Murdering Gully

Fighting Hill Massacre

Convincing Ground

Extracts

Mr Edward Henty and Mr Blair called and spent the afternoon. We had tea and coffee, wines and dessert after dinner. Mr Henty said the Blacks at Mt Clay area a bad set and he did not think I should get communication with them. I said I did not lay wagers but I could venture to do so in this case; that I should get to them.

He related one story of their badness. He said that some time ago, I suppose two or three years, a whale broke from her moorings and went on shore. And the boat went to get it off, when they were attacked by the natives who drove them off. He said the men were so enraged that they went to the head station for their firearms and then returned to the whale, when the natives again attacked them. And the whalers then let fly, to use his expression, right and left upon the natives…

There is a spot on the north shore, where the big works are I think, which is called the 'Convincing Ground' and I was informed that it got its name from some transaction with the natives of the kind mentioned, so Mr Blair said. Mr Tyers however said it was because when the whites had any dispute they went on shore and settled it by fighting. I however think the former the most feasible, especially after what Mr Henty himself stated.

(Clark 1998: 211)

It is stated that the natives fought the whalers. Now, the cause of this fight, if such an unequal contest can be so designated, firearms are certain death against spears, was occasioned by the whalers going to get the whalebone from the fish, when the natives, not knowing their intentions and supposing they intended to take away the fish which the natives considered theirs and which it had been for 1000 of years previous, they of course resisted the aggression on the part of the white men; it was the first year of the fishery, and the whalers having used their guns beat them off and hence called the spot the Convincing Ground. That was because they convinced them of their mistake and which, but for their firearms they perhaps could not have done.

In his official report of his 1841 journey into western Victoria, Robinson discussed the incident the following terms: