John Murray (23 February 1827 – 30 July 1876) was a Scottish officer in the Australian native police in the British colonies of New South Wales and Queensland. He was an integral part of this paramilitary force for nearly twenty years, supporting European colonisation in south-eastern, central and northern Queensland. He also had a role in recruiting troopers for the Native Police from the Riverina District in New South Wales.
Early life John Murray was born on 23 February 1827 at his family's Georgefield estate near Langholm in southern Scotland. His grandfather was Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Murray of the East India Company who married a Malayali woman named Contity from Kerala while in India. The offspring of this marriage, including John's father James Murray, were collectively dubbed the "Black Murrays" on account of their darker skin colour.
In 1843, at the age of sixteen, John Murray arrived in New South Wales with his parents and siblings. After initially living in Sydney, John's father chose to become a pastoralist, moving his family to the Warrawang property at Mt Lambie near Bathurst.
Squatter Around 1848, John Murray decided to become a pastoral squatter in his own right and chose to go to the frontier region of Wide Bay-Burnett in the north of the colony to obtain land. Murray occupied the Woolooga run about 40 kilometers west of Gympie. To the south was Widgee Widgee taken up by the Tooth brothers, to the south-west Kilkivan occupied by J D MacTaggart, further south was John Mortimer on Manumbar- who unlike Murray and many of his neighbours enjoyed a good relationship with local Aboriginal people- and to the north-west was Henry Cox Corfield's Gigoomgan run.
On 7 June 1852 Murray's sister Jessie married his neighbour Henry Cox Corfield, by which time Corfield had sold out his Gigoomgan run and moved further north to Teebar, 50 kilometers west of Maryborough. It is here in 1853 that Jessie Murray Cox Corfield died- probably in childbirth- and was buried on the property.
Both Pedley and Logan write that Woolooga was occupied by the Murray brothers (John and James) from the late 1840s. Pedley also writes that it was John Murray's brother who Murray referred to in May 1849 when he wrote an appeal for help to his Kilkivan neighbour MacTaggart, hastily scrawled on the fly leaf of a book, "Dear MacTaggart, make all haste. Frank is dead and a lot of sheep taken. J Murray." Official correspondence gives the name as Francis Callaghan and Murray, in his deposition in December 1850, does not mention that James was his brother.
It would appear that neither of the Murray brothers ever legitimised their occupation of Woolooga. As such, unlike their brother in law Corfield, they were unable to sell the property and simply had to walk away. Before that occurred a stroke of fortune befell John Murray that would lead to a career lasting the next 19 years.
In November 1850, the Native Police started to enter the Wide Bay area. Lieutenant Richard Marshall was stationed on Woolooga and he and John Murray seem to have struck up a mutually supportive financial, military, and media relationship,. In December Lieutenant George Fulford also arrived and was stationed at Gigoomgan. Marshall and Fulford, with the aid of armed settlers including John Murray and H.C. Corfield, conducted attacks against local Aboriginals.
Murray described one of these attacks in a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald. He wrote that on 14 December, he participated in attacks led by Marshall and his troopers upon the Aboriginal owners of Widgee and Kilkivan. At the conclusion of the attacks, lasting more than an hour, Murray stated that "the blacks suffered severely" and that they had been "taught a lesson which will show them their inferiority in war". He went on the laud the NMP writing "The duties of the native police are most arduous and the squatters are unanimous in saying that the officers are very ill paid for the hard and dangerous service in which they are employed. Surely, from the large funds paid by the squatters (but not by Murray, obviously) to the government a considerable increase in salary might be afforded."
Interestingly, that exact same sentiment that Murray had included in his SMH letter, "inferiority in war", was also used by MacTaggart of Kilkivan and by Arthur Brown, in depositions sworn at Woolooga before R. P. Marshall J.P. aka Lieutenant Marshall of the NMP. It would appear that Murray, Marshall and MacTaggart were conspiring in the evidence that they were providing to the Crown and the media.
The obvious problem that arises from the language of Murray et al. of making war against the Aboriginal owners of the land is that the owners of the land were simply not permitted to wage war in return. The moment Australia was claimed for the Crown, all Aboriginal inhabitants became subjects, not foreign combatants, and the laws of war and its protections were not extended to them. Any resistance to European colonisation was couched in terms of criminal behaviour, while those responsible for enforcing colonial law, the Native Mounted Police, were frequently brutal in their treatment of Aboriginal prisoners.
Moreover, from 1848/9 the Crown had insisted that all leases must be predicated on dual use. Aboriginal rights to continue their traditional way of life were a requirement of European occupation. Hence, denial of these inherent rights by definition violated the terms of the lease agreement. The shooting of Aboriginal people en masse by Murray and his neighbours and driving them from their lands would constitute denial of rights of use.
Having thus established good relationships with NMP officers Marshall and Fulford, having publicly praised Commandant Walker and the NMP, and having proven himself capable of carrying out the work of teaching Aboriginal people "their inferiority in war" Murray was appointed as an officer in the NMP, where for the next 19 years he would perpetrate one massacre after another across Queensland.
Joins Native Police Even though it appears that Murray lived on Woolooga up to 1852, he had never met the conditions to hold the rights to the property and in late 1850 it was declared a vacant run. In February 1852, in addition to being appointed as a government magistrate at Gayndah, Murray, on the recommendation of Frederick Walker, was also appointed as Lieutenant of the 4th Division of the Native Police which covered the Wide Bay-Burnett district.
Murray was initially posted to the Dawson River region where he and his troopers were affected heavily by illness. Due to this, Murray was unable to conduct punitive missions against Aboriginals over the killing of squatter Adolphus Trevethan at Rawbelle in March 1852. Lieutenant Marshall eventually carried out this operation a month later. In August 1852, Murray and his division shot dead at least three Aboriginals in the Upper Burnett River who had allegedly murdered a shepherd under the employ of James Mackay. In September, a number of Native Police under Murray, killed a number of Aboriginals at Hawkwood after Murray attempted to seized eight or nine of them and they rushed the troopers and tried to pull them off their horses. He was, at this time, also involved in arresting recalcitrant and absconding imported Chinese "coolie" labourers for the European pastoralists in the area. Ironically, William Powell, the first legal occupier of Woolooga, complained that Aboriginal people there were helping indentured workers on the stations to abscond.
By May 1853, newspaper columnists exalted the efforts of Lieutenants Murray and Marshall in subduing legitimate Aboriginal resistance in the Burnett region "...these courageous and indefatigable officers marched their men, subduing tribe after tribe, recovering thousands of sheep, carried away by the wild savage. Protecting one station from incendiarism, another from murder, taking and shooting hosts of murderers, never stopping, never tiring, until every station in the Burnet district was as secure as those within 100 miles of Sydney, ".
Deployment to Port Curtis In November 1853, Murray with twelve troopers arrived at Port Curtis to protect the formation of the township of Gladstone. Prominent squatter James Leith Hay, accompanied by Native Police Commandant Frederick Walker, overlanded to the settlement not long after with what was supposed to be the first bales of wool to be shipped from the new port, but these had been destroyed by Aboriginals along the way. Walker had advised Murray to establish a barracks for the Native Police at Auckland Creek near the projected town of Gladstone, as this area had a reliable source of water.
Just as he would on the Calliope River, at Murray Lagoon in Rockhampton and later at the convergence of Attie and Meunga Creeks near Cardwell, the place that Murray chose to establish his base was an area àbout 3 miles upstream in Auckland Creek, beyond a natural causeway which marked the dividing line between salt and fresh water. Here a natural fresh water lagoon, the Thirty Foot Waterhole, provided Murray with a reliable supply of fresh water. In the process, Murray, like a medieval crusader building a castle to dominate a trade route, was able to control the landscape and deny to the indigenous owners of the land the use of a vital economic asset; the water, fish, fowl, tortoises, plant life and game that was attracted to the area. As the Gladstone regional Council states on the signs erected at the Lions Park at Police Creek, "As a dependable freshwater reserve in one of the driest coastal regions in the land this waterhole was important to local Aboriginal people for many generations prior European settlement. As their traditional lands and ways of life were gradually lost, the waterhole served as an important camp-site in the early years of colonial settlement." The usurpation of such a vital economic resource is, by definition, conflict. (Signage at Lions Park, Police Creek. Gladstone Regional Council.)
To their eternal credit, the Gladstone Council goes further, detailing the impact of the Murray's NMP. It is worth quoting at length because it is one of the truly rare instances where there is any in situ acknowledgement of the existence and impact of the NMP. The Council writes, "Who were the Native Mounted Police? The influx of colonial settlers in the 1800's sparked conflict with many Indigenous groups who sought to protect their land and livelihood. The Native Mounted Police were established to address the problem and pave the way for colonial settlement. A Native Mounted troop typically comprised 12 Aboriginal troopers under the command of three white officers. They were appointed by the government of the day, trained in horsemanship, and the use of firearms, and issued with uniforms, rifles, pistols and swords. The Aboriginal troopers were recruited from distant tribes and put to work in regions where they had no connection with the local Indigenous people- who they saw as traditional enemies rather than fellow countrymen. While the role of the Native Police was officially to "pacify" or "disperse" Aboriginal people, in reality they were closer to a paramilitary force. The Native Mounted Police were responsible for several massacres in the Gladstone region. Though conducted in response to Aboriginal resistance and attacks on settlers, the Native Police were indiscriminate in their retribution- killing men, women and children. Though not documented, Aboriginal people have long spoken of a massacre that took place near here in the mid 1800's." (Signage at Lions Park, Police Creek. Gladstone Regional Council.)