Campaspe Plains massacre

Last updated

Campaspe Plains massacre
DateJune 1839
Location
Plains near the Campaspe Creek, Central Victoria
Result European victory, a massacre
Belligerents
Charles Hutton and Mounted Police Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung unknown clans
Commanders and leaders
Charles Hutton Unknown
Strength
Unknown Unknown
Casualties and losses
None Up to 40 killed in first event, 6 killed, unknown number wounded in second event

Campaspe Plains massacre, occurred in 1839 in Central Victoria, Australia as a reprisal raid against Aboriginal resistance to the invasion and occupation of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung lands. [1] Charles Hutton took over the Campaspe run, located near the border of Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung, in 1838 following sporadic confrontations.

Contents

Cause

In April 1839 five Indigenous people were killed by three white men. In response Hugh Bryan, a shepherd, and James Neill, a hut keeper were killed in May 1839 by Aboriginals identified as Taungurung, who had robbed a hut of bedding, clothes, guns and ammunition and also ran a flock of 700 sheep off the property, possibly as retribution for the earlier Aboriginal deaths.[ citation needed ] The Taungurung were enemies of the Dja Dja Wurrung. [2]

Massacre

Hutton immediately put together an armed party of settlers who tracked and finally caught the Aboriginals with a flock of sheep 48 kilometres (30 mi) away near the Campaspe Creek. An armed confrontation between the settlers and Aboriginals occurred for up to half an hour. Hutton claimed privately that nearly 40 Aboriginal people were killed. [2]

The following month Hutton led a party of mounted police and came upon a party of local Dja Dja Wurrung whom Hutton had previously forced off his run, even though these people had been friendly to him since his arrival. The Aboriginal camp near the Campaspe Creek was charged by Hutton and the mounted police with no warning given, with six Dja Dja Wurrung being shot in the back and killed as they tried to flee and others wounded. [1] [2]

Charles Parker, the Assistant Protector of Aborigines for the region, described the massacre as:

...it was a deliberately planned illegal reprisal on the aborigines, conducted on the principle advocated by many persons in this colony, that when any offence is committed by unknown individuals, the tribe to which they belong should be made to suffer for it. [2]

George Robinson described Charles Hutton and his attitude to "the blacks" in his journal of 24 January 1840:

Mr H. avowed [his approach to the natives] to be terror; to keep the natives in subjection by fear, and to punish them wholesale, that is, by tribes and communities. If a member of a tribe offend, destroy the whole. He believed they must be exterminated. [2]

No official action was taken against Hutton.

See also

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kulin nation</span> Indigenous Australian ethnic group

The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in south central Victoria, Australia. Their collective territory extends around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taungurung</span>

The Taungurung people, also spelt Daung Wurrung, are an Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language.

The murnong or yam daisy is any of the plants Microseris walteri, Microseris lanceolata and Microseris scapigera, which are an important food source for many Aboriginal peoples in southern parts of Australia. Murnong is a Woiwurrung word for the plant, used by the Wurundjeri people and possibly other clans of the Kulin nation. They are called by a variety of names in the many different Aboriginal Australian languages, and occur in many oral traditions as part of Dreamtime stories.

The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of southwestern Victoria. They are the traditional owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. Their land includes much of the Budj Bim heritage areas. The Kerrup Jmara are a clan of the Gunditjmara, whose traditional lands are around Lake Condah. The Koroitgundidj are another clan group, whose lands are around Tower Hill.

The following lists events that happened during 1839 in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Djadjawurrung</span> Aboriginal Australian people in Victoria

Dja Dja Wurrung, also known as the Djaara or Jajowrong people and Loddon River tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian people who are the traditional owners of lands including the watersheds of the Loddon and Avoca rivers in the Bendigo region of central Victoria, Australia. They are part of the Kulin alliance of Aboriginal Victorian peoples. There are 16 clans, which adhere to a patrilineal system. Like other Kulin peoples, there are two moieties: Bunjil the eagle and Waa the crow.

Munangabum was an influential clan head of the Liarga balug and Spiritual Leader or neyerneyemeet of the Dja Dja Wurrung people in central Victoria, Australia.

The Jardwadjali (Yartwatjali), also known as the Jaadwa, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria, whose traditional lands occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd (Grampians) and west to Lake Bringalbert.

The Djab Wurrung, also spelt Djabwurrung, Tjapwurrung, Tjap Wurrung, or Djapwarrung, people are Aboriginal Australians whose country is the volcanic plains of central Victoria from the Mount William Range of Gariwerd in the west to the Pyrenees range in the east encompassing the Wimmera River flowing north and the headwaters of the Hopkins River flowing south. The towns of Ararat, Stawell and Hamilton are within their territory. There were 41 Djab Wurrung clans who formed an alliance with the neighbouring Jardwadjali people through intermarriage, shared culture, trade and moiety system before colonisation. Their lands were conquered but never ceded.

The Blood Hole massacre occurred in what is now the Australian state of Victoria at Middle Creek, 10–11 kilometres (6–7 mi) from Glengower Station between Clunes and Newstead at the end of 1839 or early 1840, killing an unknown number of Aboriginals from the Grampians district who were on their way home after trading goods for green stone axe blanks that they obtained near what is now Lancefield.

The Djargurd Wurrong are Aboriginal Australian people of the Western district of the State of Victoria, and traditionally occupied the territory between Mount Emu Creek and Lake Corangamite.

Murdering Gully, formerly known as Puuroyup to the Djargurd Wurrung people, is the site of an 1839 massacre of 35–40 people of the Tarnbeere Gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrung in the Camperdown district of Victoria, Australia. It is a gully on Mount Emu Creek, where a small stream adjoins from Merida Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Stone Parker</span> Australian politician

Edward Stone Parker (1802–1865) was a Methodist preacher and assistant Protector of Aborigines in the Aboriginal Protectorate established in the Port Phillip District of colonial New South Wales under George Augustus Robinson in 1838. He established and administered the Franklinford Aboriginal Protectorate Station in the territory of the Dja Dja Wurrung people from January 1841 to the end of 1848.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kulin languages</span> Pama–Nyungan language group of Australia

The Kulin languages are a group of closely related languages of the Kulin people, part of the Kulinic branch of Pama–Nyungan.

Dhauwurd Wurrung is a term used for a group of languages spoken by various groups of the Gunditjmara people of the Western District of Victoria, Australia. Keerray Woorroong is regarded by some as a separate language, by others as a dialect. The dialect continuum consisted of various lects such as Kuurn Kopan Noot, Big Wurrung, Gai Wurrung, and others. There was no traditional name for the entire dialect continuum and it has been classified and labelled differently by different linguists and researchers. The group of languages is also referred to as Gunditjmara language and the Warrnambool language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Registered Aboriginal Party</span>

A Registered Aboriginal Party (RAP) is a recognised representative body of an Aboriginal Australian people per the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 (Vic.), whose function is to protect and manage the Aboriginal cultural heritage in the state of Victoria in Australia.

The Battle of Broken River, also known as the Faithfull Massacre, sometimes spelt Faithful Massacre, is a battle that took place in 1838 when 20 Aboriginal Australians attacked 18 European settlers, killing eight of them.

The Eumeralla Wars were the violent encounters over the possession of land between British colonists and Gunditjmara Aboriginal people in what is now called the Western District area of south west Victoria.

The Waterloo Plains massacre occurred in June 1838 when 8 to 23 Djadjawurrung Aboriginal people were killed in a reprisal raid for the killing of two convict servants and theft of sheep.

References

  1. 1 2 Ian D. Clark, Scars in the Landscape. A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803 - 1859, Aboriginal Studies Press, 1995, ISBN   0-85575-281-5
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Bain Attwood, pp7-9 My Country. A history of the Djadja Wurrung 1837-1864, Monash Publications in History:25, 1999, ISSN   0818-0032