Ivan Rudolph - Eyre: The Forgotten Explorer

I was first confronted by the mystery of Edward John Eyres life and achievements when researching my book Sturts Desert Drama , which narrates Charles Sturts final joust at the desert in 184445. I came across an extraordinary passage written by one of Sturts men, Daniel Brock, in his expedition diary. He described how an imposing, muscular Aborigine named Pulcanta joined the men around their campfire for some food and a yarn. Pulcanta had acted as a guide for the expedition the previous year, but before that he had been wounded during a violent clash with the overlander William Robinson and was subsequently captured.

Brock wrote:

This native [Pulcanta] was the man who had speared Robinson in the encounter on the Rufus the poor fellow was heavily ironed and fastened on a dray and taken into town.

During this journey he was inhumanely treated and a deed of daring done by this poor black is worthy of record, which was this: as the dray on which he had been fastened, for the lashings were at the time insecure, was passing upon the verge of the cliff overhanging the river, he quietly threw himself off, irons and all, from the dray and plunged into the river below and would have escaped, but a native female betrayed him as he was secreted in a thick belt of rushes growing at some distance on the banks. This morning he was telling us all about it and showed us the ball wounds in the different parts of his body [the men had fired down at him in the water] and emphatically referred to Mr Eyre as the man who had caused him to love the white fellow.

In Sturts Desert Drama , I commented, The mystery remains as to how the enigmatic Eyre achieved this remarkable transformation in Pulcanta. In fact, Pulcanta was a particularly unlikely candidate to love the white fellow: apart from his personal suffering, he had lost relatives and friends in the bloody clash with white settlers. Sturt described him as the most fearsome-looking warrior he had ever seen.

Eyre worked in the late 1830s and early 1840s in frontier conditions that were not for the fainthearted. Skirmishes between Aborigines and whites had been frequent and often fatal. Mistrust and hatred were rife. How had Eyre managed to bridge the gaping cultural chasm and establish good relationships with Pulcanta and numerous other Aborigines, as I soon learned where others had failed?

On completing Sturts Desert Drama , I began researching Eyre. I knew that I could not unravel the mystery of his success with Aborigines without discovering who the famous explorer really was, including the forces that drove him. True historical accuracy is always elusive, however, and I was in for many surprises. Remarkably, we cannot even be certain of Eyres birthday, for example. He recorded it as 5 August 1815, but his gravestone declared it to be 15 August of that year.

Slowly, a picture emerged of a remarkable young man who has been inadequately portrayed in Australian history. Eyre was not a nuggetty, tough, hardened colonial, I learned, but a young, idealistic Englishman who lived in Australia only when he was in his late teens and twenties. His rugged individualism was not irresponsible bravado, but a necessary approach when facing a wild frontier. Interestingly, many of his decisions, particularly those taken when his life hung in the balance, were guided by his Christian faith. He had a very positive view of Aborigines: he was intrigued by them and believed that they, in common with all mankind, carried the image of God within them.

This book is the consequence of my investigations. It shows Eyre to be a forgotten hero of Australia in our present era of antiheroes, such that it is timely to reinstate him.