Myall Creek Massacre

The Myall Creek massacre was an attack on Wirrayaraay people by a group of twelve white stockmen on 10 June 1838. It is among the bloodiest and most notorious in a series of Australian Frontier conflicts in the years since European settlers first arrived in Australia in 1788. The twelve attackers, led by John Henry Fleming, murdered around twenty-eight Wirrayaraay at Myall Creek in northern New South Wales. The station established there by pastoralist Henry Dangar had been offered to the Wirrayaraay as a haven where they could camp to avoid bands of stockmen in the area.

Unlike hundreds of other similar conflicts between settlers and Indigenous people on the Australian frontier, the Myall Creek massacre is unique as an atrocity from its era in which settlers who attacked Indigenous people were convicted for their crimes.

Background

European colonists first arrived to Australia fifty years prior to the Myall Creek massacre. As they settled the frontier, many conflicts occurred, resulting in the slaying of Indigenous and European people alike. These included massacres near Narrandera, Appin, and the Cumberland Plain.

In 1837, Indigenous people at Liverpool Plains launched a retaliatory attack in which four settlers were killed. In response, Acting-Governor Kenneth Snodgrass deployed forces to quell Indigenous resistance to the settlement of their land. In January 1838, the troops clashed with Indigenous people at what would become known as the Waterloo Creek massacre.

A group of Wirrayaraay camping at McIntyre's Station accepted an invitation from convict stockman Charles Kilmeister to relocate to the nearby Myall Creek station, where it was supposed they would be farther from harm.

Massacre at Myall Creek Station

Fleming, the Mungie Bundie Station overseer, led a band of eleven convict and ex-convict stockmen to Myall Creek station on the afternoon of 10 June 1838 and launched what is believed to have been a premeditated and unprovoked attack on the Wirrayaraay camping there. At the time, station manager William Hobbs was away at another of his employer's properties for several days. Meanwhile, station keeper George Anderson attempted to harbour the Wirrayaraay in his hut as he questioned the armed stockmen about their motives in visiting Myall Creek. The stockmen and Kilmeister overtook the station, bound the Wirrayaraay people and led them into a nearby gully, where they were shot or put to the sword.

At least twenty-eight Wirrayaraay were slain in the attack. The stockmen later burned the bodies. About ten Wirrayaraay men were offsite when the attack occurred and were later pursued and attacked by the stockmen. Two young boys escaped the roundup as well, and one woman was spared.

Hobbs and Anderson alerted Governor George Gipps, who commissioned Police Magistrate Edward Denny Day to lead a swift inquiry into the attack. Day arrested the eleven stockmen but was unable to apprehend Fleming, who escaped.

The eleven stockmen stood trial on 15 November 1838, defended by barristers hired by Liverpool Plains landowners, including Dangar. Anderson provided testimony to help convict the stockmen of the murder of two Aboriginal people. The jury found them not guilty due to the inability to properly identify the burned corpses.

Seven stockmen and Kilmeister were promptly retried, found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging. Appeals for clemency were rejected, and they were executed in December 1838 in Sydney. The four remaining men were held until a key Aboriginal witness could be given instructions regarding court procedure, but the witness was reportedly never so instructed. A warrant for Fleming's arrest was not pursued, and he remained untried for the crime.

Fleming died at age seventy-eight, honoured by his community as a member of the Hawkesbury Benevolent Society with a large grave marker in Wilberforce. His obituary only vaguely referenced his role in the Myall Creek massacre.

Impact

Myall Creek has served as a major reference point in decades of social discourse about the relationships between Indigenous cultures and white colonists. The sentencing of the stockmen initially generated controversy throughout Australia and raised debate about the treatment of Indigenous people throughout the colony. Two major newspapers, the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, published divergent editorials regarding the initial trial of the eleven stockmen. The Australian argued for the protection of Indigenous people and that the killings were an inhumane outrage. Public opinion was divided between support for unchecked colonial expansion and equality under the law for Indigenous groups.

The event remains noteworthy in the efforts of white colonists, including Hobbs and Anderson and of members of the courts, to convict the attackers and support Indigenous people's rights in the frontier era. The conviction, though significant, did not end frontier conflicts or atrocities committed against Indigenous groups. Many similar attacks followed, in which the attackers took greater care to escape the notice of authorities, using methods such as poison.

The massacre's historical significance has been as a major focal point of Australia's reconciliation movement. Beginning in the 1850s, the massacre was documented in Australian literature. As part of the reconciliation movement, a conference was held at Myall Creek in 1998. The Myall Creek Memorial Committee was established the same year. The Memorial Committee built and opened the Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site in 2000, on the site of the attack on the Wirrayaraay.

The Friends of Myall Creek, a group stemming from the Memorial Committee, assembles descendants of the event's victims, survivors and the attackers for an annual memorial event. The event is attended by hundreds of visitors, often including Australian members of Parliament and other officials, and includes a long weekend of commemorations and expressions of regret and forgiveness. A bronze plaque at the site commemorates the dead and expresses the cross-cultural reconciliation signified by the memorial. The Federal Government added the Myall Creek Memorial to the National Heritage List on 7 June 2008.

In May 2015, Guugu Yimidhirr lawyer and land rights activist Noel Pearson sparked controversy by asserting that Indigenous people must move on from traumatic historical events such as Myall Creek in order to improve their lives in the present. A public debate ensued in which his critics, including the Friends of Myall Creek, emphasised the importance of perpetual apology and reconciliation efforts to acknowledge the problematic way in which the continent was colonised.

Bibliography

Connor, John. Australian Frontier Wars, 1788–1838. UNSW P, 2005.

Daley, Paul. "Myall Creek: Here, in 1838, a Crime That Would Not Be Forgotten Took Place." Postcolonial Blog. Guardian News and Media, 4 June 2015, www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2015/jun/05/myall-creek-here-in-1838-a-that-would-not-be-forgotten-took-place. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.

"The 1838 Myall Creek Massacre Story." Friends of Myall Creek, Nov. 2014, www.myallcreek.info/index.php/massacre-story. Accessed 30 Dec. 2016.

Marlow, Karina. "Explainer: What Was the Myall Creek Massacre?" NITV, 9 June 2016, www.sbs.com.au/nitv/explainer/explainer-what-was-myall-creek-massacre. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.

"National Heritage Places - Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site." Department of the Environment and Energy, Commonwealth of Australia, www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/myall-creek. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.

"R. v. Kilmeister (No. 2) [1838] NSWSupC 110." Decisions of the Superior Courts of New South Wales, 1788-1899. Division of Law, Macquarie University, 22 June 2012, www.law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial‗case‗law/nsw/cases/case‗index/1838/r‗v‗kilmeister2. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.

Tedeschi, Mark. "The Myall Creek Massacre Re-Examined." Inside History Magazine, 4 June 2014. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.

Tedeschi, Mark. "The Myall Creek Massacre: The Trial and Aftermath." Inside History Magazine, 19 Aug. 2015. Accessed 6 Jan. 2017.