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The leading members of the association were John Batman , a farmer, Joseph Gellibrand , a lawyer, Charles Swanston , banker, John Helder Wedge , surveyor and farmer, Henry Arthur , nephew of Lieutenant Governor George Arthur of Van Diemen’s Land, and various others including William Sams, Anthony Cottrell and James Simpson. Gellibrand prepared legal deeds for the transfer of an interest in the land for payment of an annual tribute, copies of which Batman took with him in May 1835 to Port Phillip , accompanied by some white servants and aborigines from New South Wales . Batman’s treaty with the aborigines of Port Phillip is the only example of any settlers (official or unofficial) giving recognition to the rights of the aborigines to the land. While the annual tribute to be paid by the association seems trifling in comparison to the ultimate value of the land after the establishment of sheep stations in later years, the members of the Port Phillip Association did not intend the treaty to be a fair commercial transaction, but a means of obtaining permission from the aborigines to avoid resentment (and subsequent violence) after settlement. Batman sailed from Launceston in the Schooner Rebecca , some 3 months before the Enterprize party. In June 1835 Batman went up the Yarra River and noted in his journal the future site of Melbourne that “this is the place for a village”. On returning to Van Diemen’s Land , Batman showed Wedge where he had explored and, from these details, Wedge prepared the first map of Melbourne , in June 1835, showing the site which Batman had chosen as the site for the “village”. For some time Batman's Treaty , as it came to be called, was assumed by some historians to be a forgery, but the recollections of the aboriginal elder Barak , who was present at the singing of the treaty as a boy, established that Batman, with the aid of his New South Wales aborigines, did in fact participate in a ceremony with the Port Phillip Aborigines for permission to settle amongst them. In aboriginal culture, this ceremony was called a Tanderem . The deeds which Batman took back to Van Diemen’s Land were intended not for the aborigines, who had no need of title deeds, but to convince the colonial and imperial authorities that the association had entered into a scheme for settling the district which would, it was hoped, avoid bloodshed between whites and backs. According to Batman ’s petition to George Arthur , he and Wedge would proceed immediately to the district with stock, and only married servants (with their wives) would be allowed to accompany the, reducing the chances of conflict arising from interference with native women. While the government in London was deciding what steps it should take in relation to the Port Phillip Association’s unlawful occupation of this remote and unsettled part of the existing colony of New South Wales , other settlers from Van Diemen’s Land followed suit, and soon Port Phillip became inundated with stock, squatters and servants, including escaped convicts. Inevitably, conflict with the aborigines followed. Eventually the claims of the association were repudiated by the authorities and the obligations under Batman’s treaty to feed and cloth the aborigines were assumed by the New South Wales colonial government, although proper protection was not afforded, especially in the remote parts of the colony. The claims of the Port Phillip Association were only recognised to the extent of £7,000, allowed as a reduction on the purchase price of land bought by the association at public auction. Most of the members sold out to Charles Swanston . (See AGL Shaw A History of The Port Phillip District: Victoria before Separation, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1992) |
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