Gold site listed as heritage
THE remnants of the longabandoned hub of the early Top End gold rush has been officially recognised as a site of historical significance following years of bureaucratic backand-forth.
Heritage Minister Lauren Moss granted heritage protection to the site of the historic “The Shackle” settlement in the Douglas Daly.
Heritage Council chairman Wayne Kraft said the site had a rich but at times grim history.
The site was first recommended for heritage protection in 2014, and was granted provisional protection the next year. A series of official reports found the site, off the Grove Hill Access Rd, had significant archaeological value.
Settler James Ellis was murdered nearby in 1878, prompting a series of brutal, sanctioned reprisal attacks on local Aboriginal people, which were justified on the grounds that, “it would be futile to look for the actual perpetrators of this barbarous outrage, and that the only available retaliation is to give a lesson to the tribe”.
Reports in the long- defunct South Australian Register newspaper show as many as 17 Aboriginal people being shot by a party of three local troopers, nine volunteers and a tracker on an “irksome mission”.
Mr Kraft said it was important that the darker chapters of the Top End’s not be forgotten, and that historically significant sites be preserved.
Among the well-known settlers who lived at The Shackle was Ellen Ryan, who made a fortune as a hotelier after leaving her drunk and cruel husband.