Skins (30 page)

The people mentioned in her story are also true. Their characters, however, are my own invention and in some cases I have created their backgrounds. The inspiration for the story was drawn from Western Australia's Records of the Colonial Secretary's Office, 1 August–30 September 1835 and from the Albany Court House Records 1834–1841.

The house where Dorothea died is now a popular restaurant in Albany. When this book was almost completed, I spoke to its current owners. They were unaware of the early history of the house. They claim it is haunted by a small grey-haired woman who sits by the fireplace in one of the front rooms and by a man who comes up from the sea and walks around the house to keep her safe.

A note on characters and sources

References to the Newell family can be found in the
Dictionary of Western Australians 1829–1850; Volume 1: Early Settlers
, published by the University of Western Australia Press. An outline of Dorothea's experience on Middle Island was recorded in her deposition at Anderson's trial (
Albany Court House Records 1834–1841
). What happened to her after Middle Island has been pieced together from snippets of fact and hearsay recorded in newspaper articles and other documents collected by the Local Studies Section of the Albany Library. However, her time in England and that of her family's was my own invention. It is also generally believed that her father came to Australia as a New South Wales convict. Descendants of the family believe otherwise, however, and think that James Newell senior was mistaken for someone else. I am convinced that there is sufficient evidence to support their view. I have remained true to what is generally thought to have been the fates of all the Newell family members.

John Anderson, or Black Jack Anderson, the African-American, has been mentioned in Australian historical texts on sealing and Kangaroo Island. He is recorded as appearing in the 1830s, possibly as a deserter off an American whaler. Little else is known about him. He and Isaac Winterbourne were charged with the theft from James Manning of forty-six pounds. They were acquitted due to lack of evidence. Anderson was also charged over altercations with the sealer William Andrews. Anderson, in his defence, claimed that Andrews had robbed him of a variety of items, including two native women. On 29 March 1837 Robert Gamble reported Anderson's death in a statement made to Patrick Taylor, Justice of the Peace at Albany.

The names of the two Aboriginal women with Anderson and the one Aboriginal woman with Isaac on Middle Island are unknown. A native woman was apparently killed with Anderson on Mondrain Island.

The conversation between Mead, Church and Matthew about a copper plaque on page 190 refers to an actual historical event. Charles Douglas was Matthew Flinders' boatswain. As the HMS
Investigator
approached Middle Island on 18 May 1803 Douglas died of dysentery. He was buried on the island and an inscription upon copper was placed over his grave. Until now this copper plaque has never been found.

The circumstances in which James Manning found himself on Middle Island are true. However, he was a passenger on the
Defiance
and not a crew member. The crew, who set off back to Sydney in a longboat after the
Defiance
was wrecked, was in fact never heard of again. Anderson accused Manning of stealing but it wasn't from Owens. It was from George Merredith, the captain of the
Defiance
, while they were all on Kangaroo Island. Manning and Jem Newell were left by Anderson to walk from the mainland near Middle Island to Albany. The letter on page 205 is an edited copy of the original letter written by Sir Richard Spencer, Resident Magistrate of Albany, to the Colonial Secretary's Office. I have been unable to discover what happened to James Manning but it appears that he never reached the Swan River colony. If he did, there is no official record of it.

Mary Newell married Matthew Gill, by then a servant of Sir Richard Spencer, on 8 September 1834. A Mary Gill was buried in Sydney on 25 March 1840. She was twenty-eight years old.

The other people named in the story — Owens, John White (Johno) the boy James (Jimmy) and Francis Mead, as well as Isaac and Anderson — were officially recorded as being on the island at the time. Evanson Jansen and his crew and passengers landed on Middle Island after the
Mountaineer
was wrecked at Thistle Cove, near Esperance.

For this story to be authentic in its descriptions of the sealers and the experiences of early colonists such as the Newell family, I have drawn on the following sources:

A Charles Begg and Neil C Begg,
The World of John Boultbee Including an Account of Sealing in Australia and New Zealand
; W Jeffrey Bolster,
Black Jacks, African American Seamen in the Age of Sail
; Don Brown, ‘Black Whalers, They Were Great While it Lasted
'
in
American Visions,
1987, October, 26–30; WA Cawthorne,
The Kangaroo Islanders, A Story of South Australia before Colonisation
; Phillip A Clarke, ‘Early European Interaction with Aboriginal Hunters and Gatherers on Kangaroo Island, South Australia' in
Aboriginal History
, 1996, 20, 51–81; JS Cumpston,
First Visitors to Bass Strait
; JS Cumpston,
Kangaroo Island
; Paul Edwards and Edward Dabydeen (ed),
Black Writers in Britain 1760–1890
; Tatania de Fircks, ‘Costume in the Early Years of Western Australia' in
Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society
, vol 9, part 6, 1988, 27–38; Tim Flannery (ed),
John Nicol, Mariner, Life and Adventures, 1776–1801
; Donald Garden,
Albany
,
A Panorama of the Sound from 1827
; BK de Garis (ed),
Portraits of the South-West Aborigines, Women and the Environment
; Neville Green (ed),
Nyungar—The People, Aboriginal Customs in the South West of Australia
; Pamela Horn,
The Rural World 1780–1850, Social Change in the English Countryside
; Lawrence C Howard, ‘A Note on New England Whaling and Africa before 1860' in
Negro History Bulletin,
1858, 13–15; Jorgen Jorgenson,
Jorgen Jorgenson's Observations on Pacific Trade and Sealing and Whaling in Australian and New Zealand Waters before 1805
; Leon F Litwack,
North of Slavery, The Negro in the Free States 1790–1860
; GA Mawer,
Ahab's Trade, The Saga of South Seas Whaling
; N Plomley and K Henley, ‘The Sealers of Bass Strait and the Cape Barren Community' in
Papers and Proceedings of the Tasmanian Historical Research Association
, vol 37, 1990, 37–127; Nathaniel Philbrick,
In the Heart of the Sea
; Rosemary Ransom,
Taraba
,
Tasmanian Aboriginal Stories
(DECCD); John Rintoul,
Esperance Yesterday and Today
; Winnis J Ruediger,
Border's Land Kangaroo Island 1802–1836
; Lyndall Ryan,
The Aboriginal Tasmanians
; Iain Stuart, ‘Sea Rats, Bandits and Roistering Buccaneers, What Were the Bass Strait Sealers Really Like?' in the
Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society,
1997, 83(1), 47–58; Vernon Williams,
The Straitsmen, A Romance
; Guy Wright,
Sons and Seals
.