‘In a State of War’: Governor James Stirling, Extrajudicial Violence and the Conquest of Western Australia’s Avon Valley, 1830–1840

Abstract

Between 1830 and 1840 British settlers and soldiers forcibly took possession of the fertile valley of the Avon river (Gogulgar Bilya) 60 miles to the east of Perth. The Ballardong Noongar resistance to this incursion was so fierce that in mid 1837 prominent colonists warned that ‘the district of York may be considered, at present, in a state of war’. This article focuses on both the wide extent of settler violence and the tenacious resistance mounted by Ballardong Noongar communities in defence of their country. It argues that the conquest of the Avon valley was actively facilitated by governor James Stirling, who ordered and encouraged British army officers, civil officials and the settler population at large to employ extreme measures to ‘tranquilize’ the York district. In carrying out these instructions, soldiers and colonists frequently employed illegal extrajudicial violence, including murder; however, they were never held to account for their actions.