The Murder of John Francis Dowling and the Massacre of 300 Aborigines
Paul Dillon
ISBN 9781925826500
Paperback, 124 pages, $29.95
The molehills of history are often swept
aside and return quickly to the dust from which they were made. Sometimes they
grow into monumental mountains of historical significance and everyone even the
uninformed hums a tune about it. John Francis Dowling rode out on his trusty
steed from the Paroo with his black pilot beside him hoping to make a line to
Mt Murchison Station on the Darling. The country was dry and drought had set
in. What did he have to fear, only fear itself? He was a bushman. The sun rose
gently from the east, southward was his bearing. The morning was cool and all
seemed fair and still. Onwards they went and on the fourth day he wrote his log
up only to say the blacks could tell him "no more about the springs."
He was lost. He never returned. Dowling was found murdered by the blacks. His
trusty guide in a moment of madness struck him about his head and crushed his
skull and then decamped. How many times must this situation have repeated itself
during the early settlement of Australia, no one knows? Arising out of this
small tragedy, 300 Aborigines were said to have been massacred by the whites.
This book is an attempt to tell that
story as best one can with the information that still exists. It’s a simple
story but the problem nowadays is by what yard stick should it be told. Should
we see it as the loss of a pioneer attempting to settle the Australian outback,
attempting to advance Australia. Or is the real story the relentless march of the
white man’s livestock trampling the flora and fauna and encroaching on koori
country. Who should come first the wool or the environment? John Dowling had a
job to do. He never expected to be killed in carrying out the ambitions and
aspirations of the white citizens of Queensland. On the other hand, the intrusion of foreign squatters
onto the fields and streams of the outback has left a lasting trail of regret in
the minds of some.
