Convincing Ground Massacre

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In the convincing ground massacre in Australia in 1833 or 1834, whalers killed up to 200 Aborigines in a dispute over a stranded whale .

The Convincing Ground is located in Portland Bay in Victoria, southwest of Melbourne, near the coastal town in the Shire of Glenelg and is listed as a Victorian Heritage. Professor Lynette Russell of Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University said, "The Convincing Ground Massacre is likely the first documented massacre in Victoria [Western Australia]."

The massacre

As Portland in Victoria in 1829 as a whaling station was built, there were tensions between the local Aboriginal communities from the Kilcarer Gundidj from the tribe of Gunditjmara and the whalers.

The dispute appears to have arisen over ownership of a stranded whale. While reports on the number of victims have varied, it seems certain that the Gunditjmara were determined to enforce their rights to the whale as a traditional food source and became aggressive when challenged by whalers.

According to Edward Henty and a conversation between Police Magistrate James Blair and George Augustus Robinson , the Aboriginal protector of 1841, whalers had only retired to their huts to return with firearms. Robinson writes in his diary how the whalers attacked the Aborigines, but they did not flee, but went into protection behind trees and threw spears and stones. "The number of victims was not mentioned in the conversation." Later reports come from a meeting Robinson had with the Gunditjmara in 1842, who said that only two members survived the massacre. Reports vary between 60 and 200 Aboriginal people killed, including women and children.

The reason for the uncertainty about the number of victims and the actual date of the massacre appears to come from the fact that the incident was not reported and documented until years later. The first documented mention of the Convincing Ground site is in Henty's diary on October 18, 1835.

Robinson visited the site of the 1841 massacre and spoke to the local settlers and gave the following official report (and a more extensive one in his journal):

One of the notable places on the coast is the Convincing Ground, a few years ago the site of a serious conflict between Aborigines and whalers, in which many of the former were killed. Circumstances were that a whale was stranded on land and the natives who were feeding on the carcass claimed it as their property. The whalers said they would "convince" them and returned with firearms. There is now a fishery on site.

Robinson was informed of the massacre by the Aborigines when he met 30 men and women from different clans from the Gunditjmara tribe on March 23, 1842 at Campbell's farm on the Merri River, according to which all but two members of the Kilcarer Gundidj clan were killed in the massacre been. The two survivors, Pollikeunnuc and Yarereryarerer, were taken in by the Cart Gundidj clan from Mount Clay. The Cart Gundidj did not allow any of its members to approach the Portland settlement after the massacre, but in May 1842 the resistance leader of the Cart Gundidj, Partpoaermin, was arrested at the Convincing Ground after a violent clash.

Historian Richard Broome estimated that around 60 were killed in the Convincing Ground Massacre. Bruce Pascoe said in his 2007 book Convincing Ground - Learning to Fall in love with your country : “The battlefield became known as the Convincing Ground, the place where the Gundidjmara were 'convinced' of the right of whites to the land. The Gundidjmara have been beaten, but have never been convinced of the legality. "

Origin of the name 'Convincing Ground'

There was also a debate about the origin of the name Convincing Ground , with three different sources based on Europeans:

  • Edward Henty and Police Magistrate report on a violent confrontation in which whites tried to “convince” the Aborigines of their rights to land and resources.
  • That it was a place where whalers settled disputes among themselves.
  • A popular description has it that the site was so named by the explorer Thomas Mitchell when he was there in August 1836.

Henty's diary entry relating to Convincing Ground is from October 1835 and precedes Mitchell's visit, so its explanation is unlikely. Clark believes the Henty and Blair version as described by Robinson is the most likely source. A fourth source - the oral transmission of reports by Gunditjmaran - says that the massacre was carried out to convince the clan of the rights of whites in the country.

Professor Clark said in the 2007 ABC documentary, “If we deny the history of the Convincing Ground, we are denying the history of the Aborigines. And if we deny their history, then we deny a large part of the history of Australia. "

Today's controversy

Some historians, such as Keith Windschuttle and Michael Connor, doubt that a massacre even took place and accuse the Aborigines of "exaggeration for the sake of political bloodthirsty". They claim that the story of the massacre is "myth-making" and very "dubious". According to Michael Connor, historian Damien Cash provided the following dissenting opinion in the documentation, which was considered in a hearing of a three-person committee of the Victorian Heritage Council:

"The allegation that there was a massacre has become a case study of the misuse of historical evidence, beginning with a series of mistakes made by Robinson in 1841–42 and then spreading through a series of unsubstantiated conclusions from historians and advisers."

Whaling station and monument protection

The polling station called the Convincing Ground was one of the very first whaling stations in Victoria. The land station area was inscribed on the Victoria State Historic Monument List in 2006. In the justification for the need for protection, the Australian Monument Protection Agency emphasizes that this site is of special importance because it could be the first report of a massacre of the Aborigines in Victoria, the traces of which must be secured in this area.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Martin Boulton: Anger over plans to build on massacre site . In: The Age of January 28, 2005. Accessed November 26, 2008.
  2. ^ Convincing Ground , Victorian Heritage Database. Accessed November 27, 2008.
  3. ↑ The Convincing Ground Pt 1 ( Memento of the original from November 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.abc.net.au archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV. Aired February 19, 2007. Accessed November 27, 2008.
  4. ^ A b c d e Ian D. Clark, pp17-22, Scars on the Landscape. A Register of Massacre sites in Western Victoria 1803-1859 , Aboriginal Studies Press, 1995 ISBN 0855752815 Excerpt also published in Museum Victoria ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 26, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / museumvictoria.com.au
  5. ^ Richard Broome, page 81, Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800 , Allen & Unwin, 2005, ISBN 1741145694 , ISBN 9781741145694
  6. ↑ a b Bruce Pascoe, p. 10, Convincing Ground. Learning to fall in love with your country , Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007. ISBN 9780855755492 Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 27, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aiatsis.gov.au
  7. ^ Portland About , Rotary Club of Portland website. Accessed November 27, 2008.
  8. ↑ The Convincing Ground Pt 2 ( Memento of the original from August 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.abc.net.au archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV Posted February 26, 2007. Accessed November 27, 2008
  9. ↑ Bernard Lane: Convincing Arguments  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.theaustralian.news.com.au  In: The Australian , September 30, 2005. Accessed November 27, 2008.
  10. ↑ Stuart Rintoul, Native title granted on massacre lands ( memento of the original from December 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.theaustralian.news.com.au archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The Australian , March 31, 2007. Accessed November 28, 2008
  11. ↑ Michael Connor: Convincing Ground  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.michaelconnor.com.au  Michael Connor website, 2007. Accessed November 28, 2008.
  12. ^ Convincing Ground (PDF; 99 kB), August 3, 2006, on Victorian Heritage Database Report. P. 9. (English)

Web links