‘Hallowed ground’: Outcry over plan to remove homestead for coal mine
Opponents of plans to remove a colonial-era Hunter Valley homestead to make way for a coal mine say it would destroy an important historic site that was the likely staging ground for a massacre of local indigenous people.
Glencore is seeking approval to extend its Glendell mine
near the village of Camberwell to extract an extra 140 million tonnes of coal.
The sandstone Ravensworth homestead, which dates from the 1820s, would be
relocated to the town of Broke about 30 kilometres away.
Local indigenous groups, though, say the plan amounts to a
desecration of history because the area was known to be the launching spot for
hunts that led to the brutal killing of the original residents and is likely
itself to have been the site of some of the murders.
“Once [the homestead’s] removed, it’s just an empty shell,”
Maria Foot, a member of the local Wonnarua clan, said. “It’s like moving a
graveyard.”
Ms Foot said her family recalls tales of distant relatives
fishing at the nearby Bowmans Creek being hunted down by settlers on horseback,
with the children shot and their mothers raped and then murdered.
“The white people came and took what they wanted,” she said.
“It’s not very well known but it’s not forgotten.”
Scott Franks, chief executive of Tocumwall, a company that
works to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage, said the homestead also occupies
some of the last land in the region that has not been excavated by nearby
open-cut coal mines.
“We’ve got no hallowed ground left. Enough is enough,” Mr
Franks said. “It’s a place of reckoning for our people. My great-grand mother
was raped on this property.”
Mark Dunn, author of a new book, The Convict Valley, said
the archives point to widespread killings as colonials moved into an area known
for its “sensational” deep alluvial soils and reliable water supplies that
would have supported a large indigenous population.
“The British wanted access to rivers and creeks – exactly
where the Aborigines wanted to be,” Mr Dunn said. “They literally smashed into
each other.”
The worst single recorded incident involved the killing of
18 Aboriginal people in 1826. The main party left the Ravensworth homestead and
chased the fleeing mob over several days, likely catching them after a hunt
over 30 kilometres that took them away from the more exposed plains into rugged
hillsides, he said.
Mr Dunn said his work was used by Glencore in its submission
seeking approval to change the status of the land. Glencore took over the
previous owner of the mine, Xstrata, which had pledged to restore and preserve
the homestead at its present location.
“The homestead sits above a coal resource that could enable
Glendell to continue operations that would support around 690 jobs, more than
400 local businesses, create up to 350 construction jobs, and contribute
significantly to regional, state and national economies,” a Glencore spokesman
said.
“Relocating the entire complex will make the homestead more
accessible for the community and at the same time respect the heritage and
history of the buildings.”
Additional assessments, including the use of ground-penetrating
radar, had “recorded low-density artefact scatters and isolated finds but no
evidence of graves or human [or] ancestral remains,” the spokesman said.
Mr Franks, who is also a representative of the Plains Clan
of the Wonnarua People, said the area is “steeped in blood” and there is no
doubt killings took place at a hut located within 100 metres of the homestead.
Composite - Uncle Peter Harris and NSW Premier Gladys
Berejiklian, walk through the Mount Grenfell Historic Site after the ceremonial
signing of over 15,000 hectares to the National Park estate, creating Mount
Grenfell National Park and State Conservation area, and the handback of
management to Aboriginal owners, in Western NSW. 1st December 2020 Photo: Janie
Barrett
The group has also lodged a so-called section 10 application
in court under the Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage
Protection Act, to stop the open-cut mine project proceeding.
The application contends the area “contains a landscape of
open massacre of the Wonnarua people” but is also “sacred to our people” as a
local of male initiation and women’s business ceremonies”.
Lyn MacBain, a local historian who also advises Singleton
Council on heritage, said construction of an underground as originally planned
would solve the problem.
The homestead itself is being left to decay, with the public
unable to visit and photographing by those who are allowed in highly
restricted. James Bowman, an early Principal Surgeon of the early colony of NSW
“It’s consent to destroy [the place] by neglect,” Ms MacBain
said. “There’s no sense of transparency.”
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