (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:61). He admitted to having driven them off the run but did not elaborate on how he achieved this, claiming that “I have always treated them well; I have fed them and given them work” (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:61), also claiming that he had “done more for them than I ought to have done” (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:64).
Rosewood was taken up by Donald Coutts, and saw a great deal of Aboriginal resistance throughout the 1840s because the local scrubs allowed people to easily evade pursuit. A similar situation existed for Tent Hill in the Lockyer Valley, which was taken up by Philip Friell in 1845.
Alfred William Compigné (the son-in-law of Carden Collins), bought the Nindooinbah run on the Logan River from Paul Lawless in 1846 (Daily Mail 16 December 1924, p20). He was later chosen as a member of the first Legislative Council of Queensland in 1866, and held that position for several years before he resigned (Queensland Country Life 1 July 1909, p47). Although the earliest years at Nindooinbah appeared to be quiet, it is not clear whether that was genuinely the case, or simply because Compignédidn’t report the happenings on the run to newspapers or officials. Certainly by December 1860, perhaps having someone immediate to raise such matters with in the form of the NMP, Compigné had complained that Aboriginal people had been “robbing the huts, stealing the sheep, and threatening the shepherds. Compigné had left part of his run [Nindooinbah] on that account, and brought the sheep to the head station” (Frederick Wheeler 9 May 1861, Select Committee on the Native Police Force, p16). His nephew, Walter, later became an NMP officer.
Other stations in the region included Mundoolan (sometimes Moondooloon; John Collins), Tabragalba (Dugald Graham), Tamrookum (William Barker), Undulla (John Cameron), Yandina (taken up in 1853 by brothers Daniel and Zachariah Skyring) and Telemon (Robert Campbell).
NMP presence
The earlier phase of European movement into the Moreton District occurred pre-Separation, when there was no NMP presence per se. As such, all ‘policing’ was done as a side task of the military who were associated with the Penal Settlement. With runs in Moreton having been taken up rapidly from 1841 onwards, the inevitable sustained conflict over competing interests in land was not long in coming.
Complaints by settlers in Moreton and the other parts of what was then northern NSW were the impetus for the establishment of the NMP. After Walker established his headquarters at Callandoon in 1849, far to the west in what became the Darling Downs pastoral district, Moreton squatters were afforded the opportunity of occasional NMP patrols. However, for the most part, far from the more settled regions and administrative centre of Sydney, Moreton pastoralists were left to their own devices when interacting with the Indigenous peoples whose lands they were usurping.
Although there were multiple NMP camps in the Moreton district from at least 1851 onwards (apparent from the first police barracks having been tendered for in that year), it is not always clear where they were based. The NMP had been active in the Moreton Bay region from the early 1850s onwards, but by 1854 Sandgate (aka Cabbage-Tree Creek), was described as being “utterly without police protection of any kind” (Moreton Bay Courier, 26 August 1854, p2). Although a small detachment was dispatched to Moreton Bay in 1855, they were withdrawn almost immediately, resulting in further agitation from the residents of Sandgate for police protection.
Sandgate, was considered the best possible site for a camp, given that the NMP would then,
… be in a position to watch the proceedings of the hostile blacks, who have so frequently committed depredations in that quarter, and who have their strongholds on the northern shores of the Bay. Proprietors of land at Sandgate would be able to improve their property with less danger to their lives. And until the proposed signal stations come into operation, a trooper might always be despatched to Brisbane when it was necessary to report any arrivals in the Bay. Intelligence might be conveyed to town in about two hours (Moreton Bay Courier 28 July 1855, p2).
The site for the Sandgate camp was located on a ridge overlooking Sandgate and a lagoon (called variously First, Jonpunkin [Einbumpin] or Tom Dowse Lagoon) (Richards 2007:110–111). In 1932 Charles Thomas Slaughter, the son of one of the first settlers in Sandgate, described it as opposite the then site for the Catholic Church (Brisbane Courier 7 May 1932, p5).
In 1857 Frederick Keen requested permission to be able to command the proposed “section of Native Police stationed on the Pine River” (i.e. Sandgate) because he had been “stationed here [Brisbane] for some time with a detachment about two years since” (QSA17616 1857 Letter from Frederick Keen to John Wickham 2 July, Letters addressed to the Government Resident by the Colonial Secretary, Sydney, on the Native Police, Mfilm 1494). By 1858, however, the then Commandant of the NMP, Edric Morisset, had still not settled on a specific site for the camp (QSA282454 1858 Report from Edric Morisset to Government Resident 11 January, Letterbook NP 1857–1859, Mfilm 2437). It was only in 1859 that a second set of barracks at Sandgate were offered for tender, although it is possible that the earlier 1851 iteration had also been located here. Frederick Wheeler told the 1861 Parliamentary Enquiry into the NMP that the site at Sandgate had been selected by the then Government Resident, John Wickham:
When I first came [in 1859] I mentioned to Captain Wickham that it would be better to have the station on the other side of the river, but he wanted me to camp at Sandgate, because the Bribie Islanders used to come over in boats, and land up at the mouth of the Pine River (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:32).
The Sandgate detachment (also described as the “Brisbane detachment”), was the headquarters for the Fifth (Moreton) Division in 1859, reorganised as the Fourth (Moreton Bay and Logan River) Division in 1862. First staffed by William Hitches, in 1859 the notorious Frederick Wheeler assumed command of this division, remaining in charge until transferred north to the Dawson River at the end of 1864. Consisting of Wheeler, one sergeant (variously Sergeants Abcott, Gordon and Sadleir) and between four and nine troopers, from Sandgate Wheeler patrolled as far north as Maryborough (Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 16 June 1864, p2). At least 20 known conflict events are associated with this camp because of Wheeler’s actions, including the infamous killings of Aboriginal people at Fassifern and Dugandan Stations on the Albert River, in 1860 (see below). By 1865 Sandgate was staffed by one Acting Sergeant, one ordinary Constable and two troopers (QSA846807 1866 Letter from David Seymour to Colonial Secretary 15 February, In letter 66/870, Colonial Secretarys office In letters, DR60458), suggesting that the NMP had been removed from the camp with Wheeler’s transfer at the end of the previous year.
The NMP had been patrolling the Logan and Albert Rivers regions from at least 1861, and probably earlier, out of the Cooper’s Plains (Maryborough) and Sandgate camps, stopping at various pastoral stations as needed. Alfred Walter Compigné, leaseholder of Nindooinbah, considered local Aboriginal groups to be,
… very troublesome in our neighbourhood. Prior to the detachment of Native Police being stationed there I lost from 400 to 1500 sheep every year; and the first time Lieutenant Williams came to the station he found the blacks killing a bullock within 400 yards of my house. (Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861:35).
No formal NMP camp was ever established in the Logan and Albert Rivers region per se, though various plans for such were mooted from 1862 onwards. In that year Frederick Wheeler reported on a suitable site for a camp “at the junction of the Logan and Albert Rivers” where there was “good water and grass, and water communication between that locality and Brisbane. It is off the different tracks and away from any township or licensed house. There are only a few timber gatherers who passed the place with their rafts from time to time” (QSA846764 1862 Letter from Frederick Wheeler to Under Colonial Secretary 29 November, In letter 62/2778, Mfilm Z5622). According to John O’Connell Bligh, the site was “about fifteen miles from Jimboomba; and fourty [sic] five miles south from Brisbane and Ipswich” (QSA846765 1862 Letter from John O’Connell Bligh to Colonial Secretary 15 December, In letter 62/2993, Mfim Z5623).
Although Wheeler was sent in February 1863 to mark out the site for the proposed camp (QSA846767 63/419 M/film Z5629) and tenders were advertised in January and February, the camp was never established, and the NMP detachment under Wheeler remained at Sandgate. The nascent plans were abolished through political intervention, since John Douglas claimed in Parliament that,
… the £300 for the erection of a native police barrack at the Logan and Albert Rivers was unnecessary, and moved that it be struck out. If the government intended to carry out their expressed intention of sending the black police into the unsettled districts, then no barracks was necessary; for all that would be required in the Moreton District would be a few black trackers to co-operate with the mounted white police or patrol, and surely a barracks was not required for the black trackers.
In response, the Colonial Secretary, Robert Herbert, still considered that,
… the natives were occasionally very troublesome in the neighbourhood of the Albert and Logan Rivers, as well as at other places on the coast; and if there were not black police to hunt them out of the salt swamps where they concealed themselves after perpetrating mischief it would be impossible to keep them in order. He never contemplated maintaining a pure black force in the Moreton District, and on two previous occasions he stated so to the house; but nevertheless the barracks was necessary (Record of the Proceedings of the Queensland Parliament … Legislative Assembly 3rd September 1863 … Extracted from the third party account as published in the Courier 4th September 1863, np).
As a compromise, Parliament “struck out the word ‘native’”, transforming the barracks into an ordinary police station rather than a native police camp.
The final likely NMP camp in the Moreton District was Humpy Bong, this being an interesting location for an NMP camp. Situated at Redcliffe, in Brisbane, it is listed in all of the Police Returns for the late 1860s as a dedicated NMP camp, even though the complement consisted of only a single sergeant, Alexander Campbell, and two native troopers. It may perhaps have been maintained as a low-level NMP presence in the region following the closure of the larger Sandgate camp in 1865, and from 1869 until 1871, only a single trooper was stationed here.
Conflict events
Matthew Flinders put into the bay in July 1799, and set the scene for the subsequent century when he, “in a sudden terror, of probably imaginary danger, fired and shot one or two, the first white man to shed the life blood of a Queensland native. According to Flinders’ own diary the record of his experience with the Moreton Bay blacks is not very creditable to himself” (Brisbane Courier, 21 September 1891, p3). The absence of White people in the region for the next two decades potentially led Indigenous people to think the troubles were over; in fact, Flinders’ behaviour had been just a prelude.
Based on our research, there were more than 220 conflict events in the Moreton District, across the gamut from petty theft, property damage, sexual assault, woundings, deaths and large massacres. These fell into several phases, and it is worth pointing out the extreme bias in the documentary sources about attacks against Whites and their stock (n=184), with more than twice as many as against Aboriginal people (n=39).
One unusual element to the conflict in this district was the mass gatherings of Aboriginal people in the district that were supported by the harvesting of bunya pinecone kernels from January to March. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people, would travel to the region annually, staying for months to feast on the kernels, settling disputes, arranging marriages, trading and participating in ceremony (Cooke et al. 2024). No doubt early settlers misunderstood — at least initially — the cultural context of these events and the presence of so many Aboriginal people amassing would have been regarded as threatening, especially given the very limited number of White allies.
The initial phase of conflict was primarily associated with the convict depot. Given the relatively small footprint of the settlement and the restricted sphere of their activities, most of this conflict was small-scale, and for some time the relationships with local people had been peaceful:
I have much pleasure in reporting the very friendly terms we continue to preserve with the native who begin to make themselves useful in apprehending and bringing in runaways. I beg leave to request that a supply of blankets and iron hooks may be sent for them, they value these articles very highly. (1827 Letter from Patrick Logan to Alex McLeay Colonial Secretary, dated 9 February)
While Coote (1882:23) indicates that Cunningham’s 1828 exploratory journey into the Moreton hinterland included “three collisions with the natives”, they supposedly “resulted in no great damage to the explorers or their assailants”. And as time wore on, petty thefts by Aboriginal people — who would have seen European property and crops as fair game, given the interlopers’ presence on their Traditional lands — were increasingly met with stronger and eventually lethal force. In return, by January 1828 local people had clearly had enough, killing two convicts. The tit-for-tat conflict continued, with Allan Cunningham also attributing at least some of the hostility to “liberties having been taken with the women by the convicts” (as cited in Fraser 1965:443); this does not seem unreasonable given the gender imbalance at the depot. Commandant Patrick Logan was the first man of social standing (despite his widely being regarded as a tyrant) killed in the Moreton district (on 17 October 1830), though he was certainly not the last.
With the military and convicts being removed from the region in 1839, the second sustained period of conflict was associated with the initial years of free settlement, reaching a peak in 1843–1848, and then again in the late 1850s.
This period featured a mass killing of Gubbi Gubbi people using poison on Kilcoy station in 1842. Owned by the Mackenzies, members of the Mackenzie labour force at Kilcoy were arguably less than genteel; according to John Mackenzie-Smith (1989:44), the Mackenzies chose to “relegate the potential troublemakers to exist on the frontier outstations … [where they were] the front-line buffers to Aboriginal harassment”. The conflict began almost immediately upon the Mackenzie’s arrival, with a report that workers had been speared in October 1841 (QSL 1841 Letter from Owen Gorman to Colonial Secretary 26 October, NSW Colonial Secretary Letters Relating to Moreton Bay and Queensland 1822–1877). In February 1842 two other shepherds (Phineas(?) Murray and H.G. Bond) were killed by Aboriginal people, and in the first half of the same year, at least 30 Aboriginal people were poisoned by being given arsenic-laced flour. This led to widespread and outright warfare for several years.
Shepherds feared for their lives and there were nearly daily confrontations on stock, property and lives; in October 1843, the Commissioner for Crown Lands complained about the inadequacy of the small police force, cataloguing a litany of complaints from squatters and requesting military support to check what was regarded as Aboriginal aggression; unsurprisingly, he said nothing of the corresponding attacks against Aboriginal people as squatters and their workers took matters into their own hands (QSA272324 1843 Letter from Stephen Simpson to the Colonial Secretary 3 October, Letterbook of Stephen Simpson 1842–1852, DR24231). In response, personnel from the 28th, 58th and 99th regiments were stationed at Helidon, and eventually Aboriginal resistance lessened for a few years.
More violence was to come, with the late 1850s and early 1860s bringing a fresh wave of killings. Two particular events in the Moreton district at this time precipitated the holding of a formal inquiry into the necessity for and behaviour of the NMP by the Queensland Legislative Assembly: the killing of at least two Aboriginal people at Dugandan Station on 21 December 1860, and at least another two at Fassifern station just a few days later, both attacks led by NMP officer Frederick Wheeler.
Political representation
In the NSW Legislative Assembly, squatters in the Moreton District were represented by Francis Bigge (1851–1852) and Richard Smith (1853–1856). For a short period of time before Separation, and after the introduction of Responsible Government in 1856, pastoralists in the Moreton District fell within the NSW Electoral District of the Moreton, Wide Bay, Burnett and Maranoa (with Port Curtis added the following year). Here they were represented by pastoralists Gordon Sandeman (1856–1857), Patrick Leslie (1857–1858) and William Tooth (1858–1859).
When the Queensland Parliament came into being in 1860, less than a year after Separation, there were two Electorates of interest: West and East Moreton. Given the population centre that coalesced in southeast Queensland in the Moreton Pastoral District, it is not surprising to find that, unlike many other pastoral districts, their political representatives were not drawn solely from the squattocracy – they quite literally included a ‘butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker’. The professions of other members to 1873 included religious ministers (William Nelson, 3 May 1860 to 22 June 1860), stock agents (Alfred Broughton, 3 May 1860 to 10 December 1860), hoteliers (George Thorne Snr, 3 May 1860 to 3 April 1861), business men (Benjamin Cribb, 26 April 1861 to 2 July 1867; Patrick O’Sullivan, 2 July 1867 to 28 September 1868; Samuel Hodgson, 28 September 1868 to 13 June 1870; William Hemmant, 4 November 1871 to 24 November 1873), chemists (Thomas Symes Warry, 27 October 1860 to 26 August 1863), public servants (Robert Herbert, 13 June 1863 to 7 August 1866), butchers (George Edmondstone, 7 May 1860 to 1 July 1867), bakers (Robert Cribb 18 June 1859 to 10 December 1859 (NSW), 8 December 1860 to 30 May 1863), ironmonger (William Brookes, 22 April 1864 to 3 August 1864), journalists (Arthur Morley Francis, 1 July 1867 to 17 February 1870; Robert Travers Atkin, 17 February 1870 to 7 March 1872), surveyors (William Fryar, 18 November 1873 to 24 April 1877), legal practitioners (James Francis Garrick, 1 July 1867 to 28 September 1868 and again 10 May 1877 to 19 November 1878; Samuel Griffith, 3 April 1872 to 25 November 1873), a dentist (Henry Jordan, 23 December 1868 to 20 October 1871) and high profile medical practitioner Henry Challinor (12 January 1861 to 16 May 1861).
Of course, pastoralists were still prominent, including Joseph Fleming (9 July 1860 to 3 November 1862 and 11 September 1866 to 2 July 1867), Joshua Peter Bell (15 December 1862 to 28 September 1868), George Thorn Jr (2 July 1867 to 18 November 1873), Patrick O’Sullivan (2 July 1867 to 28 September 1868), John Ferret (25 June 1870 to 18 November 1873), Henry Buckley (17 May 1860 to 29 September 1860) and John Douglas (28 September 1868 to 16 December 1868)
Many of the elected members for the Moreton districts went on to hold senior positions, including several serving as Premiers and Treasurers.
References
Cooke, P., E. Ens, P. Clarke, H. Chang, M. Rossetto, D. Crayn, G. Turpin and A. Ferrier 2024 Not all edible nuts are eaten: Evidence for continued Aboriginal cultural use and dispersal of Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii) in southern but not in Northern Queensland. Journal of Ethnobiology:p.02780771241246853.
Fraser, D.W. 1965 Settlement in Queensland in the ‘Logan’ period. Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 7(3):437−455.
Kerr, R.M. 1988 Confidence and Tradition: A History of the Esk Shire. Esk: Council of the Shire of Esk.
Oxley, John 1825 Report of an Expedition to survey Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen: With a View to Form Convict Penal Establishments. London: John Murray.
Lockyer, N.C.S. 1920 Exploration by Major Edmund Lockyer of the Brisbane River in 1825. Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 2(1):54−73.
Mackenzie-Smith, J.H. 1989 Kilcoy, the first six months—Sir Evan Mackenzie’s albatross. Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 13(12):429−444.
Mackenzie-Smith, J. 2009 The Kilcoy poisonings revisited. Queensland History Journal 20(1):593-−605.
Perry, T.M. 1966 Cunningham, Allan (1791–1839). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, The Australian National University. Accessed online 8 August 2024 at https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cunningham-allan-1941/text2323
Queensland Legislative Assembly 1861 Native Police Force Report. Brisbane: Government Printer.
Steele, J. 1972 The Explorers of the Moreton Bay District, 1770−1830. St Lucia: UQ Press.
Uniacke, J. 1825 Natives of Moreton Bay 1823. In B. Field (ed.), Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales, pp.27−86. London: John Murray.