Capture of Windradyne

Date: 1 Dec 1823 – 31 Dec 1823
Place: Bathurst region
Perhaps Morisset called on the assistance of Aaron again, but whatever the case he sent a detachment of at least six men to the right place, somewhere to the east of Bathurst and the Bila Wambuul. The detachment was able to approach Windradyne and whoever was with him with some confidence. But when he was told they were being taken prisoner for killing cattle, Windradyne fiercely resisted being restrained. His struggle undoubtedly stunned his captors. According to the Gazette, ‘the strength of those men is amazing’ and it ‘took six men to secure him, and they had actually to break a musket over his body before he yielded, which he did at length with broken ribs’. Windradyne was beaten into submission and ‘for his exploits, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment in irons’.

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Sources

  • It appears Chief Constable James Blackman may have led the detachment, although, recalling events in 1830, William Lawson was not certain Blackman was ‘the person who apprehended the Native black “Saturday”’. Lawson, 14 January 1830, in Selkirk, ‘The discovery of Mudgee’, p. 25; Rene Lesson, ‘Journey across the Blue Mountains, 1824’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 162; Morisset, 26 December 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 598, pp. 373–74.

Event mentions

  • Capture of Windradyne
    1 Dec 1823 – 31 Dec 1823 — Bathurst region
    Perhaps Morisset called on the assistance of Aaron again, but whatever the case he sent a detachment of at least six men to the right place, somewhere to the east of Bathurst and the Bila Wambuul. The detachment was able to approach Windradyne and whoever was with him with some confidence. But when he was told they were being taken prisoner for killing cattle, Windradyne fiercely resisted being restrained. His struggle undoubtedly stunned his captors. According to the Gazette, ‘the strength of those men is amazing’ and it ‘took six men to secure him, and they had actually to break a musket over his body before he yielded, which he did at length with broken ribs’. Windradyne was beaten into submission and ‘for his exploits, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment in irons’.
    Source: It appears Chief Constable James Blackman may have led the detachment, although, recalling events in 1830, William Lawson was not certain Blackman was ‘the person who apprehended the Native black “Saturday”’. Lawson, 14 January 1830, in Selkirk, ‘The discovery of Mudgee’, p. 25; Rene Lesson, ‘Journey across the Blue Mountains, 1824’, in Mackaness (ed.), Fourteen Journeys, p. 162; Morisset, 26 December 1823, SRNSW, NRS 897, 598, pp. 373–74.