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

]]> 140.034,-21.696 #TLCMapStyle Townsville Daily Bulletin, June 29, 1917, p 2; January 27, 1931, p 4) They carried out five reprisal massacres of men, women and children from the Yalarrnga and Pitta Pitta at five different sites. Monastery Creek is the 4th site. It is estimated that 100 Aboriginal people were killed overall, indicating that about 20 were killed at each site. The reprisal massacres were reported in the press and in settler memoirs (Fysh, 1961) and by interviews with Aboriginal descendants (Davidson et al, 2020) .

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]]> 1879-02-01 1879-02-28 140.12,-19.956 #TLCMapStyle Mr Ernest Henry telegraphed from Cloncurry that he had not reported that the two prospectors were killed, and that 'the only tragedy he has lately heard of in that neighbourhood was perpetrated by the native police' (Queenslander, 27 Oct 1883, p 669).
The following year a correspondent calling themself 'Drover' gave a full account of the incident: 'On 4th August last year I was camped on the Leichardt River, a little above the junction of it and the Cabbage Tree Creek. About half a mile higher up, on the opposite side of the river, on a high bank, were camped 28 or 30 natives (men, women and children). The previous day I was on the Dougal River, when, at Granada run, I heard a report that two white prospectors had been killed by the natives, but my informant (who was a very old resident there) told me the reports were so conflicting he did not believe them, but thought that they referred to the killing of Beresford seven or eight months previous. About two hours before sunset on the day I write of, a sub-inspector of police (native mounted police) accompanied by a body of police, rode up and asked me where the blacks were camped, as he heard I was a good deal in the ranges. I told him of their exact position, as the paper tree obstructed the position of their camp from where we were. Being an old Crown officer, I took it for granted the police were going to secure the head men amongst them, which, with the force the sub-inspector had under command, he could easily have done; and I suggested a division of the men, and I showed him a plan by which he might take the lot; but no, that was not the course to suit the sub-inspector, so, under cover of a bend in the river, they crossed, full gallop, and straight at the unfortunates they went. The moment the natives saw them they jumped up from their camp fires and plunged into the large water hole they were camped on. The police surrounded the hole and shot every one of them except four women and I think four children. After the battle was over the women were divided as follows:�� one to a stockman who came up, one taken to a man on the Dougal, one claimed by the police, and the fourth, being old and ugly, after being knocked down by the sub-inspector of police with the butt of his rifle, was sent with the children into the ranges to fare the best way they could. The police then came over the river, and camped for the night near me. Next morning they went off (as the sub-inspector informed me), to inquire into the reported killing of the two whites. So ended the earthly career of these unfortunate blacks, dying, they know not what for, and dying with a most damning opinion of the white men. I denounced the conduct of the police as I do now denounce the Government that allows such wholesale murders to be committed by its officers; and further allow me to inform you that the two men, who were reported to be killed, are now prospecting in the McKinlay Ranges, at least they were so when I left, well knowing the Gulf district, viz., Sam the Tracker and Cooper' (The Leader, 30 August 1884, p 35).

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]]> 1883-08-01 1883-08-31 139.307,-19.728 #TLCMapStyle On August 21st 1884, Sub Inspector F. Urquhart reported to the Commissioner of Police that after receiving news of the murder of J.W. Powell on the 21st of July, '... on the 22nd I left with 6 troopers and 13 horses ...' The group also included 'Mr A. Kennedy the late Mr Powell's partner...' and a 'wounded blackboy who had escaped from Mr Powells camp when the attack was made' After locating Powell's body 'On the morning of the thirthieth 30th I [Urquhart] started on the tracks of the blacks and as they had driven the horses and cattle with them it was very easy easy to follow their trail although the country traversed was mountainous and extremely rough. We passed through ten 10 camps in all of which cattle had been killed and in some cases yards made to hold them - after travelling twenty miles we dropped into a deep gorge in Gunpowder Creek [near Battle Creek] and there detected the smoke of a camp fire curling upwards - An hour before sundown I had my troopers in ambush round the camp which was a very large one there being apparently upwards of one hundred and fifty blacks in it Trooper Billy acting on my orders summoned them to surrender in their own language but they resisted and as further hesitation would have involved the escape of the offenders and possibly the destruction of my little party I gave the order to fire and thirty 30 of the blacks were shot. Trooper Larry was knocked down by a black but beyond this I have no casualties to report - Many blacks escaped but my detachment was not strong enough to admit of my doing more...' He added that, 'Between the scene of the murder and the head of the [Wills?] I broke up and dispersed four 4 more large mobs of blacks one of which I was informed by the gins had been watching Mulligans prospecting camp on the Leichardt for some days with a view to making an attack upon it and as they were within a mile of that camp when I came upon them... I think the blacks have had a caution which will exercise a deterrent effect upon them for some time to come' (QSA COL A/49714 ITM665853 pp4-9)
Following heavy rains in 2007, and surveys for a new road to a mining site between 2008 and 2010, the graves of 18 Kalkadoons were identified in the gorge. The road now takes a different route.

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]]> 1884-07-30 1884-08-20 139.877,-20.288 #TLCMapStyle According to Richards' research, a detachment of six Native Police led by Sub Inspector Frederick Urquhart and assisted by settler Alexander Kennedy set out to avenge the killing of 'a Chinese shepherd on Granada station 70kms north of Cloncurry.' They encountered 150 Kalkadoon warriors on a hill and called on them to surrender. There was an affray in which 'an unknown number of men, women and children were killed.' None of the attacking party was wounded (Richards, cited in Bottoms, 2013, p 166). Urquhart's report is in Urquhart to Ahern, 15 March 1885. QSA A/41765. ID 290473.
In 1965 Wittington summarised that after the massacre at Battle Gorge which was a response to the killing of Powell, 'The Kalkadoons were, however, by no means subdued. Soon afterwards, at a lonely outpost on Granada Station, they raided and burnt the camp and killed the Chinese shepherd. Urquhart, with Hopkins, the owner, and a strong force of Native Police, tracked the Kalkadoons to Prospector's Creek, some 60 miles north-west of Cloncurry. In one of the few recorded pitched battles between whites and aborigines, the Kalkadoons fought to the bitter end. Most of their warriors were wiped out in repeated charges against the rifles of the firmly established police force.' (Wittington, 1965 p519)
This conflict was mentioned in 1900 in the Brisbane Courier, 'In their day the Kalkadoons formed the most warlike and desperate of the tribes that the early pioneers had to contend with. They occupied the mountain ranges, and knowing all the country round, terrorised the blacks of the lowlands, always making good their escape to their mountain fastnesses. At Battle Mountain they kept a certain police inspector at bay for the greater part of the day. One of the survivors of the encounter is "Tabby," still on Glenroy, and still wears a bullet wound on his head.' (Brisbane Courier, 13/10/1900, p 6)
A description of the 'Battle of Kalkadoon' published in 1951 remarked that 'On the battlefield as late as the writer's time out there (early in this century) sunbleached shank bones and pieces of blackfellows' skulls were to be found lying amongst the spinifex' (The Beaudesert Times, 17 Aug 1951, p 5).

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