In posts 83 and 84 we learned about the early life of James Davis, his voyage on a convict ship to Australia, his arrival in Port Jackson and his transfer to Morton Bay Penal Settlement.
In Post 85 we followed James, after his escape from the Moreton Bay prison, into country which had not yet been explored by the British. As he and a fellow escapee made their way north from the Settlement they happened to come into contact with people from an Aboriginal tribe, who welcomed them as guests and with whom they stayed for 12 months. For the following 12 years James continued to live with Aboriginal people (from 1829 to 1842), first in Sandgate, and subsequently in other parts of Southeast Queensland. He was given the name of “Duramboi”, the word for “little”, because he was not very tall. Gradually, he travelled further north, where he was adopted as a son by an elder of a tribal clan near the Mary River. There he was allotted a piece of land, where he lived with a woman called “Caleeraba”, with whom he had a son, named “Calarga”.
In this post we will meet Andrew Petrie and David Bracewell, the men who were to find James and to bring him back to Brisbane. Petrie was a Scottish tradesman who had been brought to Sydney in 1831, together with his wife and four sons, to help in the construction of an ”Australian College” there. A few years later he had moved from Sydney to Moreton Bay, as “Superintendent of Works”, to repair and build some structures in the settlement there. Finally, a year after that, Petrie and his family had moved into a stone house in Brisbane, which he had built himself.
Although Petrie had initially been based in Morton Bay, he soon began to venture further afield. I found it interesting to read, for example, that he had visited the Glass House Mountains and that he was the first European to bring back samples of the Bunya pine (see post 79 – A daytrip to Montville).
In 1842, Petrie had set out to explore some more of the country further north. He took a party (which included soldiers) by whaleboat, along the coast and through Bribie Passage, past Caloundra, to White Bay. It was on this “expedition” that he came across David Bracewell, who was, like James, an escaped convict. Bracewell had also been living with First Nations people for some years and was known to them as “Wandi”.
Bracewell had then joined Petrie’s party and had informed Petrie that he had learned, from the tribes on K’gari (which is also known as Fraser Island), of sightings of a “white man on the mainland”.
As the whaleboat with Petrie and his fellow travellers and crew continued to sail further up the coast, they reached what turned out to be the mouth of a long river. Bracewell was sent out to explore the country further up this river, which is today known as the “Mary River”, where he discovered a large camp site. He reported this back to Petrie who then sent him back with 2 armed, white men and this was where, and how, James was found.
Bracewell talked with James and offered to take him back to meet the others on the whaleboat, but James refused. He said that he did not want to leave the tribe, nor did he want to go back to the Moreton Penal Settlement. He was still haunted by the horrors he had endured there and did not believe Bracewell’s assurances that the prison had been closed. Moreover, returning to the settlement would mean leaving his adoptive parents, his partner and his son, probably forever.
As reported by Wargandilla:
“All that night was spent by Davis in leave-taking of the tribe and giving reasons for departure. In imagination I can picture that midnight scene of campfires, with the dark background of scrub, the excited groups of warriors and old men swayed alternately by rage and sorrow, doubt, suspicion, distrust, child-faith, and wonder”.
In the end, when Petrie himself talked with James, he managed to convince him that it was safe for him to return to the settlement, which helped James to make the decision to leave. So, James boarded the boat, and the crew rowed them all back to the mouth of the river. As Wargandilla described it, hundreds of men followed “along the bank of the river, walked out on projecting trees and rocks and called their farewells to Davis, who stood in the boat, an excited, naked, white savage nervously called back; told them the awful sorrow he felt at leaving them, the joyous days he had spent in their company, his undying love for his father and mother and all the other superb exaggerations made necessary in the diplomacy of that critical occasion But the boat passed the rock points, the overhanging banks, and the sandbars, where the crew could have been speared like fish, and pulled out on the wide reaches, until the last call was heard from the forest and the last response from “Duramboi”, and the drama was at an end for ever.”
According to notes in Petrie’s diary, James “had forgotten the English language, and could only tell his name and place”.I find this hard to believe. James’ “mother tongue” was English, albeit with a strong Scottish accent, and he had spoken nothing else for at least 22 years, until he escaped from the settlement. I think it is more likely that he pretended not to be able to speak English because he did not want to disclose to Petrie exactly what had happened to him during the previous thirteen years.
So, James Davis and David Bracewell were taken back to the settlement on Moreton Bay. James, when he arrived there, would have been relieved to see for himself that the feared commandant, Patrick Logan, as well as the soldiers, had gone, and that the prison had been closed. He was, however, still a “convict”, not a free man, so to serve out his sentence, he was made to work as a blacksmith for the local police. Two years later, in 1844, he was recommended for a “ticket of leave”, which gave him the freedom to work elsewhere, until his sentence had expired.
It was probably around this time that James was interviewed by John Dunmore Lang, a historian who had arrived in 1823, as the first Presbyterian minister in the colony. Dr Lang was another Scotsman and the founder, and principal, of the Australian College in Sydney, which Andrew Petrie had helped to construct. Petrie had probably told Dr Lang about his discovery of the escaped convicts, and, as a historian, Dr Lang was interested, hence the meeting with Davis. James was, however, not very forthcoming and flatly refused to disclose the full story of his time with the Aboriginal people.
We will never know why James pretended not to be able to speak English when he was found, nor will we fully understand why he refused to talk to Dr Lang. Perhaps he wanted to protect his tribal family, fearing that the white soldiers and settlers could move in and harm them and occupy their land? Alternatively, perhaps he did not want anyone to know about his relationship with “Caleeraba”, or about “Calarga”, their son, or, maybe, he was ashamed of, or embarrassed about, something that had happened?
James did eventually talk to “Wargandilla” about his life, but this was not until 1870, twenty-eight years later. He would have been 63 years old by then. But how truthful a person was this mysterious “Wargandilla”?
After his “rescue”, in 1842, James lived in Brisbane for another 47 eventful years. The next, and final, post in this series will focus on these later years of his extraordinary life. We will also learn about his two marriages and his violent death.
O.P.
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