Myall Creek Massacre

The events of the Myall Creek Massacre on June 10, 1838

Many massacres, including Myall Creek, were witnessed only by the murderers. But because the Myall Creek Massacre has been extensively documented we know now what happened.

At the time about 50 Aboriginal people had moved to Myall Creek Station at the invitation of a stockman employed there.

The Myall Creek Massacre. Note the rope binding the Aboriginal people together and the little child on the back of her mother on the far right. Published in The Chronicles of Crime, 1841.

Ten of them, all able bodied males, were working on a neighbouring station, 50kms away, when they learned that a group of armed stockmen planned to go onto Myall Creek Station. They walked back as fast as they could, but it was already too late.

The stockmen, led by John Fleming, were already galloping towards the huts of Myall Creek Station where the remaining Aboriginal people were preparing their evening meal.

The stockmen herded the defenceless Aboriginal people together and tied their hands together with a long rope. Only two young boys escaped.

The men were deaf to the cries of their victims. Within twenty minutes of their arriving they hauled their captives westwards from the huts and over the top of a rise.

About 800 metres from the huts the defenceless Aboriginal people were hacked and slashed to death. They were beheaded and their headless bodies were left where they fell. The stockmen then set up camp, drinking and bragging about their killings.

Late that night the Aboriginal men who had been working at the neighbouring station arrived at Myall Creek Station. They were urged to move on and headed off into the night.

Two days after the Myall Creek Massacre the murderers returned and burned the bodies of their victims. They then set out to find the ten Aboriginal people they had missed.

They found them the next day and murdered most of them.

Two beautiful young girls were allowed to live so that they could be raped.—'Massacre at Myall Creek', The Sydney Morning Herald [14]

It seems likely that the same stockmen perpetrated another massacre near MacIntyre's (near Inverell) where the group of ten Aboriginal people had headed. Reportedly between 30 and 40 Aboriginal people were murdered and their bodies cast onto a large fire.

A woman was allowed to run with blood spurting out of her cut throat. She was then thrown alive onto the fire. Her infant child was thrown alive onto the fire. Two young girls were mutilated by the gang.

Eventually the party immersed into heavy drinking and dispersed five days after their first killings.

Investigating the Myall Creek Massacre

Almost three weeks later the atrocity was reported to police in Sydney in the absence of the local police magistrate. Governor George Gipps ordered an investigation which opened on July 28th, 1838. Eventually ten suspects were identified and marched 300kms to Sydney for trial. Their leader, John Fleming, escaped.

As news spread about the prisoners their capture attracted wide interest. Given the accepted opinion about Aboriginal people of those days the public were soon in favour of the accused and a prominent landholder offered to finance their defence.

I look on the blacks as a set of monkeys, and the earlier they are exterminated from the face of the earth the better... I would never see a white man hanged for killing a black.—One of the jurors, quoted in The Australian, 18 December 1838 [8]

The first trial in November 1838 was based on thin evidence. No-one apart from the killers had witnessed the massacre and they had removed all bodies before they could be recovered as evidence. The accused pleaded not guilty.

In the absence of any corpse the jury took only 15 minutes to pronounce the accused not guilty to the cheering of the crowd in the court. But Attorney-General James Plunkett asked for and was granted another indictment.

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The first massacre of Tasmanian Aboriginal people occurred at Risden Cove in 1804, when Lieutenant John Bowen and his troops fired on a group which included women and children. By 1806 clashes between Aboriginal people and settlers were common. The Tasmanians speared stock and shepards; in retaliation Europeans gave them poison flour, abducted their children to use as forced labour, and raped and tortured the women.

Read more: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/massacres-Myall-Creek-1838.html#ixzz15KyH9xRj