A house divided: the Griffin Family of Whiteside and frontier conflict in the 1840s

Abstract

Whiteside Station is important to the history of frontier conflict in early Queensland because of an Aboriginal attack on some sawyers that took place in September 1847, either on or neighbouring, the station. One of the sawyers who survived the initial spearing, possibly died because of inaction on the part of members of Whiteside Station. Despite awareness of the Indigenous presence and a fairly constant sense of threat evident in the station diary, the station was hampered in its response to this instance of Aboriginal aggression by internal divisions. This has the effect of overturning our perceptions – rather than a divided Indigenous community capable of only small-scale group unity to defy Europeans, we have a white community unable to save one of its members from Aboriginal attack because of its own internal tensions.