Gippsland massacre
The Gippsland massacre of the Gunai or Kurnai aborigines took place in the years from 1840 to 1847 in several major clashes with numerous dead and other smaller ones with fewer victims. They occurred in East Gippsland in Victoria, Australia . The population of the Kurnai, also called Gippsland Aborigines, was 4,000 people before the European settlers came to Gippsland. As a result of the colonization by the British, around 300 verifiably or, according to other estimates, up to 1,000 Kunai were murdered.
massacre
Gippsland was colonized relatively late in the 1820s and intensively from 1840 by European settlers, with the Aborigines being pushed away from their traditional land and livelihoods. The Aboriginal tribe who lived in the east fought against the European invasion of their land. Because of the technological superiority of European weapons, the Europeans were superior to the Aborigines. In the end 300 Aborigines were murdered, others estimate more than 1,000, but it is difficult to say the exact number of deaths, as only a few reports of that time remain. Diseases such as smallpox , brought in by the colonialists and whalers in 1820, are another cause of the decline in the Aboriginal population.
Great massacre
The first major violent confrontation took place at Butcher Creek in 1841, with 30 to 35 Aborigines being shot dead by Angus McMillan's men.
A second major combat operation took place in the Warrigal Creek area near Woodside in southern Gippsland in 1843, with between 60 and 180 Aboriginal people being shot by Angus McMillan and his men. The Aboriginal protector, George Augustus Robinson , was in Port Albert a few weeks later and wrote in his official report: "some depraved white men had in a fit of drunkenness shot at and killed some friendly natives". (English: Some seedy white men, while drunk, shot and murdered some peaceful locals.)
In a massacre on the Snowy River, which took place between Orbost and Marlo in either 1846 or 1847 , 50 Aborigines were murdered. The Native Police Corps , which also included Aborigines of the West Port Blacks - traditional enemies of the Kurnai - were also involved. The whites were looking for a white woman who was allegedly held by Aborigines.
14 Aborigines were shot dead on January 21, 1847 between Summer Hill and Spring Hill on the Macalister River.
Verifiable massacre
The following list is compiled from letters and diaries
- 1840 - Nuntin - unknown number of Angus McMillan's men murdered
- 1840 - Boney Point - "Angus McMillan and his men took the lives of large numbers of Aborigines"
- 1841 - Butchers Creek - 30-35 shot by Angus McMillan's men
- 1841 - Maffra - Unknown number of Angus McMillan's men murdered
- 1842 - Skull Creek - unknown number murdered
- 1842 - Bruthen Creek - "Hundreds Murdered"
- 1843 - Warrigal Creek - shot between 60 and 180 by Angus McMillan and his men
- 1844 - Maffra - unknown number murdered
- 1846 - South Gippsland - 14 murdered
- 1846 - Snowy River - Murdered 8 by Captain Dana and the Native Police Corps
- 1846–47 - Central Gippsland - 50 or more shot dead by an armed group searching for an allegedly kidnapped white woman; this woman was never found.
- 1850 - East Gippsland - Assassinated 15-20
- 1850 - Murrindal - 16 poisoned
- 1850 - Brodribb River - 15-20 killed
(This list does not claim to be complete)
Sources
The source situation due to the circumstances at that time and the long past is not certain. In his work, the researcher Gardner used primary and secondary sources, folk songs, Aboriginal stories, suggestive names of the places of events (Butchers Creek, Slaughterhouse Gully), bone finds, scenarios of retaliation and the topography of the locations of the massacres.
A settler in Gippsland, Henry Meyrick, wrote to his relatives in England in 1846:
- The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. No wild beast of the forest was ever hunted down with such unsparing perseverance as they are. Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with… I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging… For myself , if I caught a black actually killing my sheep, I would shoot him with as little remorse as I would a wild dog, but no consideration on earth would induce me to ride into a camp and fire on them indiscriminately, as is the custom whenever the smoke is seen. They [the Aborigines] will be extinct very shortly. It is impossible to say how many have been shot, but I am convinced that not less than 450 have been murdered altogether. (German: The blacks are very quiet here now, poor fellows. No game in the forest was hunted with such relentless perseverance. Men, women and children were shot wherever they were found. [...] I have in every place , to which I was in Gippsland, protested most passionately, but this matter is kept secret, because the punishment would be hanging. [...] If a black man slaughtered my sheep, I would shoot him myself, without any remorse, like a wild dog, but no reason on earth would make me ride into their camps and shoot them indiscriminately, as is the current practice when smoke is seen anywhere. The Aborigines will soon be exterminated. It impossible to say how many were shot, but I suspect no fewer than 450 have already been murdered.)
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Gardner, PD. (2001): Gippsland massacres: the destruction of the Kurnai tribes, 1800-1860 , Ngarak Press, Essay, Victoria ISBN 1-875254-31-5
- ↑ Gippsland Settlers and the Kurnai Dead - Patrick Morgan - Quadrant Magazine ( Memento of the original from September 29, 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.
