THE BARROW CREEK AFFAIR
“ … don’t fire without effect … “
By Bryan Clark
Once the scene of a bloody siege between blacks and whites, the Barrow Creek telegraph station was, in its prime, one of fifteen stations scattered along the 1,200 km overland telegraph line between Port Augusta (SA) and Darwin (NT).
The main buildings were constructed during 1870-1872, permitting a basic means of communication by morse code between the south and north of Australia, as well as linking internationally with Indonesia via a telegraphic submarine cable.
Barrow Creek was named by the Scottish explorer, John McDouall Stuart, on his fourth expedition in 1860, calling the locality after John Henry Barrow, a South Australian Member of Parliament for the seat of Torrens.
The indigenous occupiers of the surrounding landscape were tribal people known as Kaytetye (sometimes spelt Kaititja).
The relieving stationmaster at the time of the tragic incident was James Stapleton.
Having completed four years service at the Katherine River station, he was travelling on the 2,000 mile journey to Adelaide for a reunion with his wife and four young children.
Fate, however, interrupted his journey.
At Barrow Creek he found the resident stationmaster seriously ill, so he sent him on to the city for treatment and elected to occupy his position until a replacement could be organised.
The author, Ernestine Hill, said Stapleton was “among the world’s first telegraphists in Canada, the USA and … central America.”
He was believed to have been one of Charles Todd’s “most trusted and experienced men.”
Having made a decision to remain at the Barrow Creek telegraph station, Canadian-born Stapleton wrote to his wife: “Do not worry about the blacks. They are poor-spiritless creatures, not like our North American Indians. If they ever gave trouble, my dog would scatter the lot. I may be with you by the time you receive this letter, for the man who takes my place is riding up.”
There were already some rumblings of discord when, on July 19, 1873, the Postmaster General of South Australia, Charles Todd, wrote to the Chief Secretary, noting: “Reporting grey horse found speared by natives at Barrow Creek. This is the third horse speared at the station within a week. It will be necessary to take some steps to prevent these acts of aggression, otherwise it is to be feared the natives will imagine our people are frightened of them and revert to bolder measures.”
The tragic event that occurred soon afterwards has been documented in several contradictory ways and it is sometimes very difficult for the modern researcher to unravel the facts.
The written account left by the police trooper, Samuel Gason, who was personally involved, seems the most reliable source, even though this, too, is flawed in several respects, particularly when he recorded the battle as having occurred in “1873” instead of 1874.
On Sunday, February 23, 1874, the young police trooper later wrote in a report that he was “taking an evening smoke” outside the telegraph station at 7.pm, enjoying the breeze after a torrid summer’s day.
He was, as he carefully records, initially accompanied by seven other employees – “the stationmaster, assistant operator, three linemen, cook, native boy and self.”
The group were sitting on a “shelf of (a) foundation of (a) building at the North side of (the) house.”
The trooper wrote: “At 7.15 pm some (Aboriginal) boys and young men came up and asked for Flour (sic). They were told that they would get flour tomorrow …”
Earlier, he explained, at 11.00 am, some of the old Aboriginal men had been demanding flour from the cook.
The stationmaster had informed the elders through an interpreter that only the sick, the infirm and those who had worked would receive flour.
“This they seemed offended at,” the trooper recorded. “These young natives, seeing that they would not get flour, returned to their camps.”
Four Aboriginal men remained with the staff members.
One of the Aboriginal men, Umpajama (later spelt Umpijama), was asked if “he would make himself useful” by accompanying a lineman on horseback to inspect the telegraph line.
Umpajama agreed, appearing to be “greatly pleased.”
Trooper Gason described the positions of the eight men thus:
“ … On the East corner of the North side the civilized native was sitting. Next to him, Westward, was the assistant operator, next Saith Jexm … John Frank … James Maddocks and self. Sitting on kegs, about three feet in front of (the) native boy and (the) assistant, were Mr Stapleton and Alexander Murdoch …”
Some accounts say Stapleton was playing his violin at the time.
He neglected to mention, or count, the position of Umpajama or the other three Aboriginal men – making a total of twelve in the group.
The policeman claimed the twelve-man party were abruptly “attacked from the Eastern corner by a large body of Natives.”
Gason’s account of the attack differs markedly from some published versions.
He recorded: “Our attention (was) first called by seeing Mr Stapleton (being) speared.”
Other researchers have documented that Stapleton was speared later in the affray, while attempting to secure the rear gates to the courtyard.
Gason and the others, he said, made a headlong rush for the eastern entrance of the telegraph station.
A shower of spears prevented their escape.
The assistant operator, Ernest Ebenezer Flint, was wounded in the thigh, while Gason himself was injured “by some blunt weapon.”
The station staff, finding their way blocked at the eastern entrance, turned heel and raced around the stone building in the opposite direction, followed by screaming Aborigines hurling spears.
John Frank and Saith Jexm were in the lead.
While rushing the gate of the courtyard, barred by their attackers, Franks was struck under the right breast by a spear, penetrating his heart and lungs.
Nevertheless, so great was his impetus, he ran for “twelve feet and fell dead,” Gason reported.
Composing his official report the next day, the trooper said the remainder of the party reached the protection of the building; that is, all but the “native boy” who suffered “three severe spear wounds” and was rescued by the white men dragging him in through a window.
Although not usually mentioned, the young Aboriginal youth later died.
Oddly, in his report no further mention is made of Umpajama and his three fellow tribesmen.
One can only wonder if the elusive four were acting as a diversion so that the main body of attackers could creep close unobserved, only to disappear once the assault was initiated, or even if they participated in the confrontation.
Inside the telegraph station, James Stapleton’s life was drawing to a close.
One spear had pierced his body while three other spears had been plunged deeply into his bowels.
Desiring communication with his wife, the ailing man was lifted to the morse key.
In Adelaide, Sir Charles Todd (1826-1910) sent his private carriage to bring Mrs Stapleton to the Postmaster-General’s office.
Todd signalled to Stapleton when his wife had arrived.
Already grieving helplessly, she listened as her husband, a thousand miles away, laboriously tapped his dying message: “God bless you and the children.”
Nothing more came.
Her husband was soon dead.
At 7.00 a.m., on February 24, a group of armed Aborigines re- appeared, standing off at about 500 yards, possibly contemplating another attack on the telegraph station’s staff.
A rifle discharged four shots into their midst and some fell to the ground.
Gason observed: “There is not the slightest doubt that some of the Natives were mortally wounded in the affray of last evening.
“Three shots were fired by me through the window at a body of Natives at a distance of 20 yards … The attack was made by them without the slightest provocation to get possession of the Flour and Mutton and murder all hands …”
The same day (February 24, 1874), with Francis James Gillen (1855- 1912) present, Sir Charles Todd, in Adelaide, received a coded message from the wounded Ernest Ebenezer Flint (1854-1887) saying: “Mr Stapleton’s body was interred this morning. Every mark of respect was shown. Body placed in coffin. Funeral service read by Mr Gason. Mr Stapleton’s last wishes were that Mr Gason and self would take charge of all his property, sending private papers, etc., to Mrs Stapleton.
“Rest of things to be sold and proceeds sent to Mrs Stapleton. That I should tell you that ‘he had died doing his duty,’ that ‘he thanked you for your many kindnesses’ and that he ‘commended his family to your protection.’”
Although unmentioned in the text, John Frank was buried the same day in an adjoining grave.
On February 25, a warrant was issued in Adelaide for the arrest of the identified killers known as Harry Boy, the General, Spritely, Sunkeyes, Coonari, Apongita, Tongala and Umpiganna, for the murder of John Franks.
The Commissioner of Police sent a coded instruction, advising the survivors to “keep the station at all hazards. Save your ammunition and don’t fire without effect.”
In Adelaide, the Chief Secretary murmered that the government were going to “teach the blacks the consequences … of such wanton and cruel acts of aggression …”
In 1990, 106 years later, a Kaytetye man, Peter Horsetailer, commented to researchers, Grace and Harold Koch: “…The old Aboriginal people would tell me that the white men wanted Aboriginal women and that’s what the Aboriginal men were crook about … because they worried about their wives … I think a few women didn’t go back to the camp with their husbands …”
Another contemporary Kaytetye informant, Tommy Thompson, said in an oral history recording about the same time: “…White men saw some young girls …Those whitefellers didn’t have a nice lady to do their work … They took her inside and made her camp overnight with them …”
Samuel Gason contradicted these allegations in his official report to the Police Commissioner in 1874 when he wrote: “Since my arrival (on February 14, 1874) … the Natives have been treated kindly and not interfered with in the slightest manner …”
In the days following the attack, with the southern citizenry seeking revenge, Trooper Gason was ordered by his superiors to gather a force of armed horsemen to expedite immediate punitive action.
“We hope Trooper Gason is not hampered by too many instructions,” wrote the editor of the Adelaide Advertiser. “…Retribution, to be useful, must be sharp,swift and severe …”
Gason communicated with his Commissioner, saying: “A great number of these Natives who attacked the Station can be identified … Your instructions will be carried out relative to firing on Natives without effect.”
Leaving ten men to guard the station, the policeman and his deputies scoured the Kaytetye countryside for months, shooting down Aborigines where met, regardless of sex, age or guilt.
Gason duly reported that eleven Aborigines had been killed, but others said at least fifty individuals were despatched.
They brought back no prisoners.
This action set the precedent for all other serious breaches of the white man’s law throughout the Northern Territory for many years to come.
Today, more than a century later, the two initial victims, both Freemasons, share a rock-walled grave site slightly south-west of the old Barrow Creek telegraph station.
Their epitaph reads: “In memory of James L. Stapleton stationmaster and John Franks lineman killed by natives Barrow Creek 23rd January 1874.”
A young Kaytetye woman and her child, circa early 1900s:
Another grave was added nearby in 1988. It has a stone memorial on the northern side of the telegraph station. Beneath are the ashes of the “Mayor of Barrow Creek,” Tommy Roberts, who first came to Barrow Creek in 1952 as a P.M.G. employee. For the 36 years he lived there, it was not known that he had left behind in Queensland a wife who had refused to join him in such an isolated location. He asked to be buried in the vicinity of Stapleton and Franks.
In retrospect, if the Aboriginal accounts providing reasons for the massacre are correct – i.e., that some of the white male staff were sexually fraternising with young Aboriginal girls – there would, possibly, have been an understanding that there was a mutual obligation involved in the arrangement. In other words, female companionship was provided to one or several of the lonely white men in exchange for occasional gifts of food. Such transactions were not uncommon in the early days of settlement – with farm and station staff, travelling drovers, etc. Although such arrangements were legally forbidden, they nevertheless secretly took place under cover of darkness, or in isolated locations – thus, the policeman might not have been aware, as a newcomer, that an unknown number of the European staff were having clandestine meetings with tribal females. If one or more of the white men were thus engaged, they might inadvertently have caused the death of innocent people, black and white.
