Chum Chum

(c. 1840s – 1891)

Warning- This story contains images and names of Aboriginal people who have died and racist language. Names of Aboriginal people in this biography were those used by the white settlers and it has been difficult to find correct names.

‘Chum Chum’ was a well known Aboriginal Native Tracker, used by the colonial WA Police Force. In 1872 he was involved as a witness on the most famous Supreme Court case of the time- involving Lockier Clere Burges (1841-1929), a 31 year old member of a pioneer family in Geraldton, who was charged with Manslaughter after killing a Yamatji man. This trial had an impact on Chum-Chum and his later life in Perth and Fremantle.

Chum Chum is first recorded in written records in the 1860’s as working on the Swan River with ‘Geordie’. John Elijah Mitchell (1847-1925) was the State's first manufacturer of jam. The Mitchell’s lived at 11 Angwin St, East Fremantle. The Mitchell family had among their employees “two highly intelligent natives, named Geordie and Chum-Chum, who were useful yachtsmen in assisting John Elijah when he conveyed large quantities of figs from Freshwater Bay (now Claremont) and from Smith brothers' orchard near Dalkeith (now Nedlands).” (reference)

The Police Force began in the Swan River settlement in 1850, and Aboriginal men were soon used as ‘Native Trackers’, also called Native Constables or Police Assistants.

“Aboriginal trackers were enlisted by British settlers to assist them in navigating their way through the Australian landscape. The trackers’ hunter-gatherer lifestyle gave rise to excellent tracking skills, which were advantageous to settlers in assisting them in finding food and water, locating missing persons and capturing bush rangers” (reference- Dr Chris Owen’s article ‘How Western Australia's 'unofficial' use of neck chains on Indigenous people lasted 80 years’, The Guardian, 7 Mar 2021.

In WA, unlike other Australian states, Trackers were not contract employees of the Government but treated as casual workers and attached to individual police officers. These officers received a special allowance and were supposed to use it to pay for the food and clothing of the tracker and his family (reference). Conditions were unfair for Native trackers and we hear of them in a letter of complaint; supposedly written by ‘Chum Chum’ in March 1867 (in the same week Bushranger Moondyne Joe escaped from Fremantle Prison):

To the Editor of the Perth Gazette & WA Times. Sir- As you are known to be a willing advocate for those who have no friends, I hope you will stand up for the rights of the black fellows who have no protector in this district. Of course you are aware that when certain persons feel inclined for a change of air, and the public become anxious for their safety, our services are called in to track them. Now, we are quite willing to do this, provided that we are properly paid, but to be kept hanging about the Police stables without pay until we are actually wanted, and to see the Police sit comfortably on their horses while we do the work, and they receive the lion's share of the reward for the recovery of the lost lambs, is too much for the patience of even a "black fellow." If it has been found necessary to pay a regular salary to secure the services of the man who performs the last sentence of the law, surely, we who find him the material to work upon ought not to be forgotten.

A short time ago a certain white fellow with a long tongue, but, (as I think), a very shallow head, threatened to send me to Rottnest because I refused to go tracking. Now, as the long heads here say of black fellows when they do wrong, "Oh! they are British subjects; they must be treated as such," please to make it known, through the medium of your paper, whether this chap has not over-ridden his mark.You have had a hand in making most of the Acts of Council in this colony, and if there be anything in them to compel a free British subject to work against his will, surely you ought to know it. White gentlemen whilst enjoying themselves, sing "Britons never shall be slaves," and if we be British subjects why should we be slaves to this white fellow who talked so big to me. Please you, gentleman, look to this, and bye-and-bye, when duck season comes round, we will shoot ducks for you, boolah gwa! Yours very faithfully, for self and black fellow his paper talk CHUM X CHUM. (reference- Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, Friday 15 March 1867, p 2)

These words– ascribed to Chum Chum- are perhaps rather those of Arthur Shenton (1816–1871) the editor of the Perth Gazette and WA Times, who with his wife Mercy (1827-1905), was well known for standing up for his right, as a journalist, ‘to criticize the public acts of public men' and through his paper, advocated for the right of Aboriginal people to be treated fairly; making public the inequalities they were subjected too. (reference)

In May 1869 Shenton published another article, which proposed equality for Aboriginal people:

A Deputation from the Aborigines Protection Society waited upon Earl Granville, and placed before him the object of their society, " to assist in the protection of natives who were brought into contact with colonization, and to promote not violently but gradually their social elevation and their enjoyment of that civil and political equality, which should be the common property of all classes of her Majesty's subjects, without distinction of race or color.” To this communication the Colonial Secretary of State emphatically replied, "I have no doubt that the courageous character of our settlers, not always very refined, does require some counteracting influence in this country such as your society is calculated to wield, and the existence of such a society as yours is a very desirable thing in this country, and I beg to assure you that all matters brought before us on the subject, will receive our earnest attention.” (reference)

In July 1869 the Roman Catholics, who operated their own schools in the colony petitioned for a reinstatement of a proportion of the WA Governments Education Grant (reference). One of the places educating Aboriginal children in 1869 was the Catholic mission at New Norcia. (reference)

5th Aug 1869 A sarcastic letter was once again penned under ‘Chum Chums’ name reporting on a public meeting held for the purpose of considering the “unfair appropriation of the Government Educational Grant by the Aboriginal Education Committee… Chum-Chum, Secretary, Paper Bark Lodge, Tea Tree Swamp”. (reference)

In 1870 Shenton took up the cause of a young solicitor, Stephen Henry Parker, in a quarrel with Chief Justice Burt; and together with Edmund and John Stirling of the Inquirer, was found guilty of libel, fined £100 and sentenced to two months in jail. The case was highly contentious and Shenton received much public support. After a petition to the Queen was unsuccessful the three journalists published abject apologies, (drafted by Burt), and were soon released, but the punishment had worsened Shenton's already failing health and he died, the day he returned home on 16 March 1871. (reference)

In 1871 Chum Chum, as a ‘general servant’, joined a team of men who accompanied their boss Lockier Clere Burges, taking sheep from Nickol Bay, on a trip to Hooleys Well. However this trip was marred by tragedy and Chum Chum was called as the main witness against Burges in a case held in the Supreme Court, Perth, in September 1872, when Burges was charged with having ‘feloniously, willfully, and with malice aforethought killed and murdered an aboriginal native, name unknown, on the 7th October, 1871’. (reference)

After the incident Chum Chum entered the employ of Mr Tom Burges, brother of the accused. As the key witness for the trial, Stephan Henry Parker, the Attorney General, determined to secure Chum Chum’s presence, and had him brought from Champion Bay to Perth to ‘be within his reach’ and under the surveillance of the police, where he worked as a Police Constable again: “All I knew was that Chum Chum had a story to tell if he could be got away from the influence of the prisoner (Burges)” (reference)

June 1872 However before the trail began Chum Chum was asked to guide a party of six including Police Officer William Piesse and Police Constable Watson back to the site of the alleged murder and they reached Hooleys Well on the 10 July, where they located, for the Coroner, the bones of the aboriginal man who had been killed. (reference)

July 1872 An affidavit filed by the Crown Solicitor stated it would be impossible for the witness Chum Chum to return to Perth in time for the trial and asked for a postponement… (reference) This must have been a huge event in Chum Chums life- especially given the high social position of the accused, Burges and the media interest in the case. His witness statement was very detailed and described how Burges had shot the native in the back:

7 Sept 1872 Chum Chum, having affirmed to speak the truth, said that he remembered arriving at Hooley's Well with Mr Burges in October, 1871, and recollected four strange natives coming to the camp late one evening, bringing with them a dog which been lost by one of the party a few days previously. On the following morning, after the natives had taken their departure, Mr Burges missed a saddle from the camp, and went in pursuit of the natives, on horseback. Witness followed him, shortly afterwards, also, on horseback; and armed with a repeater gun. Met Mr Burges coming back accompanied by seven natives, one of whom was bleeding at the forehead. They soon made a bolt and ran away in different directions. Mr Burges followed and succeeded in capturing two, who were conveyed in the direction of the camp. When they had proceeded about 100 yards, one of them bolted again, and Mr Burges followed in pursuit on horseback. The native ran a distance of about forty yards, and witness said he saw the prisoner point a revolver at the runaway native, and fire at him. Native fell forward on his face. Mr Burges then returned towards witness who had charge of the other native, and they returned together to the camp. (reference)

His account as a witness and his cross examination by Counsel for the Defence E. A. Stone can be read here… (reference)

Stephen Henry Parker speaking to the jury: “I say the time has arrived when the law of retaliation must be put down with a strong hand. You must show, gentlemen, that equal justice is dealt between blacks and whites. You are in that box to put a stop to the internecine war which rages and has raged for forty years between the races… If you can say that there was an affray, and the prisoner took another man's life in that affray, then you may bring in a verdict of manslaughter against the prisoner. In God's name find him guilty of manslaughter if you can; but if he took this life in revenge for the loss of a saddle, then he is guilty of murder.” (reference)

It took the jury an hour to return with the verdict of Manslaughter and Burges was given a 5-year sentence, which was an unprecedented outcome and caused an uproar. The sentence was appealed and was soon after changed to one year. Even this was revoked after Governor Weld  received a petition signed by most of the Colony’s elite calling for his sentence to be revoked. Chum Chum’s evidence was called ‘self contradictory and prevaricating’ and his witness credibility was attacked publicly by Richard Armstrong. (reference)

14 Nov 1873 Although Arthur Shenton had died a year earlier, it seemed Mercy, his wife, continued the newspaper after his death, hiring various people to help her and the Perth Gazette and West Australian Times continued to point out hypocrisy. They also carried on the tradition of speaking on behalf of Aboriginals in the colony through the voices of the black trackers- in this case- ‘Black Harry’:

“A Black’s appeal- to the editor Master Paper-talk, Me poor blackfellow can't write, only little bit; me long time at Mission, good Bishop told me, love each other, white and black, only one same God. Me knows God command Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, etc. Please, Master Paper-talk, to tell me (and I will bring you plenty kangaroo skins), why white men, who are big fellow danger, steal poor blackfellow womany, keep them in their hut with plenty nalgo, tea and sugar, and make them big fellow drunk, and when tired of them, turn them out and send them back to black-fellow. Why policeman nothing say to white man, "Blackfellow nothing insult white womany, why you taking blackfellow womany?" If blackfellow go to fetch his womany, white man come out of hut with gun and shout " I shoot you ": if blackfellow throw spear policeman catch him, and chain him, and Rottnest walkem. Me thinking the laws made by the big white curled wig gentleman, who say, "You are to be hung," are to be made from the laws of God. If I steal sheep, I go to Rottnest… My name is- his X mark- Black Harry. (reference)

As well as Chum Chum, Black Harry and Geordie, both Native Trackers, were well known personalities in the colony.

1875 “Another civilised native called Black Harry, who was in the service of Mr. Thompson at Kojonup as a shepherd, was presented by his employer with a double barreled rifle at the end of the shearing season, in recognition of his faithful services.” (reference)

1878 One day last week two natives - Black Harry and Geordie drove some stock to a farm of Mr. Shenton's at Wanneroo. They arrived late, and, finding no one at home, camped close by for the night. Early in the morning they noticed a man prowling about, and afterwards attempting to get through a window. Harry, who had been a native tracker in the Police Force at one time, felt the old spirit strong within him, and, advancing towards the stranger, gave the usual tap on the shoulder, and exclaimed 'Me 'rest you!’ Pulling aside the prowler's shirt induced Harry again to exclaim, 'You “sconder!” And Harry was right; the party proved to be an absconder, and was straightway marched by Harry and Geordie to Perth. The ''sconder'- his name has not transpired - was subsequently charged before Mr. Landor and received four years' imprisonment This is a rather smart piece of business, and the conduct of Harry and Geordie should not escape proper recognition by the authorities. (reference)

 August 1882 ‘Black Harry’ the renowned native police tracker, died at Crawley a few days ago. Of late Harry had been in the service of Mr. Shenton, who administered to his wants up to the time of the poor fellow's decease. (reference)

From 1883-1885 ‘Geordie’, perhaps originally from Peak Hill, inland Murchison, was working as a tracker in the Kojonup and Perth areas and while in the service of Francis Lewis Von Bibra, was a tracker in the ‘Kojonup Murder case’. (reference)

 1885 Chum-Chum and Geordie competed in the ‘Aboriginal Race’ at the 1885 ‘Foundation Day Sports Athletic carnival’, held on the Esplanade grounds in Perth, which was visited by up to 3,000 people. (reference)

“the ‘aborigines' race’ which was somewhat unfairly won by Geordie, was provocative of great amusement. Just after having received his prize Geordie happened to meet Mr Geo. Shenton, who said to him, "Geordie, you did not win that race fairly; you ought to give half of your money to the second fellow." "Baal the second fellow," replied the darkie with a chuckle, "give him five shillings yourself." (reference)

Geordie won the race again in 1886, ran in 1887 and was still competing in 1891. (reference)

Chum Chum and Geordie, despite their popularity, were often in trouble with the Police- charged with small bouts of rebelliousness or drinking offences. This perhaps terminated their work as trackers.

1882 Chum Chum, an aboriginal, who confessed that he had been drunk on Saturday night was dismissed, as he had been locked up since then. (reference)

 In 1888 Geordie was working for W. Jones in Kojonup, as a kangaroo hunter until Jones was charged with supplying him with liquor. (reference) Geordie was arrested again in 1905 with other ‘lapsed trackers”, near Cue. (reference)

1885 Chum Chum, an aboriginal native, when asked if he had been drunk on Saturday night, replied, “I don't know whether I am drunk or not. I know I was walking straight when the gentleman collared me.” Mr. Leake: “Who gave you the drink, Chum Chum?” The prisoner: “A good many people are my friends Sir, they were very glad I was going out shooting, so they stood treat.” Mr. Leake: “Then you will pay ten shillings, or go to prison for fourteen days.” (reference)

 Feb 1886 Chum Chum, an aboriginal native, found lying drunk in Murray street, informed the Bench that he had found a bottle of liquor lying in the void on his way from Fremantle; he was ordered to pay 10s., or else to go to gaol for a fortnight, leave to go away to obtain the amount of fine being refused. (reference)

March 1886 Chum Chum, an aboriginal, charged with being drunk and disorderly on the 13th. was sentenced for 21 days. (reference)

June 1886 Drunkenness, City Police Court- Chum Chum, an aboriginal native, 10s., or 14 days. (reference)

Oct 1886 John Wilson was charged with having, on Tuesday last, unlawfully supplied an aboriginal native known as Chum-Chum, and his woman, with a quantity of intoxicating liquor, supposed to be beer, For the defence Mr. R. S. Haynes called Chum Chum, who deposed that on the day in question he had been engaged by Wilson to bring in boughs for him from the bush, and that his woman was engaged in washing clothes for the defendant. The Bench held the charge to be proved, and fined Wilson £5, beside ordering him to pay 10s, 6d. costs. An application made by Mr. Haynes to allow his client time to pay the money was peremptorily refused, In answer to the defendant Chum Chum, before he left the witness box, declared that Wilson had not given him any beer on the day named. (reference)

Dec 1886 fined for drunkenness in Fremantle Court- Chum Chum, an aboriginal, was fined 5s. for being drunk- to gaol for 21 days. (reference)

Sept 1887 At the Fremantle Police Court: Mary Lynch, alias Black Poll, was fined Is. and sent to prison for three months, for being drank and disorderly. Chum Chum, an aboriginal native, was fined 20s. for being drank and disorderly. (reference)

March 1888 Chum Chum, aboriginal native, was sent to prison for 21 days for drunkenness. (reference)

July 1889 Perth Police Court- Upon charges of drunkenness the following persons were cautioned and dismissed- two aboriginal females, named Frances and Mary, and Sarah Reid; while the aboriginal native Chum Chum and a man named Benjamin Shakespeare were fined 5s. each. (reference)

Aug 1889 Drunkenness and Disorderly: upon the above charges the following aboriginal natives were thus dealt with: Mary and Ellen were sent to gaol, with hard labour, for seven days; Tommy Dower was cautioned and dismissed, as he had not been charged for two years; Chum Chum was sentenced to one week's imprisonment; and Annie, an old woman, who made her first appearance in the dock, was discharged. (reference)

Oct 1889 Chum Chum, an aboriginal native, charged with having behaved in a disorderly manner in Murray-street on the previous evening, was fined 1s., in addition to being sentenced to one month's imprisonment. (reference)

On the 25th March 1890 Chum Chum, was charged with the murder of his wife, Mary Coglan, at the Canning River. Chum Chum and Mary had been camped with Quarrum, (Korem) and his two wives Bulger and Laura and were working for farmer Arthur Lacey Gibbs. An argument had broken out over Mary being absent from the camp the night before (perhaps with a man called Ross) and Gibbs found Mary lying on her back, dead in the morning. There was a cut above her left breast. When questioned Chum Chum said she had fallen on a broken bottle, but a knife was soon produced and handed into Gibbs. Laura and Bulger claimed Chum Chum approached saying “You gigi (spear) me anywhere, because I have done it." Chum Chum was arrested and remanded for eight days. (reference)

Yesterday morning Mounted Constable O'Hara arrived in Perth, bringing with him three natives, who were to give evidence in the charge of murder brought against Chum Chum. The natives absconded shortly after Chum Chum's arrest. It appears that O'Hara found the natives at place known as Roleystone, in the Darling Range after a four days search. (reference)

17 April 1890 The court case was held before Justice Leake and a jury in the Supreme Court. Chum Chum was defended by Irishman Frederick William Moorhead, on his first occasion addressing a jury in WA. (reference)

Moorhead had arrived in the Colony the year before and addressed the jury for the defence with considerable force, ridiculing the application of the law of murder under the British Constitution to the black races. He based his contention further, that there was no exhibition of malice pretence on the part of the prisoner, who by his act was simply pursuing the infliction of a penalty prescribed by the hallowed traditions of his race. Mr. Moorhead called for the defence, Mr. Thomas Little, a Justice of the Peace, who said he had lived in the colony all his life and had had long experience of the manners and customs of the aborigines: Acts of infidelity on the part of the women are not always treated in the same way by the husbands. In the Perth district spearing for such offences is not uncommon. Generally speaking, the marriage laws give permission to the man to murder his wife on proof of her unchastity. (reference)

17 April 1890 The Supreme Court resumed at a quarter to three, when the aboriginal native Chum Chum, who had been found guilty of the willful murder of his wife, was brought up to have sentence passed upon him. His Honor said the prisoner was to be hanged. (reference)

Mr Justice Leake complimented Mr Moorhead on how he had conducted the defence. It seems his defence resulted in the jury finding the prisoner guilty, however they recommended him to mercy, on the ground that the murder was the outcome of a tribal custom. (reference)

18 April 1890 Chum Chum briefly escaped from the Perth waterside lockup by climbing over a wall- but was soon secured by native trackers, after being found hiding in a drain in Lord St… (reference)

There were also calls for mercy from the public:

23 April 1890 The Canning Murder. Sir- The details of the above tragedy are of course still fresh in the minds of your readers, its perpetrator Chum Chum - having so recently received the sentence warning him to prepare himself for undergoing the last dread penalty of the law. All those who have read the evidence of the unfortunate case, through which a helpless woman lost her life, must be painfully convinced that the verdict was a very proper one, as there cannot be a doubt that Chum Chum committed the deed, and he alone… I wish to appeal, on behalf of justice and mercy. Those of us who have lived in this colony through the days of convictism are aware that Chum Chum has done Western Australia many years of good service as a native policeman, during which he was brought into close companionship with his white brethren, from whom he, like the rest of his race, contracted desires for the use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco. It was undoubtedly owing to the too free use of these stimulants that Chum Chum degenerated from the expert native tracker of twenty years' ago to the excitable maniac that he now is… Yours, Chum Chum’s brother (reference)

15 May 1890: The sentence of death passed on the aboriginal native Chum Chum, for the murder of his ‘missus’ Mary Coglan (reference) has been commuted to penal servitude for twenty years. (reference

See minute paper opposite with comments from Leake that reflect the white settler prejudice of the time:

“He is not cruel, nor was the homicide premeditated. His moral perceptions are not of a high order: indeed a question whether he has any, nor is he a mere animal; for he can reason. The horrors of the Law alone retrain people of his race; they know the penalty which the violation of the law entails; much the same as a dog knows that if he steals and is caught he will be beaten…” (minute paper SLWA 1235/90,1890)

22 May 1890 The sentence of death passed upon the native Chum Chum at the late sessions of the Supreme Court, for the murder of his wife, has been commuted by the Executive Council to imprisonment for life at Rottnest prison. (reference)

By February 1891 the number of Aboriginal prisoners on Rottnest Island numbers had fallen to a few dozen, colonists began to complain about the expense of the establishment; and called for the island to be converted into a summer holiday resort.

3 March 1891 Edward Fox Angelo, the Superintendent of Rottnest Island Prison wrote:

I have to report the death of no 825 Aboriginal native ‘Chum Chum’ who died at 9 pm yesterday at the Hospital here. This man was admitted into Hospital on the 20th October 1890 suffering from Bronchial Catarrh. He was regularly attended and everything done for him that could be desired, but being an old man and his lungs gone he gradually sank. He was a valuable man of considerable cognizance and his death is a great loss to the Establishment. I saw him a few hours before his death when he indicated in reply to my questions, that nothing more could be done for him. He will be decently interred today.” (SLWA 424/91)

6 March 1891 A native named Chum Chum who murdered his wife at the Canning last year, died the other day at Rottnest Prison. Ever since his incarceration Chum Chum has gradually pined away, the confinement evidently having a depressing effect upon him. (reference)

State records indicate that at least 373 Aboriginal prisoners died in custody on Wajemup/ Rottnest Island and are buried in unmarked graves in at least two areas to the north of the Quod. (reference)

Even in 1926 Chum Chum was still remembered as a ‘superb black tracker’ (reference)

Lockier Clere Burges lived until 1929. His memories of the trial were not mentioned in his reminiscences of 1925, Pioneers of Nor' West Australia Pastoral and Pearling.

Researched and written by Jo Darbyshire, August 2022. Any further advice or information about this biography is gratefully received- jo@museumofperth.com.au

For information on the role played by Aboriginal trackers in Cockburn see (LINK)

Noongar/ Yamatji woman Tui Raven was the project coordinator of ‘From Another View’ an exhibition that acknowledged two Aboriginal trackers, Kungaitch (Tommy Windich) and Beearragurl (Tommy Pierre), who helped Forrest and his party of five (2019). (reference)