Maxine’s Story Excerpt - James Stirling and the Noongar
Colonising the Swan River region proved much harder than James Stirling’s letters suggested. Many of those arriving to join the new colony were, to be blunt, ill-prepared and ill-suited to the task ahead. Soils around Fremantle and Perth are poor, the weather is hot and rain in summer non-existent. Better growing conditions existed up the river near where Maxine was born. Were it not for these, the colony may well have failed.
It would not be long before questions were being asked back home in England.
In an impassioned speech to the House of Commons on 20 December 1830, Lord Teynham asked whether the government intended to abandon the new colony. Using a newspaper article headed ‘Distress in the Swan River Settlement’ he described a litany of privations being experienced by early colonists. Prices were high and people were starving. Property was being bought by speculators rather than farmers, and as for the ballooning wages of servants well…
Teynham even described the difficulties of burying the dead. He reported that after digging nine feet down, the sand at the colony was still fine enough to fill an hourglass. Trying to dig a grave in beachside sand dunes was not, it must be said, one of the colonists most sensible decisions.
His Lordship had another agenda. Teynham believed that rather than sending people overseas, Britain should be keeping them at home to meet the growing needs of the industrial revolution. It provides an, albeit minor, example that the British colonial enterprise did not always have full support back home. Had Teynham’s view been more common amongst his parliamentary colleagues, the history of the world may well have been very different.
Another issue was also beginning to concern the colonists. The amicable meeting Stirling once had with the Noongar near Heirisson Island had long been forgotten. In its place, grew a fierce resistance led by a Noongar leader and warrior named Yagan.
Yagan was an imposing and intelligent man. He and other Noongar leaders engaged in an ongoing campaign of harassment. Precious livestock was speared and fires destroyed property. Tit for tat killings of humans also took place. When another Noongar leader was killed, Yagan vowed to take three lives in return.
Yagan was one of a number of First Nations leaders who fought against colonial ‘invaders’ across the lands now known as Australia. On the other side of the country, in Van Dieman’s Land, resistance would be led by another impressive warrior. His name was Tongerlongeter.
Colonisation would ultimately result in the deaths of both Yagan and Tongerlongeter. Yagan was shot and killed by 13-year-old boy that the warrior had reportedly offered to share his food with. Tongerlongeter died from influenza, defeated and exiled from his lands.
Reactions to Yagan’s death were mixed. The Perth Gazette was highly critical of the killing, describing it as a ‘a wild and treacherous act’ that it was ‘revolting to hear [the murder] lauded as a meritorious deed’. But there is no doubt that many in the colonial community would have rejoiced.
Resistance to the colonial intrusion on Whadjuk land continued without Yagan. Stirling, who had been back in London collecting a knighthood and a promotion when Yagan was killed, came under increasing pressure to act. Following another incident, Stirling led a party that gunned down 30 Noongar. One women and several children were reportedly killed in the violence.
Even in a Hammurabian world of an eye for an eye, it was a massacre not retribution. It was certainly not justice. Despite this, newspapers from the time gave full support to the Governor’s actions. The Perth Gazette, in a complete turnaround, described the action as a ‘severe but well-merited chastisement’. Clearly and unequivocally, it was not.