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The Richmond River massacres were a series of murders of groups of Indigenous Australians and European Australians in the region around the Richmond River in north-eastern New South Wales in the mid-nineteenth century.
In 1842, five European men were killed at Pelican Creek, 10 kilometres north of Coraki. The incident led to a reprisal known as the Evans Head massacre.
The following is a reminiscence of Mr. T.J. Olive of Woodburn, recorded in 1928. Mr Olive claimed his father George was a squatter and had taken part in the 1842 massacre:
Squatters and Sawyers had set up a storehouse at Pelican Creek where sailing vessels left supplies and picked up loads of red cedar. Soon after the storehouse was established provisions were left with five men and one boy who were to guard the supplies before they were redistributed to other areas. One morning at dawn the Aboriginals crept up and massacred the men. Only the boy who escaped into the bush was left to tell the tale. Later when teamsters arrived at the storehouse, they were shocked to find the horribly mutilated bodies of the five men and that all the goods had been stolen or totally destroyed. Word soon spread to other Europeans who became frightened. They formed a mounted posse and had a simple plan to take revenge with their muskets and pistols. They mustered all the men who could be spared and when the avenging party got together it numbered eleven. They advanced the theory that the foul deed was the work of the coastal tribe. [1]
The 1842 massacre of 100 Bundjalung Nation Aboriginal people at Evans Head by Europeans, was variously said to have been in retaliation for the killing of 'a few sheep', or the killing of 'five European men' from the 1842 Pelican Creek tragedy. [1]
It is also referred to as the 'Goanna Headland massacre'.
In 1853-4, at an area close to the old East Ballina Golf Course, the Native Police killed between 30 and 40 Aboriginal people of the Arakwal tribe of the Bundjalung people, including men, women and children while they slept, and many who got away were badly wounded. [2]
It is believed that some Aboriginal people from north of the Tweed River had murdered some Europeans and that the murderers had fled south towards the Richmond River
On the night prior to the raid, the police contingent which included both Native Police trackers and European troopers, stayed at James Ainsworth's father's Public House, 'The Sailor's Home'. At 3 am the following morning the Native Mounted Police patrol rode out to where between 200 and 300 tribes-people lay asleep in camp. The Nyangbal East Ballina clan of the Bundjalung Nation had a camping ground on the slope of the hill facing the valley near Black Head. The troopers and trackers surrounded the camp and opened fire at close range. After the carnage, the Native Mounted Police patrol then headed north towards the Tweed River.
The matter was reported to the NSW Government but no action against the perpetrators was taken.
When the Aboriginal survivors eventually returned to the camp, they sought no reprisals and took no revenge against the Native Police trackers and European troopers involved in the massacre. [3] [ unreliable source? ]
There is an Aboriginal oral tradition that tells stories of escape, of people who were shot and were laid to rest in the forests north of the camp, and of those who were driven off the cliff at Black Head.
There is a belief that some victims of the massacre were never buried, their bodies being either dumped off the cliff at Black Head or abandoned on Angels Beach. [4]
The Nyangbal South Ballina clan of the Bundjalung Nation, numbered about 200 people during the early development of Ballina Township.
During the early 1860s a mass poison attempt was made against the clan using poisoned flour given to make damper. After taking the flour to their camp, the older people and children of the Nyangbal tribe refused to eat the damper as it was a new food. Upon waking the next morning, survivors found nearly 150 adults dead. [3] [ unreliable source? ]
Ballina is a town in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, and the seat of the Ballina Shire local government area. It lies 740 km (460 mi) north of Sydney and 185 km (115 mi) south of Brisbane. Ballina's urban population at the end of 2021 was 46,190. The town lies on the Richmond River and serves as a gateway to Byron Bay.
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.
The Kalkadoon are descendants of an Indigenous Australian tribe living in the Mount Isa region of Queensland. Their ancestral tribe has been called "the elite of the Aboriginal warriors of Queensland". In 1884 they were massacred at "Battle Mountain" by settlers and police.
The Wadawurrung nation, also called the Wathaurong, Wathaurung, and Wadda Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the area near Melbourne, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula in the state of Victoria. They are part of the Kulin alliance. The Wathaurong language was spoken by 25 clans south of the Werribee River and the Bellarine Peninsula to Streatham. The area they inhabit has been occupied for at least the last 25,000 years.
The following lists events that happened during 1842 in Australia.
Australian native police were specialised mounted military units consisting of detachments of Aboriginal troopers under the command of White officers appointed by colonial governments. These units existed in various forms in colonial Australia during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. From temporary base camps and barracks, Native Police were primarily used to patrol the often vast geographical areas along the colonial frontier in order to conduct indiscriminate raids and punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people. The Native Police proved to be a brutally destructive instrument in the disintegration and dispossession of Indigenous Australians. Armed with rifles, carbines and swords, they were also deployed to escort surveying groups, gold convoys and groups of pastoralists and prospectors.
The Bundjalung people, also spelled Bunjalung, Badjalang and Bandjalang, are Aboriginal Australians who are the original custodians of a region from around Grafton in northern coastal New South Wales to Beaudesert in south-east Queensland. The region is located approximately 550 kilometres (340 mi) northeast of Sydney and 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of Brisbane that now includes the Bundjalung National Park.
Billibellary was a song maker and influential ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan during the early years of European settlement of Melbourne. He was known by various names including Billi-billeri, Billibellary, Jika Jika, Jacky Jacky and Jaga Jaga. He was an astute and diplomatic leader, described as powerfully built with an influence and reputation that extended well beyond his clan.
The Bundjalung people are a large Aboriginal nation, a federation of a number of groups of clans which occupy the land from Grafton on the Clarence river of northern New South Wales north to the town of Ipswich and the Beaudesert, in southern Queensland, and down around the other side of the Great Dividing Range and back to Grafton. In the north, Bundjalung Nation shares a border with Yuggera Nation and Barrunggam Nation; to the east the Tasman Sea ; to the south Gumbaynggirr Nation; and to the west it borders Ngarabal Nation.
The Yugambeh ( YOO-gum-BERR, also known as the Minyangbal ( MI-nyung-BUHL, or Nganduwal ( NGAHN-doo-WUL. are an Aboriginal Australian people of south-east Queensland and the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, their territory lies between the Logan and Tweed rivers. A term for an Aboriginal of the Yugambeh tribe is Mibunn, which is derived from the word for the Wedge-tailed Eagle. Historically, some anthropologists have erroneously referred to them as the Chepara, the term for a first-degree initiate. Archaeological evidence indicates Aboriginal people have occupied the area for tens of thousands of years. By the time European colonisation began, the Yugambeh had a complex network of groups, and kinship. The Yugambeh territory is subdivided among clan groups with each occupying a designated locality, each clan having certain rights and responsibilities in relation to their respective areas.
The Kombumerri clan are one of nine distinct named clan estate groups of the Yugambeh people and the name refers to the Indigenous people of the Nerang area on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Australia
The Border Police of New South Wales was a frontier policing body introduced by the colonial government of New South Wales with the passing of the Crown Lands Unauthorised Occupation Act 1839.
The Western Bundjalung or Bundjalung people are an aggregation of tribes of Australian Aboriginal people who inhabit north-east NSW along the Clarence River, now within the Clarence Valley, Glen Innes Severn Shire, Kyogle, Richmond Valley, and Tenterfield Shire Council areas.
Edric Norfolk Vaux Morisset was a high-ranking officer in both the paramilitary and civilian police forces of the New South Wales and Queensland colonies of the British Empire. He was Commandant of the paramilitary Native Police from 1857 to 1861 and concurrently became the first Inspector General of Police in Queensland in 1860. Morisset afterwards was appointed Superintendent of Police at Bathurst and then later on at Maitland. From 1883 until his death in 1887, Morisset was Superintendent of the Southern Districts and Deputy Inspector General of Police in New South Wales.
John Murray was a Scottish officer in the Australian native police in the British colonies of New South Wales and Queensland. He was an integral part of this paramilitary force for nearly twenty years, supporting European colonisation in south-eastern, central and northern Queensland. He also had an important role in recruiting troopers for the Native Police from the Riverina District in New South Wales.
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.
Robert Arthur Johnstone was an officer in the Native Police paramilitary force which operated in the British colony of Queensland. He was stationed at various locations in central and northern Queensland between 1867 and 1880 conducting regular punitive expeditions against clans of Indigenous Australians who resisted colonisation. He also participated in several surveying expeditions in Far North Queensland, including those under the leadership of George Elphinstone Dalrymple.
Criminal activity in New South Wales, Australia is combated by the New South Wales Police Force and the New South Wales court system, while statistics about crime are managed by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Modern Australian states and cities, including New South Wales, have some of the lowest crime rates recorded globally with Australia ranked the 13th safest nation and Sydney ranked the 5th safest city globally. As of September 2018 the City of Penrith (475.7) and City of Blacktown (495.1). Rural areas have comparatively high crime rates per 100,000 with rural shires such as Walgett Shire (1350.3) and Moree Plains Shire (1236.2) having some of the highest violent crime rates in the state. The overall NSW crime rate has been in steady decline for many years.
Several recorded instances of mass poisonings of Aboriginal Australians occurred during the British colonisation of Australia. Aboriginal resistance to colonisation led settlers to look for ways to kill or drive them off their land. While the settlers would typically attempt to eliminate Aboriginal resistance through massacres, occasionally they would attempt to secretly poison them as well. Typically, poisoned food and drink would be given to Aboriginal people or left out in the open where they could find it.