Caledon Bay crisis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Caledon Bay crisis refers to a series of killings at Caledon Bay in the Northern Territory of Australia during 1932–34. These events are widely seen as a turning point in relations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

In 1932, members of a Japanese fishing boat crew — whom some accounts accuse of poaching trepang — abducted and raped a group of Yolngu women, in the Caledon Bay area of northeast Arnhem Land. The fishermen then attacked Yolngu men who came to rescue the women. In the resulting fight, five of the boat's crew were killed. In a related incident on Woodah Island, two white men named Fagan and Traynor were killed. A policeman investigating the deaths, Constable Albert McColl, was subsequently also killed by Yolngu people. According to witnesses, McColl handcuffed and raped a Yolngu woman, then fired his revolver at her husband, Takiara (or Dhaakiyarr), who responded to her cries for help.

The killings triggered panic in Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, generating fears that Aborigines — the majority of the population in the Territory at the time — might stage an uprising. A punitive expedition was proposed by police to "teach the blacks a lesson".^[1] (In 1928, during a previous "punitive expedition" in the Northern Territory, police had killed up to 110 Aboriginal men, women and children; an event known as the Coniston massacre.)

Many feared another such slaughter, and a party from the Church Missionary Society travelled to Arnhem Land and persuaded Takiara and three other men, who were sons of a Yolngu elder, Wonggu, to return to Darwin with them for trial. In Darwin, to the horror of the missionaries, Takiara was sentenced to death by hanging, and the three other men were sentenced to twenty years hard labour. On appeal to the High Court of Australia, Takiara’s sentence was quashed,^[2] and he was released from jail, but disappeared. It was widely believed he had been lynched by police.

The resulting crisis threatened to bring about even more bloodshed. To defuse the situation, a young anthropologist, Donald Thomson, offered to investigate the causes of the conflict. He travelled to Arnhem Land, on a mission that many said would be suicidal, and got to know and understand the people who lived there. After seven months’ investigation he persuaded the Federal Government to free the three men convicted of the killings and returned with them to their own country, living for over a year with their people, documenting their culture.

He formed a strong bond with the Yolngu people, and in 1941 he persuaded the Army to establish a special reconnaissance force of Yolngu men know as the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, including Wonggu and his sons, to help repel Japanese raids on the northern coastline of Australia.

The historian Henry Reynolds has suggested that the Caledon Bay crisis "was a decisive moment in the history of Aboriginal-European relations. The High Court condemned frontier justice, the punitive expedition did not ride into Yolngu country and there had been an unprecedented outburst of public sentiment demanding a new deal for Indigenous Australians."

References

↑ Howard Morphy, 2005, "Mutual Conversion? The Methodist Church and the Yolŋu, with particular reference to Yirrkala", Humanities Research, vol. XII, no. 1, p. 43]
↑ Tuckiar v R (1934) HCA 49; (1934) 52 CLR 335 (8 November 1934) HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

External links

Thomson, D., & Peterson, N., 1983, “Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land”, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne. Revised ed. publ. 2003, ISBN 0-522-85063-4
Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda The first Aboriginal Australian whose case was heard in the High Court Archived 6 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine at the National Archives of Australia
ATSIC The First Reconciliation Act

v t e Indigenous Australians

Peoples	Aboriginal Australians Communities Groups Torres Strait Islanders Tasmanian Aborigines

People	Activists Musicians People from politics and public service Performing artists Sportspeople Visual artists Western Australians Writers

Culture	Astronomy Avoidance Bora Corroboree Deadly Awards Deities Dreaming Dreamtime Enumeration Indigenous Protected Area Kinship Kurdaitcha Marn Grook Message stick Mythology NAIDOC Outstation movement Riji Seasons Smoking ceremony Songlines Tjurunga Torres Strait Islands Woggabaliri

Languages	Avoidance speech Australian Aboriginal English Gunwinyguan languages Kriol Language Groups Pama-Nyungan languages Sign languages Placenames Loanwords into English Torres Strait Island languages

Organisations	ATSIC Aboriginal Medical Service Aborigines Advancement League Aborigines Progressive Association AIATSIS Australian Aborigines' League Central Land Council Media National Congress of Australia's First Peoples National Indigenous Council Northern Land Council Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations TSRA Reconciliation Australia

Bushcraft	Boomerang Buka Bush bread Bushfood Bush medicine Coolamon Fibrecraft Fire-stick farming Food groups Possum-skin cloak Scar tree Shelter Soaks Spinifex resin Sweet foods Waddy Woomera

Arts	Artifacts Bark painting Contemporary visual art Dance Didgeridoo Music Music groups NATSIA Award Papunya Tula Rock Sandpainting Vibe Visual art

History	1946 Pilbara strike Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976 Caledon Bay Crisis Cummeragunja walk-off Day of Mourning Gurindji strike Historical figures History King plates Massacres Missions Native Police Pintupi Nine Prehistory Tasmania Tent Embassy Western Australia

Issues	Aboriginal deaths in custody Crime Land rights Media portrayal Native title Northern Territory National Emergency Response Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Stolen Generations Petrol sniffing

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.