William Dawes Courage without Violence

[00:00:00]Welcome to the channel and thanks for joining us. The year is 1790 and the colony is on edge. The frontier violence is escalating and Governor Arthur Phillip is at breaking point. So, what he does, he orders a punitive expedition. It's simply a mission of revenge.

[00:00:17]He orders 12 marines to prepare themselves. All will obey that order apart from one man. He is Lieutenant William Dawes. He is the colony's astronomer, surveyor, engineer and linguist. He's a quiet and unassuming man, but he simply disobeys the order.

[00:00:34]He refuses to go. He says he refuses to kill.

[00:00:38]This is the forgotten life of a man who would choose humanity over obedience and paid the price.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> The first fleet anchored [music] at Sydney Cove in January of 1788 and their first job is to carve a settlement out of the Australian bush. Now, I've talked about this in previous stories, but the hardwoods here in Australia were not what they expected. They would break axes and blunt their saws continuously.

[00:01:11]It was extremely hard going. It would take two or three days to offload the ships. There was about 1,000 convicts.

[00:01:18]Uh 1,300 convicts and marines in the first fleet. So, you can well imagine by the time they'd set themselves up in tents and had open fires for cooking, it would have looked like a camping trip going wrong. Now, that goes you go to show you how long it took to get things going. It would take six months to build the first building. It would be the government stores building and the reason they built that first was they wanted to try and preserve their food from being spoiled by weather, vermin and being stolen by convicts and marines.

[00:01:48]It'd take a year to complete complete the barracks, 18 months to complete Government House and about two years to build a timber hospital. They did have a tent hospital in the early years. All these buildings were built out of pit-sawn timber. So, they would have been pretty rough.

[00:02:05]Now, amongst all these officers of the Marines was somebody that was very different, did not fit the mold of a typical officer of 1788, and that is William Dawes. He is a soldier scientist, and he is in a colony that is being built on improvisation.

[00:02:22]But, before he sailed with First Fleet, he was given the job as the colony's astronomer. The reason being is that the Board of Longitude would give him astronomical instruments, and his job was to come down here and start making observations to improve celestial navigation in the Southern Hemisphere.

[00:02:42]The Board of Na- The Board of Longitude, sorry, was set up in 1714 to improve ships' navigation at sea because they were having increasing number of boats in the water, but there was increasing number of shipwrecks.

[00:02:54]These ships were bumping into things they shouldn't. So, they set up this Board of Longitude in 1714 to help improve celestial navigation. So, William Dawes has got a pretty important job down here to help improve celestial navigation in the Southern Hemisphere.

[00:03:09]Now, he sets up his first observatory at Dawes Point. He called it uh Maskelyne, which is after Nevil Maskelyne, who was the Astronomer Royal and the senior figure in the Board of Longitude. But, it was known as Dawes Point almost from the beginning because that's where William Dawes spent most of his time.

[00:03:29]Try to give you an understanding of what William Dawes's life would have been like as a soldier scientist.

[00:03:34]During the day, he'd have military duties, probably guard duty, pointing soldiers to look after convicts, those sort of things. And then at night, he would go to Dawes Point in the observatory and make observations, measurements, calculations alone under the Southern sky.

[00:03:50]Then he'd have to come back to his tent and finish those calculations, prepare himself for the next next night. All done in a tent and cooking under over an open fire. What an amazing man he was.

[00:04:04]But you can see that he's setting up the colony's first scientific foundation inside a tent when the rest of the colony was struggling to survive.

[00:04:14]But the other thing the colony has is a problem with the relationship with the Aboriginal people in Port Jackson. Now, the colony really at this stage is defines itself through fear and misunderstanding of these Aboriginal people.

[00:04:28]What Arthur Phillip has tried to do a couple of times is kidnap some Aboriginal men. We covered that off in story with Arthur Phillip and Watkin Tench. Go and check those um stories out and while you're there don't forget to like and subscribe. But in process he's doing that to try to create a way of communicating with the local Aboriginal groups. He sees that as the only way of creating a peaceful coexistence and that is being able to have an open dialogue.

[00:04:56]So while Arthur Phillip uses kidnapping as a technique, William Dawes has befriended a Aboriginal lady. I think he was from the Durag language group and her name was uh Pat- Patyegarang. Now, if I've mispronounced any of those words, please feel free to put a comment in and don't forget to subscribe while you're there.

[00:05:16]Now, Patyegarang is uh an Aboriginal woman that he's befriended and they create he he writes down the um the language he's learning the language and he writes it down in a notebook. Now, this is not a cold word um notebook where he writes down English word, Aboriginal word. Doesn't work like that. He actually writes down their dialogue. And this notebook is fragments of the dialogue between him and Patyegarang. And it's really quite interesting because you can see he makes corrections. In one location, she must have been asking, "Do you want me here?

[00:05:53]Or do you want my company?" And he's trying to understand. He's rubbing different things out. It's a typical of a relationship or friendship between two people, one making sure the other really wants them there. They also talk about names for and relationships of parents, um brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties. Um they go into a conversation about um hugging. And you can see there's some sort of real closeness in their friendship. And there's some joking and some gentle teasing. And it's all written down in this notebook. And this notebook is really important because it is still used by the Aboriginal groups around Port Jackson to this very day to help preserve and learn their language.

[00:06:37]Now, it's interesting that in a time of tension and violence, Endors has chosen to listen and create curiosity with the Aboriginal people. He doesn't see it necessary to kidnap them. And Patyegarang has chosen patience to teach Willem Dawes a language. And they don't realize it at the time, but they've created one of the most important cross-cultural documents in Australian [music] history.

[00:07:13]Willem Dawes was a really valuable asset to Arthur Phillip because he's a surveyor and engineer and really a quiet problem-solver.

[00:07:22]He helps John Hunter chart the first chart of Sydney Harbor. He lays out the first map of the colony and settlement of Sydney. He helps design and build roads, drainage structures around Sydney. And some of those early designs are the very first technical documents in the colony. If you have a look at the road network he laid out, because this is a surveyor, he is so meticulous in his calculations and measurements and accuracy.

[00:07:50]>> [music] >> And you can see you can overlay one of his maps and overlay a Google Earth image and the surprising [music] accuracy how they match up. You notice those kinks in George Street? They were put there by William Dawes to negotiate around the constraints of Tank Stream. You also notice that um Bridge Street is slightly different because he crossed Tank Stream at a different location. All those little bumps in or bends in George Street, thank you to William Dawes for those.

[00:08:28]Now, in 1789, a group of officers from the New South Wales Corps are going to go on an expedition to try to discover the Nepean River.

[00:08:36]Now, it is covered in Watkin Tench's journal in quite extensively. But what he does say about William Dawes is he's a navigator and his accuracy and precision is welcome because they need to know how far and what direction civilization is when you're in the middle of nowhere.

[00:08:53]In late 1789, November, William Dawes will lead a small party across the Nepean River and into the Blue Mountains. It is the very first expedition to explore the Blue Mountains. We covered that in a story called The Forgotten Expeditions Part 1.

[00:09:10]And we talk about how far William Dawes gets, what alignment he takes, how he did it in a little bit more detail than I'll go to here.

[00:09:17]But there is a pile of rocks called Caley's Repulse. You can find that on a Google search. Now, Cal- George Caley didn't put those pile of rocks there. I can guarantee you that.

[00:09:26]Anybody could have put them there but si- since that time. But there is a possibility, it's a remote one, there is a possibility that they are remnants of William Dawes's expedition because it's in about the right location, and those rocks may have been used as markers so he could find his way off the mountain.

[00:09:44]But anyway, that's just an interesting little sideline. In 1792, there's a famous map. Now, it is made of a compilation of lots of maps that were done at that time.

[00:09:54]Yeah, you'll see that goes as far as Broken Bay, down the Hawkesbury to the blue edge of the Blue Mountains. You'll see the incursion of William Dawes into the Blue Mountains. Then there's a section there where I don't know where the Nepean River is at all. Then it comes round to the bottom, there's a bit of the Nepean River, Botany Bay, Parramatta River, Sydney, Parramatta.

[00:10:15]And there's a lot of crisscrossing lines.

[00:10:17]A lot of that chart work, a lot of that mapping was done by William Dawes.

[00:10:22]Now, by the end of 1790, the violence on the frontier is getting pretty severe.

[00:10:27]And Arthur Phillip is going to get a lot of pressure to do something about it.

[00:10:30]But let's just take a step back, and let's talk about the different incursions or interactions, violent interactions between the Aboriginals and the Europeans.

[00:10:39]Go back to January, February 1788, a group of convicts were actually speared by the Aboriginals of Botany Bay. That's the very first time that's documented.

[00:10:49]Phillip at the time says that was simply a warning. They were probably somewhere where they weren't supposed to be.

[00:10:54]In March, April 1788, there's multiple incidents around Sydney Cove. In December of 1788, Phillip is getting a bit desperate, and he goes and kidnaps an Aboriginal man from Manly Cove.

[00:11:08]He is a guy who would eventually be called Arabanoo. Now, we're going to go into detail about that little bit later on, but let me park that for a second.

[00:11:15]In April, May of 1789, the outbreak of smallpox in the colony, where they say 50 to 70% of the Aboriginal population will perish. Now, there is some conspiracy saying the British deliberately introduced smallpox into the Aboriginal population.

[00:11:33]If you look at the science behind smallpox and the time it takes to incubate, that doesn't stack up. But, we covered that and I'll park that. I'll get back to you in a minute. Then, in 1789, because Arabanoo dies of smallpox, Phillip orders the kidnapping of two more men to replace him. One will be Bennelong and the other one is Colebe.

[00:11:53]Again, they'll kidnap them from Manly Cove.

[00:11:56]Colebe gets away. Bennelong will eventually escape, but will come back.

[00:12:00]Now, we talk about Arabanoo, we talk about smallpox, we talk about Bennelong, we talk about Colebe, the whole thing in what can change the first 4 years. I don't think we'll go into it here because it's really covered really well in that section, and I suggest you'd go and have a look at that video. And while you're there, don't forget to do that like and subscribe thing for me.

[00:12:21]Now, where was I? We're talking about Arabanoo, Colebe.

[00:12:28]That's in September of 1789. Now, I know I'm got my head back in the right place.

[00:12:33]Um Captain Arthur Phillip will be down at Manly Cove, and he gets speared himself. It's a 10-ft spear. Again, that is a more contentious story.

[00:12:42]Late 1789, there is several spearings around Parramatta.

[00:12:46]Um and then in early 1790, we're getting up to the uh the most important incident. There will be some spearings around Brickfield, which is where the central railway station is today in Sydney and Parramatta.

[00:13:01]Now, all of these intermediary spearings, right?

[00:13:05]Phillip does not organize any retribution against the Aboriginals at all. He says that and in the ones at Botany Bay, he says, "Well, they probably weren't supposed to be there." There's several other occasions where it's known the convicts were stealing the Aboriginal fishing gear and the Aboriginal's fishing gear and um they deserved what they got, basically.

[00:13:26]Um they're harassing the Aborigines or stealing other things from them. Even when Phillip gets speared himself, he says, "No, we're not going to mount any retribution. We're just going to take this on the chin."

[00:13:36]But, in December of 1790, uh, a guy by the name of John McIntyre, who's Arthur Phillip's gamekeeper, will be speared and killed. Now, in a lot of cases previously, these people didn't die of a spearing. Some did, but not all. But, when John McIntyre is killed, then Arthur Phillip says that was a premeditated attack on McIntyre.

[00:13:59]But, it should be noted here that McIntyre was a violent man in his own right, and he may have been This may have been simply a retribution. But, Phillip is getting a lot of pressure from um, army officers, from the settlers settlers, trying to say, "Look, uh, you need to show some leadership here and do something about these Aborigines that are attacking us in our settlements."

[00:14:21]So, with that as the impetus, that is the the death of John McIntyre, he is going to do something which is pretty severe. Now, William Dawes, the man of this sort story, he is in the last 2 years been learning the Aboriginal language, he's learning the culture, he's learning how things work in their world, and he's watching these tensions rise. He can see what's happening from the outside, and he realizes that, uh, this is not going to end well. And when Arthur Phillip starts talking about punitive expeditions, he knows exactly what that's going to mean.

[00:14:58]>> [music] >> In December of 1790, Phillip will order a very first punitive expedition against the Aboriginal people. It is definitely a revenge mission. He orders 12 marines to be led by Lieutenant William Dawes to go out and capture or kill 10 Aboriginal men. When Dawes gets that order, he refuses. Says, "No, I'm not going."

[00:15:24]And Phillip says, "Why not?" He says, "I don't want to kill Aboriginal people. I don't want to kill, and it is morally wrong." Phillip is absolutely outraged.

[00:15:32]He's furious. He demands an apology from Dawes for his insubordination, and Dawes says, "I'm not going to apologize for not going on a mission that is morally wrong."

[00:15:42]Phillip's in a bit of a bind, but he has to have that mission done anyway, so he orders a Lieutenant John Poulden, who's another officer in the corps, to lead the mission. And they go out, and lo and behold, there's no contact, no sighting of any Aboriginal person at all. Come back completely empty-handed. And you kind of wonder whether William Dawes didn't have a talk to Paton Young and say, "You and your people better make yourself scarce. Governor Phillip is got is in a bad mood."

[00:16:09]So, Phillip is still frustrated by what's going on. So, in December of 17, sorry, January 1791, he orders a reconnaissance mission. It's a mission to go and find where the Aboriginal people have disappeared to.

[00:16:21]So, he says to Dawes, "You will lead this group of marines to go and find the Aboriginal people." Dawes is not very He's hesitating. He doesn't want to do it. And he says, "Well, I'll go, but if we see them, there's no violence. I'm not firing on the Aboriginal people, or not escalate the violence with the Aboriginal people."

[00:16:38]Phillip is still very cranky with him.

[00:16:40]He's cuz he's he's he he will reprimand him for hesitating and for being unreasonable. But, they go out on the expedition, and there's no sighting of Aboriginal people again.

[00:16:51]So, they come back empty-handed. Phillip is very very frustrated by these events, but he can't do anything with William Dawes because William Dawes is really needed in the colony. He can't just say, "Right, we'll put you in irons." And I'll talk about that in just a second.

[00:17:07]So, because Dawes is the engineer, surveyor, and colonial astronomer, so he needs him here. So much so that he will not even rotate him out on the first rotation. He will go on the second rotation and he'll depart the colony in December of 1791, which is about 10 months after all this event, on the Golden. Now, when you have a look at the returns from Phillip, Phillip is pretty critical of Dawes, but why didn't he order a court-martial? Insubordination like that in other stories has led to people being court-martialed and hanged or getting life sentences. It's pretty severe crime. But Phillip doesn't even go down that road.

[00:17:48]And when you think about it, David Collins is the judge advocate and he is a bit of a supporter of Dawes and in his returns, he is not that critical. He's pretty neutral about Dawes. He's very complimentary about his professional capability. So, I think Phillip was left in a bit of a bind. Dawes had the whole moral high ground. Phillip kind of agreed with him. David Collins probably advised Phillip cuz David Collins is a judge advocate. He's a legal man in the colony. He's probably said to Phillip, "Really, you don't have much grounds to court-martial him. Won't go anywhere.

[00:18:21]Probably be bad publicity." And so, Phillip has dropped the whole thing completely.

[00:18:26]Now, it does damage William Dawes's military career, that's for sure, but it doesn't affect his professional one.

[00:18:32]And he is socially isolated in the colony because [snorts] standing up and to the governor, taking moral high ground is probably not the smartest thing to do.

[00:18:53]William Dawes arrives back in England in June of 1792.

[00:18:57]He resigns from the Marines. In October of 1792, he takes a position with the Sierra Leone Company as an engineer and surveyor. Sierra Leone was set up and built by black people and championed or so really supported, sorry, by the Sierra Leone Company and championed by a government name of William Wilberforce.

[00:19:18]Now, they these people were actually previously enslaved in America. They fought with the British in American Revolutionary Wars that took place between 1775 and 1783.

[00:19:30]And at the end of that, they were supposed to be um settled in Nova Scotia in Canada.

[00:19:35]But that didn't work out. Administrative reasons mainly. So, what the British did is they set up a settlement called Sierra Leone in West Africa.

[00:19:45]Now, when William Dawes take a position position there, they ask him to send back a report. They want a report from him saying that everything is stable, everything is working well, because they really need to reassure the investors and Parliament in England that the settlement in Sierra Leone is going tickety-boo.

[00:20:04]And I think William Dawes was looking for a place with a bit of integrity, with an honest administration, with capable leadership, and with people being treated well, because I think he saw the mission of the Sierra Leone Company as being an admirable one. It's the sort of thing he would adopt.

[00:20:21]But when he gets down there, that is that's not what he finds. It just doesn't work out because there's a chaotic administration, there's corruption amongst the officials, um there's a logistics problems, uh there's really unrealistic expectations from England. They lead to and in his report he says the settlers are suffering hunger, disease, they've got broken promises, their land grants are not being fulfilled properly, and he said there's just generally an overall failure in the leadership. When that report lands back in England and is presented to Parliament, there's an absolute outcry. People want to know what the hell is going on.

[00:20:57]Now, his report and William Dawes is supported by William Wilberforce. As I said, he's a member of Parliament and he sees a good Christian character. He believes what William Dawes is saying.

[00:21:08]The other person that supports him is Zachary Macaulay and he says that he is faithful and trustworthy. Zachary Macaulay will actually later become governor of Sierra Leone between 1794 and 1799, I think.

[00:21:23]But it just goes to show, William Dawes got into trouble for refusing to kill in Sydney, he's getting into trouble in Sierra Leone for refusing to lie.

[00:21:42]It doesn't take very long before they start seeing signs of trouble with the Sierra Leone company. There's problems with logistics and supplies out of London and getting that organized, there's a disease in the colony and a lot of suffering.

[00:21:54]William Dawes must be thinking to himself, there's a pattern here.

[00:21:57]Just like Sydney, there's a lot of people running around with great intentions but without good leadership, particularly from London, this is not going to end well at all.

[00:22:05]Now, he gives himself a bit of a promotion, I think, because he takes on a more administrative role. He's looking after construction, he's organizing labor, he's resolving disputes but his biggest role is reporting back to London. Now, he must have done a pretty good job of it because in 1793, they will promote him to governor.

[00:22:26]But the situation there is extremely difficult because London's got these unrealistic expectations for laws to implement for Dawes to implement and he's being blamed by the settlers for things he didn't actually plans or ideas he didn't come up with. The real problem is that he's got to change the land grants and it's making people very angry.

[00:22:53]Now, the minute the Methodist minister will call him a prior and he gets himself into a very difficult situation where he threatens to resign as governor and the colonials there say, "Well, go.

[00:23:03]Go, go, go. Be gone with you. Happy to see you gone."

[00:23:07]William Dawes is very disillusioned.

[00:23:09]He's not disillusioned with the abolition of slave trading. He's disillusioned with the company directors that are continually undermining his ability to help build a better colony.

[00:23:21]To give you some background, the Sierra Leone Company was a private abolitionist corporation founded in around 1791.

[00:23:29]Their thoughts were that they could create a free black colony. They said they could take people that have previously been enslaved, and they could become self-determining, and they could live and prosper without being slaves.

[00:23:46]Now, that concept is completely bizarre to us, but that is what they were thinking in the 1790s.

[00:23:53]By 1794, William Dawes has finished his time with the company, and he is had enough. He's seen enough, and he's going to return to England.

[00:24:05]William Dawes arrives back in England in 1794.

[00:24:08]He is suffering from ill health, but his reputation's intact. Wilberforce and Macaulay still trust and value William Dawes. He's also trusted and valued by the abolitionist movement because he speaks plainly, he acts honestly, and his conscience just can't be bent for convenience. He's a man of very high principle.

[00:24:29]He takes on a teaching role, teaching mathematics at the Christ Hospital School until about 1799.

[00:24:36]And then in 1801, the Sierra Leone Company will recall him once again, and appoint him as governor.

[00:24:43]Now, he'll work tirelessly in trying to stabilize their economy, but the directors there again are undermining him. The company is suffering from failing finances, and it's pretty much an impossible task. But he stays there for a few years, but in the years that follow, the Sierra Leone company will completely collapse. But the British government, by now, has passed legislation and abolished slave trading.

[00:25:09]And they will take over Sierra Leone and make it their base for the West Africa Squadron, which is a fleet of ships, and their primary purpose is to hunt and destroy slave trading vessels. That's how serious it became.

[00:25:23]Now, Win doors will then be appointed government commissioner between 1808 and 1810 during the transition to British rule.

[00:25:33]Now, he returns to England in 1810 and he's there until about 1813, where he joins the Church Missionary Society and where he will then learn some skills for his next overseas mission.

[00:25:55]Win doors arrives in Antigua in 1813.

[00:25:58]Now, Antigua is part of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. It was an island that was shaped by sugar, slavery, and the empire.

[00:26:08]Now, the first European to visit Antigua was in actual fact Christopher Columbus in 1493, and he named it Santa Maria de la Antigua.

[00:26:17]But the British would colonize Antigua, or settle Antigua, in 1632.

[00:26:22]Initially, they would grow tobacco, but then they would soon turn to sugar as a plantation crop of choice. They would use enslaved Africans as labor, but when slavery was abolished in 1834, labor shortages would bring about economic hardship. Antigua has a very difficult history right up till its independence in November of 1981.

[00:26:46]Now, in 1814, Win doors will meet a Elizabeth Rutter. She is a freed colored woman born in Antigua outside of the slavery. Now, for a man of the empire and an officer like William Dawes to married a colored woman in Antigua was and something that was probably never heard of. It's very very rare. And it just goes to show you the character of the man he was.

[00:27:13]They together would have two daughters, one born in 1840 and 15 and 16, I think, from memory. But together they would open a small school to teach enslaved children.

[00:27:25]Now, he keeps a group of letters and you can see there's humility, compassion, but yet a very quiet determination because those children arrive after a day of labor in the sugarcane fields and he would teach them reading, writing, arithmetic, some scriptures, but give them hope.

[00:27:44]He becomes the director of the Church Missionary Schools for the West Indies between 1820 and 1829.

[00:27:52]But he keeps a group of letters and you can see the broader context of those letters he's trying to soften the brutality of slavery through education.

[00:28:04]>> [music] >> William Dawes was a familiar figure around Antigua. He was a quiet, gentle, unambitious man. Uh he wasn't a preacher, he wasn't a political figure, he was just a simple teacher. A man that turned up every day. But even the colonial officials at the time remember him as a man of gentle goodness. And they said he served faithfully and did not seek recognition.

[00:28:32]Now, William Wilberforce will approach him in the late 1820s and convince him to go back to Sierra Leone as governor yet again. He will return to West Africa to try to build a free colony. But his health is certainly failing and by the 22nd of May, 1836, William Dawes would pass away in Sierra Leone. Now, there's no monument to mark his grave and there's no grand obituary to record his passing. But, those who do remember William Dawes know he was a man without without violence, without ambition, and without compromise.

[00:29:07]There's one truth that will follow William Dawes across three continents.

[00:29:11]In Sydney, he refused to kill. In Sierra Leone, he refused to lie. In Antigua, he refused to give up on humanity. William Dawes did not have a life shaped by obedience. It was shaped by his conscience.

[00:29:27]And in the quiet corners of history, it's that sort of courage, I think, that goes the longest.

[00:29:43]Thanks for watching [music] and William Dawes, what an amazing story, what an amazing man. And he's one of our colonial forefathers. He's part of our history. A man who chose right whenever he could.

[00:29:54]And history is littered with people like this. They will choose righteous against all odds. Sometimes it left them unpopular, sometimes it was downright dangerous. But, a story worth telling nonetheless.

[00:30:07]Want to thank everybody for their kind words and the support. Those comments always leave us humble, but they always so keep us grounded, keep us motivated.

[00:30:17]And that is the next generation of stories. They come from those comments.

[00:30:21]Next week will be one of those.

[00:30:24]Um don't forget, you got to remember to subscribe. Remind everybody that you know, friends, relatives, people on the bus, train. Tell them subscribe, to like, that's important, and to leave those comments. Those comments keep Australian history relevant, keep the channel alive, and so we continue to share our history across the world.

[00:30:46]Until next time, you guys, you take care, you stay safe, and we will catch you later.

[00:31:13]>> [music]