Description
About 11am on 3 May 1804, a large group of Big River/Oyster Bay men, women and children suddenly appeared on top of a hill on a kangaroo drive near the recently established British colonial outpost at Risdon, on the eastern shore of the River Derwent. According to witness Edward White, 'they did not know there was a white man in the country' and they 'looked at me with all their eyes' (BPP 1831, p.53). Lt William Moore, the officer in charge at the outpost, ordered two detachments comprising eight soldiers from the garrison, 102nd Regiment (NSW Corps) to fire at the Big River/Oyster Bay people in two separate engagements in which at least two Big River/Oyster Bay warriors were killed. Then in a third engagement, the magistrate at Risdon Cove, surgeon Jacob Mountgarret, ordered that a twelve-pounder carronade be dragged up the hill from the water's edge and loaded with grape and canister shot and fired at the Big River/Oyster Bay people to disperse them. The sound of the carronade was heard at Hobart on the other side of the River Derwent at 2pm. Mountgarret then led a group of armed men comprising at least 12 soldiers, ten convicts and two settlers, in a charge 'some distance up the valley' where 'more were wounded' and 'a fine Native boy' about two years old was captured after his 'Mother and Father were both killed' (Watson, (ed.) 1925, HRA, III, i, 237-8). Three British witnesses recorded their experiences of the massacre. Two of them were the leading perpetrators, Moore and Mountgarret, who each provided written reports in the immediate aftermath. Mountgarret claimed that 600 Aboriginal warriors threatened the outpost by attacking a settler and that only two Aboriginal men were killed, although the official report, prepared by Lt Governor David Collins on 15 May 1804, said that 'at least three' were killed (Nicholls 1977, p 51; Watson ed (1925) HRA III, i, pp. 237-8). The third witness, Edward White, a convict in 1804, was interviewed about the incident at an official inquiry, known as the Broughton Committee, 26 years later in March 1830 and provided the first coherent account of the massacre. He said that the soldiers began firing at 11am and that 'a great many' Oyster Bay/Big River people were 'slaughtered and wounded' and in the aftermath, surgeon Mountgarret, dispatched 2 casks of Tasmanian Aboriginal remains to Sydney (BPP 1831, 53-4). At the Broughton inquiry, the Reverend Robert Knopwood, said that he visited the Risdon outpost a week after the 'affray' and supposed that 'five or six' Tasmanian Aboriginal people were killed (BPP 1831, p53). However, the harbour master James Kelly told the Committee that '40 or 50' were killed (BPP 1831, p.51). John Pascoe Fawkner, later said in his 'Reminiscences' that 'not less than fifty were shot down' (Fawkner 2007, p.24).
Historian James Bonwick, investigated the 'affray' in the 1850s and noted that Dr Mountgarret sent two casks of Aboriginal remains to Sydney and they may have been the remains of the six bodies observed by Knopwood. Bonwick was also told by Moore's commanding officer, Captain A F Kemp, that Moore 'saw double that morning from an overdose of rations rum' and 'the whole was the effect of a half-drunken spree, and that the firing arose from a brutal desire to see the Niggers run' (Bonwick 1870, p35). Bonwick was the first to publicly call the 'affray' a 'massacre' and was in no doubt that the soldiers of the 102nd Regiment (the NSW Corps) were responsible for the 'barbarous onslaught upon the Natives at Risdon' (Bonwick 1870, p36).
The claim by genocide scholars in the early 21st century that the Risdon massacre was the beginning of the genocide of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, attracted a host of deniers whose purpose was to undermine Edward White as a reliable witness. Keith Windschuttle(2002) and W F Refshauge (2016) each used an out of date map of Risdon Cove to claim that Edward White could not have witnessed the massacre from where he said he was standing. Windschuttle also said that Bonwick could not have interviewed a settler of 1804 because no one who was present was still alive when Bonwick conducted his alleged interview; and that there is no evidence that 2 barrels of Tasmanian Aboriginal remains were shipped to Sydney (Windschuttle 2002, pp 11-28; Refshauge 2016). The claims were ably refuted by Phillip Tardif (2003). In 2022, Scott Seymour, George Brown and Roger Karge in their book, 'Truth-Telling at Risdon Cove', claimed that Edward White could not have been a witness to the massacre because, according to the records, he was not in Tasmania at the time (Seymour, Brown and Karge 2022). Tardif rejected their claims in 2023. He considers that White's 'detailed, accurate and consistent testimony, the acceptance by settlers and officials that he was a Risdon pioneer, and the clear statement made (in 1833) by long-term Hobart resident John Fawkner that he had known White for almost thirty years (i.e. since 1804), make for a strong case in his favour.' (Tardif 2023, p.27).
In 1833, in response to Edward White's petition, endorsed by the Colonial Surgeon and other early settlers, the Colonial Secretary, John Burnett stated that "Your Memorialist [Edward White] arrived in the Colony in the year 1803 being the first settlement of this Colony." [Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office (TAHO): Colonial Secretary correspondence 1824-1836, File Number 14693, Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:1616823, Image 7 -pp.117-118.]
While some details vary in individual accounts, the incident was a matter of common knowledge in the early colony. The massacre is mentioned in an article in the Hobart Town Gazette in 1826 in relation to widespread conflict, as being the first act to have "...brought things to their present irremediable pass." (Hobart Town Gazette, November 11, 1826, p 2)
In 1830 a public meeting was held to discuss a proposed war of extermination in relation to government proclamations, including Government Order No. 10 [Hobart Town Courier, September 25, 1830, p 1] which details what came to be known as 'The Black Line'. The discussion was opened by Mr Kemp who attributed the conflict to the killings at Risdon Cove:
"Mr. Kemp commented at some length upon the aggressions committed by the Blacks, which he attributed in a great degree to some officers of his own regiment, (the late 102d), who had, as he considered, most improperly fired a four pounder upon a body of them, which having done much mischief, they had since borne that attack in mind, and have retaliated upon the white people, whenever opportunity offered." [Colonial Times, September 24, 1830, p 3]
This was seconded by Mr Gellibrand who added: "It has been stated by Mr. Kemp that we have been aggressors in the present unhappy state of hostility that prevails between the white people and the black Aborigines. This reflection cannot but give rise to the most painful feelings. How dreadful is it to contemplate that we are about to enter upon a war of extermination, for such I apprehend is the declared object of the present operations, and that in its progress we shall be compelled to destroy the innocent with the guilty." [Colonial Times, September 24, 1830, p 3]
