Forrest River Massacre
The Forrest River massacre of the Boondong Aborigines occurred in May 1926 after the settler Fred Hay was killed with a spear in the Kimberley , Western Australia . The police investigation that followed led to indictments against those involved in the massacre, which was followed by an investigation by the Royal Commission.
Events and investigations
The police patrol, led by constables Steph Stewart and Denis Regan , left Wyndham on June 1 to hunt down alleged killer Fred Hay, Lumbia, an Aboriginal person. During the first week of July, the suspect was taken to Wyndham. In the following months there were rumors of a massacre believed to have been carried out by the police. Pastor Ernest Gribble of the Forrest River Mission (later Oombulgurri) speculated that 30 Aborigines were murdered by the police patrol. A Royal Commission , headed by GT Wood, was sent out to obtain verifiable data on the crime; and to review Gribble's allegations. The commission found that the police patrol killed 11 Aborigines in three locations near the Forrest River Mission. Their bodies were burned. In May 1927 two police officers, Constable Sergeant Jack and Regan, were charged with murdering one of the Boondung Aborigines. However, after the initial questioning, Judge Kidson said there was no definitive evidence to support charges.
Subsequent attacks on Gribble's credibility resulted in him leaving the region.
Later publications
Dr. Neville Green, who investigated the 1995 massacre, portrayed it as the culmination of years of police-settler violence against the Aborigines in the Kimberleys and not as an outlier but as part of a culture spanning decades of violence. In January 1968, Green had the brother Charles von Leopold Overheu interviewed with a tape recorder:
They all got together up there and there was a bloody massacre because I think they shot about three hundred natives all in one hit and there was a hell of a row over it. It was all published in the papers and somebody let the cat out of the bag and anyhow the government and the judges in those times they realized what the trouble was and the whole thing was hushed up you see.
“They were all rounded up and it was a bloody massacre and I mean they shot over three hundred Aborigines at once and it was a hell of a racket. This was all published in newspapers and some let the cat out of the bag; however, neither the government nor the judges of the time understood the problem and the whole matter was covered up. "
In 1999, the journalist Rod Moran published a book Massacre Myth , in which he stated that the credibility of the massacre was doubtful and that the massacre was a concept of Gribble. Moran's argument was that neither eyewitnesses nor survivors were ever found. Gribble would have told a story of false allegations of abuse against Aborigines and would have known it was a story of mental illness. The investigative commission did not find any graves, only a large number of bones at the alleged locations of the massacres. The bones that were found were shattered and could not be clearly assigned to humans or animals using the forensic examination methods of the time. The bones that were sufficiently intact were all identified as animal bones. No bones from alleged massacre sites could be positively identified as human. For the Aborigines that Gribble reported missing, Moran provided evidence that they were not murdered in a massacre and were not reported missing in either mission or police reports. One woman had been murdered by her husband before Hay was murdered, and another case was mentioned twice. The explanations in Moran's book are controversial.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quadrant Magazine, Volume XLVI Number 9 - September 2002, Moran's 1st comment about Green's book ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Quadrant Magazine, Volume XLVII Number 6 - June 2003, Green's 1st comment about Moran's book ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Green, Neville (1995) The Forrest River massacres Fremantle, WA Fremantle Arts Center Press ISBN 1863681094 .
- ↑ Moran, Rod (1999) Massacre myth: an investigation into allegations concerning the mass murder of Aborigines at Forrest River, 1926 Bassendean, WA Access Press ISBN 0864451245
- ↑ Quadrant Magazine, Volume XLVII Number 7 - July-August 2003 Green's 2nd comment about Moran's book ( Memento of the original from November 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Quadrant Magazine, Volume XLVII Number 11 - November 2003 Moran's 2nd comment about Green's book ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
literature
Primary literature
- Police file Acc 430, 5374/1926 at the WA State Records Office .
- Report of Commissioner GT Wood, "Inquiry into alleged killing and burning of bodies of Aborigines in East Kimberley and into police methods when effecting arrests", WA Votes and Proceedings 1927, Paper No. 3
Secondary literature
- Auty, Kate. (2004) Patrick Bernard O'Leary and the Forrest River Massacre, Western Australia: examining 'Wodjil' and the significance of 8 June 1926. Pages 112–125, Aboriginal history, Vol.28 (2004)
- Fitzgerald, B. (1984) "Blood on the saddle" - the Forrest River massacres, 1926 . Pages 16-25, Studies in Western Australian History, Dec. 1984
- Moran, Rod. (2002) Sex, maiming and murder: seven case studies into the reliability of Reverend ERB Gribble, Superintendent, Forrest River Mission 1913-1928, as a witness to the truth Bassendean, WA Access Press. ISBN 0864451571
- Green, Neville (1995) The Forrest River massacres Fremantle, WA Fremantle Arts Center Press ISBN 1863681094