17. More bloodshed on the Campaspe
In 1839, more violent incidents occurred along the Campaspe River, this time in the country of the Ngurai-illum Wurrung people. The squatter Charles Hutton, a former officer in the British army in India, had a run on Wild Duck Creek, south of present-day Heathcote. In dry conditions, he was looking for more feed for his flocks when he set up an outstation at what is now Barnadown. There were two flocks of sheep there, each under the oversight of a shepherd, as well as a hut maintained by a third man, James Neill. On 22 May, the outstation was attacked by Aboriginal men. Neill and one of the shepherds were killed and one of the flocks of sheep was stolen.
As soon as Hutton and his men became aware of what they referred to as “the outrage”, they set off in pursuit. They caught up with the offenders at an area known as Restdown Plains (current day Rochester). In official reports, they simply said that they had retrieved most of the missing 700 sheep. Nothing was reported about what happened to the offenders, although Hutton said they were “from a tribe from the Goulburn River”. Hutton and his men returned with the sheep, but the outstation at Barnadown was abandoned.
RETRIBUTION
As noted in the previous Waranga Dreaming story, there was little in the way of law enforcement in areas that were then remote from the main settlements of Port Phillip. However, on this occasion, Hutton was able to secure a detachment of mounted police. As soon as they arrived at his station, he and his overseer James Cosgrove set off with the troopers on a punitive expedition along the Campaspe to the north.
Because the reprisals were carried out by government officials, official depositions were later taken from some of the troopers, as well as Hutton and Cosgrove. According to one historian, “the depositions are unsatisfactory and tend to contradict one another on several important aspects”. No depositions were taken from any Aboriginal people.
The reports indicated that the troopers attacked an Aboriginal encampment near Restdown Plains, a few km north of the place where the sheep had earlier been retrieved, without establishing whether the perpetrators of the attack on the Barnadown station were there. Sergeant Dennis Leary, of the Mounted Police, advised that “I charged the camp to apprehend them if possible”. As soon as a couple of spears were thrown, the shooting started. Leary said “to the best of my belief five or six were killed”.
COVERING HIS BACKSIDE
Hutton’s deposition appears to be deliberately vague, claiming that he had ridden north to cut off any escape by the Aboriginal people and had not really seen what happened. He reckoned he was not directly engaged in the shooting and only saw one dead body, even though he deposed that he and Cosgrove and the troopers had stayed on the site for an hour after the shooting stopped. There was a later uncorroborated story in which Hutton had privately stated that many more people were killed than Leary had deposed.
Some months later, in early 1840, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, George A Robinson, and his Assistant, Edward S Parker, visited Hutton at his station. In a purportedly fiery exchange, Robinson said “Hutton told him that they (the Aboriginal people) must be exterminated or else terrified so that they respected the settlers’ property.”
REPUTATION MAINTAINED
Like John Coppock in the previous story, Hutton was on the way to becoming very wealthy as a result of his pastoral enterprises, and in his case, subsequent land dealings in Melbourne. He was considered to be the epitome of an English gentleman when he died at Brighton, Victoria, in 1879, leaving an extensive estate.
There was no formal inquiry, and no-one was ever charged over the deaths of the Aboriginal people. With “only” five or six deaths reported by the perpetrators, it seems to have been deemed by the authorities to be unworthy of further investigation.
Reference: Randell, J O, Pastoral Settlement in Northern Victoria Vol 2 – The Campaspe District
