“Claims of the Aborigines,” preached by Rev John Saunders in the Bathurst Street Baptist Church, Sydney, on 14 October 1838. John Saunders is regarded as the effective founder of the Australian Baptist movement.
The Myall Creek massacre, the killing of at least twenty-eight unarmed Indigenous Australians by twelve colonists had occurred on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near the Gwydir River, in northern New South Wales. More information on the massacre is here. An appreciation of John Saunders by Baptist academic Rod Benson is here.
“Behold the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. (Isaiah 26:21)”
The duty of the colonists towards the Aboriginal natives of this territory, is the important subject of discourse this evening. It is a topic which naturally falls within the scope of the Christian ministry, for it constitutes a part of Christian morals and is intimately connected with Christian doctrine. It is a part of morals, for kindness to the unfortunate is involved in this precept, “Whatever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them” and it gains great importance from the doctrine, that “God our Saviour will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.”
This topic has therefore come under the notice of my ministry at different times in an incidental manner, but now it behoves us to give it a serious consideration, for it occupies both public and private attention and it is a matter of no small importance, that Christians should think rightly, speak rightly, and act rightly in this respect. The conduct of the colonists towards the original proprietors of the soil, is a theme of the highest interest, and upon our benevolent intention and righteous principles depends the happiness of a portion of the human race. Hence arises the duty of serious reflection, and hence the propriety of taking the word of God as an unerring guide, and hence the obligation of implicit obedience to that word whatsoever its dictates may be.
In pursuit of this object, I might present the case of the Aborigines in various ways; I might appeal to your pity, your love, or your justice. If the native black be but an inferior animal, he is at least entitled to the exercise of humanity, and if he be a man he is entitled to brotherly love, and as a fellow-creature he is entitled to justice. These suggestions ought to awaken a prejudice in his favour in every well disposed mind, but it is not my intention so much to awaken your compassion, as to appeal to your sense of justice, and to try the question by the evidence of conscience, and before the tribunal of God. If we have not committed injustice, and do not premeditate it, we have nothing to fear: if as Christian men, we are resolved to follow righteousness whatever may be the result, then we shall delight to bring our actions and intentions to the test of revealed truth, and to scan them under the beam of Divine illumination. Our text will conduce to this end, it represents God as the father and the judge of man in the act of coming forth to punish the wicked for their iniquities, it proclaims that his visitation will be according to righteousness, for there is a cause for his judicial vengeance in the blood which has been shed, and which shall reveal itself in order to convict and condemn the oppressor. “The earth shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain.”
As the text is stated in general terms and announces a principle which is maintained by many passages of the sacred scriptures, a principle of vindication which is still extant in Divine Providence, I invite you to meditate:
I.Upon God’s retributive providence towards the nations.
II.The sin of the colony which should lead us to dread the exercise of this providence.
III.The means of averting retributive visitations.
[I. Upon God’s retributive providence towards the nations.]
That the Almighty exercises not only a general providence, but one of a special, and often of a retributive nature, will be evident to every believer in the sacred volume, who are the parties to whom I appeal. Not only is it said that “God will render to every man according to his deeds,” which involves the whole of man’s existence, and the retribution of a future state; but it is evident, that even on earth, a man is frequently visited according to his doings. “God taketh the wise in their own craftiness. The wicked travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealings upon his own pate.”
But this dispensation is more manifest to nations, for as they have a mere civil and temporal being, there is no future state in which they can have a national existence; the nations are judged on earth, they are punished or rewarded on earth, the globe on which they dwell is alike the arena of their deeds – their hall of judgment, and their field of doom. The whole tenour (sic) of Scripture supports this view, the Lord by the Prophet Jeremiah declares, the general rule of his procedure. “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, than I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.” It is not for us to state in what degree this principle shall be applied to any particular people, nor to predict the precise moment of its application, but we may be sure that the unchanging word of God has been fulfilled, and is still accomplished toward every one of the tribes of Adam. The measure of forbearance, the weight of visitation, and the time of indignation are in the hands of the Eternal, but the certainty of a righteous retribution towards all is clearly established.
An additional point is also obvious, that if there be anything which falls for a swifter and a more severe punishment than another, it is the shedding of human blood. For this the nations receive a prompt and condign visitation. Oppression, cruelty and blood, gather the clouds of vengeance, and provoke the threatening thunder of the Omnipotent, and attract the bolt of wrath. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed,” was the decree of the Eternal when the life of the brutes was placed in human power, and the reason for this solemn distinction is “for in the image of God made he man.” And this is a distinction which God has maintained, does maintain, and will maintain till the end of time.
It is a fearful thing to shed human blood, it is an act which has the deepest malefaction of heaven upon it – a curse from the dread power above. The twenty-second and ninth chapters of Ezekiel, reveal the retribution for blood in a solemn light, and from the day when Israel was visited with famine for Saul and his bloody house down to the avenging butcheries which now defile some of the fairest portions of the globe, the unchanging God has continued faithful to his word. Pilate might wash his hands but he could not make himself guiltless of innocent blood, and the awful imprecation of his “blood be upon us and upon our children,” has in the rivers of blood which flowed from the burning temple at Jerusalem been most awfully answered.
That the eye of God is still upon man, and that the same undeviating principle of reward is kept up will be apparent from its announcement in the Apocalypse, and from this passage among others. “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became blood: and I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous O Lord, which art and wast and shall be, because thou hast judged them; for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy.” Some of the last plagues, therefore, which shall wither and scorch and blast the earth shall be in retribution for blood: the nations shall be punished for their iniquity, the earth shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain; and while men may strive, and wail, and blaspheme, the voice shall be heard from the altar, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.”
II. Consider the sin which should lead us to dread the exercise of a Retributive Providence.
The doctrine of a retributive Providence, once established, there is no great difficulty in assigning causes for apprehension. The blasphemy, perjury, Sabbath breaking, licentiousness, gluttony, and drunkenness of the land, may well excite our fears: for if God should visit us for these things how could we answer him? We must stand guilty, and confess the justice of any sentence he might pass upon us. The tenour of this discourse will lead me to select the sin in which the whole colony has been engaged, and for which therefore the whole colony is answerable – our injustice to the Aborigines. I do not select individual delinquents, but impeach the nation for whether in ignorance, or with a guilty knowledge, we certainly have been culpable in our neglect and oppression, of this despised and degraded tribe of our fellow-men. The whole charge however, rests upon their being men, which some are disposed to question and which some even dare to deny. It becomes my duty, therefore, to assert the title of the Aboriginal native to a place in the family of man.
First, he is neither monkey, ape, nor baboon the generic distinction between man and these brutes is most marked: the orang-outang has three vertebrae less than man; the membranous pouch attached to his organs of speech, would prevent articulate sounds even if he had the will to utter them and he is a four-handed instead of a two-handed animal. The nearest approximation to man is not a biped, he is formed to leap from tree to tree and to run upon all fours; he is profile to the dust in his quickest movements and lifts not his face to heaven as claiming kindred with the skies. Naturalists have settled this important question, and hand-over to the theologian their verdict in favour of the true humanity of the native black.
But, quoth some objector is he not an intermediate link between man and the brute? To such I reply, describe him, give the materialists of Europe some specific difference in order that the purblind science of the present day may duly classify him. Give the metaphysician some clue to the complexion of his mind, so that the philosopher may discern his peculiar instinct, as contrasted with genuine reason. Give to the moralist some insight into his marvellous conscience, which yet saves him harmless from the responsibility of being a moral agent. Do all or one of these things, and we may listen to the doctrine of an intermediate link; but with the allowed barriers between different species, and the yet wider distinctions of different genera, it can never be inferred, that an animal of the genus bimanna is not a man. There may be differences in cerebral development, but until the ignorance of the serf, and the idiotcy of the European can exclude them from the human family, the rudeness of the savage and his frontal deficiency can never banish him from the same household.
The whole difference between the savage and the civilized is, that one is a cultivated, and the other an uncultivated being; the very name assigned to each class, shows full well the real cause of distinction. There is no fundamental discrepancy. Does man laugh at the wit of his neighbour, or join in mirthful glee? The black man does the same. Does man mourn over departed friends, and drop the tear of sympathy? The New Hollander does the same. Are there stirring emotions of pride, anger, pity, love, indignation, and benevolence in the heart of the white? The same emotions are found lodged in the bosom of the black. Does the civilized being feel a secret monitor within, which we term conscience? The same agent whispers monitions to the savage. Does man pour forth an intellectual existence through the breathings of articulate sounds? The New Hollander has his fountain of thought, and can spontaneously pour forth its living water in a stream of intelligible words.
Above all, I believe, that black and white, barbarian and civilized, are alike capable of forming the notion of a God. Thus have I enumerated some particulars which appear to be the prerogatives of human nature, and we perceive they are as much the inheritance of the black as of the white. With these considerations, I cannot fail to conclude, that the Aboriginal native is a man; and being a man, with what sublimity does he rise before us; he is the august possessor of a moral and intellectual nature, the owner of an immortal soul. Then he is our fellow creature – the descendant of a common ancestor – our brother upon earth, and possessed of a joint title to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus and to an inheritance in Heaven. He then becomes invested with all the natural rights which belong to humanity, and is entitled to all the charities which man is bound to show to man.
These inferences usher in the solemn enquiry, whether we have fully discharged our duty towards our brother, or whether we have wronged him? The answer will be painful, but the truth must be told. Our influence has been deeply fatal to the black. It might have been supposed, that a Christian nation colonizing the Australian wilderness would have sought to bless the original possessor of the wild; but so far from this, we have inflicted a series of wrongs, which I will now enumerate.
First, we have robbed him without any sanction, that I can find either in natural or revealed law; we descended as invaders upon his territory and took possession of the soil. It is not just to say that the natives had no notion of property, and therefore we could not rob them of that which they did not possess; for accurate information shews that each tribe had its distinct locality, and each superior person in the tribe a portion of this district. From these their hunting grounds, they have been individually and collectively dispossessed.
We have also destroyed their game, and the fine-spun arguments about wild animals are adduced to show that the kangaroo and the opossum are the property of him who first obtains them. But apply this argument to the aristocratic privilege of Britain, and it ceases to hold good; the lord of the manor could transport a man, exile him from his country, his family, and friends, for shooting a pheasant or snaring a hare; and the ground and the game, the sustenance and life of the New Hollander could be taken without compunction, or the offer of an equivalent. Surely we are guilty here.
Secondly, we have brutalised them. We brought the art of intoxication to them – we taught them new lessons in fraud, dishonesty, and theft. We bribed them to shed the blood of each other in our public streets; and we encouraged them to licentiousness and self destroying profligacy. One sinner destroyeth much good; but we had many sinners to obliterate, not good, so much as the last shadow of departing virtue. We came to eclipse what little they had of happiness – we came to draw deep night over the barbarian gloom. I am precluded from illustration by the painful character of the details; but the fact is notorious. Verily we are guilty here.
Thirdly, we have shed their blood. I speak not of the broils and murders which might find a parallel in the conduct of the white toward the white, but out of those extra murders in which so many have fallen. We have not been fighting with a natural enemy, but have been eradicating the possessors of the soil, and why, forsooth? because they were troublesome, because some few had resented the injuries they had received, and then how were they destroyed? by wholesale, in cold blood; let the Hawkesbury and Emu Plains tell their history, let Bathurst give in her account, and the Hunter render her tale, not to mention the South, and we shall find that while rum, and licentiousness, and famine, and disease, have done their part to exterminate the blacks, the musket, and the bayonet and the sword, and the poisoned damper, have also had their influence and that Britain hath avenged the death of her sons, not by law, but by retaliation at the atrocious disproportion of a hundred to one. The spot of blood is upon us, the blood of the poor and the defenceless, the blood of the men we wronged before we slew, and too, too often, a hundred times too often, innocent blood. We are guilty here.
“Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord, and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this.” When he maketh “Inquisition for blood,” will he not find it here? And finding it, surely we have reason to dread his visitation. In what way he may chasten us it is not for me to suggest; he is a sovereign and acteth according to the counsel of his own will, but it is only to glance at his resources, and we can at once discern abundant reason for fear he could parch us with drought, scatter our commerce, pinch us with penury, and lower us with disease; the plague, the tornado, and famine are at his back; above all, he could weary us with civil dissension, with the miseries of an overflowing wickedness, or with the power of a hostile sword. These things God in his infinite mercy has restrained, but how soon could he let loose their malignant influence upon us! We have, therefore, reason to dread the approach of the Lord when he cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; “for the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”
III. Consider the means of averting retributive visitations.
Happily, we are not left in ignorance of the means of averting national judgment, God having graciously given us both precept and example in his sacred word. Repentance, which is the first step of an individual’s return, is the plain and only method for a nation. And he who listens to the “cry of the humble and will not despise their prayer,” will also condescend to the united aspiration of a contrite people and withhold his vengeful hand. His denunciations are sent to warn the ungodly, and an interval is granted in order that they may have space to repent; a merciful procedure, by which the wicked are dissuaded from their evil ways, and only receive the penalty when they have demanded it by their obstinacy and impenitence.
Thus the Lord instructs the prophet Jeremiah, “Speak all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word: if so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil which I purpose to do unto them, because of the evil of their doings.” And, for example, while the celebrated instance of penitent Nineveh stands in strong relief upon the inspired tablet, every nation perceives the ready and effectual means of averting the judgments of the Most High. When the King of Nineveh decreed a fast, he considered the propitiation of Jehovah as probable, he had no assurance of the result, “Who can tell (said he) if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not.”
But when we approach the Eternal in the same humble mood we have the encouraging testimony concerning the Ninevites, “God saw their works that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not.” And we have the general principle noticed in the commencement of this discourse, “At what time I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.”
Then it is at once our duty, and our wisdom to humble ourselves in penitence before God. But repentance supposes reformation, and where injuries have been inflicted it involves recompense. It may be difficult to restrain the lawless aggressions of some on the borders of the colony, but if we are faithful to our principles, and work with these upon public opinion, even the distant stockman, will be influenced by it, and be held in check. The spirit formed under feelings of penitence, will prevent wholesale massacres, and will lead to wholesome regulations, having for their object the prevention of the outrages which have been the cause of savage retaliation. It is both the interest and the duty of the colonists to keep up a good understanding with the Aboriginal natives, for not only may the white man suffer in the wild foray of the savage, but he may by exceeding the bounds of righteous self-defence incur the guilt and the punishment of innocent blood. A sound public opinion on this point, is of the highest consequence. But the next step to reformation is restitution. And do we start at this word? It is one an honest man need never shrink from; it is one a noble mind will never discard; it is one which religious man will cheerfully adopt. It is our duty to recompense the Aborigines to the extent we have injured them. It is true we cannot make an atonement for the lives which have been taken, neither can we make reparation for the multitudes which have been hastened to the tomb by the profligacy we have taught them, but we can at least, bestow upon the survivors the blessings we enjoy. We have a boon in our hands above all price, Christianity, and the numerous comforts which flow from it, and which are comprehended in the expressive word civilization. We are required to protect the natives from further aggression, and shed upon them every blessing within our power.
But methinks I hear some one exclaim, these beings, whom you call men, are incapable of receiving civilization and the Gospel. If they are men, they have all the capacity we want, for God who sent the heralds of salvation to preach the Gospel to every man, knew their nature and knew the power of the Gospel, and never yet prescribed to his servants a hopeless task. Is the New Hollander a child of Adam? then all the promises made to the children of men belong to him, and the covenant mercies of God are his. Not many years ago the same suggestion was uttered against the Negro, but the problem in respect to him has long since been solved: in the words of the eloquent Richard Watson, “your missionaries have determined that they have dived into that mine from which, we were often told, no valuable ore or precious stone could be extracted, and they have brought up the gem of an immortal spirit, flashing with the light of intellect, and glowing with the hues of Christian graces.”
If, then the Christian experiment upon the benighted African has resulted in all that the Word of God predicted, let the same experiment be attempted with the degraded barbarian of this territory, and the same attestation to Divine truth will ensue. But have we not had evidence of the capacity of the black in our occasional intercourse with him, and also in the progress his child has made in our public schools? Then why blot him at once from the region of rational and moral existence, and resign ourselves to slumber, supposing that our work is done? We have rather to call upon you for new exertions in his favour and, with the exercise of repentance for the past, to exhort you to a faithful discharge of your duty to him for the future. You must secure to him civil rights, you must send to him the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.
The Gospel has restrained the vicious Corinthian, the lying Cretan, and the sophistical Athenian, it has ruled the Scythian, and has subdued Roman pride: and, in modern days, it has raised the Greenlander, softened the Indian, and renewed the Inhabitant of the Polynesian Isles: it has given liberty to the captive Negro, and unfettered his mind; and shall it have no benign, no elevating, no transforming, no sanctifying influence in New Holland? Far from it; its triumphs shall be made the more apparent here as its omnipotent agency and its universal adaptation have been denied. Then be it your honour to send the doctrine of the cross to this most hopeless variety of the human kind, and be it your happiness to see the glorious efficacy of the Divine word. For be assured that all the peoples of the earth shall yet be gathered to our Saviour, for the scene which John beheld in apocalyptic vision, shall yet be realised. “A great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands: and cried with a loud voice, saying salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb.”
To be ourselves among this blissful number, should be our first and highest aim; to bring all around within the same sacred and happy circle is our next duty; and surely it is no less our duty to call home, and gather into the fold of Christ the remnant of the tribes destroyed by us. In failing to attempt this, we resign an injured portion of our race to deep and long protracted misery, but in carrying out these views we not only make some reparation, but may be the instruments of incalculable good. By these means, and only by these means, may we hope to avert the righteous judgment of God when the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, when the earth also shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain.
Note.- In connexion with the above discourse, it is pleasing to learn that a day of humiliation and prayer has been appointed by the Governor [Sir George Gipps]; for those who feel the considerations urged upon them in the sermon can carry them out in pious contrition on that day.
A note from The Other Cheek
When the news that John Saunders died penniless in England reached Sydney, the Sydney Morning Herald carried a extract from a letter from his widow> “God alone can tell what will become of us. I have thought that amongst the friends of John Saunders in Sydney some little subscription might perhaps be made to help us in our time of need, and I have written to you with this hope. I do desire to keep a roof over my head till I have heard from Australia, but it is not likely I shall be able to do so. May the Lord direct our kind friends in Sydney! I put my cause in their hands – the cause of the fatherless and the widow.”
The Herald noted “A sum adequate for the immediate wants of Mrs. Saunders and her daughter will be forwarded by to-morrow’s mail, and a meeting has been convened for Thursday afternoon, at four o’clock, at the “Herald” office, to consult the views of several gentlemen who have expressed their desire to demonstrate in a most appropriate manner their esteem for Mr. Saunders’ character and services.”
(From companyofherald,net)