Governor Macquarie’s Aboriginal Solution

 

Introduction During 1816, Governor Macquarie became concerned with the growing hostility of the Aboriginal tribes against settlers residing in the outer districts of Sydney. He had previously established a Native Institution and School at Parramatta in an effort to change their customs and beliefs so they could assimilate completely into the ways of the British colony.

In July 1813, the colony obtained coinage in place of notes of hand and barter. (Source:  Australian Dictionary of biography - Lachlan Macquarie 1762 - 1824)

Apart from the small successes he claimed from this initiative, the Aboriginal community did not like the treatment being handed out to them with the associated loss of their ability to roam their native land and to be at peace with what it provided. Great tensions were growing in the outer districts of Sydney where the Aboriginal tribes were being progressively removed from their traditional lands by the ever expanding areas of settlement.

Governor Macquarie’s response to the growing troubles was to set strict rules by Proclamation as to how which Aborigines could interact with the colonial settlers. The Governor also launched three military excursions to punish the Aborigines. The soldiers were given directions that all Aborigines who were met with from Sydney onwards, were to be made prisoners of war and that if they resisted they were to be shot and their bodies hung from trees in the most conspicuous places near where they fell, so as to strike terror into the hearts of the surviving natives. Many aboriginal women and children who had not been associated with any hostilities were killed.

The following records from Series One, Volume Nine of the Historical Records of Australia [published by The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1917] is reproduced (with minor editorial amendments by History Services NSW) to document the response of Governor Macquarie:

18/3/1816 – Dispatch from Governor Macquarie to Earl Bathurst

9/4/1816 – Governor Macquarie’s instructions to the military

4/5/1816 – Governor Macquarie’s Proclamation to the Aborigines

8/6/1816 – Dispatch from Governor Macquarie to Earl Bathurst

20/7/1816 – Governor Macquarie’s Proclamation of outlawry

1/11/1816 – Governor Macquarie’s Proclamation of cessation of hostilities

4/4/1817 – Governor Macquarie’s Dispatch to Earl Bathurst.

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