Site NameConvincing Ground, Portland Bay
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name
Language Group, Nation or PeopleDhauwurd wurrung
Present State/TerritoryVIC
Colony/State/Territory at the timePPD
Police DistrictPortland
Latitude-38.275
Longitude141.662
DateBetween 1 Mar 1833 and 31 Mar 1834
Attack TimeDay
VictimsAboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
Victim DescriptionsAboriginal
Victims Killed20
Victims Killed Notes
AttackersColonists
Attacker DescriptionsWhaler/Sealer(s)
Attackers Killed0
Attackers Killed Notes
TransportFoot
MotiveReprisal
Weapons UsedFirearm(s)
NarrativeSome time between March 1833 and March 1834, north of Allestree, a group of whalers massacred Kilcarer gundidj people (Dhanwurd wurrung speakers) over claims to a beached whale. A journal entry of Edward Henty indicates that by 27 September 1835 this location had come to be known as 'Convincing Ground' (Peel, 2013).
Chief Protector GA Robinson first heard of the massacre in 1841 from settler Edward Henty during his first visit to Portland, along with two accounts of how the place got its name from Police Magistrate Blair and surveyor Tyers: 'He [Henty] said that some time ago, I suppose two or three years, a whale broke from her moorings and went on shore. And the boats went into get it off, when they were attack [sic] by the natives who drove them off. He said the men [whalers] were so enraged that they went to the head station for their firearms and then returned to the whale, when the natives again attack them. And the whalers then let fly, to use his expression, right and left upon the natives. He said the natives did not go away but got behind trees and threw spears and stones. They, however, did not much molest them after that. 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 transactions with the natives of the kind just mentioned. So Mr Blair said. Mr Tyers however said it was because when the whites had any disputes they went on shore and there settled if by fighting. I however thing the former most feasibly, especially after what Mr Henty himself stated' (GA Robinson Journal 16 May 1841, in Clark 1998b, p 211).
The following day Robinson visited the Convincing Ground site and recorded the following observations: '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 . . . which the natives considered theirs and which it had been so 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 [the whalers] convinced them [the natives] of their mistake and which, but for their firearms, they perhaps could not have done' (GA Robinson Journal 17 May 1841, in Clark 1998b, p 214).
Ten months later, on 23 March 1842, Robinson met 30 Aboriginal people from at least five clans in the region at Captain Alexander Campbell's station at Merri River near Port Fairy. Clark comments: 'Presumably these people informed him of the Convincing Ground massacre, for Robinson noted in his journal for that day that it was eight or nine years earlier that the collisions between the whalers and the Aborigines took place...The two survivors in 1841 were Pollikeunnuc and Yarereryarerer' (Clark 1995, p 19). In the official report to Superintendent La Trobe of his 1841 journey into Western Victoria, Robinson mentioned the massacre: 'Among the remarkable places on the coast, is the "Convincing Ground", originating in a severe conflict which took place a few years previous between the Aborigines and Whalers on which occasion a large number of the former were slain. The circumstances are that a whale had come on shore and the Natives who feed on the carcass claimed it was their own. The whalers said they would "convince them" and had recourse to firearms. On this spot a fishery is now established' (Robinson in Clark 1995, p 19).
In 2005, Michael Connor contested Clark's account of the massacre and the origins of the name 'Convincing Ground' (Connor 2005, pp140-155). He made three key claims: that Robinson first heard of the story of the massacre as 'an after-dinner story of violence which he then embroidered on' (Connor 2005, p140); that Robinson relied on second hand accounts and never interviewed any witnesses to the massacre; and that (following a comment by Major Mitchell) Aboriginal people cooperated with whalers rather than fought with them (Connor 2005 pp140-142) [note: a previous statement here that Connor claimed 'the name "Convincing Ground" was coined by Major Mitchell' has been removed].
Clark responded to the claims in 2011. He pointed out that Robinson was an experienced massacre investigator and cited as an example his extensive investigation of massacres in Tasmania (Clark 2011, p 85). Following Edward Henty's account of the Convincing Ground massacre, Robinson visited the site the next day and over the following months, sought further evidence from Aboriginal people and settlers, and then summarised his findings in the report to Superintendent La Trobe in 1842. Finally, Clark pointed out that the name 'Convincing Ground' was first used by Edward Henty in his diary in 1835, at least a year before Mitchell arrived at Portland Bay (Clark 2011, p 94). Clark concluded that the massacre probably took place in the whaling season between March 1833 and March 1834, that is, at least seven months before the Henty brothers arrived at Portland Bay (Clark 2011, pp 101-102).
In Major Mitchell's description of interactions between Aboriginal people and whalers they do not appear to be in amicable cooperation, but instead Aboriginal people avoided contact with whalers and sought only to manipulate them into beaching whales for their benefit: 'The natives never approach these whalers, nor had they ever shown themselves to the white people of Portland Bay but, as they have taken to eat the castaway whales, it is their custom to send up a column of smoke when a whale appears in the bay, and the fishers understand the signal. This affords an instance of the sagacity of the natives for they must have reflected that, by thus giving timely notice, a greater number will become competitors for the whale and that consequently there will be a better chance of the whale running ashore, in which case a share must fall finally to them' (Mitchell, 1839).
Clark summarised three stories of the origin of the place name, 'Convincing Ground': 'Blair's account that it related to a particular massacre; Tyers's account that it originated from the settlement of disputes between whalers; and JG Wiltshire's version connected with the explorer, Mitchell,' adding that, 'As we have seen, Wiltshire's version has been invalidated' (Clark, 1995 p 20).
Connor argues in favour of Tyers's account (Connor, 2005 p 140-156) showing that 'convincing ground' was a term for a place where 'prize or grudge fights are held' (Connor, 2005, p 142). He imagines an elaborate scenario of whalers rowing 6km back and forth to fight over a beached whale which they had little interest in. However, it is equally unreasonable to think that whalers would travel 6 kilometres from their anchorage to conduct a fight when they could easily fight where they were, where their boats were anchored. An 1845 map based on an 1840 survey made by Tyers and Masters in 1840 shows 4 huts in the location of Convincing Ground, though they are not labelled. They are probably very recent constructions as the whale fishery at Convincing Ground was not established until 1841 (Tyers & Masters, 1845). Whale boats were small, fast vessels equipped with both oars and sails. The whalers would have sailed, not rowed, and at 5 knots they could have gone to the head station at Portland and returned to Convincing Ground within two hours.
Mitchell's description shows that the heads of beached whales were economically valuable. An 1843 news article from Portland Bay shows that whalers were quick to seize any opportunity to capture whales that strayed too close to shore: 'Mr. Robertson, in charge of the Messrs. Henty's station at the Convincing ground, observed a whale, of the Hunchback species, which had, got inside a reef near the junction of the first river and was unable to extricate itself. Mr. Robertson, although there was no other person present, immediately dashed through the surf, up to the neck, and by means of a harpoon succeeded in despatching the monster' (The Colonial Observer, 4 March 1843, p 858).
This was not simply a beached whale or a 'castaway', but one which the whalers had done the hard and dangerous work of catching, for it had broken its mooring. It is reasonable to think that if driven off by Aboriginal people, and given the relationships between them were tense, that whalers would not give up the catch easily, even if only the head or bones were viable once on the beach.
For whalers a 'convincing ground' would be any location that a fight is carried out so it is less likely that the location was not so called as the designated location for all whalers to meet and fight. It is more likely that whalers applied it euphemistically to name this specific location where a fight occurred between whalers and Aboriginal people. Connor presents no evidence that whalers used this location for fights, and, among the earliest sources only provides Tyers' speculation on the reason for the name, while there is an earlier account from one of the first colonists in the region, Henty, that there was a conflict between Aboriginal people and whalers and both Robinson and Blair found it most credible that Convincing Ground was named for such a conflict. Although Henty, as recorded by Robinson, didn't use the place name in describing the conflict, Henty did use the place name in his journals.
Importantly, Connor ultimately doesn't conclude there was no fight between Aboriginal people and whalers as described in Henty's story. Connor's conclusions are only that the fight did not take place at Convincing Ground but was more likely at Double Corner, much closer to the Portland whaling settlement; that Convincing Ground was not named after the incident described by Henty (Connor, 2005, pp153 – 154), and that the story of a massacre at Convincing Ground has been embellished and exaggerated in subsequent accounts (Connor, 2005, pp 150-153).
While there has been much speculation around the origins of the name Convincing Ground, there seems no reason to doubt the earliest account given by Henty, recorded by Robinson, that it was named for this massacre.
SourcesPeel, 2013; Clark 1995, p 19; Connor 2005, 2010; Clark 2008b; Clark 2008c; Clark 2011; Mitchell, 1839 https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/e00036.html; The Colonial Observer, 4 March 1843, p 858 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226361697/22363117; Tyers, 1845 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-233815684 (Sources PDF)
Corroboration Rating**