Description
In 1865 a party of armed settlers led by 'Mr. R. Ross, Mr. R. Spence, Dr Callaghan, Lieutenant Walter Compigne of the Native Police, two black trackers and four [a]borigines, named Jack, Dundally, Tom and Paddle-nosed Peter' arrived on 'the southern end' of North Keppel Island to see if it was suitable for a cattle run. On the northern side of the island, they ambushed a group of Woppaburra people hiding in a cave (Bird, 1904, cited in Rowland, 2004, p 3). It appears that the native police shot seven or eight Woppaburra men and a woman with a cripple on her back. In his account Dr Callaghan did not mention the killings (see Rowland, 2004, pp 3-5). Two later accounts by R McClelland and Walter Roth, the Aboriginal Protector, were more forthcoming. McClelland said that when he visited the island some years later, 'the blacks showed me a line of bones over one hundred yards long, and told me that they belonged to a tribe of blacks who were shot by a boarding party of whites many years before...[and] and old black named "Jamie" told me all about the brutality of the shooting. He mentioned about an old gin who was trying to escape carrying a cripple on her back, and how both were mercilessly shot down' (McClelland cited in Rowland, 2004, p 5). In the 1890s, Walter Roth noted on his visit to North Keppel that 'the actual camping ground where at least 7 or 8 males were shot down one night in cold blood', was still to be seen, and that 'the father of one of the surviving gins (who described the scene that took place) being butchered while his little girl was clinging round his neck' (Roth cited in Rowland, 2004, p 5). It would appear that at least eight Woppaburra men were shot down along with a woman carrying the disabled child on her back. According to Michael Rowland 'at least one of the skulls from the Keppel Islands, which was held in the Queensland Museum (No. 67) 'contained entry and exit holes possibly caused by a low-velocity bullet' (Rowland, 2004, p 5).
