Angus McMillan

Angus McMillan (14 August 1810-18 May 1865), was an explorer and pioneer pastoralist in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. He is also known for being an instigator of many of the massacres against the Aboriginal peoples in the Gippsland region.

Early life

Angus McMillan was born in Glenbrittle, Isle of Skye, Scotland, the fourth son of Ewan McMillan. After an early life of hardship and deprivation he migrated to Australia in 1838. Under the initial employ of Captain Lachlan Macalister he gained experience of Australian pastoralism on the Monaro, New South Wales before moving to manage the Currawang station near Delegate. It was on one of his exploratory trips to Ensay that he first viewed the Gippsland flats from Mt McLeod and sent word to Macalister that there might be both grazing land and a viable port to be found to the South. An almost deadly encounter with an aboriginal guide at the time may have coloured his view of the native inhabitants.

Exploration

By the time of 1839 and 1840 wealthy landholders in New South Wales had become interested in the Gippsland region of Victoria and funded exploration of the region. Macalister knew the early settlers in the high country of Gippsland around Benambra and Omeo as they too were from the Monaro. He put forward McMillan as a candidate to further explore the plains of Gippsland proper nearer to the coast. A second interest sent Polish scientist-explorer, Count Paul Strzelecki to also explore Gippsland. Both of these expedition parties came down from New South Wales through the already established lands around Benambra and Omeo and headed south towards the coast.

McMillan completed several expeditions, and while he was not necessarily the first to visit many locations, his explorations were the most important in terms of European settlement of Gippsland proper. In 1841, on the final of his early expeditions he located a suitable port for the region, at present day Port Albert.

The route established then by McMillan remains essentially the same major north-south route through Gippsland to this day. This route follows the Great Alpine Road south through the Tambo Valley to Bruthen, then West to Bairnsdale and Sale along the Princes Highway, then south from Sale to Port Albert.

For several decades Gippsland operated essentially on this north-south axis, following this route from Benambra and Omeo to Port Albert, but in the 1860s a road was opened from Melbourne to the east, and this was followed a couple of decades later by a rail line. These developments, along with development of significant east-west shipping on the Gippsland Lakes at the time, reoriented travel and transport to the simpler east-west axis, and demoted the Benambra and Omeo regions to a side branch of this main route.

Later life

McMillan later squatted on land in Gippsland for his own pastoral requirements. He was responsible for several massacres of Indigenous Australians who resisted alienation of their land and confronted the European explorers and settlers. Massacres of the Kurnai/Gunai people led by McMillan occurred at Nuntin, Boney Point, Butchers Creek, Maffra, Warrigal Creek, and other unspecified locations in Gippsland.Fact|date=August 2007

In 1857 he married and had two sons Ewan and Angus. 1859-1860 he was a member of the Legislative Assembly, less than a decade after Victoria was first declared a separate colony. It seems that in later life his view towards the indigenous community had softened and their welfare may have been one reason for his interest in politics.

Bushfires and drought caused havoc with McMillan's financial interests and despite being recognised as the discoverer of Gippsland, McMillan died without an inheritance in May 1865 on the banks of Iguana Creek while surveying what is now the Dargo Road in East Gippsland.

References

*Bride, T.F. (Ed) (1899) "Letters from Victorian pioneers." Melbourne.
*Morgan, P. (1997) "The Settling of Gippsland: A Regional History." Traralgon: Gippsland Municipalities Association.

External links

* [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020159b.htm Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition]
* [http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~surreal/AVG/Resources/timeline.html Steps in Time - A Gippsland Time Line to 1899]