Rivalries and Clashes

There were two groups involved in the search for the white woman in Gippsland. One search team was composed of members of the Native Police and Border Police. Their activities were supervised by the Gippsland Commissioner of Crown Lands Charles Tyers, who also took part in many of the searches himself.

The other party was led by the commander of the first Native Police Corps, Christian de Villiers. He led a team of volunteers that included some of his original troopers. This group was not directly under the control of the government, having been set up and funded by a committee of concerned Melbourne citizens with the support of local newspaper editors. The committee was formed in September 1846 following newspaper reports that the government search team had failed to find any trace of the white woman after more than six months of searching.

The formation of this private expedition placed extra pressure on the government to find the woman, and set up a pattern of rivalry between the two parties. This was the case even though the head of the committee often wrote to the Governor of New South Wales, Charles FitzRoy and Superintendent Charles La Trobe requesting cooperation and assistance. From the outset, both FitzRoy and La Trobe were wary of lending support to de Villiers's group because they had no way of controlling it. More specifically, they feared the private expedition could actually hinder the search.

Rivalry between the two groups was apparent in complaints made by members of the private expedition about the misconduct of the Native Police under Tyers. These reports provide evidence that members of the Native Police did not always conduct themselves in accordance with the orders they had received. They also suggest that the two search teams had different standards when it came to what was considered acceptable behaviour.

The first signs of this tension can be seen in a report from de Villiers barely a month into the expedition. Some of de Villiers's men had seen WH Walsh, a Native Police officer, approach two of the Aboriginal men in his search team with a tomahawk as if to strike them.

In November 1846 Henry EP Dana's brother, William Dana, took the second division of the Native Police into Gippsland to relieve Walsh. William Dana had been given clear orders about the way he should conduct the search. While looking for the white woman upstream of the mouth of the Snowy River, Dana and de Villiers came across each other. In the evening, after setting up camp nearby, de Villiers heard stories from Dana and his men about clashes that had taken place at a number of Aboriginal camps. De Villiers was outraged that William Dana had not yet sent in a report about how he had surrounded Aboriginal camps at night and had attempted to take prisoners.

De Villiers and one of the European members of his search team, James Warman, produced sworn statements about this meeting on 21 December 1846 with Dana. De Villiers stated that he had found Dana's men camped on the banks of the Snowy River and had set up his own camp nearby. During that evening, de Villiers learnt that Dana had surrounded a number of Aboriginal camps in the area and that people had been shot. On 22 December, after parting with Dana and his men, de Villiers and his search team came across the body of a young Aboriginal man on the banks of the river. The next day, about four miles upstream, they found an old man and a woman hiding in the reeds. The couple had escaped from William Dana's camp the previous day and were chained together by handcuffs around each of their legs. After their escape, Dana had refused to give de Villiers the keys to the lock and it was only with difficulty that they were set free.

Tyers did not receive a report from William Dana, but from one of his troopers, Owen Cowan, who was speared through the hand in the clash on the Snowy River. The report largely supported William Dana's version of events.

Tyers reported the incident to La Trobe immediately. Instructions were issued to William Dana that he was to suspend his part in the search for the white woman until an investigation had been made into the allegations. He was to limit himself to the usual Native Police duties of protecting settlers and their interests from raids. This cleared the way for de Villiers to assume the primary role in the search. Tyers was concerned that William Dana's reckless and cruel actions had damaged the friendly relations the search teams had been developing with the Kurnai, the Aboriginal people of Gippsland .

Following the reports of William Dana's actions, Governor FitzRoy was very keen to stress to La Trobe and Tyers that government officers should avoid violence at all costs in the pursuit of the white woman. In his view, violent confrontation would lead to the murder of the woman by her captors.

By the start of 1847, de Villiers's private expedition had run out of funds and the committee was again lobbying the government for more money. The Governor in Sydney remained opposed to this because the private expedition was not under government control. Further, it had the capacity to cause embarrassment to the government.

In February, Commissioner Tyers wrote to William Dana reminding him that he had not yet received a report about the clashes he was involved in during the previous December. Tyers reminded Dana that he was under orders from the government to report all incidents of conflict. In addition, Tyers explained that he himself was responsible to the Governor of New South Wales to investigate any sudden deaths of Aboriginal people and that he had not been able to do so because he had not yet received Dana's report. In response, Dana stated that he had nothing further to add to the report he claimed to have already forwarded to his commanding officer, his brother Henry EP Dana. This report, which was apparently lost, listed only one Aboriginal death.

The matter continued to cause problems for William Dana. Governor FitzRoy remained dissatisfied with his explanations. What most annoyed Dana's superiors in the government was that he had surrounded Aboriginal camps at night, an act that could only have been interpreted as hostile. Tyers declared that his orders to Dana had not included permission to act in this way. William Dana was again forced to defend his actions, and he denied that he had exceeded his orders. In his defence, Dana argued that he had no presents to offer the Aboriginal people he encountered. He believed that it was only by surrounding a camp at night that he could find out whether the white woman was being held.

Another incident involving Dana was reported by James Warman. Warman had been told that William Dana's troopers had shot 14 Aboriginal people on 21 January 1847 in the scrub between Summer Hill and Spring Hill on the Macalister River. Dana was again called upon to provide an explanation. He stated that at the time he was under orders to suppress attacks on squatters and their stock. These incidents were becoming more frequent, and he observed that this was most likely because the white woman expedition had 'much disturbed [the Kurnai people of Gippsland] and driven them from their usual haunts'. Dana did admit to ordering Sergeant Richard McLelland to pursue a group that had been spearing cattle on Lachlan Macalister's run. He claimed that only one or two shots were fired and that there had been no loss of life reported. When Tyers investigated this claim, he was told that the story of the deaths had been made up by someone called Yorky 'for a lark'.