The Gippsland massacres were a series of mass murders of Gunai Kurnai people, an Aboriginal Australian people living in East Gippsland, Victoria, committed by European settlers and the Aboriginal Police during the Australian frontier wars.
The perpetrators often did not record or speak about their actions for fear of prosecution and the death penalty under colonial law, as happened after the Myall Creek massacre. The names of many of the perpetrators remain on the rivers, roads and islands of Gippsland. Scots pastoralist Angus McMillan played a significant role in the massacres of Gippsland in retribution for the murder of a fellow pastoralist by the Gurnai Kurnai people. [1] [2] [3]
Gippsland squatter Henry Meyrick wrote in a letter home to his relatives in England in 1846:
The following list of massacres was compiled by settlers from white perpetrator sources such as letters and diaries, and thus does not take into account Gunai Kurnai knowledge of the history of occupation. [6]
In 2020, the Wellington Shire Council voted against removing the monuments that celebrate Angus McMillan, with the vote finishing 5–4. Cr Rossetti, Cr Bye, Cr Ripper, Cr Hole and Cr Stephens voted against the movement despite McMillan's ties to genocide.[ citation needed ]
Morwell is a town in the Latrobe Valley area of Gippsland, in South-Eastern Victoria, Australia approximately 152 km (94 mi) east of Melbourne.
The Gunaikurnai or Gunai/Kurnai people, also referred to as the Gunnai or Kurnai, are an Aboriginal Australian nation of south-east Australia. They are the Traditional Custodians of most of present-day Gippsland and much of the southern slopes of the Victorian Alps. The Gunaikurnai nation is composed of five major clans. Many of the Gunaikurnai people resisted early European squatting and subsequent settlement during the nineteenth century, resulting in a number of deadly confrontations between Europeans and the Gunaikurnai. There are about 3,000 Gunaikurnai people alive today, predominantly living in Gippsland. The Gunaikurnai dialects are the traditional language of the Gunaikurnai people, although there are very few fluent speakers today.
Stratford is a town on the Avon River in Victoria, Australia, 232 kilometres (144 mi) east of Melbourne on the Princes Highway in Shire of Wellington. At the 2016 census, Stratford had a population of 2617. The town services the local regional community and travellers on the Princes Highway. Stratford's principal industries are dairying, sheep, cattle and horse breeding and vegetable crops. The town has numerous coffee shops and cafes, a cellar door for a local winery, Design Gallery, model railway shop, a pub, parks and playgrounds for car travelers to break their journey.
Warrigal Creek is the site of an 1843 massacre of Gunai/Kurnai people in colonial Victoria, during the Australian frontier wars. 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.
Angus McMillan was a Scottish-born explorer, pioneer pastoralist, and perpetrator of several of the Gippsland massacres of Gunai people.
A Nargun, according to Gunai/Kurnai tribal legends, a fierce half-human half-stone creature that lived in the Den of Nargun, a cave under a rock overhang behind a small waterfall located in the Mitchell River National Park, Victoria, Australia. Aboriginal legend describes the Nargun as a beast entirely made of stone except for its hands, arms and breast. The fierce creature would drag unwary travellers into its den. Any weapon directed against it would be turned back on its owner.
The Gunaikurnai or Gunai/Kurnai language, also spelt Gunnai, Kurnai, Ganai, Gaanay, or Kurnay KUR-nye) is an Australian Aboriginal dialect cluster of the Gunaikurnai people in Gippsland in south-east Victoria. Bidawal was either a divergent dialect or a closely related language.
The white woman of Gippsland, or the captive woman of Gippsland, was supposedly a European woman rumoured to have been held against her will by Aboriginal Gunaikurnai people in the Gippsland region of Australia in the 1840s. Her supposed plight excited searches and much speculation at the time, though nothing to put her existence beyond the level of rumour was ever found.
The following lists events that happened during 1841 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1840 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1842 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1843 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1844 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1846 in Australia.
The following lists events that happened during 1850 in Australia.
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.
The Brataualung are an Indigenous Australian people, one of the five tribes of Gippsland, in the state of Victoria, Australia, and part of a wider regional grouping known as the Kurnai.
Frederick Taylor was an English mass murderer, colonial property manager and agricultural capitalist in the Victoria region of Australia. He is best known as the main perpetrator of the Murdering Gully massacre which occurred in 1839 along Mount Emu Creek near Mount Noorat. This massacre resulted in the deaths of about 40 men, women and children of the Tarnbeere gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrung people. Taylor was also involved in other shooting deaths of Aboriginal people near Geelong and Lake Colac. After moving to Gippsland, he was involved in the frontier conflict there with the Gunai people. Despite his responsibility for the killings being well known and well documented, Taylor was never convicted and enjoyed high esteem in British colonial society until his death in 1872.
The Warrowen massacre was an apparent mass killing of Bunurong people by a group of Kurnai people in the vicinity of present-day Brighton, Victoria, Australia. It is dated to the early 1830s, close in time to the founding of Melbourne. The killing was recorded separately several years later by William Thomas and George Augustus Robinson, based on testimony from Aboriginal sources. Thomas stated that at least 60 people had been killed. According to Robinson, the massacre contributed to the end of an entire Bunurong clan, the Yowengerre, allowing a Kurnai clan to take over their territory.
