A bloody part of Australian history has been examined at Bathurst in central NSW on the 193rd anniversary of its declaration of martial law.
Martial law was declared across the Bathurst region on August 14, 1824, leading to a sharp rise in conflict between settler society and the Wiradjuri peoples.
Wiradjuri elders and others yesterday marked the anniversary with an inaugural ceremony at Bathurst's Bicentennial Peace Park.
A history of bloodshed
Between 1820 and 1824, the white population increased tenfold in the Bathurst region, from 114 to 1,267.
With their traditional hunting grounds destroyed, the Wiradjuri people became increasingly involved in skirmishes with white farmers.
The proclamation of martial law by governor Thomas Brisbane ordered any retaliatory bloodshed be stopped by any means necessary, with the use of firearms against the Wiradjuri in the area west of Mount York on the Great Dividing Range.
Author Bruce Elder, who wrote Blood on the Wattle, which details the massacres and mistreatment of Aboriginal Australians since 1788, said martial law was "used to justify every atrocity and every massacre".
"The cynicism of the frontier had created a new ethic — Aboriginal people could be shot with impunity [and] murder would have no legal repercussions," Mr Elder said.
He said because the Wiradjuri were one of the largest language groups in Australia, they previously had no great conflict with other people.
But when settler numbers increased dramatically, they realised "there was a kind of theft going on".
The Potato Field Incident and other massacres
In early March 1824, a farmer showed a group of Wiradjuri people how to cook potatoes in what has become known as the Potato Field Incident.
Under the belief that the potatoes were growing on their tribal lands, the Wiradjuri people felt they had a customary right to the produce.
Upon their return, the white farmer, who misunderstood the situation, gathered neighbours to slaughter an unreported number of "thieving blacks".
Mr Elder's book details other massacres including in Billywillinga about 20km north-west of Bathurst.
Unaware of the dangers of martial law, a group of Wiradjuri people approached a party of soldiers who were offering food.
In minutes about 30 were shot dead.
In another massacre during the period of martial law, Wiradjuri peoples who were camped on the escarpment at Bells Falls Gorge were encircled by soldiers and given the option of jumping into the falls or facing gunfire.
Some 20 to 30 people perished.
Windradyne and guerrilla warfare
During this period, Aboriginal warrior Windradyne was leading Wiradjuri warriors in guerrilla warfare against the European settlers.
Bathurst-based Wiradjuri elder Dinawan Dyirribang, who is descended from Windradyne, said for the Aboriginal people it was warfare because martial law was an English concept that was never communicated to the Wiradjuri peoples.
"They said they were enforcing their law, but the Wiradjuri were also enforcing their own law because they never surrendered their sovereignty," he said.
"So Windradyne is seen as a law man because all he was doing was enforcing Wiradjuri law, and the white man didn't take too kindly to that I suppose."
From past to present
Mr Dyirribang, along with the Bathurst Wiradjuri elders and the local branch of the National Trust, helped organise yesterday's inaugural commemoration, which was attended by about 50 people.
A smoking ceremony was held followed by a yarn up around a circle, during which people could express how they felt about the martial law declaration and its impact throughout history.
"There are a lot of bad things that have happened in history … [which] were not right, but we need to learn from the past to be able to move forward," Mr Dyirribang said.
He said it made him angry at times to think about what he and generations before him had lost, and the pain was felt acutely to this day.
"I carry the scars of what happened 193 years ago," he said.
"Living next to descendants of early settlers they carry the guilt, [and] the only way to move forward is if we hold truth and reconciliation of how this affected us all."
Mr Dyirribang and the National Trust Bathurst branch plan to mark the martial law proclamation annually, building to the 200th anniversary in 2024.
Bathurst's National Trust chairman Iain McPherson said it was important Bathurst's past was brought into the future in order to foster reconciliation.
"The imposition of martial law was one of the steps of a very brutal period of time of Australia's history that we can't keep ignoring," Mr McPherson said.
Elder-in-training Yanhadarrambal said he would like to see a council and government-funded event to commemorate the day across NSW because it marked the start of an era of dispossession and ongoing violence.
"As an elder-in-training, part of my responsibility is to learn about this place here and the importance of what happened here, the good and the bad," he said.
