William Pullen's report damns Coorong men to unfair trial over death of 'Maria' survivors in South Australia, 1840
The report by former British navy officer William Pullen (right) without nuance, reflected in a 1966 plaque (inset centre) by the National Trust of South Australia, fed into South Australian governor George Gawler's decision to hang Aboriginal men without a proper trial over the death of the survivors of the Maria shipwreck in 1840.
Pullen image courtesy State Library of South Australia
The wrecking of the Maria, a 136-ton wooden brig on the Margaret Brock reef in South Australia’s southeast coast in 1840, had drastic sequels involving its surviving passengers and crew.
The Irish-built Maria under captain William Smith, with 26 passengers and crew, and left Port Adelaide on June 26, 1840, for Hobart. Within a few days news reached Adelaide, the Maria had been wrecked south of the Coorong and all 26 on board had been rescued by local Ngarrindjeri people.
The captain of the Fanny, wrecked in the same area two years before, praised their Ngarrindjeri rescuers: “During our stay amongst them, which was about seven weeks, they at all times evinced the greatest of friendship”.
When rumours about the Maria shipwreck reached Encounter Bay whaling station, former British naval officer and early South Australian explorer William J.S. Pullen was sent by governor George Gawler with Dr Penny, five sailors, a policeman and three Aboriginal men to a location near lakes Albert and Alexandrina and found Aboriginal people dressed in European clothing and eight dismembered bodies on the lake shore about 40 kilometres south of River Murray mouth (southwest of later Meningie). Pullen and his party were led to other bodies, including women and children.
After questioning Aboriginal groups, with many staying silent, Pullen decided he’d found the guilty parties, describing two as “the most villainous (sic) looking characters I ever saw”. Giving up his search for the Maria wreck, he returned to Adelaide to report. The news reached Adelaide on July 26, 1840, with Adelaide newspapers reporting on "a massacre site".
Graham Jaunay, who researched the Maria shipwreck, believed all on boad managed to launch a boat and reached the shore. They were befriended by the Milmenrura or Salt Creek Tribe people (a lanklinyeri, or tribal grouping, within Ngarrindgeri nation) who negotiated to take them along the coast towards Encounter Bay: “While accounts vary, when the party reached the territorial boundary at Little Dick Point, the aborigines would go no further. The wreck survivors argued that they had negotiated to be taken all the way to Adelaide. Despite the protestations, an exchange took place and the so-called Needles Tribe took over escort duties. It would seem that the refugees' clothes were coveted by some men of (either) clan”.
Jaunay and Ngarrindgeri oral history also reported that Maria group members (some of the crew) made continual sexual advances to young Ngarrindgeri women, with dire consequences in Ngarringeri law. After warnings, and attempts to separate groups at night, a fight broke out.
After reading Pullen's report, governor Geogre Gawler dispatched him with police commissioner Major Thomas O'Halloran, inspector Alexander Tolmer, 12 police, 11 sailors and three Encounter Bay Aboriginal men to catch those responsible and when “you have identified any number, not exceeding three, of the actual murderers...you will there explain to the blacks the nature of your conduct ... and you will deliberately and formally cause sentence of death to be executed by shooting or hanging". Three Aboriginal men were killed and others wounded before O'Halloran took 65 prisoners on August 22, 1840, and, in a "bush" trial, sentenced Aboriginal men Mongarawata and Pilgarie to death. They were hanged on gallows immediately, with their bodies left to rot on tree gibbets over graves of the first victims.
When the hangings became public, debate raged in Adelaide journals and Gawler was eventually recalled to England, partly due to the way he’d handled the affair. The "punitive expedition" contravened British justice by denying a proper trial. Pullen, likely to have had the town of Goolwa named after him, except for being linked to this episode, left South Australia in 1842 to rejoin the British navy.
