DEATH AT BUTTERABBY
“…a state of warfare erupted…”
Today the area is an abandoned, haunted paddock, largely ignored by the tourist traffic rushing along the Mingenew Highway, south-west of Mullewa, in West Australia.
Peaceful wheat crops surround the rise where white and black men died in the 1860s, each fighting for survival against imagined intruders.
The six rocky graves at Butterabby Gully hold the remains of five Aboriginal men of the now-defunct Widi tribe, and one white settler, James Rudd, who pioneered Rudd’s Gully, at Greenough, over near the Indian Ocean coast.
As the European farmers moved eastward from the coastal settlement of Champion Bay (now Geraldton) searching for arable lands, the Aboriginal tribes saw their traditional hunting grounds confiscated by white-skinned strangers, a people who jealously dominated the countryside with firearms and drove away the black men’s food sources.
Inevitably, a state of warfare erupted, each believing they had a right to the land and its produce.
Yet another source of conflict occurred when lonely white men, often living frugal lives in frightening isolation, stole the tribal women as companions, thus creating ill feeling with the female’s family.
In tribal law, a woman might be offered in a shared arrangement with a stranger as a form of hospitality, but to commandeer a woman without permission was to invite punishment by the spear or waddi (fighting stick).
In that often thoughtless era, the Aborigines were viewed by many of the white settlers as a species hardly human and therefore not accorded customary humane consideration.
In March, 1859, a ticket-of-leave convict, Richard Bibby, shot and killed an Aboriginal man, Billamarra, on J. S. Davis’ lease at Wooligan Well, in the Mingenew shire.
The murderer was arrested, taken to Perth for trial, where evidence was offered by a white witness that Bibby “had been searching for a young (black) woman” and, failing to locate her, had shot Billamarra at his camp fire, apparently believing that the Aborigine had hidden the girl from him.
The killer was convicted and sentenced to the gallows at the Perth gaol; the first white man in the Swan Colony to face the death sentence for killing an Aboriginal.
Resident Magistrate, William Burgess, contacted the Colonial Secretary in the same year to advise him that an Edward Cornelly had shot a Champion Bay native, Noongarie, and yet another convict had murdered two black men.
Burgess noted that “(these) class of (men) have repeatedly ill-used the natives so as to get possession of their women …”
Further trouble followed when, in April, 1862, stockmen at Kockatea Spring were assaulted by Aborigines; sheep were slaughtered and their white keepers were contained in a predicament where they were prevented from getting to their food supplies and almost starved.
Eleven tribesmen were apprehended and despatched to Fremantle for trial and incarceration at the Rottnest Island prison.
In 1863, again at Kockatea Spring, a white settler, John Lewis, was speared by an Aboriginal called Willaka after Lewis had shot a black man’s dog for savaging a sheep.
Lewis succumbed to his wound and died, being buried at Wooderarrung Well.
When Constable Joseph Watson was despatched from Champion Bay to take the killer into custody, his camp at one point was attacked by more than 50 Aborigines, trying to rescue the chained Willaka and other native prisoners.
Magistrate, R. Bayby, read the policeman’s horrific report, then wrote his recommendation: “ … Should the (prisoner) be … convicted and sentenced to death, I would … strong recommend the sentence … be carried into effect on the spot where the murder was committed …”, the logic being that the Aboriginal tribes would experience the severity of English justice in all its horror and remain for ever mortified.
James Rudd settled at Butterabby with a convict labourer, Thomas Bott, a Mrs Jane Turnstill and her five year old daughter, living in a crude hut near a small creek.
In August, 1864, Bott was clearing scrub not far from the hut when eight Aborigines sprung a surprise attack and rendered the man unconscious.
Awakening, Bott courageously ripped the spears from his body and painfully crawled to the homestead where Rudd and the little girl were thoroughly shocked by the appearance of the wounded man, bleeding heavily from ten spear wounds.
Transported by horse and cart to the Champion Bay hospital, the convict died a fortnight later and was buried in the local cemetery.
During a subsequent bush patrol, Constable Robert Bird and two black trackers arrested five Aborigines on September 29 and, walking in chains, the group returned to Rudd’s homstead at Butterabby for provisions.
It is interesting to note that there was no verifiable evidence as to whether the five Aborigines were the actual killers; it is therefore quite likely they were chosen at random and callously used as an example to their countrymen.
Lying in a gully, badly decomposed, at Butterabby the trackers located the body of James Rudd, another victim of tribal spears.
Police apprehended an Aboriginal man, Mumbleby, his wife, Bela, and a teenaged girl, Beeja-Beeja, who had in their possession a supply of flour from Rudd’s hut.
The two trials were conducted in Perth on January 5-6, 1865, with the five Aboriginal men being sentenced to death.
Mumbleby was gaoled for manslaughter, while his women were released.
The sentenced men were returned to Geraldton and transported overland under police guard in horse-drawn carts to the Butterabby site.
The solemn group consisted of a sheriff, Sgt. Pearce, a Constable Buck, the official hangman, six Geraldton policemen, a sub-inspector, five tribal elders and a “native assistant.”
While the condemned men were ordered to clear a well in the creek to water the horses, the policemen occupied themselves by selecting a hanging tree, testing ropes, and digging graves.
Local farmers, intent on achieving the maximum impact, delivered to the scene about a dozen Aborigines as witnesses.
At dawn on January 28, the hangman tied the arms of a condemned Aborigine and he was transported in a cart to the makeshift gallows.
Ordered to stand erect, the noose was secured around his neck and another rope was tied about the victim’s waist.
The condemned man was then hoisted “about nine feet from the bottom of the dray,” according to an eye-witness report published later in a Perth newspaper.
At 6.13am, when the sheriff shouted the order to “let go,” the Aboriginal man was dropped to his death with a sickening jerk and was left to hang for 15 minutes, swaying slightly in the early morning breeze.
Cut down, the body, with a cloth cap over the head and leg irons still attached to the ankles, was placed in a grave on the grassy knoll.
Retracing their steps, the executioners and witnesses repeated their gruesome task four times.
A newspaper account stated: “Each culprit, as he was pinioned, screamed and continued to lament until the fatal drop was given … it was a sad sight to witness how each of them gave the last despairing look … as the white cap was pulled over his face …”
In 1973 a Mullewa farmer, Albert Keeffe, arranged for a huge granite rock to be erected on the infamous site, roughly carved with the legend: “In these graves lie James Rudd speared here at Butterabby 23 Sept., 1864. Also Garder, Wangayakoo, Yourmacarra, Charlacarra, Williacarra, natives sentenced in Perth and hanged here 28 Jan., 1865, for the spearing of Thomas Bott at Butterabby, 22 Feb., 1864.”
-B.J.C.
Great site, however older eyes just cant cope with white links, i found your page via Google but cant read any of the links. I can just make out some words if I look hard and have goood eyes albeit where glasses. Blue on blue just as bad,
— Kaye · 16 September 2009 · #
Sorry you had such a hard time, Kaye. I've made the links black and visible on this section. But I’m not sure where we have blue on blue links?
— Site Builder · 21 November 2009 · #