16/07/2026
COLONIALS LOVE SEEING COOK BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING but it was the Governors who invaded lands and began the massacres.
Governor Lachlan Macquarie's regiments were ordered to pursue and fire upon any Aboriginal people who attempted to escape apprehension as the soldiers scoured the settled and unsettled areas about Sydney.
The governor declared that Aboriginal men shot and killed during such encounters were to be hung from trees in prominent positions, to strike fear and terror amongst the surviving Aboriginal population.
For example, in his instructions to Captain Schaw of the 46th Regiment, Macquarie stated:
"On any occasion of seeing or falling in with the Natives, either in bodies or singly, they are to be called on, by your friendly Native Guides, to surrender themselves to you as Prisoners of War. If they refuse to do so, make the least show of resistance, or attempt to run away from you, you will fire upon and compell them to surrender, breaking and destroying the spears, clubs, and waddies of all those you take Prisoners.
Such Natives as happen to be killed on such occasions, if grown up men, are to be hanged up on trees in conspicuous situations, to strike the Survivors with the greater terror. On all occasions of your being obliged to have recourse to offensive and coercive measures, you will use every possible precaution to save the lives of the Native Women and Children, but taking as many of them as you can Prisoners."
The bodies of slain warriors were also decapitated, though in secret, and their heads sent off to museums in Europe.
Camps were created to house those people captured, whilst prisoners were transported to penal establishments such as Port Arthur and children were taken from families and tribes for re-education.
Gatherings of six or more Aborigines were declared illegal, customary practice was outlawed, as was the carrying of spears, and the non-Aboriginal civilian population was granted permission to shoot and kill those Aborigines who did not adhere to the tenets of the various proclamations issued by government.
The campaign - or "service" as Macquarie called it - was to be executed with "secrecy and despatch" (Organ 1989).
This brutal and barbaric action on the part of the authorities was also to make it clear to the rest of the population that the Aboriginal people were to be treated in a manner which would ensure the security of the ever expanding settlement.
'Secret Service: Governor Macquarie's Aboriginal War of 1816' by Michael K. Organ - University of Wollongong
Available Online (with references) in PDF format: https://goo.gl/95qWHm
MEME SOURCE: Top part of the meme is from a photo taken of the colonial description at base of a statue of Lachlan Macquarie at the southern end of Macquarie Street, Sydney. The bottom sentence is from one of his orders - photoshopped by Sovereign Union.
