The Far Northern landmarks are the markers of a war that was fought on our soil but rarely acknowledged.

The Frontier Wars were a lopsided series of skirmishes, massacres and battles that dotted the map from the southern most point of Tasmania to the tip of Cape York.

Indigenous warriors wielding spears, nulla nullas, shields and boomerangs took on rifle and sword armed settlers and police in the Far North between the 1870s and early 1900s.

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The University of Newcastle has mapped 15 sites of Frontier War massacres that cost the lives of both traditional owners and settlers.

The fighting lasted until the 1920s in other areas, with a massacre of 60 Warlpiri people at Conniston in the Northern Territory in 1928.

In the west, the Spartan like Kalkadoon countered European tactics with guerilla warfare and fought them to a standstill until the massacre at Battle Mountain in 1884.

On Western Cape York, the warrior Wik people already had a taste of white warfare when they ejected a Dutch landing party from the ship Duyfken in 1605.

Director of the Kapani Warriors, Dr Timothy White, said the oral stories of the landing lined up with official Dutch reports.

“I have spoken to elders who cannot read or write but their stories match the Dutch journals,” Dr White said.

“The Dutch had a standing order to press gang natives in the event scurvy broke out and Aurukun has oral history that the Dutch sailors tried to snatch them.

“The navy was probably trying to press gang them to hoist sails and scrub decks.

“The story goes that the men fought the Dutch on the ship where muskets would have been too close to be effective.

“They jumped ship and swam home.”

The first recorded frontier battles on the tropical north coast between traditional owners and British settlers occurred 145 years ago.

“The frontier stories event has become part of our event calendar,” Elder Gudju Gudju Fourmile said while commemorating the Frontier Wars in April.

“We have Yidindji elders here today who have horror stories of beheadings and shootings at places like Skeleton and Davies Creeks.”

The atrocities would make any reader’s blood run cold and seen utterly alien to the idyllic tourist region.

“The reason why Skeleton Creek is called that is because heads were put on stakes, our old people’s stakes, even the young kids’ heads,” Mr Fourmile said.

Mr Fourmile marked the Frontier Wars at a ceremony near the Cruise Liner Terminal on the eve of Anzac Day.

“The wars that were fought here on country, the ones that are not spoken about, is a part of the Australian history. And if Australia wants us to be part of Australian history, they have to recognise the bad with the good,” Mr Fourmile said.

When explorers, drovers and prospectors pushed their way into the Far North, the pattern of Indigenous resistance and colonial retribution had already been long established in other states.

The Palmer River gold fields brought settlers “into the heart of Guugu Yimithirr territory”.

Historian Timothy Bottoms said eight years after the establishment of the Cairns port would occur “one of Cairns best kept secrets,” an atrocity that would stain the region’s history.
Mr Bottoms cited the account by Jack Kane in 1938 in his book Conspiracy of Silence.

North of Yungaburra, an 1884 police raid in destroyed a Yidinji camp.

“Each man (was) armed with a rifle and revolver,” Mr Kane said.

“They were easy running shots … the native police rushed in and killed off the children.”

Years later, the skulls of the victims would be found, mounted on stakes at Skeleton Creek.

Mr Fourmile said the massacre was not the only horrific act to taint those years.

“At Bones Knob up around Tolga, all our all people were marched off the hillside down a cliff, and all the young ones as well,” he said.

“This is in the history of Australia and is well documented.

“At Davies Creek Falls, kids were buried in the sand with their heads showing.

“What he went through was a war on this country to try and keep his people alive and safe on this country.”

Tragically, much of the killing of traditional owners was carried out by native police under the direction of European officers.

“Keep in mind that many native police had family kept under control in reserves and if they did not do what was asked their families would be punished,” Mr Fourmile said.

Native police were used for ‘bush patrols’ which specialised in what would now be considered ethnic cleansing operations.

The troopers themselves were often press ganged or coerced in their ‘recruitment’, and brutally treated by their white senior officers.

“Forcible recruitment into the NMP was probably common. Certainly, several sources

point to recruits being entrapped,” acheologist Heather Burke and other scholars noted.

“Survival was, perhaps, the ultimate inducement.”

Troopers were generally recruited from territories other than those they were patrolling, to ensure that kin ties would not impede their operations.

Many of the weapons and shields carried by Indigenous warriors were bundled as trophies and are now stored in the British Museum.

“At the British Museum, in the basement, they have 2000 of our shields, of our swords, of our spears,” Mr Fourmile said.

“They never left your side. For them to say they were lying on the ground is a lie.

“Some of them had bullet holes in them; to see it is to believe it and know the stories our grandfathers have told are true.”

TIMELINE

Frontier War sites of the Far North identified by the University of Newcastle.

Badu Island, 1834

Fifteen survivors of the shipwrecked Charles Eaton were massacred by local warriors.

Torres Strait, 1859

Eighteen survivors of the shipwrecked Sapphire were slaughtered by Gudang warriors.

Turtle Head Island, 1867

A stockman employed by Magistrate Frank Jardine killed 10 Yadhaigana in reprisal for disturbed cattle.

Pabaju Albany Island, 1869

Police and marines ambushed four Gudang turtle hunters at Pabaju Albany Island. Later the same day, six Gudang were chased and also shot.

Murray River, 1870

Native police ambushed a camp of the Dirja people on the Murray River and killed 6.

Blencoe Falls, 1872

Native police killed 11 Aboriginal people living at Valley of Lagoons station.

Mission Beach, 1872

The Djurun killed 14 survivors of the shipwrecked brig Maria, which ran aground at Bramble Reef.

Cassowary Coast opposite Dunk Island, 1872

Sailors from the ship Governor Blackhall killed 45 Djurun people in retaliation for Maria massacre.

Mission Beach, 1872

Police shot and killed 45 Djurun people alleged to be have been involved in the Maria massacre.

Battle Camp, Normanby River, 1873

Sixteen miners massacred between 80 and 150 Gugu-Warra people in a lagoon on the road to the Palmer River. The miners denied any Aboriginal people were killed when interviewed by a Cooktown magistrate.

Indian Head, Cooktown, 1879

Police trap and shoot 24 and drown four Guugu Yimithirr men in reprisal for the wounding of two white men by spears.

Rifle Creek, 1880

Settlers and native police kill six Djabugay people in reprisal for the loss of eight horses.

Irvinebank, 1884

Police shoot and kill 6 Aboriginal people at Irvinebank

Skull Pocket, 1884

Police and trackers surround and kill the occupants of a Yidinji camp near Yungaburra.

The survivors were chased to Mulgrave, where they were killed. Twenty victims were reported.

Ducie River, 1902

Native police shot six Aboriginal men and burned the bodies to hide the evidence.