Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site

About

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site is the heritage-listed site of and memorial for the victims of the Myall Creek massacre at Bingara Delungra Road, Myall Creek, Gwydir Shire, New South Wales, Australia. The memorial, which was unveiled in 2000, was added to the Australian National Heritage List on 7 June 2008 and the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 12 November 2010.

Main article: Myall Creek massacre In the half century following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, a pattern of relations developed between Aboriginal people and European settlers that lasted into the 1900s. While the British Colonial Office instructed Arthur Phillip, the first Governor, to treat the Aboriginal population with goodwill and kindness, competition for resources and land following the expansion of European settlement invariably resulted in frontier conflict. Frontier violence posed a problem for the British administration because Aboriginal people and settlers were legally British subjects with the same rights and protection. Lack of resources and pressure from settlers however, made it increasingly difficult for the Administration to ensure the application of the rule of law.

The Myall Creek massacre in 1838, the subsequent court case and the hanging of seven settlers for the massacre of Aboriginal people, is pivotal in the development of the relationship between settlers and Aboriginal people. It is the first and last time that settlers were found guilty of, and hanged for, the killing of Aboriginal people on the frontier. It is the last time the Colonial Administration intervened to ensure the laws of the colony were applied equally to Aboriginal people and settlers involved in frontier killings. However, instead of setting a precedent that Aboriginal people could be protected under the law, Ryan (1980:20) states: the Myall Creek massacre and the ensuing cases had intensified the squatter's determination to have unfettered occupation of pastoral land. They were not prepared to wait while protectors rounded up the Aborigines, nor were they prepared to allow their stockkeepers to endure the full force of the law...for 1838 was the year that saw the final loss of control by government of pastoral expansion.

Colonial Administration's Response to Frontier Conflict Aboriginal attacks on unarmed convicts were commonplace following the establishment of the settlement at Port Jackson in 1788. While some members of the Administration felt that the Aboriginal inhabitants of the area should be driven away and kept away by the judicious use of muskets, Governor Phillip attempted to establish friendly relations and trade. As a result of this policy, Phillip did not respond aggressively to the spearing of convicts by Aboriginal people. However, following the spearing and death of one of his servants in 1790, he authorised a punitive expedition against the " Botany Bay " tribe. He ordered the expedition to bring back two Aboriginal men to be hanged and the heads of a further ten Aboriginal men but it returned empty handed. Phillip never ordered another punitive expedition.

Phillip appears to have generally adopted a non-hostile approach to dealing with Aboriginal attacks. Conversely he ordered the flogging of settlers who took Aboriginal spears and nets or damaged Aboriginal canoes. Although Aboriginal witnesses to the floggings were horrified, Phillip used the floggings to demonstrate that settlers guilty of offences against Aboriginal people would be punished. In some cases he also provided compensation to Aboriginal people for their loss. However, following his departure in December 1792 all accommodation ended and the British Administration adopted a simpler solution: the unequal application of the law for settlers and Aboriginal people.

With the expansion of European settlement into the Hawkesbury and Hunter regions, frontier conflict intensified. This conflict was the result of competition for land which settlers required for crops and the grazing of sheep and cattle. Aboriginal people relied upon the same land for food and water. The initial response by the Administration was to dispatch troops to police the frontier, but the expanding area of land to be covered made this an increasingly difficult task. A lawless frontier environment soon existed where it was impossible to control the conflict between settlers and Aboriginal people. In response to this challenge the Administration ordered settlers to defend themselves and ordered Aboriginal people to stay away from European habitation. There is no evidence that Aboriginal people understood and agreed with these orders to stay away from European settlement as the conflict on the frontier continued.

Despite this, successive Governors in New South Wales adopted similar approaches to addressing frontier conflict. In 1796 Governor Hunter ordered settlers to "mutually afford their assistance to each other by assembling when ever any numerous bodies of natives are known to be lurking about the farms". By 1801 Governor King 's orders were even more specific stating that the blacks were to "be driven back from settlers" habitations by firing at them'. In 1816 Governor Macquarie issued a proclamation stating that "No Aboriginal person is to appear armed within a mile of any settlement and no more than six Aboriginal people are allowed to lurk or loiter near farms".

During the 1830s individual colonies around Australia started to develop distinctive approaches to dealing with the issue of frontier violence. All of these approaches focused on removing Aboriginal people from the areas settled by Europeans. In New South Wales the practice of sending troops to suppress Aboriginal violence, often aided by settlers continued. This was evident in the Liverpool Plains district (the north-west frontier) following its initial settlement by Europeans in the late 1820s.

North-West Frontier in the 1820s and 1830s Settlers from the Hunter Valley and Mudgee, in need of more pasture for their rapidly increasing flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, began arriving on the Liverpool Plains in c. 1826. At this time there were an estimated 12,000 Aboriginal people living in the district, mostly belonging to the Gamilaroi (also spelt Kamilaroi) language group but including other Aboriginal groups. The Gamilaroi people appear, from the very beginning, to have resisted European settlement. Surveyor William Gardner recorded how shortly after stations were formed on the Namoi River, local Aboriginal groups issued a formal challenge to the settlers to do battle. The stockmen however, refused to leave their barricaded hut. The war party responded by attacking the hut and attempted to remove the roof. The warriors were forced to retreat after numerous members of the party were killed by the sixteen heavily armed stockmen. The stockmen then followed the retreating party on horseback and "taught them they knew how to fight".

By 1837 settlers had pushed beyond the Peel and Namoi Rivers and taken up large tracts of land along the Gwydir or the "Big River" as it was then known. Local Gamilaroi groups resisted the alienation of their traditional lands almost immediately. The dispersed nature of the settlers stations enabled the Gamilaroi to easily isolate and attack stockmen and their livestock. In April 1836 two stockmen working for the Hall Brothers, were killed while forming a new station. In September and November of the following year two hutkeepers and two shepherds from the Bowman and Cobb stations were killed. Crown Land Commissioner Alexander Paterson reported back to Sydney in the second half of 1837 that stockmen on the Loder station, which was the westernmost station on the Namoi, were so afraid of raids by the Gamilaroi that they had abandoned their livestock to roam unattended in the bush.

Liverpool Plains settlers demanded military protection against Aboriginal attacks. In response to their demands, Lieutenant-Colonel Kenneth Snodgrass, Acting Governor of New South Wales sent a large Mounted Police party north to enquire into and repress the aggressions complained of. The Mounted Police party, led by Major Nunn and composed of around twenty troopers reached Liverpool Plains in January 1838. What occurred after they arrived remains unclear, but at Waterloo Creek, 50 kilometres southwest of what is now Moree, the Mounted Police encountered a large party of Aboriginal people camped alongside the Creek. In the ensuing melee a number of Aboriginal people were shot. The exact number of Aboriginal people killed in the melee is unknown but local squatters who visited site later, reported the number killed to be sixty or seventy. An eyewitness to the encounter testified that forty to fifty may have been killed. Rev Threlkeld in his mission report for 1838 stated that the number may have been as high as two or three hundred.

According to R. H. W. Reece in his book "Aborigines and Colonists," local tradition states that Nunn's party of Mounted Police was involved in at least one more large melee with local Aboriginal people before the party left the Plains. Major Nunn's Campaign (as it was known in the district) did not prevent further racial conflict. In March of that year two men working for Surveyor Finch were killed in the neighbouring district of New England, then in April a hutkeeper on the Gwydir was killed. In the following months stockmen from stations along the Gwydir River organised themselves into armed groups and scoured the country side in what is described by Reece as "a concerted campaign to get rid of all the Aborigines in the district." According to Reece this still known in local tradition as "The Bushwhack" or "The Drive". The Myall Creek Massacre took place in June of that year, on Myall Creek Station near the Gwydir River.

The Myall Creek Massacre The escalating conflict between settlers and Aboriginal people on the frontier was one of the issues confronting Governor Gipps on his arrival in the New South Wales colony in 1838. Governor Gipps and the Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg agreed that an important measure to prevent frontier conflict was to impress Aboriginal people with "the conviction that the laws of the colony will be equally administered for their protection from wrong and injury as for that of European settlers". The Myall Creek massacre provided Governor Gipps with an opportunity to demonstrate that the law could protect Aboriginal people through its equal application. When news of the incident was reported to him, Governor Gipps did not hesitate to order the perpetrators be brought to justice.

Once Governor Gipps was informed he gave instructions that Police Magistrate Day should proceed immediately to the scene of the tragedy with a party of mounted police to seek out the murderers. Day conducted a thorough investigation and apprehended eleven of twelve suspected Myall Creek murderers. The eleven men were arrested and tried for the murder of Daddy and an unknown Aboriginal

The twelve men responsible for the massacre included freed convicts and assigned convicts, led by John Fleming, the manager of the Mungie Bundie Station. The original party assembled at Bengari on a station owned by Archibald Bell before they set off and were joined by the remaining members somewhere along the Gwydir River. After spending the day unsuccessfully pursuing Aborigines the group came to the Myall Creek Station. They discovered approximately 30 Aborigines belonging to the Gamilaroi and Wirrayaraay peoples on the station, rounded them up and tied them together. When the station hand, George Anderson asked what they intended to do with the Aborigines he was told they were taking them over the back of the range to frighten them. A few minutes later the Gamilaroi and Wirrayaraay were led off and massacred. Two days later the men returned to burn the bodies. The impact of the massacre on the Gamilaroi and Wirrayaraay peoples was devastating. As one of the descendants whose great-great-great-grandfather survived the massacre states 'We didn't want to talk about it because of how dreadful it was I remember when we used to drive past that place. It just had a feeling about it that I can't explain'.

The Myall Creek massacre was marked by the unusual circumstance that one of the station hands who did not participate in the massacre, George Anderson, informed the station manager, William Hobbs, who reported the incident to the local magistrate. The reports by Anderson and Hobbs were not without danger, as the inquiry of magistrate Edward Day noted "[I] took George Anderson with [me], believing that [his] life would be in danger if he remained at Myall Creek".

In response to the charging of the eleven suspects settlers formed groups such as the "Black Association" to support the men charged with the murder. Papers such as the Sydney Herald protested against the trials. Charging the perpetrators of the massacre also stimulated the activism of religious and humanitarian groups who called for the execution of the perpetrators. These views were promoted through papers such as the Sydney Monitor and the Australian.

Upon being found not guilty, seven of the men were re-arrested and tried for the murder of an Aboriginal male named Charley. The second trial resulted in a guilty verdict and all seven men were sentenced to death. Governor Gipps later wrote that none of the seven attempted to deny their crime, though all stated they thought it extremely hard that white men should be put to death for killing blacks. On 18 December 1838, after all legal objections were exhausted and the Executive Council rejected petitions for clemency, the sentences were carried out.

John Plunkett, an Irish barrister, prosecuted in the two trials of the killers. Plunkett came to NSW in 1832 to take up the post of Solicitor-General. As a Catholic, he only became eligible for such an appointment in 1829 when the British Parliament removed most of the restrictions on members of that faith holding public office. In 1836 he became the colony's first Attorney-General but continued to carry out the duties of both positions. The colony was divided, often acrimoniously, between three groups - convicts, those who had been convicts but were now emancipated, and those who thought themselves superior because they had never been either. One of the most powerful sections of the community were the squatters, who had established large pastoral holdings in the north of the colony, one result of which was the complete disruption of local Aboriginal communities.

When the trial of the stockmen commenced, they had expensive defence counsel paid for by the local landowners from the Myall Creek area. The workings of criminal law in 1838 meant there could only be one victim in relation to any particular trial for murder, no matter how many accused had been charged. This presented problems of identification for the prosecution, particularly because one witness saw the Aborigines being led away and a different witness saw their largely burnt bodies. Plunkett was the subject of considerable public criticism for initiating the prosecution and the first trial resulted in not guilty verdicts. But this was where the one-victim rule played into Plunkett's hands. He chose a different victim for a second trial of seven of the stockmen, who again made no statements on their own behalf. This time the verdict was guilty, and, after an appeal was dismissed, all seven were hanged, despite public petitions and violent editorials demanding that the sentences be commuted. It is something of an irony that Plunkett himself was opposed to capital punishment.