Myall Creek massacre

Myall Creek Massacre
Location	Myall Creek, 16 km north east of Bingara and 40km west of Inverell, New South Wales
Coordinates	29°45′20″S 150°42′24″E / 29.755667°S 150.706667°E / -29.755667; 150.706667Coordinates: 29°45′20″S 150°42′24″E / 29.755667°S 150.706667°E / -29.755667; 150.706667
Date	10 June 1838
Target	Australian Aborigines
Attack type	Racially motivated massacre
Weapon(s)	Swords, Muskets
Death(s)	~at least 27, approximately 30
Perpetrator(s)	Convict settlers

Myall Creek Massacre involved the killing of up to 30 unarmed Australian Aborigines by European settlers on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek near Bingara in northern New South Wales.^[1] After two trials, seven of the 12 settlers involved in the killings were found guilty of murder and hanged.^[1]

Massacre

A group of stockmen, consisting of eleven assigned convicts and former convicts led by a squatter, John Fleming, arrived at Henry Dangar's Myall Creek station on 10 June 1838. They rode up to the station huts beside which were camped a group of approximately thirty five Aborigines. They were part of the Wirrayaraay (alternative spelling: Weraerai) group who belonged to the Kamilaroi tribe. They had been camped at the station for a few weeks after being invited by one of the convict stockmen, Charles Kilmeister, to come to their station for their safety and protection from the gangs of marauding stockmen who were roaming the district slaughtering any Aborigines they could find. These Aborigines had previously been camped peacefully at McIntyre's station for a few months. They were therefore well known to the whites. Most of them had been given European names such as Daddy, King Sandy, Joey, Martha and Charley. Some of the children spoke a certain amount of English. When the stockmen rode into their camp the Aborigines fled into the convict's hut pleading for protection.

When asked by the station hut keeper, George Anderson, what they were going to do with the Aborigines, John Russell said they were going to "take them over the back of the range and frighten them." The stockmen then entered the hut, tied the Aborigines to a long tether rope and led them away. They took them to a gully on the side of the ridge about 800 metres to the west of the station huts. There they slaughtered them all except for one woman who they kept with them for the next couple of days. The approximately 28 people they murdered were largely women, children and old men. Most of the younger men were away on a neighbouring station cutting bark. Most of the Aborigines were slaughtered with swords as George Anderson, who refused to join the massacre, clearly heard there were just two shots. Unlike Anderson, Charles Kilmeister joined the slaughter of the Aborigines. After the massacre, Fleming and his gang rode off looking to kill the remainder of the group who they knew had gone to the neighbouring station. They returned two days later to Myall Creek and dismembered and burnt the bodies.

When the manager of the station, William Hobbs, returned several days later and discovered the bodies, counting up to twenty eight of them (as they were beheaded and dismembered he had difficulty determining the exact number) he decided to report the incident but Kilmeister initially talked him out of it. Hobbs discussed it with a neighbouring station overseer, Thomas Foster, who told squatter Frederick Foot who rode to Sydney to report it to the new Governor, George Gipps. Supported by the Attorney General, John Plunkett, Gipps ordered Police Magistrate, Edward Denny Day at Muswellbrook, to investigate the massacre.

Day carried out a thorough investigation despite the bodies having been removed from the massacre site where only a few bone fragments remained. He arrested eleven of the twelve perpetrators. The only one to escape was the only free man involved, the leader, John Fleming. Anderson was crucial in identifying the arrested men.

Trials

Beginning on 15 November 1838, the case was heard before the Chief Justice of New South Wales, James Dowling. The accused were represented by three lawyers (Foster, a'Beckett and Windeyer) paid for by an association of landowners and stockmen from the Hunter Valley and Liverpool Plains region including Henry Dangar, the owner of the Myall Creek station. The Black Association, as they called themselves, were led by a local magistrate, who apparently used the influence of his office to gain access to the prisoners in Sydney, where told them to "stick together and say nothing." Not one of the eleven accused gave evidence against their co-accused at the trial, something that Gipps attributes to the magistrate's role.^[2]

First trial

The station hutkeeper, Anderson, the only white witness, was the key witness for the prosecution. He told the court how the twelve men had tied the victims together, and led them away. He also said that Edward Foley, one of the perpetrators, had shown him a sword covered with blood. Anderson's testimony was supported by William Hobbs and Magistrate Day, who had conducted the police investigation.

Justice Dowling took care to remind the jury that the law made no distinction between the murder of an Aboriginal person and the murder of a European person. The jury, after deliberating for just twenty minutes, found all eleven men not guilty. One of the jurors later told the newspaper The Australian that although he considered the men guilty of murder, he could not convict a white man of killing an Aboriginal person:

"I look on the blacks as a set of monkeys and the sooner they are exterminated from the face of the earth, the better. I knew the men were guilty of murder but I would never see a white man hanged for killing a black."^[3]

Second trial

Attorney-General, Plunkett however requested the judge to remand the prisoners in custody awaiting further charges from the same incident. Although all eleven were remanded in custody only seven were to face a second trial. The second trial was held on 29 November. Anderson, who had been the key witness at the first trial, gave an even more lucid account of the massacre at the second trial. He told the court that:

"While Master was away, some men came on a Saturday, about 10; I cannot say how many days after master left; they came on horseback, armed with muskets and swords and pistols; all were armed... the blacks, when they saw the men coming, ran into our hut, and the men then, all of them, got off their horses; I asked what they were going to do with the blacks, and Russel said 'We are going to take them over the back of the range, to frighten them'."^[4]

Anderson then gave evidence that the Aboriginal people in the hut had cried out to him for assistance. He said two women were left behind at the huts, one "because she was good-looking, they said so," and that there was young child who had been left behind, who attempted to follow its mother who was tied up with the others, before Anderson carried it back to the hut.^[4] There were also two other young boys who had escaped by hiding in the creek.

Anderson also gave evidence regarding the perpetrators return and them burning the bodies.

"I [Anderson] saw smoke in the same direction they went; this was soon after they went with the firesticks... Fleming told Kilmeister to go up by-and-by and put the logs of wood together, and be sure that all [of the remains] was consumed... the girls they left, and the two boys, and the child I sent away with 10 black fellows that went away in the morning... I did not like to keep them, as the men might come back and kill them."^[4]

Anderson said that he wanted to speak the whole truth at the second trial. He also said that he did not seek to be rewarded for testifying, rather he asked "only for protection."^[4] The trial continued until 2 am on 30 November, when the seven men were found guilty. On 5 December they were sentenced to execution by hanging. The sentence was ratified by the Executive Council of New South Wales on 7 December, with Gipps later saying in a report that no mitigating circumstances could be shown for any of the defendants, and it could not be said that any of the men were more or less guilty than the rest.^[5] The seven men were executed early on the morning of 18 December.

This was the first (and only) time in Australia's history that Europeans were hanged for the massacre of Aborigines.^[6]

Consequences

The case led to significant uproar among sections of the population and the media, sometimes voiced in favour of the perpetrators. For example, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald declared that "the whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly court documents on which we have already wasted too much time".^[3]

John Fleming, the leader of the massacre, was never captured, and was allegedly responsible for further massacres throughout the Liverpool Plains and New England regions.^{[citation needed]} His brother, Joseph Fleming, was also linked to massacres in the Maranoa region of south-western Queensland.

John Blake, one of the four men acquitted at the first trial and not subsequently charged, committed suicide by cutting his throat in 1852. His descendants, say that they like to think he did so out of a guilty conscience.^[7]

Those executed, on 18 December 1838, were: Charles Kilmeister, James Oates, Edward Foley, John Russell, John Johnstone, William Hawkins, and James Parry.

The Reasons for the Massacre: The Myall Creek Masssacre was just one of many massacres that took place in that district (the Liverpool Plains) around that time. There were many other massacres that took place right across the colony as it expanded across more and more Aboriginal land. As elsewhere in the colony, the Aborigines at times put up resistance to the invasion of their land by spearing sheep and cattle for food and sometimes attacking the stockmen's huts and killing the white men. In the Liverpool Plains district there had been some cattle speared and huts attacked and two whites murdered (allegedly by Aborigines). The squatters complained to the acting Governor Snodgrass who Sent Major James Nunn and about twenty two troopers up to the district. Nunn enlisted the assistance of up to twenty five local stockmen and together they rode around the district rounding up and slaughtering any Aborigines they came across. Nunn's campaign culminated in the Australia Day Massacre of 1838 at Waterloo Creek. As there are no definitive historical records available it is impossible to accurately determine the exact number of Aborigies who were slaughtered there but estimates range from twenty five to over one hundred. When Nunn returned to Sydney, many of the local squatters and stockmen continued the "drive" against the Aborigines. The perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre were some who continued that relentless slaughter. The Aborigines killed at Myall Creek were not involved in any of the spearing of cattle or the attacks on stockmen's huts that were occurring elsewhere as they had been living peacefully on McIntyre's and Wiseman's stations for many months prior to moving to Myall Creek. They simply got caught up in the British desire to drive them off their land so they could continue with the expansion of the colony.

In his book, Blood on the Wattle, journalist Bruce Elder says that the successful prosecutions resulted in pacts of silence becoming a common practice to avoid sufficient evidence becoming available for future prosecutions.^[8] Another effect, as one contemporary Sydney newspaper reported, was that poisoning Aboriginals became more common as "a safer practice". Many massacres were to go unpunished due to these practices,^[8] as what is variously called a 'conspiracy' or 'pact' or 'code' of silence fell over the killings of aborigines.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]}

Memorial

A memorial to the victims of the massacre was unveiled on 10 June 2000, consisting of a granite rock and plaque overlooking the site of the massacre. A ceremony is held each year on 10 June commemorating the victims. The memorial was vandalised in January 2005, with the words "murder", "women" and "children" chiselled off, in an attempt to make it unreadable.^[27] The location is described as 23 km north east of Bingara at the junction of Bingara-Delungra and Whitlow Roads.29°46.8′S 150°42.9′E / 29.78°S 150.715°E / -29.78; 150.715

The Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site was included on the Australian National Heritage List 7 June 2008.^[28]

See also

• List of massacres of Indigenous Australians
• List of massacres in Australia

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site". Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. 25-Jun-2008. http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/myall-creek/information.html. 
2. ^ C.D., Rowley (1972). The Destruction of Aboriginal Society (1983 ed.). Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-021452-6. 
3. ^ ^{a b} "Myall Creek Massacre", Parliament of New South Wales Hansard, 8 June 2000
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Stone, Sharman N. (1974). "4.5 George Anderson's eye-witness account". Aborigines in White Australia: A documentary history of the attitudes affecting official policy and the Australian Aborigines, 1697-1973. Melbourne: Heinemann. ISBN 0-85859-072-7. 
5. ^ Stone, Sharman N. (1974). "4.6 Sir George Gipps' report on murder trials". Aborigines in White Australia: A documentary history of the attitudes affecting official policy and the Australian Aborigines, 1697-1973. Melbourne: Heinemann. ISBN 0-85859-072-7. 
6. ^ "Myall Creek Massacre (entry AHD105869)". Australian Heritage Database. Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl?mode=place_detail;place_id=105869. 
7. ^ "Bridge Over Myall Creek". Australian Story. http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s332825.htm. Retrieved 27 November 2005. 
8. ^ ^{a b} Bruce Elder (1998). Blood on the Wattle: Massacres and maltreatment of Aboriginal Australians since 1788. Pg 94: New Holland Publishers. ISBN 1 86436 410 6. 
9. ^ Mary Durack, Kings in Grass Castles, (1959) cited in Peter Knight, Jonathan Long Fakes and forgeries, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2004 p. 136
10. ^ Raymond Evans,A History of Queensland, Cambridge University Press, 2007 p.54
11. ^ Henry Meyrick 1846 cited Michael Cannon, Life in the Country: Australia in the Victorian Age,:2, (1973) Nelson 1978 p.78, also cited in Ben Kiernan’s Blood and soil: a world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to Darfur, Yale University Press, 2007 p.298
12. ^ Robert Manne, In denial: the stolen generations and the right, Black Inc., 2001 p.96
13. ^ A. Dirk Moses, Frontier violence and stolen indigenous children in Australian history, Berghahn Books, 2004 p.205
14. ^ Geoffrey Blomfield, Baal Belbora, the end of the dancing: the agony of the British invasion of the ancient people of Three Rivers:the Hastings, the Manning & the Macleay, in New South Wales Apcol 1981 cited Aboriginal history, Volumes 6-8, ANU 1982 p.35
15. ^ Claire Smith, Country, kin and culture: survival of an Australian Aboriginal community, Wakefield Press, 2005 p.18
16. ^ Gerhard Leitner, Ian G. Malcolm, The habitat of Australia's aboriginal languages: past, present and future, Walter de Gruyter, 2007 pp.143-4
17. ^ Deborah Bird Rose, Hidden histories: black stories from Victoria River Downs, Humbert River, and Wave Hill Stations, Aboriginal Studies Press, 1991 p.23
18. ^ D.Byrne, ‘A Critique of unfeeling heritage,’ in Laurajane Smith, Natsuko Akagawa (eds.) Intangible heritage, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2009 pp.229-253, p.233
19. ^ Ben Kiernan Blood and soil: a world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to Darfur, Yale University Press 2007 p.296
20. ^ Ian D. Clark Scars in the landscape: a register of massacre sites in western Victoria, 1803-1859, Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1995 pp.1-4
21. ^ Bronwyn Batten, ‘The Myall Creek Memorial:history, identity and reconciliation,’ in William Logan, William Stewart Logan, Keir Reeves (eds.) Places of pain and shame: dealing with 'difficult heritage', Taylor & Francis, 2009 pp. 82-96, p.85
22. ^ Rosemary Neill White out: how politics is killing black Australia, Allen & Unwin, 2002 p. 76
23. ^ Richard Broome Aboriginal Victorians:a history since 1800, Allen & Unwin, 2005 p.80
24. ^ Kay Schaffer In the wake of first contact: the Eliza Fraser stories, Cambridge University Press Archive 1995 p.243
25. ^ Gay McAuley Unstable ground: performance and the politics of place, Peter Lang, 2006 p. 163
26. ^ Christine Halse A Terribly Wild Man, Allen & Unwin, 2002 p. 99
27. ^ "Vandals deface two Australian memorials", "Sydney Morning Herald", 31 January 2005
28. ^ Australian National Heritage listing for the Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site

Major References for information in this article and on the Myall Creek Massacre generally are: Waterloo Creek by Roger Milliss and Demons at Dusk: Massacre at Myall Creek by Peter Stewart

Further reading

• Clark, Manning (1998). History of Australia. Abridged by Michael Cathcart. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84779-X. 
• "Myall Creek Massacre". Parliament of New South Wales Hansard. http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20000608005. Retrieved 26 September 2005. 
• Roderick Flanagan (1888). "Chapter 15: The Myall Creek Massacre". The Aborigines of Australia. pp. 141–154. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Aborigines_of_Australia/Chapter_15.  (at Wikisource)
• Milliss Roger, Waterloo Creek. Penguin Books, 1992
• Stewart, Peter, Demons at Dusk, Massacre at Myall Creek. Sid Harta Publishers. 2007

External links

• (http://www.myallcreekmassacre.com)
• Myall Creek Massacre
• (http://www.myallcreek.info)