Maria (brigantine)

History
Australia
Name: Maria
Launched: Dublin 1823
Out of service: 1840
Fate: Wrecked off Cape Jaffa, 1840
General characteristics
Tons burthen: 136 tons[1]
Length: 70.19 feet (21.39 m)[1]
Beam: 20.99 feet (6.40 m)[1]
Draught: 10.9 feet (3.3 m)[1]
Sail plan: Brigantine
Armament: Single cannon
Notes: Passenger ship

Maria was a sailing ship wrecked in the Colony of South Australia during July 1840 somewhere near the current site of the town of Kingston SE, South Australia. All 25 survivors of the wreck were massacred by Aborigines on the Coorong.

History

Background

Maria, a 136-ton brigantine, was launched in Dublin in 1823.

Final voyage

Maria left Port Adelaide on 20 June 1840 for Hobart Town, Van Diemens Land with 25 persons on board, including the captain and his wife. The ship's complement consisted of Captain William Smith, his wife, Samuel Denham and Mrs Denham (née Muller) and their five children (Thomas, Andrew, Walter, Fanny, and Anna), and Mrs York (sister of Mr. Denham), who had recently been widowed and her infant. Also aboard were James Strutt, previously with Lonsdale's Livery Stables and who had been hired as Mrs Denham's servant, George Young Green and Mrs Green, Thomas Daniel and Mrs Daniel, Mr. Murray, plus the ship's mate and crew: John Tegg, John Griffiths, John Deggan, James Biggins, John Cowley, Thomas Rea, George Leigh and James Parsons. During the voyage, however, Maria was blown off course in the stretch between Cape Willoughby and Cape Jaffa and foundered on the Cape Jaffa reef.

Massacre

Major O'Halloran's expedition to the Coorong, August 1840.

The passengers and crew safely reached land and commenced trekking the Coorong coast towards Encounter Bay, some 150 kilometres (93 mi) to the north. According to a later account, around 60 kilometres (37 mi) from the wreck, in company with some friendly Aborigines, they came across a track and at once had a dispute as to whether or not to follow it, and decided to split up: Captain Smith and the crew took to the track and most of the passengers continued along the shoreline. Two days later some of this latter group split from the party in the hope of rejoining the Captain. Around this time they were attacked and killed by a group of the Milmenrura (or "Big Murray Tribe"), stripped of their possessions and buried in the sand.[2] Such detail of how the Maria survivors came to be widely separated into three groups can only be supposition, as none lived to tell the tale.

Response

Word of murders of some white people by natives reached Adelaide and W. J. S. Pullen, some sailors and three Aboriginal interpreters set out to investigate on 28 July, and on 30 July reached a massacre site, recovering two wedding rings. On 1 August, they encountered a group of Aborigines in possession of blankets and clothing. They returned to Adelaide with the rings which were identified as belonging to Mrs York and Mrs Denham.[3]

Major O'Halloran was commissioned to investigate further and left Adelaide on 15 August. Reinforcements were called for and on 22 August, O'Halloran left Goolwa with a mounted troop, including Alexander Tolmer, Captain Henry Nixon, Charles Bonney, and William Pullen following the coast, while boats sailed parallel. On 23 August the force ran into a number of Aborigines and rounded up 13 men, 2 boys and 50 women and children. He shackled the men and set the others free, though they voluntarily remained nearby.[4]

In his report, O'Halloran stated that they yielded up the man who had killed a whaler named Roach some two years previously, and pointed out where one of the Maria murderers could be found. O'Halloran pronounced a death sentence on them. Two Aborigines who tried to escape by swimming were shot and wounded. Maria's log-book was recovered in one of their wurleys, as were numerous articles of clothing, some blood-stained and other incriminating evidence. At 3.00pm on 25 August, the two condemned men were summarily hanged from sheaoaks near the graves.[4]

O'Halloran was not exceeding his brief; in fact he was following his instructions from Governor Gawler to the letter. His instructions were:

"...when to your conviction you have identified any number, not exceeding three, of the actual murderers...you will there explain to the blacks the nature of your conduct ...and you will deliberately and formally cause sentence of death to be executed by shooting or hanging"[5]

Little blame was apportioned to O'Halloran for his part in this affair; not so for Governor Gawler, who was severely criticized by sections of the press, notably the Register, and in London. The controversy may have played a part in his recall. The Aborigines Protection Society argued that South Australian law could not be applied in any case, as the tribe had not pledged allegiance to the Crown.[6]

On 10 April 1841, Richard Penny was guided by members of the Tonkinya tribe to a spot where they promised the remains of a drowned white man were buried. He believed it would be of Captain Collet Barker, who was speared to death in the same area on 30 April 1831. They found instead the bodies of four of the five from Maria that were still unaccounted for; one drowned and four bashed to death. The Aborigines told him how the massacre followed the shipwrecked party's refusal to hand over clothing that they considered their just entitlement for guiding, sustaining and carrying the children across their land. The Maria party had promised any amount of blankets and clothing from Adelaide when they returned, but this did not satisfy the Aborigines and a fight eventuated.[7]

Afterwards

Maria's hull was never found, though pieces of wreckage were washed ashore at Lacepede Bay. A cannon reported to have belonged to the Maria and which "was probably carried for the look of the thing or for signalling" was purchased from the Lee family of Middleton by D. H. Cudmore around 1914 as a garden feature for his home "Adare" in Victor Harbor, South Australia, then as a family tradition fired to welcome each New Year.[8] A plaque commemorating the wreck of Maria was unveiled at Kingston SE on 18 February 1966.[9]

See also

Notes

  • Names of Aboriginal groups are as reported in the contemporary press. They must have been tribes or clans of the Ngarrindjeri people but may have no connection with any later group. The group here written as "Milmenrura" has elsewhere been described as the Milmendjuri clan of the Tanganekald tribe.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Shipwreck - Maria". Australian National Shipwreck Database. Australian Government. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
  2. ↑
    • Noble, Captain John Hazards of the Sea: Three Centuries of Challenge in Southern Waters Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1970 ISBN 0 207 12070 6
  3. ↑ "Supposed Wreck and Murder at Encounter Bay". The Southern Australian. 14 August 1840. p. 2. Retrieved 30 September 2018 – via Trove. Pullen's journal, 28 July to 3 August.
  4. 1 2 "Late Shipwreck and Murders at Encounter Bay". The Sydney Herald. 8 October 1840. p. 3. Retrieved 30 September 2018 – via Trove.
  5. ↑ "Major O'Halloran's Instructions and Execution of two Natives at Encounter Bay". The Southern Australian. 15 September 1840. p. 3. Retrieved 30 September 2018 – via Trove.
  6. ↑ "A Famous Wreck". The Evening News. 5 October 1895. p. 1 Supplement: Evening News Supplement. Retrieved 29 May 2013 – via Trove. This reference quite credibly states the bodies were stuffed down wombat holes, where others coyly refer to "shallow graves"; it is also one of the few to touch on the contentious possibility of cannibalism.
  7. ↑ "The Milmenrura Murders". The Southern Australian. 23 April 1841. p. 2. Retrieved 30 September 2018 – via Trove.
  8. ↑ "From Rosaline's Notebook". The Mail. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 10 February 1934. p. 16. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  9. ↑ National Trust of South Australia. Kingston Branch (1966), Souvenir of the occasion of the unveiling of the plaque commemorating the loss of the brigantine "Maria", 1840 : Friday, February 18, 1966, Kingston Branch of the National Trust of south Australia, retrieved 23 November 2015
  10. ↑ H. A. Lindsay (1975). "Ch. 11: Aborigines in the Murray Valley". In G. V. Lawrence and Graeme Kinross Smith. The Book of the Murray. Rigby Ltd. ISBN 0 85179 917 5.

Further reading


Coordinates: 36°55′55″S 139°35′05″E / 36.932015°S 139.584697°E / -36.932015; 139.584697

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