Koonchera Point massacre

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Koonchera Point massacre
Part of Australian frontier wars
LocationMindiri Hole, near Lake Howitt in far north South Australia
Date1880s
Target Aboriginal Australians
Deaths200–500
PerpetratorsColonial police, Aboriginal Police
MotivePunitive

The Koonchera Point massacre was an attack by colonial police on Aboriginal Australians that took place at Mindiri Hole near Lake Howitt in far north South Australia in the 1880s. Part of the Australian frontier wars, sources indicate that it resulted in the deaths of between 200 and 500 Ngameni, Yawarrawarrka, Yandruwandha and Bugadji people. The event that led to the attack was the killing and eating of a bullock by Aboriginal people. The massacre was unreported by the police, but one of the five survivors related what occurred to an Arabana elder, and in 1971 he reported it to the linguist Luise Hercus. The elder described the massacre as "the end of the Mindiri people". [1]

Footnotes

  1. Elder 2003, pp. 219–221.

References