Myall Creek Massacre
The Myall Creek Massacre is the massacre of 28 Aborigines on June 10, 1838 near Myall Creek Station near Bingara in the Australian state of New South Wales . The perpetrators were white Australians . Seven of the twelve involved were convicted of murder. It was the first time whites were punished under British law for crimes against Aborigines, so the verdict has historical significance.
Sequence of events
On June 10, 1838, a group of twelve Australian settlers arrived at Myall Creek Station and told an employee there that they intended to kill every Aboriginal they could find. It is a retaliation for cattle theft allegedly committed by members of this ethnic group. From a group of 40 or 50 Aborigines who were camping in the region, the men rounded up 28 people, mostly women and children. A little later, witnesses heard gunfire. All 28 people were killed, some women had previously been raped. On June 11, the perpetrators burned the bodies of their victims.
The farm manager, who was absent during the act, discovered the cremated bodies days later and reported the incident to the Muswellbrook magistrate , Captain Edward Day. This passed on the message, which eventually reached the governor of the state, George Gipps. It was only in July that Gipps sent a group of mounted police officers to the crime scene for an official investigation into the massacre. They found bones, skulls and skeletal parts of at least 28 people. After 47 days, eleven of the perpetrators were found, but the leader named Fleming was not found.
judgment
The trial began in November 1838. On November 30, seven of the men were found guilty. The verdict on December 5th was execution by the gallows . It was confirmed by the Executive Council on December 7th and enforced on December 18th.
consequences
The case received considerable public attention, including in the media, with voices speaking for the perpetrators. For example, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald said: "the whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly court documents on which we have already wasted too much time" (dt. : the whole gang of black animals is not worth the money it will cost the colonists to print the ridiculous court reports we have already wasted too much time on.)
John Fleming, the leader of the killers, was never caught. He is believed to have later been responsible for further massacres in the Liverpool Plains and the New England region . One of the unconvicted perpetrators, John Blake, committed suicide in 1852.
In 2000, a memorial for the victims of the massacre was erected at the then crime scene , consisting of a granite block. Every year there is a memorial service for the victims. In January 2005 the memorial was vandalized , whereby the words “murderer”, “women” and “children” on the memorial stone were made illegible.
National monument
As of June 7, 2008, 23 hectares of the site on which the massacre took place have been entered as a national monument by the Australian federal government on the Australian National Heritage List . In its statement by Peter Garrett , Minister for Environment and Heritage and the Arts , the government emphasized that a massacre of Aborigines led to the conviction of whites for the first time in Australian history.
Web links
- environment.gov.au (PDF; 20 kB): Site plan of the protected area (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ In Australia station can stand for farm or ranch .
- ↑ environment.gov.au ( Memento of the original from November 16, 2011 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. (PDF; 20 kB): Myall Creek Masacre and Memorial Site , in English, accessed October 4, 2011
Coordinates: 29 ° 46 ′ 39 ″ S , 150 ° 42 ′ 53.8 ″ E