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In the path of progress

Emily Caroline Creaghe was only 22, married and pregnant and probably the first white woman explorer in the Gulf country when she witnessed confrontation between blacks and whites on the Australian frontier.

Creaghe kept a diary. The entry for February 8, 1883, mentions Lorne Hill, a property south-west of Normanton, owned by Jack Watson. It reads: "Very hot. No rain. Mr Watson has 40 pairs of black ears nailed round the walls, collected during raiding parties after the loss of many cattle speared by the blacks."

The explorers were based then at Carl Creek, a station owned by the Shadforth family. The diary records that on February 20 the rain was so heavy the Shadforths had to leave a dray at Gregory Downs. However, it adds: "They brought a new black in with them. She cannot speak a word of English. Mr Shadforth put a rope round her neck and dragged her along on foot, he was riding. This seems to be the usual method."

The February 21 entry includes: "The new gin whom they call Bella is chained up to a tree a few yards from the house. She is not to be loosed until they think she is tamed."

February 23: "The new gin made Topsy (an old one) jealous, and the latter threw a fire stick at her and said she would kill her. The stick past [sic] Mrs Shadforth's face so Madame Topsy got a thrashing."

When the explorers reached Powell Creek telegraph station, south-east of Darwin, they found "a small mob of blacks". Creaghe wrote on May 15: "They are not civilised ... They are terrified at the sight of firearms, so many of them having been killed at different times. The SA government is very strict about murdering niggers; a man is liable to be hung for it if it is found out so unless the blacks have killed cattle or sheep the white men do not harm them, and then they have to keep it very quiet in case it should get to headquarters."

Don Kinnersley, of Belrose, a grandson of Emily Creaghe, pointed to the diary this week as evidence of conflict between white settlers and indigenous Australians and the fact that killing was on a large scale.

The original diary is in the Mitchell Library. Most of it is written in ink, a little in pencil. Paul Brunton, senior curator at the Mitchell Library, said that if the pencil entries were not written by Emily Creaghe they were most likely the work of her husband, Harry.

Emily Robinson was born on a ship in the Bay of Bengal in 1860. Her father, George Robinson, was a British Army major in India and she was a relative of Sir Hercules Robinson, a governor of NSW.

She married Harry in 1881, lost a child at birth and joined her husband in the expedition led by Ernest Favenc, which spent six months traversing the almost unknown country round the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The Creaghes left Sydney by steamer 120 years ago on December 23, travelling up the Queensland coast and around Cape York, before riding horses overland from Normanton to Darwin. Emily became pregnant, bearing a son, Gerald, in January 1884.

The diary reveals an educated Christian woman. It records, mostly uncomplainingly, miles travelled, trials of the weather, frequent searches for water and sometimes anxious encounters with Aborigines. She copied verses from hymns into the diary.

Although there are no direct references to pregnancy, she compiled lists of purchases, including baby clothes. Some entries:

• January 1, 1883: Arrived at Bowen ... Saw blackfellows in their canoes in a state of nudity, for the first time ...
• January 6: All the passengers for Thursday Island were most awfully tipsy. It speaks badly for the inhabitants of the place ...
• January 17: Normanton is a level township with about 300 inhabitants. No churches of any denomination ...
• January 25: Warner, who had not been well last night, had some terrible fits ... Mr Watson ... gave us an account of his being speared by the blacks some little time ago ...
• January 27: Warner died ... A death in a camping party is an awful thing ...
• January 31: Arrived at Carl Creek ... How I do wish Harry had a billet in town instead of having to rough it like this.
• February 2: The river runs a few yards from the house so the two girls and I go in three and four times during the day and were not in the least deterred by the sight of crocodlies watching us on the bank nearby ...
• March 8: Poor old Harry went away today ... I hope he will be back in 12 weeks. I wonder if he will ...
• March 31: I have been blind in one eye and half so in the other ... I pity anyone with the "Gulf Sandy Blight" - it is perfect agony.
• April 5: I have had no letter from Harry ... We seem quite buried, not having had any news for nine weeks ...
• April 10: Amy and I killed a small snake. Mr Murray came ... He had found Mr Crawford's remains. He was killed by the blacks. Mr Lamond has gone on to get hold of the wretches and give them their deserts ...
• April 11: To my intense delight and astonishment who should ride up but dear old Harry to take me away to Port Darwin ... Hurrah!
• April 18: Got into camp again on a branch of the river Nicholson (supposed to be very bad place for blacks). We sleep every night with two revolvers in bed with us and a double barrelled breechloader. Outside at the tent door a loaded carbine schneider stands all ready for use ...
• April 24: We are now camped by the side of a large beautiful lagoon, which Mr Favenc has named "The Caroline" at Harry's suggestion after me.
• May 2: We are reduced to damper and honey as we have finished our cooked meat and no water to boil the one piece that remains ...
• May 3: We were almost despairing of getting water when we saw ... a blacks' fire ... so we made for it knowing there must be water where niggers were ... We got up to them and saw Mr Favenc holding a man ... and pointing his revolver at him and Crawford holding a gin. They were a peculiar sight. They had never seen white men before ... We were not going to do them any harm, merely wanted them to take us to water, so they remained captives ... We saw several spears and things ... but they would not allow me to take anything away as harm has been done so often by white men stealing the blacks' only means of gaining their food.
• May 7: The poor horses have great holes under their eyes where the flies have been eating them.
• May 10: There are several tracks of niggers ... It is to be hoped they won't attack us tonight. Harry has been very ill all day. I gave him some flour gruel and rice water.
• May 14: When we got to five miles from Powells Creek, Mr Favenc thought it advisable ... to let them know there was a woman in the party as no woman had ever been there before.
• May 15: The niggers had an idea there was no such thing as a woman among white people, they thought we were all men, so no wonder they were astonished at seeing a white "lubra".
• May 26: I haven't been feeling very well today.
• May 30: Mr Goss and I went round and saw two graves of men who were speared by the niggers some few years ago ...
• June 14: We arrived safely at the Katherine yesterday ...
• June 15: Oh dear, I wish we were down in Sydney or anywhere out of this place. I am perfectly wretched, being unwell and out of sorts altogether. Everything goes wrong sometimes.
• June 24 (Sunday): This evening Harry read the church service. It was so nice, we four round the table ...
• August 9: We passed during the day numerous Chinamen on foot, evidently going to the goldfield.
• August 14: The little steam launch was waiting for us ... We arrived at Port Darwin ... Palmerston is a nice-looking little place ... After dinner, Mr McMinn and I had some music, he playing the violin and I the American organ.
• August 21: There is not a woman in any house in Palmerston. The town is infested with niggers, having little or no clothing on.

Harry died in 1886, when his horse crashed into a tree. Emily married Joseph Barnett in 1889. Ten years later, in 1899, she was aboard the Perthshire with five children when the vessel was adrift for seven weeks in the Tasman Sea.

Emily fell and died in 1944, aged 84, running for the Mosman ferry.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

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