K'gari
K'gari, also known by its former name Fraser Island, is a World Heritage-listed sand island along the south-eastern coast in the Wide Bay–Burnett region of Queensland, Australia. The island lies approximately north of the state capital, Brisbane, and is within the Fraser Coast Region local council area. The world heritage listing includes the island, its surrounding waters and parts of the nearby mainland which make up the Great Sandy National Park. In the, the island had a population of 152. Up to 500,000 people visit the island each year.
The island is part of the traditional lands of the Butchulla people, under the traditional name of "K'gari". European settlers who arrived in 1847 named the island "Fraser Island" after Captain James Fraser, master of Stirling Castle, who was shipwrecked and died on the island in early August 1836. On 7 June 2023, the island was officially renamed K'gari by the state government.
History
Traditional owners
The lands that include the current day island have been inhabited from between 5,000 and 50,000 years ago by the Butchulla people. Originally attached to the mainland, K'Gari became an island 10,00020,000 years ago due to rising seas.The K'gari creation story, as told by elder of the Butchulla people, Olga Miller, is that Yendingie came down from the sky and set to work to make the sea and then the land until, when he arrived at the area now known as Hervey Bay, he was joined by a helper a beautiful white spirit called Princess K'gari. Tired by their work together he changed her into a beautiful island, then:
Butchulla is the language of the Fraser Coast region, including the island. Butchulla language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of the Fraser Coast Regional Council, particularly the towns of Maryborough and Hervey Bay extending south towards Noosa.
Archaeological research and evidence shows that Aboriginal Australians occupied K'gari at least 5,000 years ago. There was a permanent population of 400–600 that grew to 2,000–3,000 in the winter months due to abundant seafood resources. Conflict with European settlers and disease reduced the population from 435 in 1872 to 230 in 1880. Most of these people were taken off the island in 1904 and relocated to missions in Yarrabah and Durundur.
It is estimated that up to 500 indigenous archaeological sites are located on the island.
British exploration (1770–1840s)
Initial European contact was limited to explorers and shipwrecks. The first recorded Briton to sight K'gari was James Cook who passed along the coast of the island between 18 and 20 May 1770. He named it Indian Head after viewing a number of Aboriginal people gathered on the headland. After Cook's passage an Aboriginal song was composed to commemorate the event. This was later recognised as the first preserved oral testimony of Indigenous observation of Europeans. Matthew Flinders sailed past the island in 1799, and again in 1802, this time landing at Sandy Cape, while charting Hervey Bay. His 1814 chart is a combination of both voyages, but did not confirm K'gari as being separate from the mainland. However, Flinders did suggest the presence of shallow swampy areas at the lower part of the bay. Flinders was told of an opening at Hook Point, between K'gari and the mainland, by two American whalers who were hunting whales in Hervey Bay. In 1842, Andrew Petrie recorded good pastoral lands and forests, attracting graziers to the region. Lieutenant Robert Dayman was the first European to sail between K'gari and the mainland in 1847.Shipwreck; Eliza Fraser (1836)
Captain James Fraser and his wife, Eliza Fraser, of England, were shipwrecked on the island in 1836. Their ship, the brig Stirling Castle, set sail from Sydney to Singapore with 18 crew and passengers. The ship was holed on coral while travelling through the Great Barrier Reef north of the island. Transferring to two lifeboats, the crew set a course south, attempting to reach the settlement at Moreton Bay. During this trip in the leaking lifeboats, Eliza Fraser was possibly pregnant; giving birth in water up to her waist; the infant drowned after birth. The Captain's lifeboat began sinking and was soon left behind by the second one, which continued on. The wrecked boat and its crew was beached on what was then known as the Great Sandy Island.Captain Fraser died, leaving his wife Eliza and the second mate Mr Baxter living among the local peoples. Eliza and Baxter were found six weeks later by a convict, John Graham, who had lived in the bush as an escapee and who spoke the Aboriginal language. He was sent from the settlement at Moreton Bay by the authorities there who had heard about their plight, and negotiated their return.
Within six months, Eliza had married another sea captain. She returned to England and became a sideshow attraction in Hyde Park, telling ever more lurid tales about her experiences with the enslavement of the crew, cannibalism, torture, and murder. As she is known to have told several versions of the story, it is unknown which version was most accurate. It has been suggested that she was killed in a carriage accident during a visit to Melbourne in 1858.
Fraser's stories were disputed, by other survivors at the time and afterwards. On her return to England, Fraser appealed for money to the Lord Mayor of London, claiming to be a penniless widow in need, but the subsequent inquiry revealed that prior to leaving Sydney she had both remarried an English captain with whom she returned, and also there received a large sum of charitable funds in light of her ordeal.
Frontier conflict (1851–1860)
Non-Indigenous settlement of the traditional Butchulla mainland area began in 1847, sparking frontier conflict. Violence between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people was reported. In October 1850, it was reported "blacks had driven away 2000 sheep from a station about forty miles from here, and had killed a shepherd". In 1851, a small government-led force including Commandant Frederick Walker and a contingent of the Native Police were called in "for the purpose of endeavouring to apprehend some aboriginal natives who stand charged with various offences, and who have hitherto found shelter in the scrub" of 'Fraser's Island'. Frontier war was anticipated, condoned, and facilitated by the government, with Walker receiving advice from the Attorney-General of New South Wales, John Hubert Plunkett saying, "It must, unhappily, be expected that the proposed attempt at arrest may lead to a warlike conflict and perhaps to loss of life, but the aim of the law must not be paralysed by the expectation of such results".The force included Walker, Lieutenant Richard Marshall, Sergeant Doolan, three divisions of troopers, and armed locals including James Leith Hay, aboard a schooner. A boat reputedly stolen by "the blacks from Maryborough" was captured along the way. The force landed on the west coast of the island where the divisions split up. During the night, conflict began and a number of Indigenous people were shot and others captured. The weather was bad and Commandant Walker allowed his division to track down other groups without him. This group tracked a group of Indigenous people across the island to the east coast where they pursued them into the open ocean near Indian Head/Tacky Waroo to an unknown fate. After months of conflict, the force returned to Maryborough in early January 1852 and Captain Currie received a reward of £10 for his contribution. According to Native Police reports, operations on Fraser's Island during 24 December 1851 and 3 January 1852 were lawful, and only two Indigenous people were killed while attacking Walker's police party on the night of 27 December 1851. Academics as well as community advocates have demonstrated that the word dispersed was often used regardless of the actual results of clashes between Native Police and Indigenous Australians and the pursuing of Indigenous people into the sea at Indian Head/Tacky Waroo was most likely a massacre as the relevant report states that the Butchulla were "dispersed into the sea".
British commissioners stationed in Maryborough reported non-Indigenous occupants felt threatened by Butchulla people. In 1857, a Native Police barracks under the command of Lieutenant John O'Connell Bligh was established at Coopers Plains, now Owanyilla, not far from Maryborough. Bligh conducted further forays into Fraser's Island, Cooloola, and in the town of Maryborough itself.