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Jandamarra

Jandamarra
Born c. 1873
Died April 1, 1897
Tunnel Creek, Western Australia
Place of burial Napier Range
Allegiance Bunuba
Years of service 1894-1897
Battles/wars Australian frontier wars

Jandamarra or Tjandamurra (c. 1873—1 April 1897), known to European settlers as Pigeon, was an Indigenous Australian of the Bunuba tribe who led one of the few organised armed insurrections against European colonisation of Australia.

The Bunuba land was positioned in the southern part of the Kimberley region in the far north of the state of Western Australia, and stretched from the town of Fitzroy Crossing to the King Leopold Ranges; it included the Napier and Oscar Ranges.

From about the age of 11, Jandamarra was working for the settlers as a slave. In his teens, he was initiated into the law of the Bunuba. When Jandamarra's close friend, an Englishman named Richardson, joined the police force in the 1890s, Jandamarra, a skilled horseman and marksman, was employed as his native tracker. Unusually for the time, Jandamarra was treated as an equal and the pair gained a reputation as the "most outstanding" team in the police force at that time.

Aboriginal people were spearing stock, an effective form of resistance against the settlers. Jandamarra was ordered to track down his own people. The captives, among them his uncle, chief Ellemarra, were taken to Lillimooloora Station. Chief Ellemarra forced Jandamarra to decide where his loyalties lie: to kill his friend Richardson or be outcast from his tribe. He shot Richardson and became an armed fugitive.

On 10 November 1894, Jandamarra and some followers attacked five white men who were driving cattle to set up a large station in the heart of Bunuba land. Two of these men were killed and guns and ammunition captured. This was the first time that guns were used against European settlers in an organised attack. In late 1894, two weeks after Richardson was shot, the police and Jandamarra’s band faced each other at the Windjana Gorge, a sacred place in Bunuba culture. After eight hours of standoff Ellemarra was killed, Jandamarra was wounded but escaped.

Western Australia's first Premier, John Forrest, ordered the rebellion to be crushed. Police attacked Aboriginal camps around Fitzroy Crossing. Many Aboriginal people were killed, some purely on suspicion that they had ties to Jandamarra's band.


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