Australian Wars and Resistance

This is a provisional map of Australian wars and resistance movements from 1788 to the 1930s. It was created using computational 'clustering' methods based primarily on massacres, and checked against historical evidence and secondary sources and some Indigenous knowledge. It was produced in response to a century of demands for recognition of these wars and resistance, from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The methodology to produce the map was developed after 8 years of consultative research into Colonial Frontier Massacres, during the Historical Frontier Violence ARC grant, which was overseen by an Indigenous steering committee, and which included Aboriginal academics. The methodology has been presented without objection to Indigenous forums and in yarns with no outright objection and with feedback and suggestions that have been responded to and included. This map is meant only as a beginning and to prompt collaborative research, done the right way, into each of these wars and resistance movements. Massacres are only part of the story, and more events will be added over time. We hope also to identify hundreds of named and thousands of unnamed people in these wars. This work is supported by a collective of more than 50 historians and Indigenous people. As we learn more this map may change.

Ask first.

This map links to information that may to contain descriptions of violence and historical racist attitudes.

Audio-Visual:

Clayton-Dixon, Callum 2019 Indigenous Research NAIDOC Lecture: The New England Frontier Wars University of New England https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKqOIMNvUHs

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Alternate Names: ‘Black War of ’43 to ‘55’.

Aboriginal people: Yaggara, Kabi Kabi, Jinaburra, Jarowair (Western Wakka Wakka), Gitabel, Kambuwal, Batchulla, Goreng Goreng.

Named Aboriginal people: Old Moppy (Mappi), Commandant, Jackey Jackey, Young Moppy (Multuggerah), Mickey Mickey, Uncle Marney, Dundalli, Yilbung (Milbong Jemmy), Eumundi (Ngumundi), Dr (Billy) Barlow, Wanaunaiga, Perkla, Neddy, Moggy Moggy.

Colonial Forces: 99th Foot Regiment, 54th Regiment, NSW Border Police, NSW/ Queensland Native Mounted Police, pastoralists

Notable Colonists: Dr (Lands Commissioner), Stephen Simpson, Patrick Leslie, Gregory Blaxland, Pegg brothers, Frederick Walker, ‘Cocky’ Rogers, William Balfour, Thomas & Charles Archer, Evan MacKenzie, David McConnel, Boralchou (John/ James Baker), John Eales, Lnt John O’Connell Bligh.

Audio/visual:

 S4E1">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mejyw8HkM0Y">S4E1 - Dundalli - Aboriginal resistance fighter and lawman

Colonial violence. Linked sources and citations may contain racist language and attitudes of the time.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Listen

Ross, Joe (Bunuba) Jandamarra, Rebel Films, ICTV https://ictv.com.au/video/3739-jandamarra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://ictv.com.au/video/3739-jandamarra

Ross, Joe (Bunuba) The Jandamarra Story Fancy Films, Vimeo, https://vimeo.com/272681039" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://vimeo.com/272681039

Jandamarra's War Electric Pictures 2011 https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jandamarraswar" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jandamarraswar

Ord, Duncan Jandamarra’s legacy National Museum of Australia, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxvnXG8gl_0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxvnXG8gl_0 

Spearim, Bo Dr Chris Owen, The Kimberley Frontier, 1882-1905 Frontier War Stories, 2021 https://open.spotify.com/episode/2E2CsnuvPGzQYixYKKzWa1?si=4272495dad29454c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://open.spotify.com/episode/2E2CsnuvPGzQYixYKKzWa1?si=4272495dad29454c

Notes

Massacres in this war indicate two main phases, the first in the 1890s, including the Bunuba Resistance and the well known resistance leader Jandamarra, and the second from the mid 1910s to late 1920s.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Contains descriptions of colonial violence. Sources may include racist language and attitudes. References to recordings and works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people does not necessarily mean they support this work - the intention is only to refer people to the right speakers and sources.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Contains descriptions of colonial violence. Historic sources may contain racist attitudes and language.

Kaytetye and Warumungu people tell the story of the overland telegraph, one of the focal points in this conflict: Satour, Kieran Mpetyane (director) The Truth About the Telegraph Garuwa, 2024
https://garuwa.com/the-truth-about-the-telegraph

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Contains descriptions of colonial violence. Historic sources may contain racist attitudes and language.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in will be added as research continues as part of the Australian Wars and Resistance work.

Of the Daly River Coppermine reprisal massacres, Senior Murrinh-patha man, the late Bill Parry, said:

Alright, the whitemen had no wives, no-one to sleep with, they had no women...the whitemen were insistent – they demanded the women, and they took the women off the Aboriginal men... and they slept with those women at the Coppermine...alright, the Malak Malak were pining for their women, they were without their women (Smith, 2024, p 142).

Region

The Daly River is 220km southwest of Darwin and forms part of the Douglas Daly region. The significant Aboriginal community of Nauiyu (formerly known as the Daly River Mission) is in the region, as are the communities of Peppimenarti, Thamarrurr, Nganmarriyanga and Wadeye. The Daly River, which originates at the junction of the King, Katherine and Flora Rivers, is about 320km long and empties into Anson Bay in the Timor Sea. The Mary River, also in the Top End, is 150km east of Darwin and forms part of Kakadu National Park. It is known for its spectacular wetlands, birdlife and saltwater crocodiles. The Mary, which is about 225km long, is one of eight that form the Northern Territory floodplain system. It has many tributaries and empties into Van Diemen Gulf.

Narrative

A combination of factors led to this war, including agricultural and mining pursuits as colonists fanned out along the overland telegraph line and pastoral stations were established, but a common factor for many clashes were attacks by Aboriginal men to rescue women who had been abducted and subjected to sexual slavery. The Daly River War included but was not limited to those circumstances of provocation.

Earliest indications of trouble brewing were on the goldfields at Yam Creek with reports of tools being pilfered from miners (NTTG, 26 December 1873, p 4). In October 1874 a miner named August Henning was killed by Aboriginal people on the road from the goldfields to Darwin (Reid, 1990, pp 53-54; Kelsey, 1975; 32).

In early June 1875, John Lewis and his party were en route to western Arnhem Land to establish the Coburg Cattle Company pastoral lease. They were attacked by Kunwinjku warriors at the East Alligator and killed in the order of 20 people (NTTG, 7 August 1875, p 2; Lewis, 1922, pp 140-143).

Violence intensified following the killing of Charles Johnston, head of the Daly Waters Telegraph Station, at Roper Bar on 29 June 1875. Mungarrayi warriors were held responsible. The ensuing reprisal massacre from 24 July at Mount McMinn was carried out by an overlanding party of nine travelling from Queensland to Darwin and led by William Batten and George de Lautour. This was the first of five reprisal massacres. The others were Crescent Lagoon, Harris Lagoon and the Calder Range in August, and Mole Hill in September 1875 (Roberts, 2009, np; Wilson, 2008, pp 221-222; Reid, 1990, pp 66-67; Roberts, 2005, p 140; NTTG, 18 September 1875, p 2).

In January 1878, teamster James Ellis was murdered at Granite Crossing, The Shackle. A punitive reprisal party led by Mounted Constable William Stretton shot at least 17 of the suspected warriors near the Daly River. An unknown number of others were shot by a civilian reprisal party, possibly for the same reason or in reprisal for the wounding of two Chinese miners at Yam Creek at about the same time (Evening Journal, 21 January 1878, p 3; NTTG, 26 January 1878, p 2; Reid, 1990, p 70).

The war intensified further following an event known as the Daly River Coppermine Massacre on 2 September 1884 in which three miners, John Landers, Henry Hauschildt and Johannes Noltenius were speared as they retreated to their camp at the Mount Hayward Copper Mine. On arrival they discovered their cook, Thomas Schollert, dead. A reprisal operation was carried out by Mounted Constable George Montagu and took in Argument Flat (Evening Journal, 4 June 1885, p 3; Austin, 1992, pp 15-16) and Marrakai Station along the Mary River. Montagu’s report documented 20-30 Aboriginal deaths, but other contemporary reports suggest between 70-150, and modern estimates are higher. Inspector Paul Foelsche also led a reprisal party. A third, civilian, party led by former police officer August Lucanus was split into three groups and armed by the government (Lucanus in Clement & Bridge, 1991, p 16). It was not accompanied by any police and did not account for ammunition used (Markus, 1974; Wilson, 2000, pp 271; Nettelbeck, 2004, p 193; Morris, 2019, pp 33-43; Smith, 2025, pp 29-31).

Poison was deployed as a weapon in later years. At Stapleton Siding in 1895, more than 100 Kungarakan people died after eating poisoned damper (McGuinness, 1991, p 8; Murgatroyd, 2001, p 6; Toohey, 1981, p 39).

Country / People / Language group / Nation

Yam Creek 1873: Wagiman, Mayall, Arigoolia and Jawoyn

East Alligator 1875: Kunwinjku

Daly Waters 1875: Mungarrayi

Daly River 1884: Woolwonga, Malak Malak, Murrinh Patha, Ngan'gikurrunggurr

Stapleton Siding 1895: Kungarakan

Notable People

Named Aboriginal people

• Jemmy, Tommy, Long Legged Charley and Ajibbing Wagna, tried for the Coppermine murders (North Australian, 26 December 1884, p 3).
• Jacky McGrath, leader of a ‘large mob’ camped at or near Rum Jungle (NTTG, 4 October 1884, p 2).
• Boko Jackey, Neddy Lewis and Louis, murdered in Daly River reprisals (Register, 7 February 1885, p 7).

Colonists

Colonial forces:

Miners, South Australia Police, Civilians

Police:

Corporal George Montagu, Mounted Constable Charles Luck, Mounted Constable Cox, Mounted Constable Allan Macdonald, Mounted Constable Robert Stott (Kimber, 1990, np), Inspector Paul Foelsche, Mounted Constable Summers, Mounted Constable Wilson (see various newspaper reports listed in references) and Constable James Foster Smith (Wilson, 2000, p 83).

Miners: 

Thomas Schollert, John Landers and Johannes Noltenius, Henry Hauschildt, murdered at Mt Hayward Copper Mine for abducting and abusing women. A man named Roberts was with them but apparently survived (Markus, 1974, p 12; Wilson, 2000, p 271; Nettelbeck, 2004, p 21; Morris, 2019, pp 33-43).

Other civilians:

• John Lewis, attacked at East Alligator (NTTG, 7 August 1875, p 2; Lewis, 1922, pp 140-143).
• Charles Bridson, George Stanley and John Maliff (aka Jack the Rajah) who were attacked at Argument Flat (NTTG, 4 October 1884, p 2).
• William Batten and George de Lautour, leaders of a civilian reprisal party in 1875 after Johnston’s murder at Roper Bar (Roberts, 2009, np; Wilson, 2008, pp 221-222; Reid, 1990, pp 66-67; Roberts, 2005, p 140; NTTG, 18 September 1875, p 2).
• James Ellis, killed at the Shackle (Evening Journal, 21 January 1878, p 3).
• Former Constable August Lucanus (Clement & Bridge, 1991, p 16).
• Dr Robert J Morice, Colonial Surgeon and Protector of Aborigines (Evening Journal, Thursday 4 June 1885, p 3).

Contributor: Robyn Smith, 2026

Recommended Reading/Listening

Parsons, JL (Government Resident) Quarterly Report on the Northern Territory, 11 November 1884, Legislative Council of South Australia, Adelaide (see p 13): https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/catalogue_resources/58793.pdf

Purtill J ‘“Forgotten” Woolwonga tribe demand recognition 130 years after “extermination”’ in ABC News, 24 September 2014: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/indigenous-woolwonga-demand-recognition-after-extermination/5765212

Smith R ‘The Original Archive: deep diving in Australia’s recorded history’ in Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2025, No 2, pp 28-40.

Toohey, Justice B (1981) Aboriginal Land Commissioner’s Report, Finniss River Land Claim, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

References

Austin T (1992) Simply the Survival of the Fittest: Aboriginal Administration in South Australia’s Northern Territory 1863-1910, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin. pp 15-16.

Clement C and Bridge PJ (Eds) (1991) Kimberley Scenes, Hesperian Press, Perth.

Daly HW (1887) Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London, pp 257-263.

Kelsey DE (1975) The Shackle: A Story of the Far North Australian Bush, Lynton Publications, Adelaide.

Kimber RG ‘Robert Stott (1858-1928)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 12, 1990, Australian National University, Canberra.

Lewis, J (1922) Fought and Won, WK Thomas & Co, Adelaide.

Markus (1974) From the Barrel of a Gun: the oppression of the Aborigines 1860-1900, Victorian Historical Association, Melbourne.

McGinness J (1991) Joe McGinness Son of Alyandabu, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Morice RJ ‘Aborigines in the Northern Territory’ in Evening Journal, 4 June 1885, p 3.

Morris G (2019) Edge of sacred: exploring the life stories of the Nauiyu community. An investigation into trauma and the traditional healing practices of a remote Aboriginal community, PhD thesis, Charles Darwin University.

Murgatroyd, Warren (2001) Mt Grace Resources NL Magnesium Mine, Batchelor, NT, Environmental Impact Assessment, Anthropological Component, Initial Report, November 2001, URS Australia Pty Ltd.

Nettelbeck A (2004) ‘Writing and remembering frontier conflict: the rule of law in 1880s central Australia’ in Aboriginal History, Vol 28, pp 190-206.

Parsons, JL (Government Resident) Quarterly Report on the Northern Territory, 11 November 1884, Legislative Council of South Australia, Adelaide (see p 13): https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/catalogue_resources/58793.pdf

Purtill J ‘“Forgotten” Woolwonga tribe demand recognition 130 years after “extermination”’ in ABC News, 24 September 2014: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/indigenous-woolwonga-demand-recognition-after-extermination/5765212

Reid B (2020) Power and Protection: the contest between the Government Residents and the medical Protectors of the Aborigines in South Australia’s Northern Territory, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin.

Roberts T (2005) Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Roberts, T ‘The brutal truth: What happened in the Gulf Country’ in The Monthly. November 2009: https://www.themonthly.com.au/november-2009/essays/brutal-truth

Smith R (2024) Licence to Kill: massacre men of Australia’s north, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin.

Smith R ‘The Original Archive: deep diving in Australia’s recorded history’ in Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2025, No 2, pp 28-40.

Toohey, Justice B (1981) Aboriginal Land Commissioner’s Report, Finniss River Land Claim, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

Unattributed ‘Corporal Montagu’s Report’ in North Australian, 8 January 1886, p 2.

Unattributed ‘Murder by the Natives’ in Evening Journal, 21 January 1878, p 3.

Unattributed ‘Murder by the Natives’ in Evening Journal, 21 January 1878, p 3.

Unattributed ‘Reprisals on Blacks in the Northern Territory’ in SA Register, 12 February 1886, p 5.

Unattributed ‘The Alleged slaughter of blacks in the Northern Territory’ in The Evening Journal (SA), 12 February 1886, p 3.

Unattributed ‘Things and Others’ in North Australian, 27 November 1885, p 2.

Unattributed ‘Yam Creek’ in Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 26 December 1873, p 4

Wilson, WR (Bill) (2000) A Force Apart? A history of the Northern Territory police force 1870-1926, PhD thesis, Charles Darwin University.

Wott P ‘Black Outrages in the Northern Territory’ in Register, 7 February 1885, p 7.

Colonial violence. Primary sources and links contain racist language and attitudes of the time.

Listen

Lovett-Gardiner, Iris Chimney Flats Victorian Collections, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tK1lRxlcv4&t=147s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tK1lRxlcv4&t=147s

Notes

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

At present this data combines massacre data generously shared from 2 projects:

• Colonial Frontier Massacres, Australia, 1788 to 1930 https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php (This data includes massacres of 6 or more people only)
• The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4755c59ae93447a9b0acf9b2b0b265f6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4755c59ae93447a9b0acf9b2b0b265f6 (This includes any recorded incident of conflict between colonists and Indigenous peoples, only within South Australia, with several incidents on the Victorian side of the border)

With permission.

Resources

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/4755c59ae93447a9b0acf9b2b0b265f6/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The South Australian Frontier and It's Legacies

Narrative: Frontier War on the Eyre Peninsula (Nauo and Barngarla Country)

In 1839, the British flag was planted at Port Lincoln, a young colonial settlement at the southern end of South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. Eyre Peninsula was named for the colonial explorer Edward John Eyre, but this is Aboriginal Country: Nauo to the south-west, Barngarla to the east and north, and Wirangu to the north west. Well before the planting of the British flag, Nauo and Barngarla people had familiarised themselves with the presence of European whalers, who remained close to the coastline. Some interactions were accommodating, with one group returning for several years and employing local men to cart water and provide timber in return for goods, while others were violent and involved the abduction of Aboriginal women.i Throughout this period however, newcomers visits were transient, Aboriginal people remained in control of their Country and there were no major interruptions to traditional Aboriginal society.ii This tentative co-existence shifted in 1839 when permanent European occupation occurred, with colonists attracted by the natural harbour and fertile pastoral land. By 1840, roughly 220 Europeans had established a permanent settlement around the township of Port Lincoln, connected by ship to Adelaide.iii However, their numbers were small compared to the population of several thousand traditional owners who occupied the peninsula’s large hinterland and resource rich coastline.iv

The first sign of conflict came in October 1840 when the son of shipowner and merchant, 12 year old Frank Hawson, was fatally speared at an outstation on the family’s sheep run. According to Frank’s testimony (taken at his deathbed), a group of Aboriginal people had approached Frank requesting food, and when he refused to give more than minimal provisions, the encounter escalated to violence. As tensions simmered, Governor George Grey appointed a Government Resident to the district with instructions to ensure 'an impartial administration of justice between the Settlers and the Aborigines.'v However, as the permanency of European occupation became apparent and Europeans and their stock spread further inland, the conditions for a frontier war took root.vi

Over the coming year, Aboriginal resistance to encroaching dispossession proved to be concerted and strategic. Some of the methods Aboriginal people employed to drive settlers away were directed towards the destruction of pastoral property: for instance, vandalizing shepherds’ huts, seizing food and goods from huts, assaulting hutkeepers, spearing stock, destroying fences, digging up crops, and setting crops alight. In early March 1842, stock-owner John Brown and his hutkeeper Joseph Lovelock were fatally speared. In the wake of this, the Port Lincoln colonists petitioned the Governor, listing the increasing regularity of such threatening incidents and calling for ‘a Detachment of Military to be stationed here with about Twenty-five stand of spare arms for arming the inhabitants’.vii Without military intervention the settlement could be abandoned altogether, they warned.

Settlers’ requests for military support (implying they were fighting an enemy), were significant in light of the fact that all Aboriginal people in South Australia had been declared to be British subjects (although without treaties or Aboriginal people’s own consent) from the moment of the colony’s foundation. The imperial government’s hope was that the status of British subjecthood would endow Aboriginal people with legal protections from violence. More typically, across the continent and the island of Van Diemen’s Land, the legal fiction of their British subjecthood justified extraordinary measures of punitive policing against them.

The Governor, George Grey, initially refused the colonists’ entreaties.viii However, on receiving news of the murders of stockowner Rolles Biddle, his hutkeeper Elizabeth Tubbs and overseer James Fastins, Grey reversed his decision. Biddle, Tubbs and Fastins were killed at Biddle’s station in what colonial observers understood to be a planned attack. German missionary Clamor Schürmann had been appointed Sub Protector of Aborigines for the Port Lincoln district in late 1840. A talented linguist, he acted as interpreter for local Aboriginal groups from whom he learned that the recent killings (i.e. of Brown, Lovelock, Biddle, Tubbs and Eastins) were a political act, the result of ‘a tribal (national) decision’.ix The recipient of Schürmann’s reports was Adelaide-based Protector of Aborigines Matthew Moorhouse, who wrote: ‘The Natives are fully aware of their numerical strength and no doubt feel emboldened by it’.x The recently arrived Government Resident at Port Lincoln, Charles Driver, described the state of ‘general panic’ that descended on the settlement. Much farming activity beyond the safety of the township had been ‘suspended’, he wrote. Cattle stations were becoming ‘deserted and the Cattle running wild in the bush’.xi Houses in the settlement were barricaded and women and children removed to the safety of Boston Island.xii

Settlers at Port Lincoln were aware that threats against them were due to their occupation of the country, and they were also acutely aware of their own geographical disadvantage in the building state of frontier warfare. Located at the base of a peninsula, their tentative connection to Adelaide was by sea, 160 nautical miles across the lower Spencer Gulf, Investigator Strait and St Vincent’s Gulf. The longer overland route through the peninsula had not at that time been traversed by Europeans. This route crossed Nukunu and Barngarla country, which was as yet largely uncolonised. Writing from Port Lincoln, the Government Resident acknowledged that the geographical layout of the peninsula afforded Aboriginal people ‘so many advantages that the settlers must, for the present at least, confine their operations to the immediate vicinity of the Town’. Settlers’ fear of Aboriginal attack had, he said, ‘completely paralysed the industry of both the town and surrounding country’.xiii

Following the Governor’s approval of military support for the Port Lincoln settlers, a detachment of fifteen men of the 96th Foot Regiment arrived under the command of Lieutenant Hugonin. From 18 April until 11 July, a paramilitary force consisting of Hugonin and his soldiers, police and settlers, patrolled the region around Port Lincoln. On several occasions, Schürmann was persuaded to accompany the force to act as an interpreter and ensure only guilty parties were arrested. From Schürmann’s diaries and reports, it is evident that innocent and unarmed Aboriginal people were shot, and that a culture of collusion and concealment existed among Hugonin, his men and the Government Resident.xiv

It is also clear that the Aboriginal people encountered utilised their advantages and were not necessarily intimidated by the paramilitary force. On numerous occasions the pursuing party was unable to utilise their tactic of surprise attack. As Hugonin reported to Grey,

The nature of the country is such that foot soldiers with a heavy firelock and belts have little chance of coming up with the Natives. Their accoutrements also make the attempt to surprise at night almost a certain failure, and should I be unsuccessful in the now proposed push into the heart of their country I must regret to state that it is my opinion that a military force, except employed as a Guard at the stations of the settlers, is at present totally useless in this settlement.xv

Pastoralist James Hawker notes in his memoir that he spoke with spoke with the ‘officer in charge’ – i.e. Hugonin – of the ‘detachment of the 96th Regiment’ who had been sent to Port Lincoln. Hawker likewise describes ‘soldiers on foot in heavy marching order’, sent to capture Aboriginal people who ‘knew every inch of country and could thus evade any attempt to make them prisoners!’; ‘Every movement of the soldiers was watched by scouts from the tribes. It was a miserable fiasco’. Hawker was informed that

One day they [the soldiers] came to a swamp, across which they were unable to march. Fifty or sixty yards on the opposite side the natives mustered to look at them, having come out of a thick scrub a short distance in their rear. Shots were fired at them by the soldiers which, as the old Brown Bess musket would not carry effectively much more than half the distance, caused great amusement to the blacks, who danced and jeered at their adversaries for not coming across the swamp.xvi

During the 81 days he was on Eyre Peninsula, Hugonin reported a total of 13 fatalities. It is clear, however, that the presence and actions of the 96th did not necessarily have the intended intimidatory effect. By October, Schürmann was informed by cross-cultural intermediary Yutalta that ‘none of the murderers have died in consequence of the severe wounds which two or three of them had received’ from Hugonin’s men, that they were ‘not at all intimidated’ and ‘are bent upon hostilities against the white people’.xvii

The Port Lincoln colonists again petitioned the Governor, stating that Yutalta (spelt Uteltea) had informed them that 

the Coffins Bay and Port Lincoln Tribes of Natives had coalesced for the express object of murdering all the whites in the Settlement, that they were endeavoring [sic] to prevail on another Tribe to join them also for this object, that they merely laugh at our Guns and say their spears are much better expressing the utmost confidence that before many moons are passed they will not leave a white person alive in Port Lincoln.xviii

Grey responded by sending Police Commissioner O’Halloran to Eyre Peninsula with instructions to ‘endeavour to capture any of the Aborigines who may be identified as having been concerned in the recent murders at that settlement’. The Governor made it clear that ‘no belligerent rights’ were to be exercised against ‘the Natives’ and no proceedings were to be adopted ‘but such as the Laws of England would authorise against Europeans who had been guilty of similar atrocities’. Grey entreated O’Halloran to demonstrate ‘humanity and discretion’ and provide a good example to the inhabitants of Port Lincoln.xix

During his time on Eyre Peninsula, O’Halloran did not succeed in sighting or capturing those responsible for the earlier murders. However, on two occasions his party pursued and frightened large groups of Aboriginal people that included women and children, causing O’Halloran to report

after having searchingly examined in all necessary directions the Country for a very considerable distance around Port Lincoln, & especially all the haunts of the “Battara Tribe”, & which will I feel convinced have a very happy effect in checking further outrages on the part of the natives generally, who were much alarmed at the rapidity of our movements, & are thus taught to dread our power.xx

Sporadic Aboriginal attacks continued on settlers’ stock and property over the next 12 months, and settlers were directly warned to leave.xxi But by early 1844, Protector Matthew Moorhouse was reporting that outbreaks of violence were ‘not characterised by so much fierceness and determination as they formerly were’.xxii Apart from the possible intimidatory effect of the 96th Regiment’s campaign and O’Halloran’s expedition, a possible reason for this shift was that settlers were starting to recognise the benefit of Aboriginal labour to the pastoral industry and had begun to employ Aboriginal people rather than drive them away from their own country. In his first report of 1845, Charles Driver commented on this point, noting that Aboriginal labour was becoming more prevalent on pastoral stations and that relations between Aboriginal people and Port Lincoln settlers were now more ‘conciliatory’.xxiii Yet mindful of the fragility of peace, he warned that hostilities could again be provoked by ‘more extensive occupation of their country’.xxiv

Contributors: Skye Krichauff and Amanda Nettelbeck

i South Australian Association, Outline of the plan of a proposed colony…1834 (Adelaide: Austaprint, 1978), 70-71; ‘Two English Lads’, The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 3 October 1835, 575.

ii Alan Pope, ‘The Battara Resistance: A Case Study in Aboriginal Resistance,’ History Teachers Association of SA 1976, 29.

iii The South Australian Register, 25 January 1840.

iv Calculated by the Deputy Protector of Aborigines Reverend Schurmann, cited by Protector of Aborigines Matthew Moorhouse, Quarterly Report of 30 June 1842, GRG 24/6/1842/483.

v Colonial Secretary to the Resident Magistrate, 27 September 1841, GRG 24/4/1841/308.

vi Pope, ‘The Battara Resistance’, 29.

vii Memorial from Port Lincoln inhabitants to Governor George Grey, 8 March 1842, GRG 24/6/1842/125.

viii Colonial Secretary to JB Harvey and gentlemen present on 8 March, Pt Lincoln, 7 April 1842, GRG 24-4-4(E1842), p.590.

ix Clamor Schürmann to Matthew Moorhouse, 27 July 1843, Protector of Aborigines' Letterbook, GRG 52/7.

x Matthew Moorhouse, Quarterly Report, 30 June 1842, GRG 24/6/1842/483.

xi Charles Driver to the Colonial Secretary, 4 April 1842, GRG 24/6/1842/152.

xii See for example Nathaniel Hailes’ account (Hailes was the Government Resident’s Clerk), in Allan Peters, Recollections: Nathaniel Hailes’ adventurous life in South Australia (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1998), 135.

xiii Charles Driver to the Colonial Secretary, 1 June 1842, GRG 24/1/1842/339.

xiv For example the shooting of Numma on 25 April 1842 and the treatment of Ngulga’s body by the men of the 96th Regiment. See entries ‘Shooting of Numma (alias Kappler) by a soldier of the 96th Regiment, 25 April 1842’ and ‘Fatal shooting of Ngulga and capture of Nurka by a mounted party led by Hugonin, 21 May 1842’, The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies, https://frontiersa-uofadel.hub.arcgis.com/pages/eyrepeninsula">https://frontiersa-uofadel.hub.arcgis.com/pages/eyrepeninsula">https://frontiersa-uofadel.hub.arcgis.com/pages/eyrepeninsula

Colonial violence. Links and references to historical sources may include racist attitudes and language.

With European settlement on the Adelaide Plains commencing in 1836, the frontier began to extend northwards, into the generally temperate country of the mid-north. By the early 1840s it had reached the southern Flinders Ranges (today’s Crystal Brook, Wirrabara and Wilmington) and by the late 1840s and early 1850s it reached the semi-arid lands of the central and northern Flinders Ranges, beyond what came to be known as ‘Goyder’s Line’. Named after the Surveyor-General, George Goyder, this was the boundary between lands primarily suited to agriculture and country better suited to pastoralism.1 Nearly all of South Australia’s frontiers were pastoral frontiers, motored by settlers driving sheep and cattle in search of fresh pastures. Conflict almost inevitably followed as Aboriginal people resisted incursions into their Country.

By 1 July 1851, Johnson Frederick Hayward and Septimus Boord had established respectively Aroona Station near Wilpena Pound and Oraparinna Station to the east of Aroona.2 At the time, these were two of the most northerly pastoral stations in the colony. Clashes with Aboriginal people in the more southern Mount Arden district of the Flinders Ranges had been regularly occurring throughout 1851 and early 1852. In his reminiscences, Richard Dewdney (a stockman on Oraparinna), refers to ‘Blacks at that time … giving much trouble, to such as extent as to inforce [sic] the use of Fire Arms [sic]’. Arriving at Wilpena station on returning from a trip to Port Augusta, Boord learned that ‘Aroona was stuck up and surrounded with Blacks’. The flimsy huts, made of ‘pine and thatched roofs’, were ‘barricaded with Station hands unable to get out and sadly in need of assistance’. There were no police in Flinders Ranges at this early stage of European occupation and ‘nor were they sought for’. On hearing the news, Boord immediately went to the assistance of his neighbour Frederick Hayward. He collected 'what men and instruments of protection or Slaughter available made a B line for Aroona. Result a speedy retreat of the Blacks. History -in those days- did not record casualties, any way trouble ended'.3 ['in those days' crossed out]

Dewdney goes on to recall that immediately following this, a shepherd was murdered by Aboriginal people at Youngoona (an Aroona outstation). Government correspondence indicates that Hayward’s shepherd, Robert Richardson, was killed by Aboriginal people in March 1852. Although the police arrested suspects, they were eventually released because of a lack of evidence. Nonetheless, Hayward’s memoir reported taking the law into his own hands, with Hayward and his men raiding an Aboriginal camp and reportedly killing as many as fifteen men.4 Dewdney refers to the Aboriginal group taking refuge in the ABC Range East of St Mary’s Peak, and a stockman named Johnny Rose shooting ‘an impudent black’, but ‘in his wisdom kept out of the way till matters quietened’.

Adnymathanha oral histories recall Hayward as a brutal man who was largely responsible for the deaths of many Aboriginal people, including men from a number of different groups who had travelled vast distances and were passing through Brachina Gorge (near Aroona Station) on their sacred journey to collect ochre from the famous Pukardu/Bookatoo mine.5

Although the number of deaths is disputed, the pattern of settlers responding punitively to Aboriginal attacks on men, stock and property became routine. One such case was the reprisal killings in the wake of the payback killing of sixteen-year-old James Stacey Brown near (what is today known as) Quorn in September 1842. James had recently arrived in the district to assist his elder brothers. Prior to James’ arrival, Aboriginal people had taken sheep from neighbouring stations and an Aboriginal man named Williamy had been killed by a shepherd employed by the Ragless brothers.6 There had been numerous tense confrontations between Aboriginal people and colonists, over stock and likely over women.

In revenge for James Brown’s death, three separate parties of Europeans set out to pursue the group responsible and recover the 300 sheep taken from the flock James was shepherding. Tracks were followed for over 70 miles over three days, and a group of Aboriginal people were seen ahead of the sheep, making their way to the scrub that lay to the west of a range of hills near Lake Torrens. According to the pursuers’ depositions (taken by Protector Moorhouse several weeks later), on seeing the Europeans, women and children apparently ran into the thick mulga scrub to the west, where pursuit was difficult, and four Aboriginal men were pursued up a rocky bluff, from where they reportedly resisted arrest and threw stones and boomerangs at the Europeans. Several of the depositions state that the Aboriginal men called the white men ‘bloody rogues’ and ‘bloody liars’. They pointed out that only one white man (James Brown) had been killed, and that ‘ blackfellows got no “butter” white fellows plenty butter’. They taunted the whites, saying ‘come on you white buggers’.7 According to the depositions collected by Moorhouse, four Aboriginal men were shot, however settler reminiscences and Aboriginal oral histories suggest many more Aboriginal people were killed than the number reported to Moorhouse.

Visitors to the Flinders Ranges in the late 1850s and early 1860s often reported on settler/Aboriginal violence. John Bowyer Bull, taking sheep to a station near present day Beltana, wrote that he ‘was surprised to see nothing but Black women there, no Black men’. On asking the women where the men were, he was told “crackaback, dead … alabout white fellow shoot am”.8 In the 1980s, Claude Demell who was born in the northern Flinders Ranges in 1908 stated in an oral history interview that

There was a lot of people shot in the old days …Them days a lot used to be frightened. Mustn’t talk about it because the white fella will come and shoot you. Trying to bluff us out of it so we didn’t talk about it see. Only kill your kangaroo, wallaby, emu and rabbits but never touch sheep9

Claude spoke of killing of Aboriginal people at Arcoona and Wirrapa stations.

As the frontier advanced northward, Mounted Police, usually operating in pairs, followed close behind, especially in the aftermath of reported clashes. In July 1863, Corporal Wauhop and Police trooper Poynter came upon a party of about forty Aboriginal people who they believed had been killing cattle and robbing huts north-west of Beltana. The Aboriginal party threw waddies and boomerangs at them as they approached, and Wauhop reported they were forced to ‘defend themselves with our revolvers’. He noted that they were a group that had come down from the Lake Hope region in the north to collect red ochre.10 Aboriginal parties from the north regularly travelled south to Parachilna to collect the special ochre, and clashes often occurred during those trips. In late 1863, Police Commissioner Warburton led a major police expedition to the South Eastern and Eastern side of Lake Eyre. Protector Moorhouse expressed concern about the number of men and munitions being sent north, describing them as ‘War-Like preparations’.11 If Warburton’s own account of the expedition is to be trusted, they encountered very few Aboriginal people and the expedition served primarily as a ‘show of force’.12

Many settlers identified an Aboriginal man known as Pompey as a leader of the Aboriginal resistance in the region. He was believed responsible for ‘burning a station and spearing two men’ in the late 1850s. Station owner, Robert Bruce, considered him ‘the leader of all the plots and depredations both of the Hill and Saltwater’ tribes, while Mounted Constable Burt wrote that he was ‘the ringleader of all the strife’. He was arrested at the time, but soon escaped custody. In 1863 Pompey led a party of men robbing an outstation on Samuel Stuckey’s Umberatana property where he was reported at an encampment of Aboriginal people at the station ‘inciting his companions to further violence’. When Stuckey investigated Pompey started to flee, so he shot and killed him. Two subsequent inquiries into Stuckey’s actions both found it to be ‘justifiable homicide’.13

In 1865 a catastrophic drought took hold in the north; pastures were bare, waterholes were drying up, stock was dying, as were the native flora and fauna. When a shepherd was killed near Mount Fytton in April 1865, a local settler wrote of the Aboriginal people in the district:

They see our people settle in their country, occupy it all, and wantonly destroy the animals on which the natives had depended for food. They cannot prevent or obtain redress for this; but when they are reduced to the verge of starvation, and, following the example of the white men, seek it from the flocks and herds of the white men, they are hunted, captured, and chained; and this, and this only, is the need of care hitherto bestowed on them in the Far North by the government of South Australia.14

Competition for scarce resources was clearly a source of conflict in the region. From August to December 1865 there were a series of clashes between Aboriginal people and settlers on Perigundee station near Lake Hope. Men on the station seem to have been making a concerted effort to drive Aboriginal people off. A newspaper reported that Dean had burnt down a number of Aboriginal camps ‘and then proceeded to drive the natives backwards.’15 On the night of 8 December, William Dean, with a party of 10 men, were camped on the run while tracking cattle that had been driven off. They were attacked by a party of 160 Aboriginal men, with one station worker killed and three others injured. The station workers fired upon their attackers until they retreated. A local Police Trooper later reported that four had been killed and several others injured.16 In response, the government ordered a large police expeditionary force to recover stock and provide protection. A fourteen-man party set off from Lake Hope with eighteen days of supplies. Inspector Roe and his party returned to Port Augusta in March 1866, but no details of what transpired seem to exist.17 These clashes on Perigundee station were among the last episodes of frontier conflict in the district for which we have documentary evidence. However, Aboriginal oral histories recorded by the Lutheran missionary Johann Reuther in the late 1800s-early 1900s and Luise Hercus in the 1980s refer to Aboriginal people being shot by police at Poeppel Corner, Koonchera waterhole, Kaparamara, and near Beltana. Reuther also recorded an oral history of two white men, Lines and Damet, shooting a Dieri man named Ngardutjankana.18

1 W. Meinig, One the Margins of the Good Earth: The South Australian Wheat Frontier (Adelaide, SA Govt. Printer, 1988), 44-46.

2 Johnson Frederick Hayward’s pastoral lease is dated 1 July 1851, State Records of South Australia [SRSA] GRS 3570 file 80.

3 Richard Dewdney, ‘Reminiscences Past to Present’, handwritten manuscript, State Library of South Australia (SLSA), D736(L), 9.

4 Johnson Frederick Hayward, ‘Reminiscences of Johnson Frederick Hayward’, in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, South Australian Branch, vol. XXIX (1927-28), 138-9.

5 Vince Coulthard, Cliff Coulthard and Des Coulthard, interview with Skye Krichauff, Aroona Junction, 20 April 2022.

6 C.W. Stuart, Inspector of Police, to Commissioner of Police, 20 April 1852 GRG 24/6/1852/1252, SRSA; Protector’s quarterly report for the period ended 31 March 1852, South Australian Government Gazette, 17 June 1852, 366.

7 Benjamin Ragless & George Ragless deposition, 14 October 1842, Edward Polhill deposition, 11 October 1842, Thomas Gilbanks deposition, 15 October 1852, SRSA, GRG 24/6/1852/3215.

8 John Bowyer Bull, handwritten manuscript, PRG 507/8, SLSA.

9 Claude Demell, interview with Adele Pring, Port Germein, 1987.

10 Corporal Wauchop to Chief Inspector Hamilton, 29 July 1863, GRG 5/2/1863/306, SRSA.

11 Protector of Aborigines, docket note on file, 11 August 1863, GRG 5/2/1863/306, SRSA.

12 Police Commissioner Warburton to Chief Secretary, 16 October 1863, GRG 5/2/1863/306, SRSA.

13 South">https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/39131446/3916616">South Australian Register, 4 May 1864 3; South">https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/3916498">South Australian Register, 6 May 1864, 2.

Events in will be added as research continues as part of the Australian Wars and Resistance work.

For a summary of this conflict see: https://www.mehicentre.com/our-stories" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Our Stories on the Mehi Centre website.

Mark Copland's thesis, 1990, A system of assassination : the MacIntyre River Frontier 1837-1850 has thorough detail on the McIntyre River region: https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:328072

More than 150,000 words of colonial news reporting on this conflict and resistance are available in Gomeroi Resistance, Colonial News, available as:

https://australianwars.net/pub/GomeroiResistanceColonialNews.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">html (read online)

https://australianwars.net/pub/GomeroiResistanceColonialNews.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pdf (print or read offline)

https://australianwars.net/pub/GomeroiResistanceColonialNews.epub" target="_blank" rel="noopener">epub (read in ebook reader)

More sources from Government records and police reports, including more details on the early phase of the conflict and Major Nunn's expedition will be added in future. These texts will be used to identify people, places and events in this war.

Historical sources include racist attitudes and language, and descriptions of violence.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Listen

The Black War: Tasmania still torn by its history The Point, NITV, 2018 https://www.facebook.com/reel/10155519202722005" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/reel/10155519202722005

Tasmanian Aboriginal resistance warriors still not recognised ABC News, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e-5e2gpUXQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e-5e2gpUXQ

Spearim, Bo Frontier War Stories - Teangi Brown - Black Wars Frontier War Stories, 2020 https://open.spotify.com/episode/2pXAVh47HWnenavZNuNr7H?si=1b266e524ae048ed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://open.spotify.com/episode/2pXAVh47HWnenavZNuNr7H?si=1b266e524ae048ed

Spearim, Bo Uncle Rodney Dillon Frontier War Stories, 2022 https://open.spotify.com/episode/5m9k8bobucswrfR1n5E6QT?si=257e7ffbe44a4917" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://open.spotify.com/episode/5m9k8bobucswrfR1n5E6QT?si=257e7ffbe44a4917

Notes

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Colonial Violence. Sources may include racist language and attitudes. References to recordings and works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people does not necessarily mean they support this work - the intention is only to refer people to the right speakers and sources.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Listen

Honouring Indigenous cultural hero Yagan, Stuff The British Stole, ABC TV + iview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3F0x-vliGY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3F0x-vliGY

Notes

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Alternate Names: Rannes Station Massacre, Young Massacre, Mt Larcom Massacre, Nankin Creek Massacre, Nine-Mile Creek Massacre

Aboriginal people: Darumbal, Gangalu, Gureng Gureng (Goreng Goreng), Bayali

Named Aboriginal people: King Harold, King John

Colonial Forces: Native Mounted Police, Various Squatters

Notable Colonists: Archer brothers, Leith-Hay brothers, Elliot brothers, Atherton family, John Arthur McCartney, Samuel Birkbeck, William Young, Lieutenant John Murray NMP, William Wiseman

Narrative:

Warfare and resistance in the Rockhampton region began in the mid-1850s and lasted through the 1860s. Initial provocation is uncertain, though it is likely that the introduction of cattle runs in the vicinity of Rannes and Port Curtis provided impetus for conflict. In September 1855 the Native Police Camp, established in 1853, came under attack from a large force of First Nations people. The attack killed or wounded all but one of the Native Police contingent. Mr Leith-Hay, the station owner, reported to the Government that the tribes of the Burnett, Upper Dawson, Port Curtis and those from northward and westward were involved in the violence. Taken together this suggests an alliance of First Nations Peoples, particularly the Gangalu, Darumbal, Bayali and Gureng-Gureng Peoples.

In December of the same year, another attack was made by a large group at Mt Larcom Station, killing all but the owner, who was away at the time. The perpetrators fled both north and westwards. Commissioner of Crown Lands Wiseman was to see evidence of a large party moving west, while the Native Police pursued the others to the north. Lieutenant Murray of the Native Police believed the attackers were from the Port Curtis and Fitzroy tribes. This would suggest a continuation of association amongst the tribes of the region, Mt Larcom falling between Bayali/Gureng-Gureng traditional lands with Darumbal warriors participating. Lieutenant Murray, after recovering some stolen property of Mr Young in the local vicinity at the cost of First Nations lives, pursued the rest of the band north. With the assistance of the Archer’s at Gracemere, Lieutenant Murray crossed the Fitzroy and attacked a First Nations camp at Nankin Creek in Darumbal lands. This was direct retribution for Mt Larcom, but it only triggered further violence. The Elliot’s camp at Nine-Mile Creek, a sub-branch of the Archer’s lands at Gracemere, came under attack in January of 1856, where it was reported that over 200 tribesmen engaged against twenty white men. This led inevitably to a further retaliatory raid by the Archer’s and Native Police who tracked the tribes further north, near Glenmore.

Meanwhile, at least one of the clans, “the Gracemere tribe” worked together with the Archer’s at Gracemere, led by a distinguished warrior, King Harold. The movements of the First Nations peoples associated with the preceding tit-for-tat battles from at least Mt Larcom to the attack on the Elliots’ were fed to the Archers’ and the Native Police through the agency of King Harold. This shows that the relationships of the tribes and the squatters in the area should not be over-simplified.

Intermittent attacks and retaliations seem to have occurred into 1858, when the Canoona goldrush drew around 15000 gold-crazed outsiders into the Fitzroy region. Journalist Frederick Sinnett who documented his time on the goldfields described that large groups of tribesmen would chase armed hunting parties of white men when they ventured away from town. He also pointed out that the Native Police worked exclusively against the First Nations people and that the tribes would retaliate when they were able.

In 1859, a shepherd of Glenmore station on the north side of the Fitzroy, was killed by unknown Darumbal men. Records of the time suggest the deaths of only limited numbers of Darumbal men; however, John McCartney, the station owner of the time recalled years later that one hundred people were rounded up, including their leader King John. A fight occurred but like in most battles, it was most of the one hundred who were shot.

Sometime around 1860-61 when the Atherton family arrived at their new run at Hedlow Station, a hostile mob prepared to resist the encroachment of squatters in the region between Rockhampton and Yeppoon. Violence in this case was initially averted by good will between members of the squatter party and young members of the gathered mob, said to be around 100 in strength. In the following weeks, however, the Native Police on a patrol of the area found an excuse to massacre about 40 members of the local Darumbal People.

Evidence around Rockhampton itself becomes sparse for the years between 1861 and 1865. Glenmore station came under threat in mid-1865 when a Darumbal raiding party began spearing some of the livestock. The Native Police were inevitably called in and caused the deaths of six Darumbal. No more than a few days later it is reported that up to 600 hostile tribesman drove the station owners, their family and servant out of the station, fleeing into a boat in the middle of the Fitzroy River. When the Native Police arrived, they found that the tribe had moved on.

No single event can be said to have ended the violence in the Rockhampton region. There is only a silence of connecting evidence between the ebb and flow of resistance in the region.

Sources

Avery, M. (2025) Enemy on Their Tracks: A documentary history of the Central Queensland Frontier. Coorooman Press

Bottoms, T. (2013). Conspiracy of silence: Queensland's frontier killing-times. Allen & Unwin.

Bird, J. T. S. (2016). The early history of Rockhampton: Dealing chiefly with events up till 1870. Coorooman Press. (Original work published 1904) https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:216457 

McDonald, L. (1981). Rockhampton: A history of city and district. University of Queensland Press.

Oscar de Satge (1901) Pages from the Journal of a Queensland Squatter. Hurst and Blackett https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:319365

Pattison, J. G. (2016). "Battler's" tales of early Rockhampton. Coorooman Press. (Original work published 1939)

Sinnett, F. (1859) Account of the "rush" to Port Curtis: including letters addressed to the "Argus" as special correspondent from the Fitzroy River. Ray and Richter. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-614109466

Contributor: Mark Avery, 2026

The Roper River in the Northern Territory, commences near Mataranka and flows east for about 400km before emptying into the Gulf of Carpentaria at the Limmen Bight. The town of Mataranka is near the western end of the Roper and Ngukurr (Pronounced 'Nook-a', formerly known as 'Roper River Mission') is its eastern terminus.

Aboriginal Peoples

Mangarrayi people for Calico Creek, Harris Lagoon, Calder Range, Mole Hill, Crescent Lagoon, Elsey Creek, Red Lily Lagoon; Yanyuwa for Limmen Bight; Alawa for Hodgson Downs and Winiki Pocket.

Yugul Mangi collectively includes Alawa, Wandarrang, Ritharrngu/Wagilag, Ngandi, Nunggubuyu, Marra, Ngalakgan, Rembarrng and Binbinga peoples (ANU Centre for Indigenous Policy Research).

Yolngu people represent the traditional owners of north-eastern Arnhem Land, an area generally known as Miwatj. Yolngu literally means ‘people’, who fall into two moieties and numerous clans (National Museum of Australia). Yolngu had frequent interactions with Macassan people from Indonesia and Yolngu language incorporates many Bahasa loan words (Walker & Zorc, 1981, pp 109-133).

Narrative

The Roper River wars began in the early 1870s and endured until the 1940s. There were two catalysts for these wars: the first was associated with surveying and construction of the overland telegraph line; and the second was associated with the westward expansion of pastoralism and droving from Queensland after telegraph stations, which served as supply depots, opened along the line and provided convenient stops for emerging stock routes.

The earliest conflict appears to have occurred in November 1871 when a telegraph construction gang reported several attacks. Gordon Reid wrote:

HD Packard reported that his party had been attacked three times in November 1871 trying to get to Roper Landing [near Ngukurr, formerly Roper River Mission]. Two horses were speared and he was forced to bury some of his stores and beat a retreat to the Katherine River camp. The number of attackers was estimated at between one hundred and two hundred on each occasion (Reid, 1990, p 52).

The wars included massacres at Calico Creek (1872), Harris Lagoon (1875), Calder Range (1875), Mount McMinn (1875), Mole Hill (1875), Crescent Lagoon (1875), Limmen Bight River (1878), Elsey Creek (1882), Red Lily Lagoon (1882), Hodgson Downs (1903) and Winiki Pocket (1903-04).

In respect of the Calder Range reprisals, Inspector Paul Foelsche issued these instructions to Corporal Geoge Montagu: "I cannot give you orders to shoot all natives you come across, but circumstances may occur for which I cannot provide definite instructions". Foelsche wanted to go with them, but it was a large party, he said, with “too many tale-tellers”. He boasted in a letter to a friend, John Lewis, that he had sent Montagu to the Roper to “have a picnic with the natives” (Roberts, 2005, pp 115-124).

While punitive expeditions were being organised, an overlanding party to Queensland, led by George De Lautour and William Batten, arrived at Roper Bar on 19 July and found Daer’s note and Johnston's body and immediately set off in search of the Mangarrayi people. They left their own note for the police party dated 24 July 1875 saying they had ‘found natives mustered strongly at Mount McMinn’, that they ‘dispersed them and did their best to avenge Johnston's death’ (telegram from JAG Little cited in NTTG, 18 September 1875, p 2).

John Sandefur (1985, p 209) noted that by 1890 the situation began to stabilise after an extremely violent 20 years during which “many Aborigines had been killed” and others retreated into country not yet taken up by colonisers. However: 

This relatively peaceful state of coexistence…was shattered by the large cattle syndicate, the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company. This company leased the entire eastern half of Arnhem Land comprising some 50,000 square kilometres, and purchased several cattle stations in the area, thus taking in virtually all of the country belonging to the seven major tribes of Ngukurr. 

Moreover:

In 1903 the company engaged in what has been described as ‘probably one of the few authenticated instances in which Aborigines were systematically hunted’ (Bauer 1964:157) and without doubt ‘the most systematic extermination of Aborigines ever carried out on the Roper’ (Merlan 1978:87). For a time the company employed two gangs of ten to fourteen Aborigines headed by a European or a part-European to hunt and shoot ‘wild blacks’ on sight. The company went into liquidation in 1908, the year the CMS [Church Missionary Society] established its mission station on the Roper River (Sandefur, 1985, p 210).

Warfare continued into the 1920s and beyond. Alex Smith wrote:

The Reverend Wilbur Chaseling testified at the Gove land rights case in 1970 that he was told by Wonggu while in the Caledon Bay area in 1935 looking for a suitable site for a new mission station, that a Cape Shield clan was ‘effectively wiped out by men on horseback with rifles’. Chaseling formed the impression that all members of the clan were dead by the early 1920s. See Transcript of Proceedings before His Honour Mr Justice Blackburn, in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory between Millirripum v Nabalco Pty Ltd (1st defendant) and the Commonwealth of Australia (2nd defendant) (Smith A,1990, p 134).

These practices are well known to the people of Ngukurr. Peter and Jay Read recorded an interview with Gertie Huddleston Kurrakain about the pastoralists:

Interviewer: These White men in the station, like at Hodgson Downs, they’d pay these Black police1 to come and shoot the Mara and Alawa people. Why didn’t they do it themselves do you think? Why didn’t they go out on horseback and do the shooting?

Kurrakain:  Because they didn’t know where to go, you know.  The native knew where they would hide, you know. They didn’t know where waterholes, too, were (Read and Read, 1991, pp 8-9). 

Claire Smith recorded Bandicoot Robinson’s account of Tom Boddington poisoning workers and their families at Mainoru Station in 1940. The victims were Rembarrng and Nagalkgan people of whom up to 40 died (Smith C, 2004, p 17).

Contributor: Robyn Smith, 2025

Notable People

• Waypuldanya, Winiki Pocket, 1903 (Read and Read, 1991, pp 12-16).
• Charley, Elsey Creek, 1882 (Lucanus cited in Clement & Bridge, 1991, p 20).
• Charley, Red Lily Lagoon, killed in 1885 (Reid, 1990, pp 90-91).
• Old Charlie Waypuldanya, Hodgson Downs 1903 – he was an escapee; unclear whether he was a warrior, too (Ucko and Layton, 1999, p 235).
• Boddington, Thomas ‘Tom’ (Smith, 2004, p 18).
• Conway, George (employed by Eastern & African Cold Storage Co) (Merlan, 1978, p 87).
• Costello, John (Central Queensland Herald, 13 Feb 1930, pp 12-13; see also Roberts, 2009, p 7) Note: The ‘friend’ to whom Foelsche was writing was John Costello, owner of Valley of the Springs in the Gulf Country.
• Eastern and African Cold Storage Company (Merlan, 1978, p 87; Smith, 2024, pp 97-98).
• Farrar, John Samuel, landholder and station manager (Smith, 2024, p 100).
• Gunn, Jeannie, author (Gunn, 1907; Smith, 2024, pp 102-103).
• Hann, Frank (Bolton, 1972, np; Smith R, 2024, np).
• Joynt, Reverend RD, Church Missionary Society (Sandefur, 1998, p 37).
• Lynott, Thomas John ‘Tom’, station manager who named Malakoff Creek and Massacre Waterfalls (Roberts, 2005, p 181).
• Macartney, John Arthur, pastoralist and landholder, half of Macartney & Mayne with Edward Graves Mayne (Gibbney, 1974, np).
• Uhr, Wentworth D’Arcy ‘Darcy’, drover, involved in the Lagoon Creek, Calico Creek and the Cox River massacres (Ryan et al, 2024, np; Roberts, 2005, p 21).
• Watson, John ‘Jack’ aka ‘the Gulf Hero’, drover, serial perpetrator (Roberts, 2005, pp 58-59; Smith, 2024, pp 112-114). See also Frank Hann above.

Sources

• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (1996) Map of Indigenous Australia https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia
">https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia">https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia
• Bolton GC ‘Frank Hugh Hann (1846-1921)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 4, 1972 https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hann-frank-hugh-3906
">https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hann-frank-hugh-3906">https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hann-frank-hugh-3906
• Centre for Indigenous Policy Research (CIPR), Yugul Mangi: Traditional Owners and area of operation, College of Arts & Social Sciences, Australian National University:
  https://cipr.cass.anu.edu.au/yugul-mangi-traditional-owners-and-area-operation 
">https://cipr.cass.anu.edu.au/yugul-mangi-traditional-owners-and-area-operation">https://cipr.cass.anu.edu.au/yugul-mangi-traditional-owners-and-area-operation 
• Clement C and Bridge P (eds) (1991) Kimberley Scenes: Sagas of Australia’s Last Frontier, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, WA.
• Gibbney HJ ‘John Arthur Macartney (1834-1917)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 5, 1974 https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macartney-john-arthur-624
">https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macartney-john-arthur-624">https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macartney-john-arthur-624
• Green J, McDinny N, Hoosan S, Kerins S and Ritchie T (c 2019) Lead in my grandmother’s body: https://www.leadinmygrandmothersbody.com/
">https://www.leadinmygrandmothersbody.com/">https://www.leadinmygrandmothersbody.com/
• Gunn Mrs A (1907) We of the Never Never, 15h Edition, MacMillan, New York.
• Merlan F ‘“Making People Quiet” in the pastoral north: reminiscences of Elsey Station’ in Aboriginal History, Vol 2, 1978, pp 70-106.
• National Museum of Australia (nd) The Yolngu 
  https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yalangbara/yolngu
">https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yalangbara/yolngu">https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yalangbara/yolngu
• Northern Territory Place Names Register search:
  https://www.ntlis.nt.gov.au/placenames/index.jsp
">https://www.ntlis.nt.gov.au/placenames/index.jsp">https://www.ntlis.nt.gov.au/placenames/index.jsp
• Read P and Read J (1991) Long Time, Olden Time: Aboriginal accounts of Northern Territory history, Institute for Aboriginal Development, Darwin.
• Reid G (1990) A Picnic with the Natives: Aboriginal-European Relations in the Northern Territory to 1910, Melbourne University Press, Victoria.
• Roberts T (2005) Frontier Justice: a history of the Gulf Country to 1900, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.
• Ryan et al (2024) ‘Calico Creek Massacre’ in Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia 1788-1930, University of Newcastle https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=720
">https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=720">https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=720
• Sandefur Joy The Aboriginalisation of the Church at Ngukurr, PhD Thesis, 1998, La Trobe University, Melbourne https://assets.ctfassets.net/ra0r88kvhzmj/4VjnDoUciPlqTfsDzHgiby/7b43d1e01a8bdc1221c7d8c208b72c11/JSthesisF.pdf
">https://assets.ctfassets.net/ra0r88kvhzmj/4VjnDoUciPlqTfsDzHgiby/7b43d1e01a8bdc1221c7d8c208b72c11/JSthesisF.pdf">https://assets.ctfassets.net/ra0r88kvhzmj/4VjnDoUciPlqTfsDzHgiby/7b43d1e01a8bdc1221c7d8c208b72c11/JSthesisF.pdf
• Sandefur J ‘Aspects of the Socio-Political History of Ngukurr (Roper River) and its Effect on Language Change’ in Aboriginal History Vol 9 No 2, 1985, pp 205-219
• Smith A (1990) The White Missus of Arnhem Land: a true story, NTU Press, Darwin
• Smith C (2004) Country, Kin and Culture: survival of an Aboriginal community, Wakefield Press, Adelaide.
• Smith R ‘Australia would do well to have a chat about the truth of its history, and stop memorialising monsters’ in The Guardian, 15 February 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/15/australia-would-do-well-to-have-a-chat-about-the-truth-of-its-history-and-stop-memorialising-monsters
">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/15/australia-would-do-well-to-have-a-chat-about-the-truth-of-its-history-and-stop-memorialising-monsters">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/15/australia-would-do-well-to-have-a-chat-about-the-truth-of-its-history-and-stop-memorialising-monsters
• Ucko P and Layton R (1999) The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: Shaping Your Landscape, Routledge, UK.
• Unattributed, ‘The Life of John Costello’ in Central Queensland Herald, 13 February 1930.
• Unattributed, ‘Roper River Expedition’ in Northern Territory Times & Gazette, 18 September 1875.
• Walker A and Zorc RD ‘Austronesian Loanwords in Yolngu-Matha of Northeast Arnhem Land’ in Aboriginal History, 1981, Issue 5, No 2, pp 109-133:
  https://zorc.net/publications/030=AustronesianlLoanwordsInYolnguMatha.pdf 
">https://zorc.net/publications/030=AustronesianlLoanwordsInYolnguMatha.pdf">https://zorc.net/publications/030=AustronesianlLoanwordsInYolnguMatha.pdf 

This information, except for public domain sources, is covered by copyright. Usage and references should respect Indigenous peoples.

Includes information about colonial violence. Historical sources include racist language and attitudes and descriptions of violence.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Aboriginal People: Yidinydji, Buluwanydji, Djabuganydji, Yirrganydji and Barbaram, Ngadanydji and Djiru.

Colonial Forces: Queensland Native Mounted Police, some cattlemen and settlers, Constable Hansen; Sub Inspector Ernest Carr

Notable Colonists: GE Dalrymple; Sub-Inspector Johnstone; Prof. Rentoul; Sen Constable Whelan (NMP); Inspector John Isley; Sub-Inspector Douglas; Patrick Molloy; John Atherton

Audio/visual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rvYW5eaQZI&t=82s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Massacre Recollection by the Elders, in the Tully Region (south of Cairns)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQI5ySAAhYg&t=369s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Conspiracy of Silence, Qld's frontier killing times - Timothy Bottoms

Narrative

Queensland came into existence in 1859, but the land-grab began earlier (from the 1840s).

Some thirteen years later in 1872 in Far North Queensland a Sydney ship, the Maria, packed with would-be gold miners was wrecked off the coast from Tam O’Shanter Point, near Cardwell. After one of the rafts was attacked by Aborigines and a European killed, a party of Native Police led by Sub-Inspector Johnstone, and some settlers, massacred Djiru people, opposite Dunk Island in retribution. They were following precedence that originated from the 1838 Myall Creek Massacre, where seven whites were hanged for their part in those killings. This influenced Queensland squatters to be quiet about any massacres that they were involved with, and led to the conspiracy of silence that pervaded the frontier.

Gold had been found on the Palmer River in 1873 and on the Hodgkinson Goldfields in 1876 and George Elphinstone Dalrymple had been sent to reconnoitre the coastline from Cardwell to Cooktown (1873). From this, miners from the Hodgkinson Goldfield managed to find a shorter route closer to the coast at 80 miles (128 kms) versus Cooktown at 200 miles (320 kms). This heralded the invasion of Indigenous Far North Queensland. Coming on the heels of the miners came settlers who wanted to rear cattle for the goldfields, and others who wanted to farm. The newly created Government of Queensland claimed the land as Crown land.

In 1873 Dalrymple’s exploration party landed in Yirrganydji territory opposite Wangal Djunggay (Double Island) where they shot several Yirrganydji.

Dalrymple ‘helped’ to settle Bowen and had, as historian Bruce Breslin stated: ‘no intention of avoiding bloodshed … What he said and what he did were often two different things …[he]… showed from the beginning he would arm and alarm the frontier.’

On the southern Atherton Tablelands white settlers in conjunction with the Native Mounted Police began what the first historian for Cairns, JW Collinson, identified as ‘The Skull Pocket, Mulgrave River and Skeleton Creek Battue’. This happened in December 1884 and ended in January 1885. We know that at Skeleton Creek there were at least 16 Bama [Rainforest Aboriginal People] killed but the overall total was said to be sizeable, according to the witness, Jack Kane, who retold the tale to Dr Norman Tindale in 1938. Combined with the separate 1886 massacre at Cockatoo Bora ground in the Goldsborough Valley led by Christy Palmerston and his Ngadjanydji carriers, as Collinson stated, it completely broke up the Yidinydji tribe.

This inspired some bully-boy Cairns’ residents to go to Buchans Estate to quell the Yirrganydji, but the melee was short-lived and was over before they arrived.

The Djabuganydji experienced four separate killings, starting with Rifle Creek in the 1880s, when an Irish prospector turned pack-horse carrier, Patrick Molloy, worked the Port Douglas-Herberton Road. At one stage he lost eight of his draught horses to the Djabugay, Molloy and a party of Native Mounted Police and some white settlers tracked the Djabugay group to Bunda Bugal (Black Mountain), at the head of Rifle Creek where blacks who showed fight were dispersed.

Also in the 1880s, cattlemen, on three occasions on Flaggy Creek, (Black Water Lagoon, Mama’s Camp and Balilee) shot Djabugay for rustling their cattle.

Again in the 1880s at Bones Knob (just North of Atherton near Tolga), many Barbaram were forced over cliffs and killed. To the Bama it felt that the Native Mounted Police and settlers were out to exterminate local tribes. Many tribes were reduced to enclaves, refugees in their own country. ‘Depredations’ were sometimes followed by the murder of a white man, which regularly led to a violent European response culminating in a massacre. The massacre at Butcher’s Creek in 1889 seems to have been as a result of one John Clifford being murdered on the Russell River Goldfield. The tribe concerned were the Ngadjanydji,  however, the overall effect on the Bama was to drive terror in any rainforest Aborigines left alive.

Between 1878 and early 1880s, there were reports from the Native Mounted Police of ‘outrages’ and ‘depredations’ that had been committed by the ‘bad Blacks of the north’. One such report was the ‘dispersal’ at Clohesy River in 1881 by Sub Inspector Ernest Carr (stationed at Baan Bero) where a local village of the Buluwanydji was attacked and ‘dispersed’. Nine years later, John Atherton and party were camped at Groves Creek where a pony was commandeered by local Buluwanydji. Atherton’s party followed up and killed the horse thieves at Speewah. Apparently a second massacre occurred not long afterwards.

The dispersal of tribes in the Cairns region was, as it was for the rest of Australia, a disaster for Aboriginal Australians. Any independence or freedom from European dominance was to wait until the late 20th Century.

Contributor: Timothy Bottoms

Sources

T. Bottoms, Bama Bulmba Series, The Tribes of the Wet Tropics; Yidinydji Tribe; Yirrganydji Tribe; Buluwanydji Tribe & Djabuganydji Tribe https://www.cairnshistory.com.au" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.cairnshistory.com.au
T. Bottoms, CAIRNS, City of the South Pacific, A History 1770-1995, Bunu Bunu Press, Cairns, 2016.
T. Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, Queensland’s frontier killing times, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2013.
T. Bottoms, The Bama - People of the Rainforest, Gadja Enterprises, Cairns, 1992.
B. Breslin, Exterminate with Pride, Aboriginal-European relations in the Townsville-Bowen region to 1869, Melbourne University Press, 2023. 
B. Breslin, James Morrill, Captive of Empire, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2017.
J.W. Johnston-Need (Complier) of R.A Johnstone, Spinifex and Wattle: Reminisces of Pioneering in North Queensland, from The Queenslander, 1903-1905 (Brisbane), Cairns, 1984.
Cooktown Herald, 7 October 1876.
’Coyyan’, Cairns Post Jubilee Supplement, 1 November 1926, p.19.
’Trinity Bay, Cairns, Nov.9’, 22 Port Denison Times, 25 November 1876.
Figaro, 19 March 1887. 
Paul Savage, Christy Palmerston – Explorer, Department of History & Politics, JCU, Townsville,1989.
QSA, POL, 12M/G1.
‘Tramp’, Cunnins & Campbell’s Monthly Magazine, May 1936, pp.13-15
H & M.E. Tranter, Malanda: In the Shadow of Bartle Frere, Eacham Historical Society, 1995.
E.H. Short, The Nation Builders, Dimbulah, 1988.
W.T. Foster, The Wreck of the ‘Maria’ or Adventures of the New Guinea Prospecting Association, Sydney, 1872.

Colonial violence. Historical sources may include racist language and attitudes.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

The Victoria is the longest river in the Northern Territory and is located southwest of Katherine near the Warlpiri community of Lajamanu, formerly known as Hooker Creek (Lajamanu is a long way north of traditional Warlpiri country, but it is one of the places to which Warlpiri were driven while being pursued during the Coniston reprisal massacres of 1928). ‘The Vic’, as it is known, is about 560 km long, originates at Judbarra, flows into the Timor Sea and is fed by the West Baines, Wickham, Gordon, Armstrong and Camfield Rivers. The small town of Timber Creek is on the Victoria Highway, which runs broadly parallel to the river.

Pastoralism was the catalyst for the Victoria River Wars, which commenced when Charles Brown Fisher and his business partner J Maurice Lyons took the first pastoral leases in December 1879. By the end of 1882 Fisher & Lyons had 100,000 square kilometres under lease and named it Victoria River Downs (Main, 1972, np).

Nathaniel ‘Nat’ ‘Bluey’ Buchanan established Wave Hill Station in 1882. The same year, his brother William—who had vast pastoral holdings in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory— took up neighbouring Sturt Creek Station and later went into partnership with Nat. With his son Gordon and Sam Croker, Nat Buchanan pioneered the Murranji Track, which was a 230km stock route from Newcastle Waters to old Top Springs, in 1886 (Smith, 2024, pp 84-87).

A police station was established at Gordon Creek in 1894 and in 1898 was relocated to Timber Creek.

The Victoria River Wars continued well into the 1900s as stations were established along the river, a bountiful and permanent water source, and the stock route it enabled from Queensland, across the Northern Territory and into the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Native Police were not common in the Northern Territory but were twice formed under the command of Constable William Willshire. Willshire had already killed 19 Aboriginal people (Mulvaney, 1990) before being arrested for murdering Aboriginal people in 1891, and released after a controversial trial that raised questions among colonists over its failure to accept evidence from witnesses (South Australian Register, 7 Aug 1891, p 6). Willshire was posted to the Victoria River region to command Native Police in 1893 where his brutal practices resulted in him being ordered back to Adelaide in 1895 (Mulvaney, 1990, np). While at Victoria River he was held back for a time by a group of 7 Aboriginal warriors, "You no doubt remember the weary, anxious time I spent on the Victoria, when there were seven civilized blacks at large in the ranges with firearms, and not one of them had any love for me, and had I overstepped the limits of prudence on that occasion I would have been shot from behind their hiding places." (Willshire, 1896, p 5) and was involved in the killing of a resistance leader known as 'Newingurry', 'It was a great blow to the blackfellows' prestige when they lost "Newingurry." He was a reserve force within himself, but he suddenly left for that "undiscovered country from whence no traveller returns." Proudly I recall the day when on the Lower Victoria I came full butt on to the murderers of "Joseph Bradshaw's boy"' (Willshire, 1896, p 6).

Romantic narratives were attached to the pioneers of the era, however:

In their later years…some men lifted a corner of this veil of secrecy to reveal glimpses of the dark past. Donald Swan, a member of Nat Buchanan’s 1882 party, explained the bush code that enshrouded punitive expeditions:

The bushman’s code of honour is this way: either stand in with the mob and keep your mouth shut, or refuse to stand in and also keep your mouth shut. In either case you will be respected and no more will be required of you in the matter (Roberts, 2005, p 138; Owen, 2016, p 147).

Warriors fought back by spearing stock and raiding stores, and by targeting colonial leaders and the worst colonial offenders. This led to severe reprisal killings of Aboriginal people. The earliest recorded massacre was at Waterloo in 1886, which was a reprisal for the spearing death of ‘Big Johnny’ Durack near Mount Duncan. Lewis (2018, pp 51-52) wrote that the ‘name Waterloo is said to be a reference to the “unrestrained slaughter” of local Aborigines by police’ after Durack’s death. Other reprisals were for:

• the killing of GS ‘Syd’ Scott, Manager of Willeroo Station, in 1892
• the killing of Police Trooper Joe Collins at Behn River in 1893
• pilfering stores, sheep and cattle killing at Bradshaw Station in 1895 and 1896 (Ryan et al, 2024, np).

The wars continued well into the next century. For example, ‘Brigalow Bill’ Ward was killed at Yarralin in 1909. Of this man, Rose recorded Tim Yilgnayarri, who said:

And you know that Brigalow? Right. Brigalow was doing wrong. He was shooting all the people. Shoot-i-i-n-n-n-g, get all the sing girls for married. Take them down to his place. Just the young girl, and some of the middle aged, all that girl. Four fellow… Watchin him that waaay, get the towel and soap…Too late. That spear killed him. Bbbbb. Strike him la water. Right. All the boys go back, take the women. And sugar, tea, flour, all the blanket, fly, take the whole lot (Rose, 1991, p 122).

Clashes were recorded at Humbert River Station in 1910 and elsewhere in the district well afterwards. A large massacre of Malngin people was recorded at Limbunya Station in 1920 (Charola & Meakins, 2016, pp 70-71); another at Bedford Downs in 1924.

Police, without appropriate—or any—supervision, acted in the interests of the pastoralists. Rather than being dismissed for his conduct at Borroloola, Mounted Constable Gordon Cameron Heaslop Stott was posted to Victoria River in 1933. There, he resumed his sadistic practices, as Banjo Ryan recalled in 2015:

"'You reckon you can run as fast as a horse?' Gordon Stott the policeman taunted the prisoner. Stott took the chains off one of the prisoner's feet and then the other. Then he got a horse rasp and filed the sole of his foot until it bled" (Charola & Meakins, 2016, p 221).

The poisoning deaths of at least five Gurindji people was recorded at Timber Creek in 1936 (Chronicle, 11 June 1936, p 41).

This is how Daly Pulkara, a Ngarinman man from Yarralin, recalled the wars, many of which were triggered by the abduction of women for sexual slavery:

Pulkara: them bloody whatsa – European come on after that. Banging, banging time now. They reckon lightning somewhere. ‘Ah, that man he get out bushed’. They reckon that lightning. Another bloke drop. Yeah. Bang! ‘Nother bloke. They bin lookin’ at, you know, they bin lookin’ eye. Something wrong. Got a blood come through the nose. ‘Oh might be lightning’. Bang! See? They didn’t catch on for while. They pick up all the woman and European takem away. Eh? Aborign just followem up (Read & Read, 1993, pp 7-8).

Contributor: Robyn Smith

Notable People

Jerry, a Ngarinman man who escaped the Waterloo reprisal massacres in 1886 (Moore cited in Lewis, 2021, pp 527-528).

Newingurry, a resistance leader mentioned by Willshire, who implied he was killed during the Bradshaw reprisals (Willshire, 1896, p 6). 

Gurindji (Ngarinman and Bilinara), Wardaman and Karrangpurru warriors (see AIATSIS map).

Bradshaw, Joseph ‘Captain Joe’ - cousin of and closely associated with Aeneas Gunn of Elsey Station, he took up Bradshaw Station in 1893. He was later involved with Arafura Station in Arnhem Land, which was owned by the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company from 1903 until 1908 and in which he was a shareholder and the General Manager (Smith, 2024, pp 82-83).

Braitling, William Walter ‘Billy’ – a drover for Vesteys, he took up Passchendale Station in 1921 and sold it in 1928 (Smith, 2024, p 83).

Buchanan, Nathaniel ‘Nat’ aka ‘Bluey’ – took up Wave Hill Station with his brothers in 1882 and pioneered the Murranji Track with his son Gordon and Sam Croker in 1886 (Smith, 2024, pp 84-87).

Cahill, Patrick ‘Paddy’ – buffalo shooter who accompanied Buchanan on several expeditions. Managed Wave Hill, Delamere and Gordon Downs Stations.

Crawford, Lindsay – originally employed on the overland telegraph line, appointed Manager of Victoria River Downs 1884-1890. In 1895, he said:

…during the last ten years, in fact since the first white man settled here, we have held no communication with the natives at all, except with the rifle. They have never been allowed near this station or the outstations, being too treacherous and warlike (Smith, 2024, p 94).

Croker, Samuel Burns ‘Greenhide Sam’ – long-time employee of Nat Buchanan. Shot dead during a card game by Charlie (also spelt Charley) Flannigan on Auvergne Station in 1892 because he refused to partner with a half-caste (Flannigan) or a Chinaman, the station cook. Flannigan hanged for it at Fannie Bay Gaol in 1893 (Smith, 2017, p 11).

Eastern & African Cold Storage Co – held Elsey and Hodgson Downs Stations (Powell, 1982, pp 101, 129).

Fisher, Charles Brown and Lyons, J Maurice – formed Fisher and Lyons and held extensive pastoral leases in the Victoria River district. Sold to Goldsborough Mort in 1890 (Main, 1972, np).

Farquharson, Archie Mosman, Harry Gordon and Hughie (brothers) – owners of Inverway Station, 1896 (Lewis, 2021, pp 231-232).

Ledgerwood, James Logan ‘Long Jim’ - Head Stockman of VRD Station in 1895 and was one of the leaders of the punitive expedition known as the Gordon Creek massacre that followed an attack on teamsters Mulligan and Ligar in the same year (Lewis, 2021, p 477).

Stott, Cameron Gordon Heaslop ‘Gordon’ – born en route to Cooktown in 1905, Stott was the son of a well-respected police officer who went on to become Commissioner. The younger Stott’s conduct was highly questionable and included grievous bodily harm and ‘deplorable cruelty’ in relation to prisoners (Wilson, 2000, p 130).

Watson, Jack ‘the Gulf hero’ – managed Victoria River Station after Crawford:

There is a source which credits Watson and the previous VRD manager, Crawford, with making ‘it possible for white men to travel in most parts of the empty north without fear of being murdered to make a myall’s holiday’ (North Queensland Herald, 20-5-1911) (Lewis, 2021, p 16; see also Smith, 2024, pp 112-113).

Wye, Oliver Garfield Walter ‘Walter’ - Manager of Bradshaw Station from 1907 until 1910. He was known by Aboriginal people in the district as ‘Old Wallaway’ (Lewis, 2021, p 69).

Sources

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (1996) Map of Indigenous Australia: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia 

Charola E and Meakins F (Eds) (2016) Yijarni: true stories from Gurindji Country, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.

Lewis D (2021) The Victoria River Doomsday Book, Lewis & National Centre for Biography, Australian National University, Canberra: https://hdl.handle.net/10070/836453

Main JM, ‘Charles Brown Fisher (1818-1908)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 4, 1972, Australian National University, Canberra: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fisher-charles-brown-379

Mulvaney DJ ‘William Henry Willshire (1852-1925)’ in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 12, 1990, Australian National University, Canberra: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/willshire-william-henry-9128

Northern Territory Place Names Register search: https://www.ntlis.nt.gov.au/placenames/

Owen C (2016) Every Mother’s Son is Guilty: policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, University of Western Australia Publishing, Perth.

Powell A (1982) Far country: a short history of the Northern Territory, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Read P and Read J (1993) Long Time Olden Time: Aboriginal accounts of Northern Territory history, Institute for Aboriginal Development, Canberra.

Roberts T (2005) Frontier Justice: a history of the Gulf country to 1900, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Rose DB (1991) Hidden Histories: back stories from Victoria River Downs, Humbert River and Wave Hill Stations, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.

Ryan et al (2024) Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia 1788-1930, Centre for 21st Century Humanities, University of Newcastle, NSW: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/groups.php

Smith R (2017) Habeas Corpus: deaths at Fannie Bay Gaol 1883-1972, Heritage Branch, Northern Territory Government, Darwin.

Smith R (2021) ‘Kill or be killed: the real story of Charlie Flannigan, the first man hanged in the Northern Territory’ in NT Independent, 11 April 2021: https://ntindependent.com.au/kill-or-be-killed-the-real-story-of-charlie-flannigan-the-first-man-hanged-in-the-nt/

Smith R (2024) Licence to Kill: massacre men of Australia’s North, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin.

South Australian Register August 7, 1891 p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48241058

Staff Writers, ‘Put poison in food after being speared’ in Chronicle (Adelaide), 11 June 1936, p 41.

Willshire, W.H. The Land of the Dawning W.K.Thomas & Co. Adelaide, 1896.

Wilson, WR (2000) A force apart?: a history of the Northern Territory Police Force 1870-1926, PhD thesis, Charles Darwin University, Darwin: https://researchers.cdu.edu.au/en/studentTheses/a-force-apart/

Colonial violence. Linked sources include racist language and violence.

Country/People

Yolŋu peoples of Miwatj (north-east Arnhem Land), including Gupapuyŋu and associated clan groups referenced in Milingimbi literature records.

Listen/Read

• Gibson, P. ‘Preventing">https://open.spotify.com/episode/2IcDiFPzV2qWJXqqTUUDPx">Preventing the Punitive Expedition Planned in Arnhem Land’ in Spearim Boe 1933 in Frontier War Stories, 13 June 2020 (podcast)
• Djan'palil Mr">https://australianwars.net/files/2512/WhenMrRobertsonWasSpeared.pdf">Mr Robertson Was Speared
• Yäŋuba A">https://australianwars.net/files/2512/BirriwunDhawulmurrAndTheStockman.pdf">A stockman came upon Birriwun and Dhawuḻmurr

Colonial violence. Historical reference may contain racist language and attitudes of the time.

Alternate Names: The Bathurst War, Windradyne’s War

Aboriginal people: Wiradjuri (alt. Wiradyuri), Burra Burra, Gundungurra

Named Aboriginal people: Windradyne (Saturday), Aaron (Ering), Blucher, Jingler (Gingler), Simon, Joe, Sunday (Murundah), Diana ‘Mudgee’ Collins, Jackey, Taylor, Charley, Congo-gal, Jimmy Lambert, Peggy Lambert, Scrammy, Cookoogong, Friday, Penneegrah

Colonial Forces: 40th Regiment of Foot, colonial militia, armed settlers.

Notable Colonists: Major James Morisset, William Lawson, William Cox

Listen: 

The War on Wiradjuri has never ended | The Blak Lens | NITV, Dec 17, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asq-RPvPyWo

Push for Bathurst to grapple with its brutal past in Wiradyuri-led truth-telling project, 14 Aug 1824
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s94k3VHAouM

When the War is Over | Ep 5 | ABC Iview | November 2025 | https://iview.abc.net.au/video/AC2415H005S00

Narrative:

The fightback against the colonists and their tens of thousands of sheep and cattle that were entering Wiradjuri Country was announced by warriors in 1823. They told colonists in no uncertain terms that the Wiradyuri were going to ‘tumble down white man’ – to kill all the white men (Alsop and Booth, 1823: 340). 
In early 1824, the colonists at Bathurst noted that all the Wiradyuri who had been coming into the settlements and outstations – who had assisted the colonists in guiding and tracking and worked with them since 1815 – had suddenly ceased doing so. Communications between Wiradyuri and the colonists completely stopped (Morisset to Goulburn, 1824: 73; Lawson to Lawson, 1824: 37). In late May 1824, Wiradyuri tactics shifted to a new level. Threats to “tumble down white fellows” were carried out in a series of bloody raids that sent shock waves throughout the entire colony. Full-scale attacks on outstations began right across the region, from the Turon River in the north to O’Connell Plains in the south, as Wiradyuri warbands mobilised. They were under the leadership of men ­- only some of whose traditional names we know today - such as Blucher, Jingler, Simon, Joe, Sunday and Saturday - more famously known as Windradyne (Gapps, 2021: 125-157).
The resistance in 1824 was total and widespread across the Central West region of New South Wales, with conflict stretching from near Merriwa in the upper Hunter Valley region, to present day Mudgee and Rylestone, and to the south of Bathurst near Blayney (Gapps, Gudyarra, 2021: 125-157).
In early June 1824, people in the township of Bathurst witnessed a cart trundling through the streets with 7 dead convict stockworkers’ bodies heaped in it (Sydney Gazette, 12 August 1824: 2). Stockworkers across the Bathurst and Kings Plains were reported to be ‘"obliged to stay in the Huts and save their own lives" (Dunn to Palmer, November 1823: 329). Hundreds of cattle and sheep had either been killed or dispersed, or had been gathered up into herds and claimed by Wiradjuri people (Gapps 2021: 171-2). 
By July 1824, the number of dead colonists had risen to 20, with numerous others wounded  (‘Honestus’, 12 August 1824: 4). The pastoralists and stockholders of Sydney were in an uproar, clamouring for military intervention. A man writing under the name of Fidelis (very likely William Cox, an ex-army officer, first commandant of Bathurst, and with thousands of his own sheep and cattle in the district) wrote to the Sydney Gazette that the Wiradyuri were about 'to crush the flourishing prospects of our little Colony'. ('Fidelis', 12 August 1824: 4) It also seems to have been William Cox who suggested in a meeting with Governor Brisbane that the colonists should form 'one extended line' of soldiers and armed settlers to sweep the Bathurst Plains – a plan later and infamously conducted in Tasmania, called the Black Line. By early August, several colonists in Bathurst described the situation as 'war'.. (Bannister 1830: 124; Gapps 2021: 125-157)
Instead of a Black Line, martial law was declared west of the Blue Mountains and the military garrison reinforced. Commandant Morisset responded with a sweep of three "divisions" of soldiers and armed colonists across the region. The coordinated movements of these units of around 15 to 20 soldiers and armed settlers led by Magistrates was designed to capture or kill the resistance leaders, and to "repress future violences" (Sydney Gazette, 16 September 1824: 2). 
But it was not the military that ended the Bathurst War. Despite traversing a vast area of terrain (one division travelling to the Hunter River to the north), Morisset's forces failed to contact any warriors or, as magistrate Ranken disappointedly wrote, failed "seeing the enemy". Ranken was, clear that the colonists at Bathurst were in a state of war (Ranken Letters, 1824-30: 1244). 
In fact it was the well mounted and well armed parties of settlers and convicts who killed indiscriminately, such as that led by ex-Sergeant Thomas Miller who set out with 20 armed men (quote) "to hunt down the blacks". Miller later admitted in his memoirs they (quote) "shot and killed any they came across little and big young and old shared the same fate" ('Thomas Miller' 1895).
The northeast Wiradyuri campaign of warfare against the colonists at Bathurst forced Governor Brisbane to declare martial law west of the Blue Mountains in August 1824 ('Martial Law', Sydney Gazette 19 August 1824: 1). The Bathurst War, or the First Wiradyuri War, was ended not by the soldiers that were sent to the area, but by the heavily armed parties of stockmen and farmers who conducted massacres. From August 1824 there were no more attacks on colonists, and by December Windradyne famously led his people across the Blue Mountains to Parramatta to meet Governor Brisbane (Gapps 2021: 158-194) and for a peace celebration (The Sydney Gazette, 30 Dec 1824: 2). Perhaps Wyndradyne expected some form of negotiated settlement or agreement. Instead, the Wiradyuri received a feast and blankets and the colonising juggernaut rolled on across their Country.

Contributor: Stephen Gapps, 2025

Sources

Alsop and Booth, 1823. 'Re cattle killed by Natives', September 1823, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, Main Series of Letters Received, 1788–1826, State Records NSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, , pp. 340-342

Bannister, S., 1830. Humane Policy: or Justice to the Aborigines of New Settlements etc., Underwood, London

Dunn, 1824. 'Inquest into the death of Peter Bray', 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, p. 312

Dunn to Palmer, November 1823. SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, p. 329

'Fidelis', 1824. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 12 August 1824, p. 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183114/494904" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183114/494904

Gapps, S., 2021. Gudyarra. The first Wiradjuri War of Resistance - The Bathurst War, 1822–1824, NewSouth Press, Sydney

'Honestus', 1824. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 12 August 1824, p. 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183111/494904" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183111/494904

'Martial Law', 1824. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 19 August 1824, p. 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183147" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183147

Morisset to Goulburn, 25 June 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, p. 73

Ranken Family Letters, 1824-30, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, ML MSS, Doc 1244

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 30 December 1824, p. 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183548

Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 16 September 1824, p. 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/494925

'Thomas Miller' 1895-1902, Bathurst and District Historical Society Museum Archives, Folio 10

William Lawson Junior to Nelson Lawson, 14 June 1824, in Beard (ed.) Old Ironbark: Some unpublished correspondence from and to William Lawson etc., The Wentworth Press, Sydney, 1967

Colonial violence.

Listen:

• The War on Wiradjuri has never ended | The Blak Lens | NITV, Dec 17, 2024
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asq-RPvPyWo
  (The">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asq-RPvPyWo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asq-RPvPyWo
  (The focus of this documentary is on the First Wiradjuri War, but is also relevant to this conflict)

Notes:

This conflict, in the south of Wiradjuri country came after the well known First Wiradjuri War or 'Bathurst War' to the north. It was part of one of the major phases of the Australian Wars throughout the south east of the continent, from south east Queensland to Victoria, starting in the late 1830s, and through to the 1850s and 60s, as colonists expanded rapidly in all directions from the earlier settlements. This conflict is closely connected to conflict along the overland route or 'south road' (now the Hume Highway) from south Wiradjuri (upper Murrumbidgee) through Yorta Yorta (upper Murray) to Kulin country (Port Philip/Melbourne). It is also closely connected to conflict on the overland route to Adelaide, along the lower Murrumbidgee and lower Murray where many languages are spoken around Tar Ru and Millewa-Mallee.

The first report of open violent conflict in this area was of widespreading raiding in 1830 at Yass Plains in Ngunnawal country. This was followed by an extended period of Wiradjuri raids on squatters stations, including killing of shepherds and hut keepers, burning huts and killing and driving away livestock. There were sometimes gatherings of up to 1000 Wiradjuri people, and war bands were about 30 in number focusing on the Rivers and the road connecting Sydney to Melbourne (the Overland). 

One of the main leaders of this resistance was dubbed 'Buonaparte' by colonists. Similar to 'Blucher' in the First Wiradjuri War, colonists most likely named him after a famous European general, in recognition of his leadership. Another was 'Brian Boru', named after a medieval High King of Ireland - though this may be the same person with two aliases. 

Colonists at the time referred to this conflict as a 'war', some saying it should be admitted as such by the government. They described losing control of flocks and herds as Wiradjuri took control of livestock using traditional land care and hunting methods. In these vast plains, Wiradjuri warriors appear to have used high points, such as at Wamber Tumber gap, as strategic positions from which to raid. Such positions give unobstructed views over large areas. Buonaparte's group was surrounded and some captured at Wamber Tumber gap by a posse of colonists and a police officer. Some escaped but Buonaparte was recaptured after severely wounding two of his captors.

The Border Police, recruited from the military, were active in this period but were overstretched along the Overland and ineffective. The notorious Native Police were established during this period. In 1850 it was reported that the Native Police were recruiting in the Murrumbidgee district, and that they were very effective in swiftly ending armed resistance and bringing 'peace' where ever they went. Also in 1850 colonists relied on Aboriginal labour to replace workers leaving for the gold fields. These reports suggest that by 1850 the period of intense open violence in this conflict had ended, and the colonial government had gained control. Resistance after this would have to take on different forms.

This is a history of colonial violence and reference's include racist attitudes of the time.

Events in this conflict will be added as Australian Wars and Resistance research continues.

Alternate Names: Corn Fields Raids; Battle of Moongalba; Stradbroke Island skirmishes.

Aboriginal people: Yaggara (Turrbal), Quandamooka/ Nunukul, Ningy Ningy.

Named Aboriginal people: King Billy, Eulope (Black Napoleon/ Boney), Duke of York (Dakki Yakki).

Colonial Forces: 17th regiment, 57th regiment, 40th regiment, convict overseers, whalers.

Notable Colonists: Captain Patrick Logan, Chief Constable MacIntosh, William Reardon, Andy (convict guard), James Clunie.

Audio/visual: 

Life">https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lifematters/brisbanes-convict-stories/9911584">Life in Irons: stories of Brisbane's Aboriginal people and convicts - ABC listen

Stradbroke">https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?ll=-27.423947701042223%2C153.4567309&z=12&mid=15tCR3aa4THOWJmb_FWSGlxhSKRA">Stradbroke & Moreton 1832-3 - Google My Maps

Narrative:

The establishment of military/ penal outposts at Redcliffe (1824) and ‘Moreton Bay Colony’ (Brisbane and Dunwich/ Amity Point - 1825) provoked conflict when soldiers, convict overseers and convicts cleared large areas of forest and rainforest (former resource areas), would not share items, ousted First Nations groups from particular areas, and tried to elicit and kidnap native women. 

The first skirmish occurred in December 1824 over the theft of an axe when convicts were cutting timber near Yebri Creek (Petrie). This was 16km west of the Redcliffe penal outpost - an area of several base camps, a bora (ceremonial) ground and pockets of rainforest. Some convicts and warriors were killed.

Due partly to the poor suitability of Redcliffe for farming, but also on account of this hostility, and probably also the growing presence of Aboriginal visitors arriving for the annual mullet run (fishing festival) at Clontarf (just 4km south of the penal outpost), the decision was made to abandon Redcliffe.

The settlement moved to what is now Brisbane CBD in 1825 and established outstations at Amity and Dunwich (1825-1827) – the latter being flagged as the potential permanent site for the penal colony. For a couple of years after this move, the two communities avoided contact with each other, but the ousting of Quandamooka from their Gompie (Dunwich) base camp, and a similar ax-stealing incident, this time involving a Quandamooka warrior-leader, Eulope (Black Napoleon), rekindled hostilities.

Eulope was exiled to St Helena Island. He escaped, and over the next five years there were various small raids, skirmishes, executions and punitive expeditions on Stradbroke and Moreton Islands – mostly sparked by the kidnapping and killing of a major elder (Choorong) by William Reardon of the pilot station (Amity Point), after Choorong had opposed the soldiers’ requests for Indigenous women. These skirmishes occurred at Yerrol Point (Dunwich), Adder Rock (Point Lookout), Polka Point (Dunwich) and other sites. A turning point was the soldiers’ massacre of some 40-50 Ngugi and Quandamooka people during a dawn raid on the camp at Reeders Point (Kooringal), Moreton Island. After this, the Ngugi temporarily abandoned the island, and permanent Indigenous residency remained fleeting for a few decades.

Meanwhile on the mainland in 1827-1828, the Quandamooka’s allies, the Turrbal and Coorpoorin clans, tried to starve out the colony through repeated raids of up to 80 warriors. These sacked and burned the colony’s corn fields at Kangaroo Point, New Farm, South Brisbane and the northeastern CBD. King Billy, father of Mulbrobin, was the probable leader of these activities.

In response, Captain Patrick Logan sent a punitive expedition of 8 (two constables, three soldiers and three convict overseers) to the nearest base camp (probably Woolloongabba) which shot and killed at least one warrior.

Subsequently, Logan installed ‘crow minders’ – armed sentries in treehouse guard boxes – to watch over each field and shoot any Indigenous intruders. In at least one case they skinned and stuffed one of the intruders to serve as a scarecrow. However, crow-minders were also speared or killed. Hostilities around the corn fields continued up till 1830.

Whites who ventured along the Queensland coast in this area at this time, such as the whaler Joseph Bradley, found themselves harassed and prevented from making landfalls during this time. Bradley was chased down the coast for hundreds of kilometres.

Hostilities across Moreton Bay culminated in a key event c.1831-1832: a pitched battle that ended in an Aboriginal victory at Aranarawai Creek just north of Dunwich. The skirmish involved somewhere between 10-20 soldiers and convict overseers, and perhaps 80-150 warriors luring the soldiers into swampland from which the warriors leapt out and hurled weapons. As the soldiers had no success after a whole day (oral accounts say weeks) of fighting, the soldiers ‘made signs of peace’ and were invited by the Quandamooka to a banquet and corroboree.

Except for a follow-up raid by soldiers at southern Stradbroke/ Russell Island roughly a year later, the truce effectively ended conflict between the settlers and the Quandamooka and Turrbal. The latter groups henceforth mostly sided with the settlers in upcoming conflicts against other groups (see: Southern Queensland War). They also gained work in fishing, boating, ferrying and assisting at the colony’s pilot stations on the islands.

Contributor: Ray Kerkhove

Sources

‘Affray with Natives at Moreton Bay,’ The Australian, 25 July 1827, p. 3. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37072390

‘Moreton Bay,’ The Australian, 22 December 1838, p. 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/36859622

‘Romance of Real Life in Australia,’ Colonial Times (Hobart), 24 May 1850, p.4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8767224

Bradley, Joseph (Mervyn Cobcroft, ed.), 1988, Adventures of a Native of Australia When Astray from his Ship, the Barque ‘Lynx’ (a Whaler) and his Consequent Cruise in a Boat on the Ocean: A True Narrative, Brisbane: Amphion Press.

CSIL 33/678 (Colonial Secretary’s Letters)

JOL (John Oxley Library) George Watkins, Notes on the aboriginals of Stradbroke and Moreton Islands (Brisbane: Royal Society of Queensland, 1891) https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE3539295

Knight, J. J., ‘In the Early Days,’ The Brisbane Courier, 11 January 1892, p. 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3535680

Petrie, CC., 1904, Tom Petrie’s Reminiscences of Early Queensland, Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson & Co. https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks20/2000451h.html

Welsby, Thomas, 1922, Memories of Amity, Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson & Co.

Colonial Violence. Links to sources may contain racist language and attitudes of the time.

A summary of this war and resistance will be available in future.

Notes:

• Sealers and whalers who kidnapped women established violent relations.
• Explorers at the Coorong looking for the mouth of the Murray-Darling system and others passing through were killed, probably due to the hostile relations established by sealers and whalers.
• With Adelaide established by free settlers rather than convicts, there was violence and resistance, but it's severity relative to other parts of Australia may have been ameliorated by the efforts of Mullawirraburka and Kadlitpinna, with Wyatt and other colonists to quell violence and retaliation.
• When the 'Maria' was ship wrecked at the Coorong, many were killed in a rare massacre of colonists by Aboriginal people. This lead to Government ordered reprisals and killing of Aboriginal people.
• Violence and resistance expanded from Adelaide into the Yorke Peninsula and to the north.
• This was followed by conflicts at Port Lincoln (Eyre Peninsula) to the west; on overland routes between Adelaide and the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers and Port Phillip (Victoria), and further north in the Flinders Ranges. Also, the Northern Territory was governed from Adelaide when there was extensive violence there later.

Data has been generously provided by:

Robert Foster, Skye Krichauff and Amanda Nettelbeck, The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 2024, http://ua.edu.au/south-australian-frontier

With permission.

Colonial violence. Links to historical sources may contain racist attitudes and language.