Midgegooroo

Midgegooroo (date of birth unknown, died 22 May 1833) was an Indigenous Australian of the Nyungar nation, who played a key role in Indigenous resistance to white settlement in the area of Perth, Western Australia. Best known as the father of Yagan, Midgegooroo was executed by white settlers in 1833.

Early life

Nothing is known of Midgegooroo's life prior to the arrival of white settlers in 1829. At that time, Midgegooroo was already an old man, and a senior authority in his family group. Described as having long hair and a distinctive bump on his forehead, Midgegooroo had two wives: one an old, toothless woman, and the other a young woman named Ganiup. He is known to have had four sons, Yagan, Narral, Billy and Willim.

Midgegooroo's family had customary land usage rights over a large area of what is now southern metropolitan Perth, and were able to move freely about an even larger area, presumably due to kinship ties with neighbours.

Conflicts with white settlers

In December 1830, Midgegooroo was camping by Lake Monger when two white labourers who were passing by stopped to shake hands with a group of indigenous women. When the two men returned later that day, Midgegooroo scared them off by threatening to spear one of them.

The following month, Midgegooroo appeared in Fremantle, Western Australia. He was given biscuits from Lionel Samson's store, but demanded more. Samson's servant then drove him out of the shop with a pickaxe, but Midgegooroo wrestled it off him, threatened him with it, then threw it down the well before leaving.

The first significant Indigenous resistance to white settlement in Western Australia occurred in July or December ^[1] 1831 when a farmer's servant ambushed some natives who were raiding a potato patch, shooting dead a member of Midgegooroo's family. Shortly afterwards, Midgegooroo led an attack on the farmhouse and speared the occupant, another servant, to death. In response to this, Midgegooroo and his son Yagan were declared outlaws, each with a reward of £20 offered for his capture.

In May 1832, Midgegooroo was reported as having committed a number of offenses. First he broke into the Fremantle home of settler Charles Bourne, throwing two spears. Later he was reported as having tried to take provisions from Thomas Hunt at his sawpit on the Canning River. Finally, he was reported as having set his dingos on a settler's pigs.

Midgegooroo next appears in April 1833. A family member, Domjun, had been shot whilst trying to take flour from a Fremantle store, and had died in jail three days later. Vowing revenge, Midgegooroo and Yagan gathered together about sixty Noongars at Bull Creek. The following day, the group attacked and killed two white settlers who were carting flour along the road from Fremantle to Kelmscott. Midgegooroo, Yagan and another Noongar named Munday were then again pronounced outlaws, and a reward of £20 was offered by Governor Frederick Irwin for the capture of Midgegooroo dead or alive.

Capture and execution

Later that month, Midgegooroo was captured in the Belmont area, and jailed in Perth. A few days later he was sentenced to execution, although it appears there was never any formal trial. The same day, he was blindfolded and bound to the outer door of the jail, then shot by a firing squad from the 63rd Regiment of Foot.

Midgegooroo's land rights passed to his son Yagan, then to his other son Narral. Munday assumed responsibility for his older wife, and his younger wife Ganiup became the wife of a Noongar named Dommera.

Legacy

By June 2008, the Department of Environment and Conservation, Conservation Commission and the Geographic Names Committee approved the renaming of the Canning National Park to Midgegooroo National Park.^[2]

Notes

1. ^ Hallam and Tilbrook (1990) states that this occurred in July 1831, but Green (1995) states December.
2. ^ Pamphlet Parks of the Perth Hills - Whats in a name?issues by the Perth Hills District of DEC in June 2008 - Midgegooroo's family had customary land usage rights over a large area of what is now southern metropolitan Perth

References

• Green, Neville (1995). Broken spears: Aborigines and Europeans in the Southwest of Australia. Perth: Focus Education Services. ISBN 0-9591828-1-0. 
• Hallam, Sylvia J. and Tilbrook, Lois (1990). Aborigines of the Southwest Region, 1829–1840 (The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians, Volume VIII). Nedlands, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press. ISBN 0-85564-296-3. 

See also

• Aboriginal History of Western Australia

Persondata
Name	Midgegooroo
Alternative names
Short description	Noongar
Date of birth
Place of birth	Western Australia
Date of death	22 May 1833
Place of death	Perth, Western Australia