Conflicts in the Field, and Criticism of Methods (1843)

Upon his arrival at The Grange in August 1843, Henry EP Dana was presented with reports of large numbers of sheep being driven off pastoral runs by groups of local Aboriginal people. One report he investigated was received from a Mr Dwyer, a settler with a pastoral run near the Grampians. Dwyer stated that 111 of his sheep had been stolen. Taking four of his troopers, Dana went to Mr Dwyer's station to start searching for those responsible. After days of tracking through sometimes difficult terrain, they came across the sheep and about 30 Aboriginal men. Fighting started, according to Dana, when he and his troopers tried to recover the sheep, and in the skirmish that followed, four Aboriginal men were killed and one injured. Around 70 sheep were returned to Dwyer. In Dana's view, his troopers could not have behaved better under the circumstances and he was full of praise for their conduct.

Also during the 1843 expedition, Sergeant Windridge was sent out to search for a young girl who had reportedly been abducted. The girl was never found, but while out in the field Windridge and his troopers came under attack several times and were forced to return. They then linked up with Dana and his men in order to resume the search, and while in the area north of Portland the combined search came across sheep tracks. They followed the tracks and soon discovered the group of Aboriginal men that had taken them, camped on the edge of a swamp. A battle between Dana's troopers and the Aboriginal men took place among the tall reeds. Being unable to capture the men, the troopers were ordered to guard the sheep while other troopers were sent to gather information. They found out that the sheep, numbering over 200, belonged to Christopher Basset, who had recently been found murdered. Skirmishes continued into the night, and, just before sunrise, Dana launched an attack in which eight or nine Aboriginal men were shot. Dana reported that none were captured and that he had been very fearful during the battle for the safety of his men. He nonetheless stressed that these sorts of actions were necessary to restore order to the district.

Image 19: The troopers depicted in this drawing are members of the Native Police of New South Wales, commanded by Frederick Walker, conducting a 'dispersal' some time in the 1850s in northern New South Wales, in areas that became part of the Colony of Queensland in 1859. This confronting image clearly illustrates the meaning of its evasive title. The phrase 'dispersing a camp' was a commonly used euphemism for violent attack and murder. Similar euphemisms can also be found in the records relating to the Native Police of the Port Phillip District. Reports about 'rushing' or 'surrounding' a camp simultaneously implied and avoided mention of the occurrence of violence. Frank P Mahony, Native troopers dispersing a camp, circa mid-1880s. Courtesy of Koorie Heritage Trust collection.

By 10 October 1843 Dana, reporting on patrols for the month of September, wrote that he was confident the attacks would diminish with the arrival of spring and replenished supplies of food in the bush for Aboriginal people to eat. He again expressed the hope that the expedition had made a lasting impression on the local Aboriginal people, writing that

the lesson they have been taught lately I trust will have the effect of deterring them from attacking the lives and property of the settlers.

As it turned out, Sergeant Windridge's troopers became involved in another violent incident before they were able to return to Melbourne. On 19 October 1843, Mr Lockhart reported to Windridge that his dray had been attacked and robbed eight miles (13 km) from Mount Eckersley. Following the tracks of the robbers, Windridge's party came across a camp where they recovered a number of the stolen items. Attempts to arrest some of the men in the camp led to fighting and gunfire, resulting in the deaths of at least two local Aboriginal men as well as injuries to a number of troopers. Upon receiving the report of this incident, Governor George Gipps suggested an inquiry should be held into the cause of death of the Aboriginal men.

When the Native Police returned to Melbourne in November, Assistant Protector William Thomas talked to them about their expedition. During the discussion, one of the troopers boasted about an incident in which 17 Aboriginal men had been killed by the Corps. From what Thomas records in his journal it seems that the men were forced by their commander, Henry EP Dana, to shoot rather than try to make arrests:

Captain say big one stupid catch them very good shoot them, you blackfellows, no shoot them me hand cuff you and send you to jail.

Thomas raised a number of other objections in his report regarding Dana's conduct in the field.

Dana was outraged by Thomas's criticisms. When he became aware of them in early January 1844, he wrote a vigorous defence to Superintendent Charles La Trobe, urging that an inquiry be initiated if there was any doubt remaining about his conduct. Meanwhile Thomas had written his own letter to La Trobe. Dana and Thomas were in close contact with each other at this time, as Dana's Native Police headquarters neighboured Thomas's Westernport Protectorate Station at Nerre Nerre Warren. While he was walking through the camp one day, Thomas claimed, Dana rode up to him on horseback and began abusing and threatening him for the criticisms he had dared to include in his quarterly report. Despite his protests, Dana was forced to write a formal letter of apology to Thomas over this incident. In Thomas's view, he had an obligation to raise any matters that concerned the welfare of the Aboriginal people, to protect them wherever possible 'from acts of cruelty, oppression and injustice'.

When Dana wrote down his own version of the events, he boldly asserted that any slaughter of Aboriginal people as that reported to Thomas by his trooper simply could not have been possible. An explanation for the trooper's boast, supporting Dana's view, has been proposed by historian Marie Hansen Fels. According to Fels, what the Native Police trooper told Thomas was in fact a story in which all of the expedition's conflicts of that year were combined so that it sounded to him like a single and impressive incident. The number of deaths reported by the trooper, Fels argues, is consistent with the number in the reports for the whole expedition.

Beverley Nance estimates that the Native Police killed 125 Aboriginal people over a period of ten years.[2] Richard Broome takes into account the educated guesses of several historians in estimating there to have been a total of between 800 and 1000 Aboriginal deaths in the Port Phillip District during the same time compared with the death of perhaps 80 European settlers.[3]