The Fighting Gunditjmara

Aboriginal servicemen and servicewomen serving in the Australian military forces have often spoken of being part of a long-standing, continuous warrior tradition that embodies deep respect for their forebears who fought for their traditional lands. Captain Reg Saunders was one of the most famous Australian soldiers of the Second World War. A Gunditjmara man from Western Victoria, Saunders was the first identifiable Aboriginal to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. A proud warrior, Saunders fought with the 2/7th Battalion in campaigns in North Africa, Greece and Crete (where he evaded capture for eleven months) and in New Guinea. He later served during the Korean War. In 2015, the Captain Reg Saunders Gallery at the Australian War Memorial was named in his honour.

In an interview with Martin Flanagan of The Age in 1989, Saunders spoke of the war his forefathers fought, a conflict known as the Eumeralla War. “I would have fought the war my forefathers fought because I think we were right. We were fighting for survival and that has always been a justification for war.” It was this war, fought against white settlers in the 1840s, for which his people earned their reputation as the “fighting Gunditjmara”. For nearly two centuries they have fought for country, for nation, and for survival.

The ancestral land of the Gunditjmara people in Western Victoria is one of the most remarkable landscapes on the Australian continent. Some 30,000 years ago the Gunditjmara witnessed the eruption of the volcano Budj Bim (now known as Mount Eccles). They watched as Budj Bim, an important creation being, revealed himself in the landscape. The lava flows from Budj Bim transformed the landscape, carving drains out of the earth and blocking river flows to create large wetlands. In this new environment, the Gunditjmara dug channels to bring water and eels from Darlot Creek. They built weirs, creating lakes and swamps, and connected them with channels. Woven baskets were used to harvest eels. Their fish traps worked by responding to the rise and fall of the water level. Based upon their engineering and aquacultural achievements, the Gunditjmara developed a settled society. Their villages of circular stone huts, built from the lava flow, included ponds stocked with harvests of eels. Tree hollows were used as smokehouses for the preservation of food, providing a valuable commodity for trade. Dispelling the myth that all Australia’s Aboriginal peoples were nomadic, here the Gunditjmara lived in permanent settlements for thousands of years.

The arrival of Europeans in the area, following the establishment of Portland in 1834, led to the destruction of the Gunditjmara settlements and the eventual dispossession of their land. Ominously, when the first settler, Edward Henty, sighted locals after landing at Portland, he recorded in his journal that he had his dogs set on them. One of the earliest contacts, between the Gunditjmara and a group of whalers, led to bloodshed. It is believed to have started as a dispute over rights to a beached whale, and ended in a massacre on the beach at what became known as Convincing Ground.

In Victoria (known then as Port Phillip District) permanent settlement began without sanction from British authorities. Within a decade of the first settlement at Portland, swathes of the land south of the Murray River had been occupied by squatters. Squatting was the unauthorised creation of stock stations on vacant Crown Land. The establishment of pastoral properties was swift. In 1840, the Crown Lands Commissioner recorded 41 stations between Geelong and Portland. By the following year, the figure had increased to 88. The new settlers were naturally drawn to the Gunditjmara lands with their vast water resources.

The Gunditjmara understood that the newcomers were taking their land. When Chief Protector George Robinson visited the district, the Gunditjmara told him they were being pushed off and asked that he mediate with the squatters so that the Gunditjmara could stay on their country. The village on Mustons Creek is one example of the destruction that was caused. A shepherd had told Assistant Protector William Thomas that the local people were harmless and peacefully going about their lives, yet one day when the clan was out working, the squatters destroyed their settlement. As many as 30 houses were set on fire and demolished. To claim territory, squatters marked out boundaries. Encroachment on these boundaries was unwelcome. To secure the property, dispossession involved not only the destruction of habitations to ensure the Aboriginal occupants would not return, but also the demolishing of fish traps, weirs and other signs of settlement.

Tensions steadily rose, leading to what became known as the Eumeralla War. It is claimed that most Gunditjmara attacks were attempts to regain what they saw as a rightful share of European possessions. After all, Europeans were in their country and had offended their sense of reciprocity – of sharing the resources of the land equally. The initial response by the Gunditjmara to these incursions was to burn bush close to shepherds’ huts in an attempt to scare them. When this tactic did not work, the Gunditjmara started taking from the squatters what was most valuable to them: their sheep. The historian Richard Broome has contended that by adopting the tactic of targeting sheep, they were waging a form of economic warfare. A single sheep in Victoria at this time had cost up to £3 to buy and transport to the district – a considerable sum.

In time, large flocks of sheep were being driven off the stations by the Gunditjmara in numbers far higher than would be required for food. Stockmen would recover some of the lost flock but find the rest slaughtered or with their hind legs broken. With no soldiers and few police in the district, squatters and their servants (some of them hardened ex-convicts) took the law into their own hands by forming vigilante groups. A posse would ride out and exact retribution on the first group of Aboriginal people encountered. Retaliation led to a cycle of reciprocal violence. So persistent were the raids that in 1840 Eumeralla Station was temporarily abandoned.

For a period in 1841 tensions settled. A number of Gunditjmara had been attaching themselves to the stations, where men took work as station hands and women as servants. An uneasy peace simmered, until a second summer of drought in 1842 raised competition for resources, resulting in an uprising against the settlers.

Having worked around the stations, the Gunditjmara leaders were known to the settlers by English names, suchas Cold Morning, Jupiter, Cocknose, Bumbletoe, Jackey, and the Doctor. They had also learnt about shepherding livestock and building pens to keep them in. Following raids on stations, the Gunditjmara melted away into surrounding swamps or the crags and rocky outcrops around Budj Bim. It was difficult and dangerous terrain for a pursuer to enter on horseback.

Leading a group of twenty warriors, Jupiter raided Eumeralla Station in August 1842, assaulting a shepherd and making off with 1,000 sheep. Many of these sheep would be recovered, but a few days later Jupiter returned. This time he had gathered a party 150 strong. The station owner was ready and waiting with 25 heavily armed employees. Even so, after two waves of attacks, Jupiter’s men again made off with over 1,000 sheep. Following the trail of sheep carcasses, the station owner’s party pursued Jupiter into the rocky outcrops. A battle ensued and a handful of Jupiter’s men were killed or wounded, but half of the stolen sheep had been destroyed.

On 31 August 1842, The Portland Mercury reported on these “atrocities” and “outrages”. People on both sides had been killed in the confrontation and in four months some 3,500 sheep had been destroyed. In today’s currency, the value of the destroyed livestock would be over one million dollars. “The country might as well be in a state of civil war,” it was reported, “as few but the boldest of the Settlers will move from their home stations.” If government protection was not provided, the article warned, then “a cry for vengeance will shortly ring throughout the length and breadth of the land, the disastrous sating of which will long be remembered with horror and awe.”

A young squatter in the district during this period was the 17-year-old Thomas Alexander Browne. He later described the Eumeralla War in his memoir, Old Melbourne memories, under his pen name Rolf Boldrewood. The Gunditjmara, Browne wrote, were waging “guerilla warfare”. The squatters were at a desperate point.

We could not permit our cattle to be harried, our servants to be killed, and ourselves to be hunted out of the good land we had occupied by a few savages … Like all guerillas, moreover, their act of outrage took place sometimes in one part of a large district, sometime in another, the actors vanishing meanwhile, and reappearing with puzzling rapidity.

Reflecting on the Eumeralla War and the resistance put up by his people, Reg Saunders thought that “it was classic guerilla action. They attacked their enemy’s food sources, his crops and animals.” But in the end, “the weapons that defeated Napoleon were just a little too good for spears and boomerangs.”

It was the arrival of Native Police which brought an end to the conflict. Troopers were recruited mostly from the Kulin nation clans around Melbourne. They were highly skilled in tracking down other Aboriginal groups, that is, groups from outside the Port Phillip area that did not share their language or culture. Native Police were not used to intervene or resolve conflict among their own people. The Native Police, described by Browne as “irregular cavalry”, were mounted on horseback and were well armed. Still, it was not until 1846 that the Native Police managed to track and surround the elusive Jupiter and Cocknose, trapping them in a patch of tea-tree scrub. “Spears began to fly, and boomerangs,” recounted Browne, “but the wild men had little chance against their better-armed countrymen.” According to Browne, both Jupiter and Cocknose “were never seen alive again”.

Unrest continued over the following years, concluding in a massacre on the shores of Lake Condah at a place that became known as Murderers Flat. Decades after the Eumeralla War, the surviving Gunditjmara were settled on the government-run Condah Mission Station. Established in 1865, the mission provided refuge but not freedom. And while Lake Condah Mission was on traditional lands, the use of traditional language and rituals and customs that connected them to their land was forbidden. Mission managers controlled every aspect of residents’ lives.

The volume of Old Melbourne memories held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection belonged to Charles Bean. It sat in his study as he wrote the official histories of Australia in the First World War, documenting in detail battles in which descendants of the warriors of the Eumeralla War fought in the Australian Imperial Force. Following the outbreak of the First World War, many Gunditjmara men were determined to serve. Supposedly, the Defence Act prevented “persons who are not substantially of European origin or descent” from enlisting, but many Aboriginal men – including some from the small population at Lake Condah – succeeded in enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force.

The first from Lake Condah was Allan McDonald, who would go on to serve on Gallipoli with the 8th Light Horse Regiment. Others to follow included five of Hannah and James Lovett’s sons: Alfred, Leonard, Edward, Frederick and Herbert. Frederick was a member of the 4th Light Horse Regiment in Palestine; the other four all saw action on the Western Front. Another was James Arden, who was Reg Saunders’ maternal grandfather. It was from Arden that young Reg would later learn about the history of dispossession in the district. Reg’s father, Chris Saunders, served on the Western Front, as did his uncle, Reginald Rawlings, after whom Reg was named. Serving with the 29th Battalion, Rawlings was posthumously awarded the Military Medal for bravery during the heavy fighting at Morlancourt Ridge in France. During a trench raid on the night of 28–29 July 1918, Rawlings – as lead bayonet man – led a bombing team into the heavily defended German position. His commendation states that Rawlings “displayed rare bravery in the performance of his duty, killing many of the enemy, brushing aside all opposition and clearing the way effectively for the bombers of his team. His irresistible dash and courage set a wonderful example to the remainder of the team.” Rawlings did not survive to receive his award in person. The following week, he was killed in action during the bitter fighting on 9 August.

The motivations for enlistment by so many – not only from the Gunditjmara community, but other Aboriginal communities around Australia – are not clear. A deep spiritual connection to land was certainly a factor for many, who saw their service as protecting their land and community. For some there was a sense of loyalty and patriotism. For others, the attraction of a wage may have been a factor, or that joining the army provided a means to get away from the control of the reserves on which they lived. There would also have been some who enlisted in the belief that serving in the Australian Imperial Force might bring some equality in the aftermath. Speaking to a newspaper reporter when he arrived at the training camp in Ballarat, James Arden, alongside Richard King, said that they were “anxious to get to the front as soon as possible in order to fight for the Empire” and that “the natives at the Condah station felt that they were real Britishers, having been born under the Australian flag, and were willing to fight to a man if they were accepted by the military authorities.” Arden’s statement draws upon some common motivating factors, including ideas of patriotism, equality, and inclusion – but on behalf of the community at Lake Condah.

Several of those who returned from the First World War enlisted again during the Second World War. They include Allan McDonald, who was 52 when he enlisted in 1940, as well as Edward, Frederick and Herbert Lovett, who joined up alongside their brother Samuel, who had been too young for the First World War. The Lovett family has a remarkable record of service in the Australian military forces. In total, 23 members of the Lovett family have served in and survived the world wars, Korea and East Timor. They include Alice, who served in the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force, and Pearl, who served in the Australian Women’s Army Service. In honour of the family’s generations of service, Canberra’s tallest building, which housed the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, is named Lovett Tower.

Reg Saunders was followed into the Second AIF by his younger brother Harry. Serving in the 2/14th Battalion, Harry was killed in action during the fighting at Gona, in Papua, on 29 November 1942. Another from the community who did not return was Wally Alberts. Alberts was a Gunner in the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment, which fought with great distinction in Malaya. He was captured following the fall of Singapore, and later transported to Borneo as part of the large workforce sent by the Japanese to Sandakan. Alberts was killed on 31 March 1945, murdered by a Japanese guard during the death march.

While in the army, Aboriginal men found acceptance and were treated equally alongside non-Aboriginal Australians. However, despite their service and sacrifice for their nation, when they returned home after the war these veterans faced the same prejudices and inequality that had confronted them when they first left home. In particular, the soldier settlement scheme increased pressures to revoke, or take back, Crown Land that had been reserved for Aboriginal use. One historian has described Closer Settlement Schemes, including soldier settlement, as the “second dispossession” of Aboriginal people. Although no discriminatory regulations or laws existed, in practice the awarding of soldier settlements to Aboriginal soldiers was extremely rare. Despite having made applications, none of the Gunditjmara men received a block of land through the scheme. In the years following the First World War, Lake Condah mission was closed. Some families were uprooted and transferred to Lake Tyers station, some 600 kilometres away in eastern Victoria. All that was left by 1951 was St Mary’s Church and the cemetery. The rest had been divided up for soldier settlement blocks, but not for the original inhabitants of the land. The mission finally closed in 1959; perhaps the most heartbreaking event was the demolition of St Mary’s, which had been built by Gunditjmara men and had become the centre of the community.

From frontier wars to world wars, the proud “fighting Gunditjmara” have fought for country, for nation and for survival. And survive they have. “We were the first defenders of Australia,” Reg Saunders once said. “The English never ever defended Australia at all, we did, and we suffered very badly for that, decimated to hell.” Following the overruling in 1992 of the legal fiction of “terra nullius” (the doctrine that Australia was vacant when Europeans arrived), the remaining mission lands around Lake Condah have been returned to the Gunditjmara community. In 2004 the Australian government’s Department for the Environment recognised the importance of the Budj Bim landscape, creating the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape and adding it to the National Heritage List. After a long battle, both in the courtroom and out, the Victorian government awarded the Gunditjmara native title in 2008. Bordering the Mount Eccles National Park, and managed by local communities, the rivers, lakes and swamps that formed the engineered wetlands in which the Gunditjmara thrived are being restored for future generations. In 2019 the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

This article was originally published in Issue 76 of Wartime magazine; Defending Country. You can purchase a copy from the Memorial shop.