Escape Cliffs (1864–1867) NT: Fourth Failed Settlement

The fourth attempt by the British to establish a settlement in the Northern Territory was at Escape Cliffs, situated near the mouth of the Adelaide River, northeast of Darwin. 

The outposts were aimed at preventing Dutch or French settlements on the continent. Also, to take advantage of potential trade in the Asian region and to provide a port for shipping and shipwrecked sailors in the region. The Aboriginal people of the area, however, were not happy with the British presence.

The Wulna People ( Djerimanga)

The area of Escape Cliffs settlement, the land of the Wulna people, is bordered by Larrakia territory. 

According to William Lloyd Warner, anthropologist and sociologist, the Wulna had exogamous totemic groupings (marrying only outside clan or tribe) with no attached moieties or sections. 

Clans, did not have the usual larger groupings (sections, subsections, and semi-moieties) found in the greater part of Australia. Warner also noted that: "a man marries his mother’s brother’s daughter but not his father’s sister’s daughter, and a woman her father’s sister’s son but not her mother’s brother’s son" (Warner 1933:73).

One of the elders that Warner spoke to belonged to the Frog totem. His father was a Frog, his mother a Crocodile. A man's totem required him to marry into another group. The elder said: “Frog cannot marry Frog.” 

Ceremony of the Frog Totem, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 25 January 1902

The Wulna people also had avoidance practices, such as a mother-in-law taboo. Such practices amongst  Australian Aboriginal people usually involves a ban on talking directly to the mother-in-law or even seeing her.

The doctor with the Escape Cliffs’ survey expedition, Ebenezer Ward, described the Aboriginal people of the area as "wild children of the bush" and that they "roamed at will all their lives" over the land.

On a boating trip from Port Darwin to Escape Cliffs in 1874, sailing in the Amelia, a the party of six from the Northern Territory Times office saw three Aboriginal people who were "very timid and made their escape into the scrub". They also saw an Aboriginal burial place, the body wrapped in paperbark and bound with grass and placed on a raised platform in a tree. (Northern Territory Times, 8 May 1874)

Wrapping the body in paperbark, NT, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 1 August 1917

Tree burial, NT, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 1 August 1917

Wulna descendants are contained to three distinct family groups; Browne, Talbot and Kenyon. Wulna descent group was important to the (1991) Limilngan Wulna Land Claim processes.

1600s: Some Visitors and Explorers

The first recorded sighting of the Northern Territory coastline was by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the ship Duyfken in 1606.

Luís Vaez de Torres sailed to the north of Australia, through Torres Strait, charting New Guinea's southern coast and possibly sighting Cape York in October 1606.

In 1636, the ships Cleen Amsterdam and Wesel sailed west along the northern coastline of the Cobourg Peninsula and Melville Island, calling the land Van Diemen Land. The charts made during this voyage do not survive.

Makassar people of today's Indonesia were sourcing trepang (sea cucumber) from northern Australia from somewhere around 1750. This trepang was sent to China, where it was regarded as a delicacy and aphrodisiac.

 Photo of the relica of the Duyfkenunder sail, taken around 2006. The original Duyfken was commanded by Willem Janszoon as was the first European ship to have contact with Australia, in 1606, when they charted 300 kilometres of west Cape York. Rupert Gerritsen

Captain Cook sailed past the Northern Territory in 1770 but didn't stop. 

Captain Dumont D'Urville visited Australia various times between 1824 and 1840. In 1826, sailing in the Astrolabe, he possessed secret orders to find a site for a French penal colony and naval base on the Australian coast. D'Urville later visited the Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, in 1839.

The Portuguese colonised East Timor in the 17th century and would travel to the Bathurst and Melville Islands to capture Tiwi people for slavery until at least the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Former Failed Settlements
Fort Dundas (1824–1828)
Fort Wellington (1827-1829)
Port Essington (1838–1849)
Escape Cliffs (1864–1867)

1839: Escape Cliffs

On September 9th, 1839, H.M.S. Beagle, under Commander J.L. Stokes, landed at the mouth of the Adelaide River, at the bottom of low cliffs, to compare compasses. 

Fitzmaurice and Keys were comparing the compasses when a group of Aboriginal people came into view on the cliff above them and threatened them with spears. A boat was sent to collect Fitzmaurice and Keys, who ran and swam for their lives, with the Aboriginals pursuing them. Dancing was also involved. Read below.

MESSRS. FITZMAURICE AND KEYS DANCING FOR THEIR LIVES.
L.R. Fitzmaurice, del. London, Published by T. & W. Boone, 1846.

Stokes, John Lort (1846). Discoveries in Australia

The incident as written by John Stokes (RN):

"A few days after my interview with the natives, 'Mr. Fitzmaurice went ashore to compare the compasses. From the quantity of iron contained in the rocks, it was necessary to select a spot free from their influence. A sandy beach at the foot of Escape Cliffs was accordingly chosen. The observations had been commenced, and were about half completed, when on the summit of the cliffs, which rose about twenty feet above their heads, suddenly appeared a large party of natives with poised and quivering spears, as if about immediately to deliver them. Stamping on the ground, and shaking their heads to and fro, they threw out their long shaggy locks in a circle, whilst their glaring eyes flashed with fury as they champed and spit out the ends of their long beards.* (*Footnote. A custom with Australian natives when in a state of violent excitement.) They were evidently in earnest, and bent on mischief."

"It was, not a little surprising to behold this paroxysm of rage evaporate before the happy presence of mind displayed by Mr. Fitzmaurice, in immediately beginning to dance & shout, though in momentary expectation of being pierced by a dozen spears. In this he was imitated by Mr. Keys, who was assisting in the observations, & who at the moment was a little distance off & might have escaped. Without, however, thinking of himself, he very nobly joined his companion in amusing the natives; and they succeeded in diverting them from their evident evil designs, until a boat landing in a bay near drew off their attention."

"Messrs. Fitzmaurice and Keys had firearms lying on the ground within reach of their hands; the instant, however, they ceased dancing, an attempted to touch them, a dozen spears were pointed at their breasts. Their lives hung upon a thread, and their escape must be regarded as truly wonderful, and only to be attributed to the happy readiness with which they adapted themselves to the perils of their situation. This was the last we saw of the natives in Adam Bay, and the meeting is likely to be long remembered by some, and not without pleasant recollections; for although, at the time, it was justly looked upon as a very serious affair, it afterwards proved a great source of mirth." (John Lort Stokes, Discoveries in Australia)

1864: A Northern Capital. The Fourth Attempt

The British attempted to establish a settlement in Australia's north a fourth time. The ships Henry Ellis, Beatrice and Yatala set out with Colonel Boyle Travers Finniss, the first Government Resident of the Northern Territory.

Finniss had instructions to explore the Adelaide River and the nearby coast and to select a site for a northern capital. Ignoring the advice of others, Finniss chose the mosquito-infested mud-flats of Adam Bay.

Colonel Boyle Travers Finniss

Finniss believed that Escape Cliffs was a superior site for settlement to Darwin, which he described as "landlocked, shut in by rocks on the north side, and encompassed in the form of a horse-shoe, towards all other quarters by low mangrove shores".

Arriving at Adam Bay, 21 June 1864, with 40 men (surveyors, deputy surveyors, draughts-men, chainmen, survey hands, boatmen, carpenters and a blacksmith), stores and livestock, the job began of establishing a northern capital. 

Escape Cliffs Northern Territory, looking north east, NT

The settlement, located east of today's Darwin, was to be known as Palmerston, named after Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister. However, the site was poorly chosen, and serious conflict with the Aboriginal people occurred during the two years that the settlement lasted.

Escape Cliffs, Palmerston, North Australia, Illustrated Sydney News (NSW : 1853 - 1872), Saturday 15 September 1866

The men included, J. T. Manton (chief surveyor), Stephen King and William Patrick Auld (King and Auld had been on the Stuart expedition across the continent only two years previously). Frederick Litchfield, William and Gilbert McMinn, John Davis (was part of the McKinlay's expedition, from Adelaide to the Gulf and Bowen in 1862), F. J. Packard, E. Ward (postmaster).

The below newspaper article from 1865 mentions some of the problems afflicting the settlement:

"Escape Cliffs are situated from five to six miles from the
mouth of the Adelaide River, in a north-easterly direction.
The country viewed from seaward is particularly uninviting,
it being low and completely shrouded by thick mangroves,
except for about half a mile in front of the cliffs. The
country rises gradually to the cliffs on either side,
which extend for about a mile, the greatest elevation
being 30 feet. The country at the back of the cliffs
dips inland, and is bounded at the back at the
distance of about three miles by a fresh water swamp, a
mangrove-lined salt swamp and creek bounding this site to
the north, so that the extent of table land available for a
capital town with its suburbs and park lands is but very
small indeed. Extending on either side of the cliffs as far
as the eye can reach, and running parallel with the coast,
is a mud flat three-quarters of a mile wide, and this is
fringed on the outside by a coral reef. This flat is left ex
posed at every receding tide, cutting off all communication
with vessels by boat except at high tide. The mud has been
disembogued by the Adelaide River, and is of a very soft
and boggy nature, rendering it impossible to cross. No
permanent water in the shape of creeks or lagoons exists on
this site, and supplies have to be drawn from wells— an
objectionable source in any town. Nor does any
building-stone exist on the site nor for miles
around. Timber, again, for building purposes is as scarce
as stone. When these objections are summed up, our
conclusions at to the unsuitableness of this site are fully warranted."

1865 '[From our own Correspondent.]', South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1858 - 1867), 7 January

The paddle-steamer, South Australian, arrived on 5 December 1864  with more surveyors, including R. H. Edmunds and H. D. Packard, along with the first women, Mrs Packard and Mrs Bauer.

News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 - 1954),

Jefferson Stow's Displeasure

Jefferson Stow, a land agent from South Australia, also arrived, representing some investors in the scheme. Basically, Stow hated the place and Finniss on sight. 

Stow penned a letter to The South Australian Register of 31 July 1865, voicing his displeasure, stating, "Mr Finniss has by his incapacity and misconduct brought the Northern Territory enterprise to the brink of failure."

Finniss was unpopular with his men as he wanted them to spend much of their time exploring and guarding the stores, which they found tedious.

Though the stores needed to be guarded according to a report in the South Australian Register:

"The natives are numerous and
troublesome, being very much given to appropriating
our property to their own-uses or purposes. There
has already been one skirmish with them, in which
Mr. Pearson received three spear wounds— one
piercing his right side, a second his left arm below
the elbow, and a third giving him a scalp wound
above the right ear. Fred Litchfield received a wound
or rather a bruise on the left arm from a stone
pointed spear."

South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Wednesday 12 October 1864

Escape Cliffs, NT

Lithographic print depicting the settlement at Escape Cliffs in the Northern Territory. B.T.Finniss led an expedition which arrived there in 1864. Printed text beneath the image reads 'Escape Cliffs, Northern Territory', while the number '17' is written in the top right corner. Includes a photograph of the same image although believed to be a proof print, with the words 'Printed by W.Newport, Adelaide', a lithographer who worked in SA in the 1860s, beneath the image. The print depicts a scene set above low cliffs. A campsite of tents and some huts have been set under the trees. A few people can be seen walking around the campsite. Two pandanus trees lying at an angle can be seen in the foreground. Approximately 1865-1866, SLSA

Escape Cliffs settlement, Government House - man with gun is D.T. Manton, circa 1865, State Library of South Australia

The storekeeper's house., circa 1866, Escape Cliffs Collection, SLSA

Escape Cliffs settlement - Doctor's residence. State Library of South Australia, n.d.

Post Office at Escape Cliffs Settlement, NT. Escape Cliffs Settlement, the site of the fourth attempt to establish a settlement in the Northern Territory. It was situated near the mouth of the Adelaide River, north east of Darwin. It was abondoned in 1867 following conflicts with the local Marananggu people. The man with a gun is Clement Young, clerk and accountant to the Northern Territory Survey in 1865-66.

Escape Cliffs Settlement was the site of the fourth attempt to establish a settlement in the Northern Territory. It was situated near the mouth of the Adelaide River, circa 1865

Revenge

Alaric Ward shot an Aboriginal man in 1864, resulting in the Aboriginal people later taking revenge on him by spearing and bludgeoning him to death on 31 July 1865.

The Aboriginal people also mounted another raiding party, spearing several horses, resulting in Finniss sending an armed party out to Chambers Bay (some 8 miles (13 km) distant). However, while the Aboriginals had fled their camp, one elderly man named Dombey was shot in the back. The armed party then retrieved as much property as they could, before setting fire to the Aboriginal dwellings.

Escape

A group of seven men at Escape Cliffs had finally had enough of the situation. And in May 1865, seven men, including Jefferson Stow, fled to Champion Bay, Western Australia, in a small open boat dubbed the Forlorn Hope. 

With only a pocket compass to guide the men, they travelled in an open boat from Adam Bay, Northern Territory, to Champion Bay, Western Australia -a distance of some 2,000 miles (3,200 km). They survived storms, violent seas, seasickness and damage to the vessel.

A wood engraving as published in a Melbourne magazine in 1865, depicting a small open boat in heavy 
seas. Seven men are aboard: three sitting up and four lying down
When Jefferson Stowe arrived in Adelaide, he reported on the situation at Escape Cliffs, resulting in Finniss being recalled and Chief-Surveyor J. T. Manton being appointed Government Resident in his place.

 Mr. Jefferson P. Stow, Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 - 1931), Saturday 9 May 1908

1865: Further Explorations

John McKinlay was sent in September 1865 as the leader of a party of twelve to explore the Northern Territory, aiming to find a more suitable site for settlement than Escape Cliffs. 

John McKinlay (1819-1872) 

The exploration party was on the East Alligator River during the rainy season, surrounded by floodwaters and surrounded by crocodiles, when McKinlay decided to kill the horses and construct a raft with their hides and some saplings.

Sailing with only rotting horseflesh to eat and crocodiles snapping at the hides, the party spent 15 horrific days at sea until the 5 July, when they reached Escape Cliffs. 

McKinlay, however, made favourable reports about the area, Port Darwin and Anson Bay, as being suitable for settlement.

Craftbuilt Craft built by R.H. Edmunds as it lay at Escape Cliffs, Northern Territory, 1866 [picture] / Lieut. Guy R.N, Libraries Australia

1866: Abandon

On 22 December 1866, Captain Cadell arrived on the paddle steamer Eagle at Escape Cliffs, with orders to abandon the settlement.

Captain Cadell, Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 - 1931), Saturday 2 February 1907

In the following year, Captain Cadell spent seven months exploring north-east Arnhemland and to the west between Adam Bay and the Victoria River. He recommended a settlement site near the Liverpool River, but his report "failed to arouse any enthusiasm".

However, enthusiasm was soon reignited, and on 27 December 1868, another party of surveyors sailed from Adelaide for the north, with George Woodroffe Goyder, the Surveyor-General of South Australia, onboard. 

George Woodroffe Goyder (1826-1898), surveyor-general

Goyder was to become the "Father of Darwin". The new settlement at Darwin Harbour, 45 kilometres from Escape Cliffs, was settled relatively peacefully.

1890s

Bakery chimney from the ruins of Escape Cliff, Hotham Point, Adelaide River, ca. 1897, NLAUST

Beach at Escape Cliffs, Hotham Point, Adelaide River, ca. 1897, NLAUSt

Getting There

The former site of the settlement at Escape Cliffs is located in Djukbinj National Park and is difficult to access. 

After the settlement of the Wulna Land Claim, the Limilngan-Wulna Aboriginal Corporation leased the land back to the former Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory to use for "the purposes of a national park". 

You can sail from Darwin around the coast and cross the Adelaide River estuary, but the land cannot be accessed.

Around Escape Cliffs

Adelaide River, NT

Adelaide River, NT

Adelaide River, NT

Fort Wellington (1827-1829), Raffles Bay: Northern Territory

The Fort Wellington settlement at Raffles Bay, on the northern side of the Cobourg Peninsula, in the Northern Territory of Australia, was the second of four failed attempts by the British to settle the north of Australia before Palmerston (Darwin) was established. 

Today, the Fort Wellington settlement lies in ruins and getting to this remote spot can be challenging.

Iwaidja Speaking Peoples

Iwaidja speaking people were hunters, gatherers, and fishers, who have lived on the Cobourg Peninsula for between 40 000 and 60 000 years. 

Many of the Aboriginal people of West Arnhem Land, including the Iwaidja People, tell of the powerful Dreamtime Ancestral being, the Rainbow Serpent (snake woman) named Warramurrungundji, who is depicted with a womb or dilly bags, full of babies, emerging from the Arafura Sea and stepping onto this continent. Warramurrungundji headed inland, depositing her children along the way and instructing them to speak different languages. 

People of Arnhem Land (1950, March 11). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954)

A pidgin language appears to have developed from the Aboriginal contact with the Macassans. As there were over 200 dialects of Aboriginal language in Australia, Aboriginal clans were often adept at making themselves understood by various means.

Also, it was custom for the Iwaidja people to marry outside of the clan, so, individuals would often have to learn a different Aboriginal language.

Thomas Braidwood Wilson, a surgeon in the Royal Navy, who visited Raffles Bay in 1829, described various aspects of Aboriginal life: (Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, 1835.). He wrote: 

"In this part of the coast, the natives are divided into three distinct classes, who do not intermarry. The first and highest is named Mandro-gillie, the second Man-bur-ge, and the third, Mandro-willie. (Wilson. 1835:165)

Thomas Wilson’s 1835 journal is one of the oldest language documents from the Northern Territory.

At Raffles Bay he collected "the dialect of the natives of Raffles Bay’", which many linguists today describe as a mix of Iwaidja and Marrku. Wilson also recorded men and women’s personal names, body parts, plant and animal names, place names and words for weapons and utensils.

Wilson wrote that, "the true sound of Aboriginal peoples" words was difficult to obtain. He also observed that although Aboriginal people across the colonies were physically similar, they possessed "little affinity of language". This observation shows understanding of the diversity of Aboriginal languages spoken throughout Australia.

Unnamed woman, Northern Australia, circa. 1890, photo by Henry King

"Yowadja" warrior N.T. "Iwaidja" man, decorated with body paint, dated 1910-01-01. Northern Territory Library

Young warrior, Northern Territory, 1870s-80s, by Paul Foelsche

Elder of the Larrakia or Iwaidja people, Darwin, Northern Territory, 1870s-80s., by Paul Foelsche

Some Visitors and Explorers

The first recorded sighting of the Northern Territory coastline was by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the ship Duyfken in 1606.

Luís Vaez de Torres sailed to the north of Australia through Torres Strait, charting New Guinea's southern coast and possibly sighting Cape York in October 1606.

Makassar people of today's Indonesia were sourcing trepang (sea cucumber) from northern Australia from somewhere around 1750. 

Sailing to the Arnhem Land coast each year with the monsoon winds to an area they called Marege (wild country). They would obtain trepang, and send it to China, where it was a delicacy and aphrodisiac.

The 1999 replica of Duyfken under sail in c. 2006, Rupert Gerritsen

In 1636, the ships Cleen Amsterdam and Wesel sailed west along the northern coastline of the Cobourg Peninsula and Melville Island, calling the land Van Diemen Land. The charts made during this voyage do not survive.

Captain Cook sailed past the Northern Territory in 1770 but didn't stop. 

Captain Dumont D'Urville, visited Australia various times between 1824 and 1840. In 1826, sailing in the Astrolabe, he possessed secret orders to find a site for a French penal colony and naval base on the Australian coast. D'Urville later visited the Victoria Settlement, Port Essington, in 1839.

The Portuguese colonised East Timor in the 17th century and journeyed to the Bathurst and Melville Islands to capture Tiwi people for slavery until at least the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Military Posts

The Dutch, who had colonised the Dutch East Indies - modern Indonesia, had a longer presence in northern Australia than the British. So, the British were fearful of the Dutch making a territorial claim on Australia's north.

Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Saturday 13 April 1935

The Four failed Attempts at Settlement of the North

Fort Dundas (1824–1828)
Fort Wellington (1827-1829)
Port Essington (1838–1849)
Escape Cliffs (1864–1867)

1827

As Stirling sailed into Raffles Bay on June 17th 1827, he found a Malay trepang station on a small island towards the entrance of the bay. And on land, furnaces and frames for boiling and drying the trepang by the Malay people were evident.

When they later anchored, Aboriginal people were sighted, but they disappeared into the bush. 

At Raffles Bay, Stirling named the garrison Fort Wellington. Leaving Captain Henry Smyth in charge of forty-four soldiers, twenty-two convicts, a Malay interpreter and his son, a surgeon, a storekeeper, two women, five children and 22 convict labourers from Sydney, Stirling sailed away.

James Stirling established Fort Wellington in 1827

Later, some of the Iwaidja men, who the British encountered, were given English nicknames, including Wellington, who was thought to be the leader. His real name was Mariae.

Nautical chart of the North Coast of Australia Sheet IV by Commander Phillip P. King, 1818-21

Raffles Bay was named by the explorer Phillip Parker King in 1818, after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the lieutenant governor of Java and founder of the colony of Singapore.

This second settlement, part of a strategy to keep the French and Dutch from claiming parts of the Australian continent and to establish trade links with Southeast Asia, got off to a difficult start.

Soon, after arriving at Raffles Bay, the men began to fall sick from scurvy. By the end of October, 49 of the 76 people in the settlement were on the sick list (Darling, 25 Feb 1828). Captain Smyth was also afflicted with malaise.

The surgeon, Dr Cornelius Wood, became so ill that on 1 October he tried to take his own life. However, Privates' Thomas Smith and Thomas Williams took the knife away from him. Captain Smyth placed the surgeon on suicide watch. Surgeon Wood continued to make attempts on his own life and his fever worsened, until he died on 13th October.

The Raffles Bay settlement was now without a surgeon and Lime Juice to treat the scurvy.
 

And Worse Still

The freshwater ran out.

Then Stirling’s whaleboat was stolen and completely destroyed and stripped of iron by the Iwaidja people for spearheads. 

And a soldier was speared near the garrison. 

Smyth ordered a reprisal On 30 Jul 1827, exasperated by, "habitual pilfering" by the Iwaidja, "and following the wounding of a soldier … responded by ordering an indiscriminate attack".

"Dr Thomas Braidwood Wilson tried to determine a true account of the deaths, but this was difficult to determine. He wrote:

A party of the military (and, I believe, also of the prisoners) were dispatched in search of natives. They came unexpectedly on their camp at Bowen’s Straits, and instantly fired at them, killing some, and wounding many more. A woman, and two children, were amongst the slain; another of her children, a female, about six or eight years old was taken, and brought to the camp, and placed under the care of a soldier’s wife. After this, the natives kept aloof from the settlement . . ."

Frontispiece from Volume 1 of Phillip Parker King's Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia (1827). It is entitled "View in Raffles Bay, with Croker's Island in the distance

Thomas Braidwood Wilson

Thomas Braidwood Wilson, created before 1843

Dr Wilson also wrote his observations about the settlement and the Aboriginal people in his book,
Narrative of a Voyage Round the World.

Of the Iwaidja he wrote:

"they go entirely naked, and their shoulders, breasts, nates, and thighs, are ornamented with cicatrices, resembling the braiding of a hussar's jacket. Their hair is long, generally straight, and powdered with red earth."

And

"Many of them have the front tooth in the upper jaw knocked out in the same manner as the Port Jackson natives mentioned by Captain Collins. They paint their faces, and frequently their entire bodies, with red earth; those who are inclined to be dandies, draw one or two longitudinal lines of white, across the forehead, and three similar on each cheek; and a few who appeared to be exquisites, had another white line drawn from the forehead to the tip of the nose. The nasal cartilage is invariably perforated; but it is only on particular occasions that they introduce a bone or piece of wood, and sometimes a feather through it."

And

"Although it may seem rather paradoxical, yet I do not hesitate to say, that the natives, far from being such untameable savages as originally represented, are, in reality, a mild and merciful race of people. They appeared to be fond of their wives and children; at least, they talked of them with much apparent affection. They have frequently interposed their good offices in preventing the soldiers' children from being chastised: I have seen them run between the mother and child, and beg the former to desist from her (as it appeared to them) unnatural conduct, in punishing her own offspring."

A New Commandant: Captain Collet Barker

On 13 September 1828, Captain Collet Barker arrived as the new commandant of Fort Wellington, at Raffles Bay. He found that relations between the Aboriginal people and the settlers under the command of Captain Henry Smyth had deteriorated to the point of mutual fear and hostility.

In his first dispatch to Governor Darling, Barker reported:

"Nothing has been seen of the Natives for a considerable time; they appear to have deserted the immediate neighbourhood". A series of thefts and spearings by the Aborigines led to the former commandant offering a reward of five pounds for "any native who could be brought in, hoping that, by keeping such individual at the settlement, it might have the effect of preventing any further hostility".

Over 1000 seafarers, interested in trade, visited Raffles Bay during the year following Captain Barker's arrival.

Improved Relations

On 18 September,  Captain Barker ordered that guns not to be used at the settlement unless absolutely necessary. He addressed the men on "the importance of avoiding cruelty toward the Natives".

On 25 November 1828, Captain Barker managed to make contact with the Aboriginal people when he and Davis. the surgeon. were taken to the place of contact, where they met ten Iwaidja men.

Captain Barker presented the Iwaidja people with handkerchiefs, a pair of scissors, and some bread. The Iwaidja invited Barker to accompany them. However, Barker declined to do so, though he tried to convey that he would be pleased to do so another time.

The second contact between Captain Barker and the Iwaidja people was written by Barker as follows:

"... as we were cruising along the shore some natives were discovered. We made friendly signs to each other and I ran the boat in and landed unarmed desiring everyone else to remain in the boat. On our approach to the beach the natives returned some distance from it, evidently in a little alarm. I advanced to show I supposed them to be, and soon fell in with one who seemed to be a chief. We exchanged presents, I giving him a handkerchief and he giving me a spear, unheaded, and the stick for throwing it. He had perhaps taken off the head. He also gave me a string of beads...I asked for Wellington and he pointed to himself and repeated the name. Another native soon came up and afterwards a third. They did not want me to go with them and appeared rather in a hurry. When I got on board again I found there was a bit of bread in the boat and I sent my servant with it. The doctor went with him. They ate up the bread immediately and the chief took off a pair of bracelets and gave them to the doctor."

Captain Barker began to write in his journal personal names, words and observations about the Iwaidja culture that he learned through the improved relations. However, the theft by the Iwaidja of the settlement's canoes continued to cause problems, until Captain Barker arranged to lend the canoes. Soon, the Iwaidja would return the canoes along with fish and tortoise shell in them, as thanks.

Some of the names of the Iwaidja people that Captain Barker recorded were, Monanoo, Luga, Miago, Olobo and Marambal. 

Sharing Culture

When the Iwaidja were induced to enter the settlement they were quite overcome when they saw the young girl, taken during Smyth's reprisal.

"On discovering the little native girl, both Wellington and Waterloo evinced great emotion, particularly the latter, who was on that account, believed to be her father. Seeing her so well taken care of increased their confidence; she was then named Mary Waterloo Raffles, but her native name was Riveral."

"After this occurrence, the intercourse with the natives was renewed, and, as Captain Barker used every precaution to prevent their receiving injury or moles­tation from any individual in the camp, it continued unbroken . . ." (Wilson 1835:70, 74)

Such were the improved relations that on 29 January 1829, two Iwaidja men, Alobo and Pamoono, entertained the British by playing the didgeridoo and singing and dancing.

"Dance of the Aborigines at Raffles Bay" by Lieutenant George Edward Nicholas Weston (1796-1856), drawn on 30 Jul 1829. Published in the book "Narrative of a Voyage round the World" by Thomas Braidwood Wilson in 1835.

The Iwaidja would sometimes sleep in the garrison, and Captain Barker, whom the Iwaidja called the Commandant, welcomed Mariae and the other Iwaidja into his home, where the ship's fiddler would play the hornpipe, and they would all dance.

"DANCE MUSIC." Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907) 31 August 1889

Orders to Abandon

On 21 July 1829, Captain Barker received orders to abandon the Fort Wellington settlement.

Before taking their leave, Captain Barker took his Iwaidja friends around the settlement and told them about the fruits and vegetables that would soon be theirs to consume.

On 28 August the settlement at Fort Wellington was abandoned.

Barker then moved on to become commandant of the British settlement at King George Sound. He was killed by Aboriginal people in 1831, perhaps mistaken for a whaler or sealer, who had kidnapped Aboriginal women. 

"The following particulars were obtained
from three sources, all of which agreed that
Captain Barker's footsteps were tracked by
two natives along the sand ridge near the beach
on the east side of the inlet. That these two
men were afterwards joined by a third, and
when it was ascertained that Captain Barker
had no musket nor any means of defence the
signal of attack was made by 'cooeing.' That
Captain Barker never perceived their approach
until he received his first wound from Cum-
marringeree, whose spear entered at the left
hip and came out of the opposite side. That
Captain Barker then ran into the surf up to
his knees, making signs with his hands, and
calling to them to desist. The second spear
was then thrown at him by Pennagoora,
which entered at the right flank, and quickly
afterwards Wannagetta threw the third spear,
which entered his back and came out in front.
Captain Barker then fell down, and the three
natives brought him on shore and drew their
spears backwards and forwards through his
body till he was dead. They then took him
up and cast him into the sea in deep water."

1894 'AN OLD TIME EPISODE.', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931)

1839: The French

French explorer Dumont D'Urville visited Raffles Bay in 1839 in the Astrolabe, accompanied by another ship La Zéléé. D'Urville said, "nothing was more depressing than our day in Raffles Bay". And "the heat was intolerable......The flies harassed us during the day, replaced at night by the mosquitos". He went on to say that their beds and food were invaded by ants.

The photograph is a print of a lithograph by Louis Auguste de Sainson, who accompanied d’Urville on the journey. The image is a part of Archives New Zealand’s former Post and Telegraph/Telecom Museum Holdings collection.

Dumont D'Urville, the French explorer, visited Raffles Bay between 27 March and 6 April 1839 and made contact with the Macassar trepanging fleet and visited the camp. Louis Le Breton, the official artist on the voyage, painted this: "Pêcheurs de Tripang à la Baie Raffles."

The Beagle

John Clements Wickham, Commander and surveyor of the Beagle, mapped Australia's northern coastline in 1839. Leaving Sydney in May, the Beagle arrived in the north in July, surveying the coastline. 

Lieutenant John Lort Stokes of the Beagle was the first British person to spot Darwin harbour on 9 September 1839. Commander Wickham then named the port after Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who had sailed on the earlier second expedition of the Beagle.

The Popular Science Monthly, Volume 57 p. 87, reproduction of frontispiece from Darwin, Charles (1890), Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle 

The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont

In the book, The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont as Told by Himself (1899), de Rougemont, who claims that he spent thirty or so years as a castaway among the Aboriginals of North-West and Central Australia, talks about his visit to Raffles bay:

"......accompanied me to a camp of black fellows near some lagoons, a little way farther south of their own camp. Before they left, they presented me with a quantity of bêche-de-mer, or sea-slugs, which make most excellent soup. At the place indicated by the Malays, which was in Raffles Bay, the chief spoke quite excellent English. One of his wives could even say the Lord’s Prayer in English, though, of course, she did not know what she was talking about. “Captain Jack Davis,” as he called himself, had been for some little time on one of her Majesty’s ships, and he told me that not many marches away there was an old European settlement; he even offered to guide me there, if I cared to go. He first led me to an old white settlement in Raffles Bay, called, I think, Fort Wellington, where I found some large fruit-trees, including ripe yellow mangoes. There were, besides, raspberries, strawberries, and Cape gooseberries."

Mildirn/Captain Jack Davis

Mildirn, known as Captain Jack Davis, was born in 1835 near the Cobourg Peninsula. He was four years old when the Port Essington garrison was established. He became a messenger for the officers and was "something of a pet with the regiment".

At the age of twelve, Mildirn was taken to Hong Kong on a merchant ship with two other young boys, Mijok and Aladyin, in 1847, Mildirn was left stranded when the ship's master died but was recognised by Crawford Pasco, an officer who had served at Port Essington, and he organised the boys' return to Port Essington.

Mildirn crewed on a merchant ship for a number of years and became a fluent English speaker. He was also well known for "giving vent to the most horrible blasphemies and obscenities", which he had learnt from the soldiers.

Mildirn, sometimes spelt Medlone, also known as Jack Davis, Old Jack Davis or Port Essington Jack, aged 94

1977: 150th Anniversary Commemorations

Philip Galtanyarra Traditional landowner - gives address of welcome. Fort Wellington, Raffles Bay. Published 1977-09-26, Peter Spillett Collection. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Today

Most of the Cobourg Peninsula Ramsar site (wetland) is managed as part of Garig Gunak Barlu National Park. Translated as: Garig (a local language name), Gunak (land), Barlu (deep water).

Around The Cobourg Peninsula

Cobourg Peninsula, NT

Cobourg Peninsula, NT

Cobourg Peninsula, NT

Permits for Cobourg Peninsula