Chapter 9
On 10 June 1849, Grey wrote to Fitzroy informing him that Port Essington was to be abandoned, since it had failed to realise the advantages expected from its formation (CO 202/56: Grey to Fitzroy 10.6.1849). On 12 November the news reached the forlorn garrison when H.M.S. Maeander arrived to expedite the relief, and was met with much rejoicing. The settlement was destroyed by fire, as the archaeological evidence has confirmed, and Captain Keppel (1854:490) related that this was done on orders to prevent any re-use of the buildings. On 1 December 1849, led by the band, the garrison marched to the jetty for the last time and embarked for Sydney. Unimpressed by the pomp and circumstance, the Aborigines scavenged among the ruins, while McArthur turned his back on eleven years in the Australian tropics.
The earlier chapters have outlined the reasons given for the formation of the settlement at Port Essington and the ways in which these failed to come to fruition. Speculations on whether Port Essington could ever have succeeded miss the point. If Port Essington had had another Raffles, if the administration and finance of the settlement had been more efficient, if the Anglo-Dutch treaties had been better implemented in practice, are questions that blur the single fact that in terms of the overriding political considerations given to drawing a ring-fence about the Australian coastline, then Port Essington was a success despite the costs. It was not a question of whether other powers had designs on Australia by the late 1830s, but rather that the British government thought they did.
Port Essington, then, can be seen as a successful political manoeuvre which extends Blainey’s (1966:82-96) concept of the limpet ports of the 1820s well into the 1840s. That the settlement lingered beyond 1845, by which time the French threat had diminished, with France transferring its interests to the Pacific, is best explained by the problems of communication which plagued the settlement from the beginning. A second reason was the lingering importance of a northern land base for the surveying voyages which were carried on in northern Australian waters between 1837 and 1849. This fact was recognised before the expedition left England in 1838 (Adm. 2/1695: Barrow to Bremer 30.1.1838) and was alluded to throughout the lifetime of the settlement (e.g. HDL SL24: Wickham to Beaufort 27.8.1839; CO 201/320: Stokes to Gipps 19.3.1842 in Gipps to Stanley 5.5.1842; AONSW 4783 Lambrick letter books In Letters: Commissariat Office Sydney to Lambrick 3.4.1846). In addition, Port Essington did prove a haven for some shipwrecked crews. In 1841 the crew of the Montreal reached the settlement (HDL SL.15P: Stanley to Beaufort 1.11.1844) and in 1843 the survivors of the Hyderabad and Coringa Packet arrived in Port Essington (McIntosh 1958:14). In April 1846 the Heroine struck a reef and foundered on a voyage to Port Essington. The survivors were carried to Port Essington in the Enchantress and Sapphire (RMAP Port Essington Correspondence: McArthur to Owen 23.5.1846; Essenhigh 1846:550–1). In general, however, the settlement was too far from the Barrier Reef, the cause of most disasters.
Amongst the survivors of the Heroine who reached Port Essington was a Roman Catholic priest, Father Angelo Confalionieri, who had embarked with two lay brothers to begin missionary work amongst the Aborigines of northern Australia (Christie 1943). Despite the loss of both assistants and all his belongings, Don Angelo determined to continue his work, and given assistance by McArthur and the garrison, he quickly learnt the Aboriginal dialect in the area and went to live at Black Point where he became the first missionary in the north. Pottery and glass fragments c. 100 m south-east of the present ranger’s house perhaps marks the site of his dwelling. Despite his devotion he seems to have had little success with the Aborigines and two years later died, presumably of malaria. The pathos of his hardships at Port Essington was reflected in the account of his death given by MacGillivray (1852 I:157–8) who recounted how in his final delirium he died denying the existence of God.
During his brief time at Port Essington, Father Confalionieri travelled over much of the Cobourg Peninsula, mapping and recording Aboriginal tribal distributions and compiling a vocabulary of the local dialects. He also translated parts of the New Testament and prayers into the language of the people with whom he 1ived (Flynn 1963:48). The vault in the cemetery at present inscribed with the name of a German missionary is thought to contain his remains (see Chapter 2).
For McArthur, the perfunctory note of thanks which he received from the Admiralty (RMAP Port Essington Correspondence: Parker to McArthur 17.1.1851) could have been but small consolation for the apparently wasted years he spent at Port Essington. Yet under his guidance the tiny outpost continued to exist within, if not with, the hostile environment in which it was placed. The difficulties of his command were ones of distance, discipline and disinterest. These he faced with the only weapons at his disposal, the Books of Regulation and Revelation. If his view was limited, nevertheless by painful trial and error he helped demonstrate the problems of colonial expansion in tropical Australia, and some of the ways to overcome them.
This settlement together with its predecessor at Raffles Bay was responsible for introducing the buffalo which formed the nucleus of the large herds now in the Northern Territory, as well as the bantang cattle which range over the Cobourg Peninsula. With its experiments in horticulture it pointed up the limited potential of the area for any agricultural development, which even with a hundred years of technological improvement remains largely true today.
Perhaps the most lasting monument to the endeavour of the first Europeans at Port Essington lies in the fact that the settlement provided a base for investigations and observations into a number of fields of natural science, so much so that the Cobourg Peninsula is at present a flora and fauna reserve. Many residents and visitors wrote detailed accounts of the language, customs and habits of the Aborigines so that the area is among the best ethnologically documented area in north Australia (e.g. Keppel 1853; Sweatman ML A1725; Leichhardt 1847; Jukes 1847; MacGillivray 1852). 132
Within the settlement a number of people collected specimens of various forms of natural history from both the land and the sea. Despite Armstrong’s protestations about being unable to collect while at the settlement he did manage to send many specimens back to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (Mountford 1964:2–3).
An early visitor to the settlement was John Gilbert, one of Gould’s collectors who arrived at Port Essington in July 1840, on board the Gilmore and remained there until the following March. During this time he collected more than 200 specimens of birds representing 90 species, as well as insects, plants, reptiles, fish and mammals. While at the settlement he demonstrated that the huge mounds in the region (often 4.5 m high and 18 m in circumference at the base) were, as the Aborigines said, the nest-mounds of the jungle fowl, and not, as King and others had suggested, Aboriginal tumuli. The greatest prize, however, was the discovery of the Gouldian or painted finch (Peophila gouldiae) which was to become ‘the most prized example of its group in the world’ (Chisholm 1941:43–5).
The zoologist John MacGillivray made several visits to Port Essington on board H.M.S. Fly and H.M.S. Rattlesnake. While on board the former vessel, MacGillivray and another member of the ship’s company Lieutenant Ince, spent four months in the settlement and MacGillivray (1846) published an account of a collecting trip carried out at this time. In addition, the publication of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, undertaken by MacGillivray (1852) contained a number of appendices on vocabularies, birds and mollusca collected on the voyage, including specimens from Port Essington. T.H. Huxley was assistant surgeon on the Rattlesnake at this time, but apparently did little collecting at Port Essington. Jukes’ (1847) account of the voyage of the Fly contained similar appendices. Members of Dumont d’Urville’s expedition, as well as Leichhardt also collected in the vicinity of Port Essington. It has thus become a type area for aquatic and land animals, birds, and insects in northern Australia.
Like any other aspect of the discipline, historical archaeology can justify itself as an intellectual pursuit in the methodology it will develop for the analysis of the artefacts recovered by excavation. For any sense of lasting value, however, it must widen our perspectives of the past. Almost 15 years ago Harrington (1955:1124) observed that excavations on historic sites contributed historical data in considerable quantities but resulted in little history. While the same might be said of much historical research that uses only documents, the resolution of this problem always lies in the interpretation of the evidence, be it a governor’s despatch or a gunflint. The differences in research techniques and aims in archaeology and documentary history are highlighted in this study, where both sources of evidence are abundant but have frequently met only peripherally.
Some differences are obvious because of the nature of the evidence. The documentary historian frequently deals with the individual and the particular event, or sets of them, while the archaeologist examines general trends and ‘culture’. We might pursue these sorts of differences ad nauseam, but they need not concern us here too long. This is not to say they are not important but rather that they are well understood (see for example Atkinson 1960: Wainwright 1962). Arguments as to whether archaeology is history or science or anthropology (for archaeology as anthropology see Willey and Phillips 1958:2; Binford 1962b) suggest that archaeologists who limit themselves to a rigid point of view on such matters are denying the fundamental potential of the discipline. The rapid development of scientific techniques in a dozen disciplines that border archaeology, the socio-cultural emphasis of anthropology and the written word all demand that archaeologists adopt an integrated approach to their subject, modifying their research techniques to any given situation. The prehistoric archaeologist in Australia must use the information of the geologists and palaeobotanists but equally he must attend to the wealth of ethnographic data in a country which less than 200 years ago was populated exclusively by hunters and gatherers.
In carrying archaeological research into the recent historical past, archaeologists have created a new driving force to add impetus to both anthropology and history. Disappointingly, my review of overseas (in most instances North American) historic sites excavations suggest that too frequently the archaeological cogwheel is spinning but is yet to be attached to the shafts of either history or anthropology. Of course there are exceptions. Watkins’ and Hume’s (1967) work on Yorktown’s ‘poor potter’ is an excellent example, not only of archaeology widening the perspectives of American colonial history, but also correcting misleading evidence in the documents. The work of Dethlefsen and Deetz (1966) on gravestones indicates the contribution historic archaeology can make in an anthropological direction.
In short, while one might agree that archaeology per se is not an historical subject that reconstructs history from objects (Cleland and Fitting 1967:133), unless the end product of the research is historical (or anthropological) interpretation then it is of little value beyond antiquarianism or the personal satisfaction of antique collecting. The use of archaeology as an historical research technique requires the archaeologist’s understanding of problems inherent in documentary research, no less than it requires the historian’s awareness of the sort of evidence (and its limitations) which archaeology produces. At the same time, inferences drawn from archaeological evidence are too often met with scepticism by historians wedded to documentary evidence.
The use of documentary sources in archaeology is not novel. Walker (1967:23-34) discusses their use in Classical and Near Eastern archaeology, as well as on medieval sites. Nor is the archaeology of recent historical times a new discipline. In the 1878 volume of the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Isaac Fletcher published a paper on the archaeology of the West Cumberland coal trade (Hudson 1965).
What is new is the sort of documentary evidence available and the wealth of this material. In Australian history, for example, there are (as the preceding pages have demonstrated) at least fragmentary references to the social and technological aspects of the settlement at Port Essington. The archaeology of the site has emerged as a different plane of enquiry, used to complement these sources and enlarge the blurred documentary evidence, adding detail to some aspects such as architecture, and presenting a broad picture in other aspects, such as the undocumented limited technological competence of the garrison. Ideally, then, the archaeologist will not only use the documentary sources but will carry out both the documentary and archaeological research oneself. If the work is divided then the historian should be as familiar with the archaeology as the archaeologist, and vice versa. As this work has demonstrated, the use of documentary sources before, during and after fieldwork has assisted and been assisted by the archaeology and Chapter 8 has attempted to unify the evidence. For the historical archaeologist to merely excavate, 133analyse and then hand over his material to the historian, who has never been involved with the site or its problems, is the same as a prehistoric archaeologist handing over field notes and finds to another archaeologist to interpret for him – not impossible but entirely unsatisfactory. At its worst this results in the archaeology and history of a site being written up totally independent of the relationship of one upon the other, and a number of North American sites could be quoted as examples of this practice.
This can be seen to be the result of conservation and restoration being the basis for much of the work carried out so far. If tourism is to remain the raison d’être of historical archaeology then the result will often be a half-way house to Disneyland, leading not only to the situation where often there is a ‘desire by some to improve upon history’ (Walker 1967:121) but also to the total neglect of artefact study and often even the non-publication of the excavated artefacts. Without the self-generation of information within the discipline it cannot develop.
The results of the present enquiry have demonstrated that while the methodological problems confronting nineteenth century historical archaeology are not inherently different from archaeology in general, nevertheless the problems of the normal use of established techniques become intensified after the industrial revolution. Despite Dollar’s (1967:13–21) doubts on the value of typological analysis and dating techniques adapted from other fields of archaeology typology and seriation of ceramic and glass and metal artefacts from nineteenth century sites still appear to offer good prospects for dating unknown sites.
As an example of this it is a useful exercise to attempt to ascribe dates to the Port Essington occupation on the basis of the archaeological evidence alone. As seen above (Chapter 5) one expert ascribed a date 1830–1860 for the uniform buttons and other uniform insignia. The evidence of the glass seals suggested the early part of Victoria’s reign, and the other bottle evidence (less conclusive) intimated perhaps the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The identifiable ceramics also suggested the period 1830–1850. Significantly the collection lacked any positive suggestion of a date outside the period 1820–1865. On this evidence it would certainly be reasonable archaeologically to suggest a commencement date for the settlement of c.1835. A terminal date appears much more difficult to establish since this has to be arrived at on negative evidence, i.e. the non-appearance of positively late artefacts. However it would again seem archaeologically reasonable to put this date at c. 1855–1860. Therefore the excavations at Port Essington do lend authenticity to the use of these dating methods on undocumented sites. They would be precise enough, for example, to distinguish Port Essington from Fort Dundas (1824-1829) and Fort Wellington (1827–1829), if the geographical locations of these three sites were unknown historically.
One factor not taken into account in this test was the time lag for the diffusion of these English artefacts to Port Essington. Given the historical knowledge of the settlement it is possible to say that in the case of this settlement the diffusion lag was very small, probably of the order of 2–4 years. Additional work on other nineteenth century sites in Australia should clarify whether this is the sort of time lag that might be anticipated as a general principle on Australian sites. Certainly on the historical knowledge of nineteenth century communications this is the sort of time gap that might be expected.
This brief discussion of the archaeological dating of the Port Essington artefacts underlines a point made originally by Walker (1967:116) that apart from some of the ceramic evidence, the dating of the collection was done on the basis of no real typology at all, but rather from the reasonably precise historical dating of specific examples. The point of this is that the historical archaeologist has at his disposal an excellent technique for off-setting the disadvantages of working with mass-produced artefacts, and provided the information is fed back into any constructed typology, as was attempted with the ceramic analysis, it will, help refine and verify that typology, in a manner which is denied other branches of archaeological research. Then, for undated sites, a reasonably refined archaeological method for dating will be available.
The archaeology of historical sites, used in conjunction with historical evidence does appear to be providing a basis for testing the validity of general archaeological techniques. For example it underlines the potential danger of site sampling techniques widely used in all prehistoric sites. The French wine bottle seals from Port Essington provide a case in point. Given no other evidence it would have seemed reasonable to have interpreted the number of these seals (5 out of a total of 15) as the archaeological expression of trade, or some other significant contact between the French and English. As the historical evidence has shown, however, this is best explained as a single brief encounter, and the excavations by chance happened to recover perhaps all the French seals to be found at Port Essington.
As Dollar (1967) has stressed, interpretations are likely to be made on distorted evidence. Few would deny that archaeology in the recent historical past is at best a clumsy and costly research technique, but it is one that with diligence can at least be made less clumsy. If Dollar is worried that archaeology at present cannot provide absolute history, then the same holds true for prehistoric archaeology, and perhaps also for documentary history. If the past exists only in the minds of those who are thinking about it in the present and therefore in the interpretations which are put upon it (Barth 1965:109), it must be accepted that we shall never say everything. But this does not mean that we should not say anything.
The potential information which only historical archaeology can provide for the European colonisation of Australia is as yet but half realised. It is hoped that in some measure the present work has taken a step towards leaving ‘those dreary wastes of Colonial Records’ to pay some attention to the ‘humbler sources’ (Mulvaney 1966:454). 134