The Battle of One Tree Hill was one of a series of conflicts that took place between European settlers and a group of men of the Jagera and other Aboriginal groups in the

Darling Downs The Darling Downs is a farming region on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, Australia. The Downs are to the west of South East Queensland and are one of the major regions of Queensland. The name was generall ...

area in the

colony of Queensland The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day State of Queensland, t ...

in the 1840s, as part of the Australian frontier wars. It was one in which the settlers were routed by a group of local Aboriginal men under the warrior Multuggerah, a rare event both in its form, as pitched battles between the two groups, and in its outcome.

Background

Moreton Bay was somewhat settled prior to the battle, due to a penal settlement having been established in 1824. The colonisers had some contact with the local Aboriginal groups but not the Jagera from the west. The little interaction that the Jagera had had with the settlers involved harbouring escaped convict, James Sterry Baker. From most accounts, Multuggerah, the leader of the Jagera nation in the 1830s and 1840s, was happy as long as the settlers didn't encroach into the Lockyer Valley. However, by 1842 there were attempts to occupy land in and near the

Lockyer Valley The Lockyer Valley is an area of rich farmlands that lies to the west of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and east of Toowoomba. The Lockyer Valley is rated among the top ten most fertile farming areas in the world, and the intensively cult ...

, Darling Downs and upper

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the Sou ...

areas. These were met with resistance from the local alliance of "mountain tribes" united under Multuggerah, a warrior, strategist and diplomat. After the 1842 deliberate poisoning of 50 or 60 Aboriginal people on Kilcoy Station, the resistance gathered momentum, and an uprising was planned. Multuggerah and his men began ambushing the mountain road that was the only route for bringing supplies from Brisbane to the Downs. The road had been built about two years earlier and was the only way of keeping both commerce and communication open between the

Moreton Bay Moreton Bay is a bay located on the eastern coast of Australia from central Brisbane, Queensland. It is one of Queensland's most important coastal resources. The waters of Moreton Bay are a popular destination for recreational anglers and are ...

and Downs areas. Multuggerah and his forces planned to deprive the squatters of their supplies.

The battles

Ambush

In September 1843, a large group of

squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

organised a "cavalcade" consisting of 18 armed men and three drays pulled by about 50

bullock Bullock may refer to: Animals * Bullock (in British English), a castrated male bovine animal of any age * Bullock (in North America), a young bull (an uncastrated male bovine animal) * Bullock (in Australia, India and New Zealand), an ox, an adu ...

s. At a location known as One Tree Hill, (now known as Tabletop Mountain, Queensland), near

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( , nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar') is a city in the Toowoomba Region of the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. It is west of Queensland's capital city Brisbane by road. The urban population of Toowoomba as of the 2021 C ...

, the group was ambushed by Multuggerah and about 100 men, having been forced to stop at barricades previously erected by the attackers. The squatters fled back to Bonifant's Inn, their starting point for that trip, about away. The warriors held a

corroborree A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the ...

after sacking the drays, feasting on bullock meat.

Retaliation attempt

The squatters organised a revenge party, comprising all of the men at the Inn, including servants, numbering between 35 and 50 men. At nightfall on 12 September they arrived near what was left of the drays, and camped about from Mt Tabletop. They managed to surprise the group of Aboriginal people by arriving at their camp very early the next morning, and the two groups engaged in a full-on battle. Quite a number of Aboriginal people were wounded or killed, but the settlers were hindered by getting bogged in the mud, and one was wounded in the

buttocks The buttocks (singular: buttock) are two rounded portions of the exterior anatomy of most mammals, located on the posterior of the pelvic region. In humans, the buttocks are located between the lower back and the perineum. They are composed ...

with a spear thrown by a woman. The majority of the remaining warriors staged a retreat up the steep slopes of the mountain, where they had stored heaps of

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In c ...

s. They were then able to throw spears and stones and roll boulders down the slopes, wounding some of the squatters and shattering many of their

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually di ...

s, until they were forced to retreat. The squatters awaited the border police of Dr Simpson, but when the six men found the road barricaded again, decided not to attempt an attack on the warriors.

Aftermath

Following this defeat, there was an unusually large-scale response to the Battle of One Tree Hill. A campaign began to remove Multuggerah’s warriors out of the area. Dr Simpson gathered forces from Brisbane and

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line rai ...

until he had a total of 35–45 men. The 16 station owners and overseers sent out a call, gathering 40 to 60 men. Eventually, about 75 to 100 settlers, including most of

’s soldiers and police, chased the warriors from the pass. Many were killed in the

area. Conflicts continued as the warriors camped in the Rosewood Scrub and Helidon Scrub areas and mounted raids on the settlers. In October 1843, using an

Aboriginal tracker Aboriginal trackers were enlisted by Europeans in the years following British colonisation of Australia, to assist them in exploring the Australian landscape. The excellent tracking skills of these Aboriginal Australians were advantageous to se ...

, the squatters found and stormed the camp, killing leaders (although apparently not Multuggerah) and many others. Attacks and raids in the area continued for another five years.

Legacy and memorials

A monument recording the battle was established in 2005. An

Indigenous land use agreement Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

was signed over the site, between

Toowoomba City Council The City of Toowoomba was a Local government in Australia, local government area in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia, encompassing the centre and inner suburbs of the regional city of Toowoomba, Queensland, Toowoomba. The City ...

and a body representing the Jagera, Yuggera and Ugarapul people as the

traditional owner Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

s of the area, in 2008. In 2010, the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

acquired a sketch by local Thomas John Domville Taylor (the origin of the name Domville for the locality and mountain near Millmerran) for which is believed to be an eyewitness account of the aftermath of the battle. It depicts "11 squatters firing on a group of 25 Indigenous people of whom three appear to have been shot".

References

External links

Taylor's sketch of the event
{{Campaignbox Australian frontier wars History of Indigenous Australians Darling Downs History of Queensland 1843 in Australia One Tree Hill September 1843 events