History
When ‘wild white men’ roamed through Southeast Queensland
AUDIENNE BLYTH tells of convicts whose knowledge of the region, gained through contact with Aborigines, became invaluable to other pioneers.
QUEENSLAND has a convict heritage. From 1824 to 1839, Moreton Bay was a penal settlement for second offenders and once held more than 900 convicts.
A second offender was a convict who was already serving a sentence and committed another crime.
Some convicts at Moreton Bay believed they could escape the settlement with its harsh laws and floggings. Some failed with their lives but others became ‘wild white men’ living with Aborigines.
Perhaps prisoners were inspired by ticket-of-leave men Thomas Pamphlett and Richard Parsons and convict John Thompson, who were the first white men known to have lived with Queensland Aborigines. Working as cedar cutters in the Northern Rivers district, they were blown north to Bribie Island after a bad storm. Their lives were saved by
the Aborigines.
In 1823, Pamphlett was able to show explorer John Oxley the river which he named the Brisbane. Pamphlett and Parsons roamed north and were able to report on the resources of the Wide Bay and Sunshine Coast areas to authorities.
It was said that one-in-three convicts tried to escape the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. Escapees who successfully managed to survive and live with Aborigines told their stories.
They were James Davis, ‘Durramboi’, (13 years), Sam Derrington, (five years), John Fahey, ‘Gilberri’, (11 years), and David Bracewell, ‘Wandi’, (14 years).
John Graham was adopted by a Noosa tribe who called him ‘Moilo’. After six years, he returned to the settlement and, with Derrington, volunteered to rescue Eliza Fraser and three others who had survived the wreck of the Stirling Castle
in 1836.
With no survival skills or bush knowledge, lucky escapees met up with Aboriginal groups, travelled through the Sunshine Coast and were our first white explorers in the almost impenetrable scrub and rainforest.
Their knowledge of Aboriginal language, customs, geography and resources was valuable to authorities. When they eventually returned to Moreton Bay, these ‘wild white men’, as they were known, became useful as guides and interpreters.
Another convict but not an escapee, well regarded for his abilities, was Richard Jones – one of 270 convicts transported to Sydney from England on the James Pattison in 1837. He had been transferred to Moreton Bay as a second offender on board the schooner Curlew in 1839. He was described as a top sawyer and earned the nickname of ‘Bullock’.
When Andrew Petrie explored the districts to the north of Brisbane from 1838 to 1841, Jones travelled with him.
The Bunya Proclamation, 1842-1860, which had given settlement restrictions on the land between the Maroochy River and the Pine River, was repealed. In 1861, Jones was in charge of a band of timber-getters working on the Maroochy River. He was our first timber-getter. Jones was also a skilled bushman and accompanied William Pettigrew by horseback through the forests around Nambour in 1865.
Queensland became a separate state in 1859 and in came the timber-getters and pastoralists to the region. As they say, the rest is history.
Audienne Blyth is a member of the Nambour Historical Museum, open 1-4pm Wednesday to Friday and 10am-3pm Saturday.
