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They travelled with Edward Hobson, who was attempting to find an overland route to Gippsland. [8], Michael Connor: The Massacre Maps shoddy research, In order to export livestock, the squatters needed a port and grazing land in Gippsland, as it was the closest part of the mainland to Van Diemens Land. 0000001936 00000 n
Truth-telling about the wrongs of the past is necessary for reconciliation. In Chapter 1 of Gippsland Massacres, he states: There was a brigade formed by McMillan, which according to Gippslander, was called the Highland Brigade, and mainly consisted of Scotsmen who swore before God and their Queen not to inform on their fellow desperados, and to maintain complete secrecy of the affair in which they were about to participate. Gardners evidence for Angus McMillans involvement in the Warrigal Creek massacre consists of a story written for The Gap school magazine in 1925 by William Hoddinott under the pseudonym of Gippslander. Events.com Browse is curated for you to find and attend events you love. It is free to attend this event, but bookings are essential. e8
m-T>6R'WrqPWUVe)0'Yn1UF]2|SOWS)^h|6xy. 4 0 obj qgAHrgAX8]eAVi a"0Uc|sQ d$uIOrE&n2"c,%$qHFWpTWn>!bB):I\PhE17 Third, Gardners narrative is constructed around a story written for schoolchildren in 1925, a story that could at best be considered as folk history. There is now a documentary on the Warrigal Creek Massacre, near Woodside, north of Yarram. 2 0 obj
We acknowledge that in our past, as in most nations, bad things have happened. However, Thomas, Hatcher and Meyrick did not mention Warrigal Creek as Gardner claimsand they certainly did not mention McMillan. [38], I knew two blacks who, though wounded, came out of that hole alive. He was joined by detachments of the Border and Native Police. So far, this has been lacking. [11] The violent response from the Kurnai was the same as that meted out to their tribal enemies when defending their territory. The Warrigal Creek Massacre, a documentary exploring the history of colonisation in Gippsland in the 1800s, is screening at the Memo in Healesville on Wednesday 27 February at 6:45pm. Wayne, a very valuable and comprehensive article. An important part of Australian history, necessary for reconciliation. Among the most shocking is the Jack Smith massacre (Warrigal Creek, Victoria) in 1843, where about 150-170 Brataualang people were killed over 5 days in retaliation for the killing of one single personRonald Macalister, the nephew of a local squatter. Coincidentally or not, the Australasian newspaper published stories between 1923 and 1925 with a one-eyed Aboriginal character named Bing-eye; the term club foot was ubiquitous. Chapters 6 and 7 of Gippsland Massacres retell the story. The statistical discrepancies likely emerged because Macmillan's group killed Aboriginal people at five different locations in the area. His body was mutilated and stripped, and it was found the next day by an Aboriginal boy in his employment. endobj An excellent and detailed correction of Gardner. Their prior absence from the discourse may indicate the level of research in this area. In a letter to his family in England dated April 1846, the Gippsland squatter Henry Meyrick said: .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. Warrigal Creek Massacre: A Truth-telling Documentary. This 50-minute documentary directed by Lisa Gye and Andrew Dodd examines a day in 1843 when 150 Indigenous men, women and children were slaughtered on the banks of what is now Warrigal Creek in Gippsland. 0000002765 00000 n
Robinsons comments are significant in that he was revealing that escaped convicts were responsible for mistreating the Kurnai. Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory. No reason was given for the murder. From 1839, Angus McMillan tried on numerous occasions to reach Corner Inlet from the Monaro District and finally succeeded in February 1841 when he reached the tidal bank of the Albert River. [50] This raises two issues: first, this is a fallacious misuse of the material; Hatcher said the bones might be gathered uphis might be has transmogrified into Gardners were. << /Type /Page /Parent 3 0 R /Resources 6 0 R /Contents 4 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 595 842] Massacre [ edit] [40] Otherwise, he has no involvement in the story. 0000034566 00000 n
Thomas wrote in April 1845: He said he and another man had come unarmed from Gippsland. The stories were republished as The Book of the Bush in 1898. [54] Meyrick arrived in Gippsland in 1845 so he was not a witness to anything before that date. [6], In contrast, there is an implicit assumption in Gardners work that the Kurnai were passive victims of European violence, but this does not do them justice. from His words continue to have influence and have provided a convenient but misplaced source of outrageand how does the community benefit from having negative sentiments engendered on a false premise? Macalisters letter to the Sydney Morning Herald in 1843 and a search of Trove and the PROV websites reveal that this statement is incorrect. [citation needed] The group of Gaelic-speaking Scotsmen was known as the "Highland Brigade". The story was written anonymously for a magazine for primary school children eighty-two years after the incident described, without attribution, and by someone who was not there. This included five in the Border Police, one of whom held a ticket-of-leave. The validity of the will remains a problem. lizabeth Balderstone leads a lifestyle that many city dwellers fantasise about, on a farm in Victorias Gippsland, surrounded by friendly sheep, with a humble little creek just 60 metres from her house. In October that year, ninety-seven Kurnai warriors made a revenge raid into Bunurong territory. %PDF-1.4
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I asked him if he was not afraid of meeting the Blacks, his reply was, Blks Sir no fear of them now they would run away as soon as they see a white man but there are not many left, he said he had a Brother who had been in Gippsland from the first his name was Bunton & kept a Public house in Gippsland by the Dirty Water Holes & a cattle station joining to Mr. McAllister who was killed, that after Mr. McAllisters murder great slaughter of the blacks took place and that on his brothers station a cart load of Blks bones might be gath.rd up [49]. The creek is on a farm 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Sale, and 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Melbourne, in the South Gippsland area of Victoria, Australia. Gardner omitted a part of the quote that indicates Hatcher travelled to Gippsland with a man named Bennett. Elizabeth Balderstone leads a lifestyle that many city dwellers fantasise about, on a farm in Victorias Gippsland, surrounded by friendly sheep, with a humble little creek just 60 metres from her house. People need to feel that their voices and stories are heard and we need to listen with humility because theres not just emotional hurt there, but also terrible physical pain, Irving says. [3] Their customs and society were studied in detail by Alfred W. Howitt, but due to violence and the effects of disease, alcohol and the mission system, much traditional knowledge had already been lost by the time he began recording information in the mid-1860s. 0000010851 00000 n
She worries Australia is still not ready to listen. [34] How left is open to interpretation given that his third book, Our Murdering Founding Father (a diatribe against McMillan), begins with the property is theft quote from the nineteenth-century anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. [13], The squatting runs were large tracts of unfenced landMacalister had 100 square mileswhere livestock was left in charge of shepherds and hut keepers whose job it was to tend the livestock and prevent it from straying. GLaWAC has been given permission to screen the Warrigal Creek Massacre film at our office at Forestec. They will be immediately recommended to interested users. Please call Drouin Library for more information 56 251564. There are two significant aspects to this story: Dunderdale specifically named Lachlan Macalister as the perpetrator and he added the caveat on the death toll. Please try again. 3 0 obj
A second version of Hoddinotts story was published in the Gippsland Times and Bairnsdale Advertiser in 1940. The return did not include ex-convicts.[28]. Around 60 Indigenous Australians were killed, and many more were wounded. Perhaps the most apt way to name these outrageous and brutal occurrences is that they be called after the man who organised and perpetrated them: Angus McMillan. /TT4 13 0 R /TT6 15 0 R /TT1 10 0 R >> /XObject << /Im2 16 0 R /Im3 18 0 R Balderstone and Irving hope that one day Australia fully recognises the extent of the massacres through a truth and reconciliation commission. 0000117691 00000 n
Before declaring Hoddinotts tale to be completely reliable, it would have been prudent to analyse its contents. Captain Charles Tyers RN arrived in Gippsland in January 1844 as the Commissioner for Crown Lands. 6 0 obj We are yet to have a complete understanding of Gippsland in the 1840s. [4][1], Despite the widespread belief that MacMillan led several massacres, as of 2021[update] there are over 12 monuments in the Gippsland region dedicated to him. Gardner accepted Hoddinotts Gippslander story literally and uncritically, stating that it is completely reliable due to its vividness and detail. 0000115891 00000 n
The murder of Ranald Macalister may have been the pretext for an attack on the Kurnai at Warrigal Creek or Gammon Creek but this is not borne out by the contemporary historical record. ]V)cxN:*e%{ZXi8C
-[Y1d-ZZ. [2] His work has indeed permeated academic and public discourse, but it contains many unproven assertions that undermine his main premise, that McMillan was responsible for the massacre. 0000034127 00000 n
As fast as they put their heads up for breath, they were shot.. Their submission was denied; McMillan was renamed the Monash electorate instead. The newspapers and Charles Tyerss reports indicate that attacks by the Kurnai continued in 1844 and 1845; they did not end at Warrigal Creek in 1843. The Chief Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson (right), noted that the settlers were not the only ones to suffer from the convicts: There is however reason to fear that before the arrival of the Commissioner a large amount of mischief had been inflicted upon the original Inhabitants by the lawless and depraved who had infested the port from Van Diemens Land and the Middle Districts [present-day New South Wales] and that the instance recorded (if reports be true) is not the only one in which the Blacks have suffered. Your email address will not be published. 'Conspiracy of silence': how sabotaged inquiries fed massacre denials, Telling the truth about Australia's past will be painful but it will be liberating | Karen Mundine and Richard Weston, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. The historical record of this conflict up to 1843 is sparse and consists of just a few newspaper reports. 0000014051 00000 n
Produced and directed by Andrew Dodd and Lisa Gye. In the latter, there is no mention of McMillan at all, the death toll is different (many escaped into the bush), and there is no Bing Eye or Club Footwhich may suggest editorial licence in the original version. In other words, by coincidence, Robinson and Hatcher arrived in Gippsland at exactly the same time. The blacks were found encamped near a waterhole at Gammon Creek, and those who were shot were thrown into it, to the number, it was said, of about sixty, men, women, and children; but this was probably an exaggeration.[57]. a federal electorate was renamed that year. Peter Gardner deserves recognition for highlighting the reality of conflict in early Gippsland. <>
The newspapers indicate that the murder was not an isolated event and occurred within a wider context of anarchy and violence involving the Kurnai and the convicts. External Lived Experience Employment Opportunities, Complete the VMIAC Conference 2023 Survey, CEO Update with Craig Wallace | 17.02.2023, New Consumer Register Opportunity: Access Policy & Triage Guidelines, CEO Update with Craig Wallace | 03.02.2023, CEO Update with Craig Wallace | 20.01.2023. 6az Q";cM;|?)/ Bg~VK7QVK_6 +K}\\&h"DmWK+^>Pnu"8H8@sF1jO-@g?XjGs=2]v'x9y[6p X
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&DvB )vBqKwbm%aM!._aiaekE)hc_9lujzR10IrR--6HWXSA[Wd{DS#~}wDvenr,rFU-}aOe(d}b << /ProcSet [ /PDF /Text /ImageB /ImageC /ImageI ] /ColorSpace << /Cs1 7 0 R << /Length 5 0 R /Filter /FlateDecode >> [9], With an overland route opened by McMillan and a rudimentary settlement and port established on the Albert River at Port Albert, squatters began occupying the plains; by the end of 1844, the entire Gippsland squatting district had been occupied. Thats not to say they dont exist, but if you have knowledge of such I would be grateful to know it. First though, it is necessary to establish the circumstances that led to the European settlement of Gippsland and the resulting conflict with the indigenous Kurnai people, which is the root of the massacre story. {
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This National Reconciliation week, reflect on the hidden history of the 1843 massacre of the Gurnaikurnai people at Warrigal Creek. I learned a lot I had not previously known, and am still thinking about. This 50-minute documentary directed by Lisa Gye and Andrew Dodd examines a day in 1843 when 150 Indigenous men, women and children were slaughtered on the banks of what is now Warrigal Creek in Gippsland. It was made to better understand our country's true history. )A?8yo]gNV2nj}cR2|#~M
>A$M#~A^EQ ~Q{?pO0!&S7),}w4Wf+(L1Qd (wL~MdP{"&r'|2b7##lQ$*GJA]a8[B&DKv-vk@,#dD B79 j2zKD#,mgF(3dz_5W^LaJhs/QwFrqP{q[U}d Production and research by Danielle Bowen, Jonathan Boadle, Jakeb Fair, Alex Owsianka, Don Sheil and Ben Winnell. This documentary was made by university journalism students and staff. Viki Sinclair, another member of the group who is descended from a member of McMillans Highland Brigade, says: Its the first time around here that the Aboriginal groups came across with groups like ours to work on something like this and it was something important to tackle and do together. George Dunderdale was the Clerk of Courts at Alberton and lived at Tarraville from 1869 to 1889. Could you help us please? Gardner himself refers to Nuntin as the station established by McMillan for Macalister on western side of the Avon River in October 1840. I ill not believe anything about aboriginal history that does not have the Indigenous Seal of Approval by the Bruce Pascoe Ministry of Truth. He has attached his own assertions to his source material without distinguishing between them, and these assertions are made without proof or explanation. They murdered, according to Gippslander, 150 at Warrigal Creek, which would make it one of the largest known massacres of Aborigines in Australian history.[36]. Robinson was also attempting to do the same, although by a different route. Bookings free, but essential. Frustrated with the hidden history of the massacre, the makers of this 50-minute documentary sought oral histories and combed through archival works to capture and relay the truth of Australias violent past. There exists little to no official documentation of the Warrigal Creek Massacre. Some basic research puts Hatchers account into context. [25], Tyers noted that the Kurnai were geographically isolated from all of the neighbouring Aboriginal tribes, none of whom could understand their language, and From this circumstance, the Chief Protector [Robinson] on his visit to Gipps Land last year, was unsuccessful in his attempts to communicate with them. The isolation from the other tribes meant that their fierce and predatory habits have received no check.[26]. endobj
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