WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

The rolling frontier had finally broken through the impenetrable limestone ranges of
the Devonian reef with the death of one of the Bunuba's finest warriors.
Other resistance fighters
Conflict between Europeans and Aboriginal people was endemic on the frontier of
European settlement (Reynolds 2003). As the wave of European settlement moved
south and north from the colony of New South Wales it took many forms from
passive resistance through to large-scale violent action, and was highly influenced by
the terrain on which it occurred (Reynolds 1982; Pedersen 2000; Grassby and Hill
1988; Connor 2002). Jandamarra is one of 11 Aboriginal resistance fighters identified
in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). Others include: Pemulwuy,
Windradyne and Musquito (New South Wales); Dundalli (Queensland); Eumarrah
and Tarenorerer (Tasmania); Yagan and Calyute (Western Australia); Nemarluk and
Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda (Northern Territory).
The rolling frontier of European settlement in the west Kimberley was very different
to that experienced in the south and east over the preceding 100 years. The place's
remoteness and lawlessness; the new developments in weaponry and the new ideas
about the inevitability of the colonising project in which Indigenous people were
deemed to be 'inferior' and doomed to die out, contributed to a different colonising
frontier. Jandamarra grew up in this new and different frontier, combining his intimate
knowledge of both European and Aboriginal worlds creating a formidable adversary
and powerful Aboriginal resistance leader. His skills in using the new, more accurate,
multi-shot, rapid-fire weapons and his understanding of military tactics developed as a
police tracker were shared with his countrymen and women creating a resistance force
much feared by the colonising project.
Aboriginal people believed Jandamarra had Jalnggangurru (magic) power that
allowed him to 'to defy police bullets, escaping human mortality (Pedersen and
Woorunmurra 1995, 9). The spirit of his 'life' could only be destroyed by another
person of similar magical power with murderous intent. His successes attracted other
like-minded Aboriginal people to join the resistance and brought a severe response
from authorities who threw enormous resources into efforts to capture Jandamarra. A
quarter of the State's police force were sent to the northwest to put down the
Jandamarra-led Bunuba resistance, where only one per cent of the European
population lived (Pedersen 2007). Lowe (1994) describes Jandamarra's campaign as
the last large scale violent resistance in Australia's cultural history.
Pemulwuy, a Kamay (Botany Bay) Eora leader; Musquito, also an Eora man from the
north side of Port Jackson and Windradyne, a Wiradjuri resistance fighter, all listed in
the ADB, fought a dispersed settlement frontier in the early days of the New South
Wales colony. All of the men used traditional weapons in their attacks on settlers.
Windradyne led one of many raiding Wiradjuri parties that attacked setters across a
wide area west of the Blue Mountains. As the British advanced through the vast
Wiradjuri lands, each group fought the invasion in their turn, 'country by country'.
There is no record of either the Eora or Wiradjuri leaders using firearms in their
conflict with settlers. The Wiradjuri resistance was short lived.
Tarenorerer, a Tommeginne woman led a resistance movement in Tasmania for a
short time. She is the only other listed resistance fighter in the ADB who is recorded
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