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[oval stamp, left of centre] COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE, QUEENSLAND 02383 / 15 MAR 89
[oval stamp, right of centre] COMMISSIONER OF POLICE. QUEENSLAND 04,188 / 19 MAR 89
[written at top, in red ink] D Hart In re manner in which the Blacks are treated on the Mossman River
Cool Shade - Mossman River
4th March 1889.
To the Honorable the Colonial Secretary
Brisbane
Sir,
As the oldest settler in the district I saw[?] by your Commissioner making inquiry on matters including the Blacks. I feel great pleasure in giving all information regarding their treatment when I first landed on the Coast up to date; from the Johnstone River up to the Annan I never saw less than from five to fifteen canoes and numerous blacks fishing along the coast. Since the land has been taken up you wont [sic] even see an old hulk; they have been driven away from their fishing grounds and driven to starvation where they have to commit depredation chiefly on unlegitimate [sic] selectors, that is people who take up ground and are compelled to leave their camp to seek a living somewhere else.
[written sideways, down left margin] To Commissioner of Police [initialled] J.M. 15 - 3 - 89
[written diagonally in left margin] Commr of Police B/C 15. 3. 89
[written in lower left margin] B.C. Inspector Stuart For inquiry Report [initialled] JW Cpol 21. 3. 89 _______
[oval stamp in bottom right] INSPECTOR OF POLICE D 110 : 89 27/3/89
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returning either at evening or at week end to their home when they find their rations gone and it is put on account of the blacks. Then they report to the police; then a dozen[?] trackers and troopers follow their tracks and disperse them with bullets, and there is no legitimate farmer that I heard to complain about being robbed by the blacks for the last fourteen years. There may be an exception of one or two having been speared, but we don't know what provocation may have been given to them before hand.
To prove that barbarism is going on yet towards the blacks amongst the white there is a Mr Robert McLean, a publican, who has an acre of ground of me, who is a manager for two different selections at Bayley's Creek, and who engaged a lot of Kanakas to fall fifty eight acres on each of this blocks of land. One of the boys named Johnson met one day on the beach near Bayley's Creek a small mob of blacks; he asked them to let come to live with him a gin that he saw amongst them.
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The supposed parents and relations agreed to let him have her; the said Johnson was cooking for the rest of the Contractors. When they all came to the camp, Johnson gave them food, tobacco, clothes, etc at his own expense, which is the usual thing done in such a case. The gin stopped with Johnson at the camp helping him. The gin stopped with him some seven months till the contract was finished. After the contract was finished, Mr Mc Lean made another agreement at 12 shillings a week to work on the farm. Mr Mc Lean, about Christmas time, took five bottles of whisky and a bottle of gin to the Kanakas. Johnson got drunk on the strength of it and told Mr Mc Lean next day that he was not fit to work on account of it. Mr Mc Lean ordered the gin to go to work threatening her with a stick; Johnson told Mr Mc Lean that he bought at his own expense all that the gin required and that Mr Mc Lean was not her boss. Then Mr Mc Lean told him he had no more work for him. Then Johnson had to leave Bayley's Creek, walk over land with the gin and to swim at the mouth of the Daintree River which is ????ing with alligators.
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When he made for the nearest camp which was John Nahlun's place. This John Nahlun is a naturalized Kanaka. in which place he stopped two weeks with the gin. One night at about midnight some one knocked at the door; Johnson opened the door, and a man with two troopers asked him if he had a gin - He answered - yes - the man with the troopers was Senior Constable Portley who is in charge of the native Police camp - Mr Portley told Johnson he had stolen the gin - He answered - No - the troopers were then called in, and they handcuffed the gin and put her in a boat. They took the gin and went up the river, where she was given to a boy named Lewis to look after her - this boy is running as captain Mr McLean's cutter. Mr McLean then ordered the boy Lewis to take the gin down to Snapper Island, which Island is about 3 miles outside the Daintree Heads and 12 miles from Port Douglas and leave her there - the boy left with her on the island a piece of bread and a jar of water and proceeded to Port Douglas for rations. The gin was left 16 hours on the island, and then taken from there to Bayley's Creek.
About the beginning of January, Mr McLean visited Bayley's Creek. Four Kanakas
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had gins whilst working for Mr McLean, and this [sic] gins are found in tobacco and clothes by the boys, as they did not care to work with gins naked - Very often, gins have been treated very badly at the camp, being beaten and even kicked if the would not go and work, by Mr McLean.
Mr McLean keeps a gin for the use of a Kanaka at his public house. Once Mrs McLean came to my camp when Mr McLean was away and asked me to come and protect her agains drunken Kanaks to whom she had given grog. On boxing night 5 or 6 Kanakas cleared the whole house of whitemen, one Willie Ford, Peter Egers and others -
I have made complaints before to Inspector Morrisset and also to the Sergeant of Police, and to the Major Fanning and to the Present Magistrate - As I could not get any satisfactory answer from them I have been compelled to write to you and I hope that you will cause full inquiry to be made about the matter -
I am, Sir Your obedient servant Daniel Hart.