ARCH2002: Australian Historical Archaeology
Archives Assignment – The History of James Brown
Mirani Litster (2016376)
Due Date: 31st October 2005
Major Assignment
Archives Assignment – History of a Person
James Brown
Introduction
James Brown was a South Australian pioneer and a leading pastoralist in the 19th century. His estate established Estcourt House, Kaylra at Belair and the James Brown Memorial Trust (Document 2.3). The epitaph on his headstone memorialises Brown as ‘a great boon to suffering humanity’. The material evidence that remains suggests that James Brown was a successful philanthropist. However, he was also an accused murderer who allegedly massacred between five and eleven Aboriginals responsible for killing his livestock (Foster et al 2001: 74-93). These two decidedly discrete identities are represented in different archival documents. This was a contributing reason as to why James Brown was chosen for this study as the associated archives and material culture highlight both the use and limitations of particular sources and their potential for bias.
Aims
The project was decided upon in order to provide a complementary project that accompanied a research thesis for an Honours degree in Archaeology. This research thesis is entitled: Frontier Conflict: A comparison of the archaeological investigation of massacre sites in Australia and North America. Therefore it was considered that it would be useful to study the history of an individual involved with an alleged massacre of Indigenous people. This consideration led to the isolation of the pastoralist James Brown (through the reading of Fatal Collisions: The South Australian Frontier and Violence of Memory). Brown allegedly perpetrated atrocities against Aboriginals in the mid 19th century in South Australia.
In addition to this project being complementary to the honours thesis, this archival research provides grounding for the students undertaking Australian Historical Archaeology in the processes involved in discerning details about the past from primary documents. This hopefully engenders a considered response to the process of interpretation that is undertaken in order to compile secondary sources. This will hopefully result in the students being better able to evaluate the processes involved in the compilation of history and consider the nature of the sources that are being utilised (including their potential uses and limitations).
Furthermore, the archives assignment aims to acquaint students with the necessary skills involved with the retrieval of archives from South Australia’s major research repositories. Additionally, material culture can be investigated (if any remains), which hopefully will provide insight into the link between archival research and archaeology.
Methods
1. An initial consultation with Dr. Alice Gorman was used to establish the best possible approach to the assignment (on Monday 8th August, 2005) – it was decided to align this assignment under the broader topic of the Honours thesis (being massacre sites and frontier conflict).
2. From this, an attempt to locate records of alleged massacres in South Australia led to the consultation of Foster et als. Fatal Collisions. It was within this secondary source that the ‘Legend of James Brown’ (2001:74-93) was highlighted.
3. Following this, archival documents (primary sources) and secondary sources were consulted from the following repositories:
State Library of South Australia / State RecordsFamily History Records
Marriage Index
Census Reports
Death Index
Arrivals
Place Names Register
South Australian Register
Advertiser
Government Gazettes
SA Parliamentary Debates / Microfiche
(GRG 24/6)
Barr Smith Library / Flinders University
Secondary Sources / Secondary Sources
Internet
Legislation
Secondary Sources
4. After the primary and secondary documents had been found, material culture was investigated. This includes the photographing of such buildings (associated with James and Jessie Brown) and his cemetery plot.
Results
The following results, presented as a report were compiled with the use of the evidence presented in the appendices (primary sources) and a consultation of secondary sources was also used to confirm details found in archival documents (where referenced).
THE LIFE OF JAMES BROWN
Image 1 - James Brown(source: Cockburn 1927: 140)
1. Arrival in South Australia
James Brown was born in 1819 (Document 2.1) in East Fife, Scotland (Document 2.3). He arrived in South Australia on the “Fairfield” on the 4th May 1839, at the age of 20. He appeared to have been accompanied by his brother – Archibald, who was named after their father (Document 2.1). The ship departed from Liverpool on the 9th November 1838 and was commandeered by Captain Abbott. The voyage lasted approximately 175 days. The South Australian Register reveals that of the 46 passengers on the ship, Archibald and James were some of the few whom were not traveling with their partners or children (Document 1.2).
The ships manifest details the ships cargo (which included among other things 6 cheeses and 13,000 bricks), but also suggests that the “Fairfield” was cleared on the 13th May 1839 and was then bound for Manila in the Philippines (Document 1.1: 245 for reference to the Brown brothers arrival on the “Fairfield”, Document 1.3). It was the 17th ship to arrive in Port Adelaide in that year (see Document 1.4, Appendix 1).
2. Life in South Australia
Little can be ascertained about the life of James Brown outside of his work as a pastoralist, and the issue of the alleged massacre.
In 1857 he married Jessie Craigie (see Image 2; Document 2.1), a widow and daughter of John Waddell of Mount Barker. He was 38 years old and she was 31 years old. They were married at the residence of Reverend R. Haining in Adelaide (Document 2.1, Appendix 2). Cockburn confirms that Jessie and James Brown had no children (Document 2.3).
Image 2 – Jessie Brown (nee Waddell)(source: Mortimer, 1990: 2)
James Brown left Australia once throughout the duration of his time as a pastoralist – to visit San Francisco to secure property (Document 2.3). He was considered a friend of those who owned the Lake Roy station (in the vicinity of Naracoorte) and later died in their family home (Document 2.3; Document 5.1). Cockburn shares an anecdote wherein a woman remembered him as a ‘rough diamond’:
‘I remember him asking my mother abruptly whether she recollected a certain incident in the life of King William IV. When she explained that she was only a young girl at the time, he replied – ‘Oh were you! Well, here is a bag of lollies for you’ (Document 2.3).
Shortly after his arrival in South Australia, James Brown and his brother were recorded in the Census Data of 1841. They were both recorded as males under the age of 35 in the Encounter Bay, Inman Valley and Currency Creek area (Document 2.2).
3. Avenue Range Station and Tilley’s Swamp Run
Image 3 – Avenue Range Run (1860)(source: Mortimer, 1990: 18)
Avenue Range Station was founded by James Brown in 1848 (Document 2.3), and according to the South Australian Place Names Index was denoted as such due to its location between ‘swamps, flats and stringybark ridges’ (Document 3.1). Avenue Range Run (lease no.200) was leased until July 1851 (Document 3.1). The Indigenous name for the Avenue Range Run was ‘Kalyra’, a variant being ‘Keilira’ (Mortimer, 1990:19). This was the Indigenous word for ‘Hop- Bush’ and indicates the local vegetation found in the area (Document 3.2).
Avenue Range can be seen in Document 3.6, and the location of Avenue Range Station can be seen as ‘Keilira’ Station on the Maps marked as Document 3.3 and 3.4. Document 3.3 is derived from the Department of Environment and Planning’s Heritage Conservation Branch Heritage Survey of the region. The department proposed that the station be considered for heritage registration (Department of Environment and Planning 1983:16). A consultation of the Australian Heritage Places Inventory reveals that the homestead never received heritage status on a register (online: Australian Heritage Places Inventory, 2005).
Avenue Range is situated within the modern district council of Lacepede (Department of Environment and planning 1983: 16). It no longer intercepts the route from Adelaide to Melbourne, but in the past it received traffic between the two capital cities and as a result many of the roads were in very poor condition (Document 2.3). Cockburn discusses the issues Brown had with overland Bullock traffic and the resulting damage to his fences (Document 2.3). Avenue Range Run originally consisted of 69 square miles of land and soon expanded to 83 miles. The wool produced by Brown was shipped via Guichen Bay (Document 2.3) and it was documented that his livestock suffered foot rot due to large amounts of rainfall in the region (Document 2.3). However at the height of his success Brown was supporting 24,000 sheep.
Tilley’s Swamp Run was located closer to Lacepede bay and was a lesser property than Avenue Range Station (Document 3.5). It was founded by James Brown and extended his control of grazing land to 183 square miles. Tilley’s Swamp run could only manage 4,500 sheep, but it was these two stations that managed to secure James Brown’s status as a leading pastoralist in South Australia (Document. 2.3).
Further records could be located at the Land’s Titles Office in Adelaide; however financial constraints did not allow this.
4. Alleged Massacre of Indigenous Australians
Interestingly, Cockburn considers that Brown’s ‘meagre publicity’ despite his reasonable success (Document 2.3) is a result of his charge of ‘poisoning a blackfellow’ (Document 2.3).
Christina Smith in her account of the Booandik Tribe, written in 1880, describes the story of the massacre of eleven aboriginals in 1848 as recounted by a youth of the ‘Wattatonga tribe’. The Wattatonga’s land encompassed the Avenue Range Run (Foster et al. 2001:81). This youth had escaped the ‘white man’ and then related his story to Christina Smith (1880: 62):
“It appeared from his story the white men had shown no mercy to either the grey-haired old man or to the helpless infant on its mothers breast…Often afterwards I have seen the tears of grief run down his sable cheeks, when the fate of his parents was spoken of, The cause of this unmerciful step being taken was the killing by the natives of sheep belonging to a settler in the Guichen Bay district” (Smith, 1880: 62)
Foster et al claim that this settler of the Guichen Bay district was probably James Brown (2001:81), but Smith did not incriminate Brown because he was alive in the region at the time (Foster et al., 2001: 81). This is confirmed by the Supreme Court ‘Criminal Side’ rulings in the Register on September 29th 1849, which claims that he was ‘charged [with] the murdering [of] several natives at Guichen Bay’ (Document 4.4).
The murder of these Aboriginal people was undoubtedly enacted as retribution for the killing of Brown’s flocks (Smith, 1880: 62, Document 4.5). However the exact number and nature of the death of the Aboriginal people is difficult to ascertain. Cockburn notes only one death, and it was established through poisoning (Document 2.3). On the 13th of June and the 12th of September 1849 the Register notes only the ‘murder of unknown aboriginals’ (Document 4.1;4.3), on the 29th September 1849 The Register claims that he had been charged with the ‘murdering of several natives at Guichen Bay’ (Document 4.4). Mortimer reports that he was charged with the death of five Aboriginals (1991:19), although this may be confused with Charles Dwyer’s case (to be discussed, Document 4.6). This is not fitting with Smith’s version which suggests the killing of eleven Aboriginals (Smith,1880:62). It must be noted however that Vic Mortimer’s version of events appears to be closely tied to that of Cockburn (Document 2.3).
Foster et al consider that there is much evidence to suggest that the killing was perpetrated by James Brown and his hut keeper (Foster et al. 2001:81). The Supreme Court records suggest that Brown shot the Aboriginal people and do not refer to a poisoning (Chief Secretery’s Office in Foster et al, 2001: 81). Foster et al. argue that this incident may have been the separate case of Charles Dwyer, whose case was discussed in the South Australian Government Gazette of 1849 (see Document 4.6). Dwyer punished a group of Aboriginals for stealing flour from his provisions hut. He laced some flour with arsenic; this flour was stolen by the group, turned into damper and these actions resulted in the poisoning and death of five Aboriginals (Document 4.6). The case was in the same year as Brown’s and this could explain the potential confusion and would clarify the inconsistency between this and the later documents (Document 2.3 and Mortimer, 1990: 19).
So therefore it is more than likely that the cause of death was shooting, Furthermore Document 4.5 also confirms that these people were shot:
“The story of our natives is a very pathetic one. In one instance many natives were slaughtered at Keleira. These men had been harassing sheep flocks. Many years ago I saw large quantities of the bones of those natives when crossing the swamps were they were shot down” (Clement Smith in Document 4.5).
However, Clement Smith does not mention the condition of the bones, which appear to have been burned as a means to reduce any incriminating evidence (Smith, 1880: 62).