Aboriginal Massacres: Australia

After settlers on the Hawkesbury River were wounded by Bediagal people, the colonists armed themselves and pursued them. Seven or eight Bediagal were killed on the spot, which one historian calls the largest number of Aboriginal people killed in one encounter since the First Fleet arrived.

Death toll: 6–8 Bediagal people killed (database figure: 7); no colonists killed.

Sources: Collins (Fletcher 1975) vol. 1 p. 326; Turbet 2011 p. 81; Gapps 2018 p. 109.

After two settlers were allegedly killed in May 1795, Captain Paterson sent 66 soldiers of the NSW Corps to the Hawkesbury with orders to drive Aboriginal people away and hang the bodies of the dead on gibbets. The soldiers forced an Aboriginal boy to lead them to a Bediagal camp and fired on it at night. The Bediagal carried their dead away before the soldiers could display them.

Death toll: 7–8 Bediagal people killed (database figure: 7); no colonists killed.

Sources: Collins (Fletcher 1975) pp. 348–9; Connor 2002 p. 38.

A large group of Oyster Bay and Big River people on a kangaroo hunt came down the hill toward the new Risdon outpost, and Lieutenant William Moore ordered his soldiers to fire. Magistrate Jacob Mountgarret then had a carronade fired into the group, and armed men charged up the valley after them. A young child whose parents had both been killed was taken by the colonists.

Death toll: 5–50 Oyster Bay people killed in contemporary and later accounts (database estimate: 30); no colonists killed.

Sources: HRA III vol. 1 pp. 237–8; BPP 1831; Bonwick 1870; Windschuttle 2002; Tardif 2003.

Governor King sent detachments of the NSW Corps to protect outlying farms after Aboriginal attacks on them. The Sydney Gazette reported that several groups were attacked near the mountains and that Yaragowhy, Charley and four or five others fell. Historian Stephen Gapps suggests the toll may have been higher.

Death toll: 6–8 Bediagal/Dharug people killed (database figure: 7); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Gazette 5 and 12 May 1805; Gapps 2018 p. 173.

Thawa or Djirringany people attacked a sealing crew of eleven in daylight, trying to recover at least one woman the sealers had abducted. The sealers shot nine men and hung their bodies from trees to intimidate the survivors, but the bodies were taken down and carried away before dawn.

Death toll: 9 men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Gazette 6 April 1806 p. 2.

Chaplain Robert Knopwood recorded that Oyster Bay warriors had killed hundreds of sheep at Scantlands Plains. Settler James Hobbs later testified that the next day a detachment of the 48th Regiment shot Oyster Bay people in reprisal.

Death toll: 17–22 Oyster Bay people killed (17 per historian John West; 22 per Hobbs); no colonists killed.

Sources: Nicholls 1977 p. 216; BPP 1831 p. 50; West (Shaw 1971) p. 265.

During Governor Macquarie's punitive expedition, Captain James Wallis of the 46th Regiment found a Gundungurra camp on cliffs above a creek near Appin and advanced on it in a line by moonlight. Seven people were shot and about seven more died falling or fleeing over the cliffs. Five people were captured, and the bodies of two men named as leaders, Durelle and Kanabygal, were hung on McGee's Hill.

Date: 17 April 1816, about 1:00 am.

Death toll: At least 14 Gundungurra people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Wallis to Macquarie, May and June 1816, in Connor 2002 p. 51; Elder 2003 p. 25.

Lieutenant Weston, a landholder at Dapto, his overseer and several labourers and convicts attacked a Dharawal camp on the Minnamurra River and fired muskets into it. A witness told the Sydney Bench that the men and women at the river were all killed. The database notes this site is under review.

Death toll: At least 6 Dharawal people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Depositions to the Sydney Bench, 24 Oct 1818; Elder 2003 pp. 25–6.

A party of soldiers rowing up the Wilson River from the Port Macquarie penal settlement was speared at by Biripi people at their camp. The soldiers landed and attacked the camp; a settler's memoir boasted that it taught the Biripi to fear them.

Death toll: At least 6 Biripi men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Wingham Chronicle 16 Sept 1941 p. 4; Morris 2005.

Continuing upstream after Telegraph Point, the same party met another Biripi group at Ballangarra who disputed their right to pass. After failed attempts to communicate, the soldiers fired small shot into the group and killed six people. It is not certain which of two officers named Wilson led the party.

Date: 1824, between January and July.

Death toll: At least 6 Biripi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Wingham Chronicle 16 Sept 1941 p. 4; Morris 2005.

Fort Dundas, the first British settlement in northern Australia, was established by Captain Gordon Bremer's marines in 1824. The Tiwi resisted from the start, burning huts and spearing stock, and garrison members were killed, including the surgeon John Gold in 1827. Tiwi people were shot over the following years until the fort was abandoned in 1828, which the Tiwi remember in ceremony as a victory.

Death toll: At least 10 Tiwi people killed over the period; colonists were also killed in separate incidents.

Sources: Poignant 1996 p. 27; Reid 1990 p. 17; Powell 2016 pp. 90–1; Fredericksen 2024.

A settler at Bathurst, recorded as Antonio Roderigo, at first shared his potatoes with Wiradjuri people, then gathered settlers from the township when they took more. The settlers attacked the Wiradjuri, killing some and maiming others. Historian Stephen Gapps places the site at today's Birch Close, Kelso.

Death toll: At least 6 Wiradjuri people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Suttor 1887 p. 44; Gapps 2021 pp. 134–6.

Wiradjuri warriors killed seven colonial workers at stations across the Bathurst frontier within about 24 hours. The bodies were carted through Bathurst township, which shocked the colony. These killings led directly to the reprisals at Eight Mile Swamp Creek and to martial law that August.

Death toll: 7 colonists killed (named in the record); no Aboriginal deaths recorded in this event.

Sources: Gapps 2021 pp. 138–47.

After Wiradjuri warriors killed seven stockmen, a posse of soldiers of the 40th Regiment and mounted settlers fired a volley into a Wiradjuri group at Eight Mile Swamp Creek. The bodies of three women were recovered. Five men were tried for manslaughter in July 1824 and all were acquitted.

Date: June 1824 (dated between June 1823 and June 1824).

Death toll: At least 6 Wiradjuri people killed, including 3 women; no colonists killed.

Sources: Gapps 2021 pp. 145–6, 164–6; Sydney Gazette 8 July 1824 p. 2.

A traveller later recalled much bloodshed and slaughter at King's Plains during the 1824 Bathurst war. Under martial law, Major Morisset's troops and armed settlers were both involved in killings, which Gapps describes as an open slather of violence against the Wiradjuri.

Date: late 1824 (the database gives 1 September 1824; its end date is entered as 1 January 1824).

Death toll: At least 6 Wiradjuri people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Gazette 19 Jan 1832 p. 3; Gapps 2021.

Convict overseer Theophilus Chamberlain and two stockmen from Dabee farm met Wiradjuri warriors and killed their leader Blucher and two others. When the group returned the next day, the three men fired on them and then charged with bayonets.

Death toll: 16 Wiradjuri people killed in the second encounter (3 the day before); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Gazette 16 and 30 Sept 1824; Gapps 2021 pp. 6–7.

Missionary Lancelot Threlkeld recorded that Wiradjuri people were driven into a swamp and shot until all were dead, and that 45 heads were boiled down for their skulls. It most likely happened during Major Morisset's expeditions under martial law. No official report survives, but Wiradjuri resistance collapsed soon after and Windradyne came to Parramatta to make peace in December 1824.

Death toll: About 45 Wiradjuri people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Threlkeld (Gunson 1974); Connor 2002; Sydney Gazette Sept–Dec 1824.

After two convict shingle-splitters were killed at Blackmans Point, soldiers were sent from the Port Macquarie penal settlement. The superintendent of works later wrote that the soldiers surrounded the Biripi and shot a great many, then raped and shot captured women. The soldiers were sent to Sydney for trial but escaped punishment.

Date: late 1825 (between August 1825 and February 1826).

Death toll: About 20 Biripi people killed (single source); no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: H. L. Wilson, 'Early Days at Port Macquarie', 1889 (Port Macquarie News 5 Feb 1921 p. 4).

After shepherds were killed at Laycock's farm, soldiers and constables from Windsor went after the people they suspected. They attacked an Aboriginal camp at dawn in Garland Valley and bayoneted at least six people. Naval surgeon Peter Cunningham later wrote that the group turned out to have been friendly.

Date: mid to late November 1825, at dawn.

Death toll: At least 6 Wonnarua or Wiradjuri people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Cunningham 1827 vol. 2 pp. 38–40; Milliss 1992 pp. 54–5; Dunn 2020 pp. 158–9.

The crew of a coastal vessel landed at East Bay Neck and camped for the night. Warned by a convict crewman that a group was approaching, the crew waited by the fire and fired a volley of muskets that, in the account's words, strewed the ground with dead and dying.

Date: early 1826 (between January and May), at night.

Death toll: About 40 Paredarerme men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bonwick 1870 p. 123.

After Oyster Bay warriors allegedly killed Roberts, a convict servant of settler Thomas Buxton at Mayfield, a party went out after them. The local magistrate recorded only that one Aboriginal person was wounded, but Buxton's daughter later told historian James Bonwick that the party killed several people at their camp that night.

Date: 14 March 1826, at night.

Death toll: At least 6 Oyster Bay or Little Swanport people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 (1831) p. 840; Bonwick 1870 p. 117.

After Wonnarua men killed two convict workers, Henry Cottle and Morty Kernan, at a hut on the Bridgman estate near Ravensworth, magistrate Robert Scott led fourteen mounted police, convict stockmen and Aboriginal trackers after them. The party came suddenly on a Wonnarua camp that evening and killed at least 18 people, wounding more. Governor Ralph Darling sent Scott's report to London with his despatch that November.

Date: 1 September 1826, evening.

Death toll: At least 18 Wonnarua people killed and others wounded; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Gazette 9 Sept 1826 p. 3; The Australian 16 and 23 Sept 1826; NSW Governors' Despatches ML A1197 vol. 8 p. 344; Dunn 2020 pp. 167–71; Cotter 2022.

The Hobart Town Gazette reported a clash between stockkeepers and many Aboriginal people on the island's north side, in which many were badly wounded if not killed. The paper claimed the stockmen had fired in self-defence after an attack on their cattle.

Death toll: At least 6 Pallittore (Port Sorell) people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hobart Town Gazette 23 Sept 1826 p. 2.

When Oyster Bay people led by Kickerterpoller (Black Tom), then the most feared warrior in the colony, were seen near Pittwater, District Constable Alexander Laing, four soldiers of the 40th Regiment and stockkeepers killed 14 and captured 10, Kickerterpoller among them. The captives were released a month later. Chief District Constable Gilbert Robertson first admitted the killings publicly in 1830, saying the police had killed fourteen people trapped on a hill.

Death toll: 14 Oyster Bay people killed and 10 captured; no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/331 pp. 194–5; Colonial Times 15 Dec 1826; Hobart Town Gazette 16 Dec 1826; BPP 1831 p. 49; Ryan 2012 pp. 87–9; Cox 2021 pp. 90–101.

After a shepherd on E. G. Cory's estate killed an Aboriginal dog that had attacked sheep, Wonnarua warriors wounded him and burned grass and wheat. Armed estate workers later crept up on a camp of men, women and children gathering maize and opened fire, and some of those who fled drowned. A witness said decades later that none of the men they were after was among the dead.

Death toll: At least 12 Wonnarua people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: The Australian 3 Mar 1827; The Monitor 9 Mar 1827; Sydney Gazette 22 and 24 Mar 1827; Maitland Mercury 25 Aug 1877; Debenham 2020.

After the killing of two settlers, Thomas Rawling and Edward Green, an armed party of field police, soldiers, settlers and convicts pursued Oyster Bay people and found them at breakfast near the Macquarie River. The Colonial Times first reported not less than thirty killed, then claimed no one had died. Settler James George's memoir says the party fired volley after volley, killing some two score.

Date: 12 April 1827, at breakfast time.

Death toll: 30–40 Oyster Bay people killed (database figure: 40); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hobart Town Gazette 5 May 1827; Colonial Times 4, 11 and 25 May 1827; BPP 1831 pp. 48–9; George 2002 p. 13; Ryan 2012 p. 90.

After stockkeeper Richard Addey was killed, about 30 constables, soldiers of the 40th Regiment and settlers tracked Oyster Bay people to a camp near Sally Peak, about 10 km from Bushy Plains. Participant James Gumm told James Bonwick that they surrounded the sleepers in pairs and, at the leader's whistle, poured volley after volley into the groups around the campfires.

Date: Early May 1827 (between 1 and 15 May), at night.

Death toll: At least 6 Oyster Bay people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bonwick 1870 pp. 98–9.

After Pallittore people killed stockkeeper William Knight, whom George Augustus Robinson later said killed Aboriginal people for sport, Police Magistrate Peter Mulgrave sent Corporals William Shiners and James Lingan, a field constable and four mounted stockmen after them. They surrounded a camp at dawn and killed many people. Reports ranged from about 30 to 60 killed and wounded, while the official report admitted only one person possibly wounded.

Date: 26 June 1827, at dawn.

Death toll: 30–60 Pallittore people killed or wounded (database figure: 30); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 pp. 15–37; Colonial Times 6 July 1827; Breen 2001; Ryan 2008 pp. 492–3; Plomley 1966 p. 219, 2008 p. 254.

The day after the first attack, Corporal Shiners' party struck a second Pallittore camp at Quamby Brook. They allegedly killed 30 people, again in reprisal for the death of William Knight.

Death toll: About 30 Pallittore people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Colonial Times 6 July 1827; TAHO CSO 1/316 pp. 15–45; Plomley 2008 p. 254; Breen 2001 p. 27; Ryan 2008 p. 493.

After Pallittore people killed two shepherds at Dairy Plains on 3 July, the same party of soldiers, a constable and stockmen made a third reprisal raid. A stockkeeper later told Robinson that the soldiers killed nine or ten people, including men, women and children.

Death toll: 9–10 Pallittore people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Colonial Times 6 July 1827; Plomley 1966 p. 219, 2008 p. 254.

In reprisal for an attempt on the life of Thomas Baker, overseer at Dairy Plains, the party attacked a Pallittore camp near Quamby Bluff at dawn and killed nine people. It was the fourth massacre in 18 days, and the database estimates more than 78 Pallittore were killed in the Quamby Bluff killings overall.

Date: 13 July 1827, at dawn.

Death toll: 9 Pallittore people killed (more than 78 across all four attacks); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 pp. 15–37; Plomley 2008 p. 254; Ryan 2008 p. 491.

After a soldier was wounded, Captain Henry Smyth of the 39th Regiment, commandant of the new British post, ordered an attack on an Iwaidja people camp with an 18-pound cannon and muskets. A witness, John Sweatman, wrote that in one night the soldiers shot about 30 people while the rest fled for their lives. Archaeologist John Mulvaney described Smyth as exasperated by what he called habitual pilfering.

Date: 30 July 1827, at night.

Death toll: About 30 Iwaidja men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Mulvaney 1989 p. 69; Allen and Corris 1977 pp. 135–6; HRA III vols 5–6; Connor 2002 p. 74; Powell 2016 pp. 90–1; The Colonist 4 Aug 1838.

After Big River warriors allegedly killed three shepherds and 100 sheep near the Blackman River, two military parties were sent to join the field police in putting a stop to these outrages. A Land Commissioner visiting in January 1828 wrote that mysterious murders had been committed in the area and remained undetected.

Date: Early November 1827 (between 1 and 10 November).

Death toll: At least 10 Big River people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: The Tasmanian 16 Nov 1827; McKay 1962 p. 74.

In August 1830 surveyor Henry Hellyer told George Augustus Robinson about an incident on this cattle run, leased by Hobart solicitor Gamaliel Butler. He said stockkeeper Paddy Heagon had shot nineteen Aboriginal people with a swivel gun loaded with nails.

Death toll: 19 Pallittore people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Plomley 2008 p. 231; Plomley 1966 pp. 197–8.

Workers of the Van Diemen's Land Company driving eleven pairs of oxen from Launceston to Circular Head (Stanley) reported that they were attacked by a strong party of Aboriginal people, who were severely handled.

Death toll: At least 6 Pallittore people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Lennox 1990 p. 170.

Magistrate Captain Thomas Cook recorded that a group of Worimi people took the young daughter of Mrs Easterbrook, whose husband was a clerk of the Australian Agricultural Company at Stroud. Soldiers and assigned servants pursued them on foot for about twenty miles, killed eleven people and recovered the child.

Death toll: 11 Worimi people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bennett 1964 pp. 12–13.

Richard Frederick, master of the Van Diemen's Land Company sloop Fanny, told Rosalie Hare that he and four shepherds had surprised a group of North West people at Cape Grim and killed 12 before retreating to the ship. Company manager Edward Curr acknowledged the attack but claimed the guns misfired. Historian Ian McFarlane links it to Aboriginal people killing the company's sheep.

Death toll: Up to 12 North West people killed (Curr claimed none); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO VDL 5/1 no. 2; Lee 1927 p. 41; McFarlane 2003 pp. 277–98.

Four Van Diemen's Land Company shepherds, Charles Chamberlain, John Weavis, William Gunshannon and Richard Nicholson, crept up on a group of North West people hunting and shot about 30, throwing their bodies onto the rocks below. Robinson investigated in 1830 and interviewed both the shepherds and Aboriginal witnesses, but Curr reduced the toll to three in his report to London (Cape Grim massacre).

Death toll: 3–30 North West people killed (database figure: 30); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/333 pp. 116–17; Plomley 2008 pp. 206–7, 212–14; TAHO VDL 5/1 pp. 104–5; McFarlane 2003 pp. 277–98.

After stockman William Walker was killed near Bothwell on 4 March 1828, stockmen went after the Big River people they blamed. Settler Robert Barr told Robinson three years later that they killed seven, then followed the rest to a lagoon and killed ten more who could not get away.

Death toll: 17 Big River people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/323 p. 113; Hobart Town Courier 15 and 22 Mar 1828; Plomley 1966 p. 503, 2008 p. 537.

Stockmen, among them men known as Captain Pike, The Barber and The Londoner, opened fire on a large group of Gamilaraay people who had appeared near the station, shooting some out of the trees they had climbed. Dr Little later found about half a dozen decomposing bodies, and historian Roger Milliss says the bodies took days to burn. Two letters reporting it to the Colonial Secretary led to no action.

Death toll: At least 6 Gamilaraay or Guyinbaraay people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: The Monitor 4 Aug 1828 p. 8; Milliss 1992 pp. 78–82; SRNSW 4/1983, CSR 28/7772.

After Oyster Bay warriors killed stockkeeper Henry Beames in late March 1828, magistrate James Simpson sent field police, stockkeepers and soldiers of the 40th Regiment after them, and they cornered the group among rocks. Simpson reported 17 killed, but Chief District Constable Gilbert Robertson said as many as 70 may have died, women and children among them. Writer Henry Melville later described the colonists firing on the group and attacking the survivors.

Death toll: 17–70 Oyster Bay people killed (database figure: 17); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 p. 137; Hobart Town Courier 5 Apr 1828; Melville 1835 pp. 71–2.

Settler Robert Ayrton later reported that soldiers of the 40th Regiment had boasted of killing sixteen Oyster Bay or Big River people in the Eastern Tiers, apparently without provocation. He said the bodies were gathered into heaps, then buried or burned, and that a constable named Danvers may have taken part. It happened shortly before the regiment left for India.

Death toll: 16 Oyster Bay or Big River people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/320 pp. 152–4; TAHO CSO 1/330 p. 109.

In two attacks in October 1828, Oyster Bay warriors, possibly led by Tongerlongter, killed Anne Geary, Mrs Gough and two of her daughters, and John Langford. A reprisal party of stockkeepers fell on the warriors' camp near Cockatoo Valley late at night and killed what a newspaper called a considerable number. The violence led the colony to proclaim martial law on 5 November 1828, during the Black War.

Date: 23 October 1828, about 11 pm.

Death toll: At least 6 Oyster Bay people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: The Tasmanian 31 Oct 1828; Hobart Town Courier 18 Oct and 1 Nov 1828; Ryan 2012 pp. 103–5.

After settler Adam Wood and two shepherds were killed, nine soldiers of the 40th Regiment, two constables and guides John Danvers and William Holmes surrounded an Oyster Bay camp at dawn. When someone at the fire raised the alarm and people reached for their spears, the soldiers fired repeatedly. The Hobart Town Courier reported ten killed on the spot, and only a woman and a child were taken alive.

Date: 6 December 1828, at daybreak.

Death toll: 10 Oyster Bay or Little Swanport people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/320 p. 22; Hobart Town Courier 13 Dec 1828 p. 2.

Whadjuk Noongar people took about 100 sheep from the farms of Brown and Bull, calling out "Kangaroo!" as if in exchange for the kangaroo the colonists had killed. Soldiers and settlers caught up with them around midnight and fired into the thickest groups, killing some and wounding many. A visitor, Baron von Hügel, wrote that they were trapped in a valley among cliffs and shot until they cried out for mercy.

Death toll: 20–30 Whadjuk Noongar people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Western Mail 16 Jan 1914 p. 53; Heal 1998 p. 60; Carter 2005 pp. 78–80; Sydney Gazette 27 May 1834; von Hügel 1994 p. 28; Berryman 2002 p. 233; Blight 2024.

In December 1828 Aboriginal warriors raided farms, killing James Shirton and attacking John Allen's farm at Great Swanport (now Swansea). A Great Swanport correspondent reported that in reprisal nine people had been killed and three taken near St Paul's River about ten days earlier.

Date: Late January 1829.

Death toll: 9 Paredarerme people killed and 3 captured (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Launceston Advertiser 9 Feb 1829 p. 2.

At about the same time as the St Paul's River killings, and in reprisal for the same December raids, another party shot about ten Aboriginal people near the Eastern Marshes and captured two.

Date: Late January 1829.

Death toll: About 10 Paredarerme people killed and 2 captured (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Launceston Advertiser 9 Feb 1829.

An officer reported that he and three or four constables were attacked on the west bank of the Tamar and that seven Aboriginal people fell, and he praised his own generalship. The constables with him later said they had not seen a single Aboriginal person during the whole trip.

Death toll: 7 Pallittore people killed according to the officer, disputed by his own party (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hobart Town Courier 28 Feb 1829 pp. 1–2.

The Hobart Town Courier reported that field police and soldiers brought in one Aboriginal man, the only survivor of a party of six. The other five were shot during the pursuit.

Death toll: 5 Oyster Bay people killed and 1 captured (database figure: 6) (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hobart Town Courier 7 Mar 1829 p. 1.

Roving party leader Jørgen Jørgensen reported that another party leader had fired on a group of Big River people. He claimed he had no choice, and said the blood trails showed some were wounded if not killed.

Death toll: At least 6 Big River people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 p. 189.

After raids near Launceston in which colonists were killed, a party of volunteers caught up with the people they blamed about 12 miles from town. The Hobart Town Courier reported that four men, a woman and a child were killed. One of the dead men wore a red coat taken from the Commandant's stockkeeper, and the woman had once lived in Launceston for several months.

Death toll: 6 North Midlands people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hobart Town Courier 21 Mar 1829 p. 1.

After Big River people robbed McPherson's stock hut, dug up his potatoes and wounded a stockman, a party of shepherds and police pursued them and attacked their camp. Magistrate Thomas Anstey reported nine killed, and a wounded woman was taken to New Norfolk with little hope of survival.

Date: Late March 1829.

Death toll: 9 Big River people killed and a woman wounded (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 pp. 232, 239.

After Oyster Bay people raided farms on the Carlton River for food, killing two stockkeepers, magistrate James Gordon sent soldiers of the 40th Regiment and police after them. They surrounded the camp at night, and when the group fled, six men fired into them. At daylight they found blood across the ground and 49 spears and 24 waddies left behind by a group of 30 to 40 people.

Date: 13 June 1829, at night.

Death toll: About 10 Oyster Bay people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/321 (16 June 1829); Hobart Town Courier 20 June 1829 p. 2.

John Batman, later a founder of Melbourne, led a government roving party in a dawn attack on a camp of 60 to 70 people. He reported that 15 died of their wounds and that he executed two wounded prisoners himself. The attack appears to have been opportunistic rather than a reprisal.

Date: 1 September 1829, at dawn.

Death toll: 17 Ben Lomond people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Campbell 1987 pp. 31–2; Colonial Times 18 Sept 1829 p. 3; TAHO CSO 1/330; depositions of two stockkeepers, 25 Sept 1829.

During an attempted theft at Perth, an Aboriginal man struck a corporal with a club. Aboriginal leaders took refuge in trees and settlers fired on them with muskets, and seven men were killed.

Death toll: 7 Whadjuk men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: 'Affray at the Swan River', The London Literary Gazette 1830 p. 805.

After Aboriginal people raided a settler's hut and took flour, a military patrol ambushed a Big River camp on the upper Clyde River north of Bothwell. At least six people were killed and others wounded.

Death toll: At least 6 Big River people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bothwell magistrate to Colonial Secretary, 2 Apr 1830, TAHO CSO 1/316 p. 189.

Police magistrate Captain Moriarty reported a clash between Pallittore people and stockkeepers employed by magistrate M. L. Smith. His first report said at least two warriors were shot and one stabbed, and a later one said six were killed by the stockkeepers in self-defence.

Death toll: 2–6 Pallittore people killed (database figure: 6); no colonists killed.

Sources: TAHO CSO 1/316 pp. 489, 504.

After a confrontation at a settler's house in which spears were thrown and a Noongar leader was wounded, Commandant Frederick Irwin led soldiers of the 63rd Regiment and settlers after a Whadjuk group to the lagoon at Galup. After a standoff of about twenty minutes, Ensign Dale's party fired. Irwin said they parted on friendly terms, but Colonial Storekeeper Morgan estimated thirty or forty killed or wounded, and Noongar oral history says many died.

Death toll: 20–40 Whadjuk Noongar people killed or wounded (database figure: 20); no colonists killed.

Sources: Irwin to Stirling, CO 18/7 p. 119; Literary Gazette 11 Dec 1830; Western Mail 9 Jan and 20 Mar 1914; Morgan to Hay 14 July 1830; Owen and Bracknell 2021.

When a group of Big River people came to a stock hut on Captain Wood's property for food and goods, his servant took shelter inside and shot several of them with guns kept loaded there. He took one survivor to Hobart to claim the government reward, and the prisoner said hunger had driven them to the hut.

Death toll: At least 6 Big River people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Colonial Times 3 Sept 1830 p. 3.

A detachment of the 17th Regiment under Captain Clunie, from the Moreton Bay penal settlement, surrounded a Ngugi camp by the freshwater lagoon at the island's southern end. A man who escaped as a boy by hiding in bushes later said nearly everyone in the camp was shot.

Date: 1 July 1831, at dawn.

Death toll: About 20 Ngugi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Watkins 1892 p. 43; Evans 1999 p. 65.

Settlers and soldiers went to a Noongar camp at night and opened fire on the people sitting around their fires, men, women and children among them. Robert Lyon, an amateur ethnographer, protested to the Colonial Secretary that their cries were dreadful. He credited a leader named Yellagonga with helping to restore peace afterwards.

Date: Between July and November 1832, at night.

Death toll: At least 6 Noongar people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Lyon 1832; Green 1984; Martens 2022; Blight 2024.

In reprisal for an Aboriginal attack on a ship, Captain Clunie of the 17th Regiment led a detachment of soldiers against the Noonuccal people of the island, whose name for it is Minjerribah. At least six people were killed.

Date: Late December 1832.

Death toll: At least 6 Noonuccal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clunie, 12 Jan 1833, QSA CSL; Evans 1999 p. 65.

Whalers at Portland Bay fought Dhauwurd wurrung (Gunditjmara) people who claimed a beached whale as their own, and killed many of them. George Augustus Robinson first heard of it in 1841 from settler Edward Henty, and two survivors, Pollikeunnuc and Yarereryarerer, were later identified. Historians still debate whether the place name Convincing Ground refers to the massacre (Convincing Ground massacre).

Date: Between March 1833 and March 1834.

Death toll: At least 20 Dhauwurd wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Mitchell 1839; The Colonial Observer 4 Mar 1843; Tyers 1845; Clark 1995, 2008, 2011; Connor 2005, 2010; Peel 2013.

In September 1833 the Whadjuk leaders Migo and Munday met Methodist missionary Francis Armstrong to talk about peace and asked whether the colonists would shoot any more of their people. They then listed sixteen men killed by colonists, saying where each was shot and by whom, and said nearly twice as many had been wounded.

Date: Between April and September 1833.

Death toll: 16–25 Whadjuk Noongar men killed, with about twice as many wounded (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal 7 Sept 1833 p. 142.

After Aboriginal people allegedly took cattle from an Australian Agricultural Company station, two employees baked johnny cakes mixed with arsenic and threw them out to a gathering of 50 or 60 people. An 1889 newspaper account said many ran to the water in agony and some dropped dead.

Death toll: At least 6 Gathang-speaking (Biripi, Worimi or Geawegal) people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Daily Telegraph 13 July 1889 p. 9; Wingham Chronicle 25 Apr 1922 p. 2; Newcastle Morning Herald 25 July 1964; Fitzpatrick 1925 p. 29.

After the barque Charles Eaton was wrecked in the Torres Strait, Torres Strait Islanders killed the survivors who reached their islands, among them the captain, an Indian Army officer, his wife and some of their children. One of the officer's sons and some of the crew survived.

Death toll: 11–15 ship survivors killed (database figure: 11); no Islanders recorded killed.

Sources: McInnes 1983 pp. 21–50; Mullins 1994 pp. 22–3; The Sydney Herald 27 Oct 1836.

Governor James Stirling led about 25 soldiers, police and settlers against the Pinjarup Noongar, whom he called the Murray tribe, and cornered about 80 men, women and children by the Murray River. Police superintendent Theophilus Ellis was speared and later died. Stirling said he meant to reduce the tribe to weakness and threatened to wipe out every Aboriginal person south of the Darling Scarp if colonists were attacked again (Pinjarra massacre).

Death toll: 15–80 Pinjarup Noongar people killed; one colonist (Ellis) died of his wounds.

Sources: Perth Gazette 1 Nov 1834; Stirling, CSO correspondence 1 Nov 1834; Grose 1927; Hunt 1978; Green 1981; Contos 1998; Harris 2003; Owen 2016.

After Aboriginal people killed five shepherds, colonists chased two fleeing groups through the Barrington Tops. A 1922 newspaper correspondent claimed more than 50 were killed at the Cobark River, but researchers think his figures are exaggerated and no contemporary record confirms them.

Date: Between 1835 and 1838.

Death toll: At least 20 Gathang-speaking people killed (database figure; single source); colonist deaths claimed but unconfirmed.

Sources: Wingham Chronicle 25 Apr 1922; Scone Advocate 7 May 1935.

The second group fled north-west and made a stand on a small flat on the Bowman River, where they were killed. The account says their unburied skeletons could be seen there for years afterwards. Later claims of more than 100 Aboriginal and twelve colonist deaths are considered exaggerated.

Date: Between 1835 and 1838.

Death toll: At least 20 Gathang-speaking people killed (database figure; single source); colonist deaths claimed but unconfirmed.

Sources: Wingham Chronicle 25 Apr 1922 p. 2; Scone Advocate 7 May 1935 p. 4.

Sixteen armed stockmen on horseback took part in what was described as a battle with Gamilaraay warriors. More than six Gamilaraay people were killed, and the stockmen suffered no casualties.

Death toll: More than 6 Gamilaraay people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Calvert 1845; Reece 1974 pp. 28–9.

In reprisal for the deaths of five convict shepherds on Robert Mackenzie's property, colonists drove Aboriginal people to what became known as McKenzie's Cliffs. A 1935 account says they shot men, women and children without mercy, and those who escaped the bullets died falling from the cliffs.

Death toll: At least 20 Gathang-speaking people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Wingham Chronicle 25 Apr 1922 p. 2; Gloucester Advocate 22 Mar 1935; Blomfield 1981 pp. 121–2; NSW NPWS Barrington Tops Plan of Management 2022.

After Wiradjuri men killed two stockmen on Thologolong station, settler John Jobbins of neighbouring Cumberoona station led armed horsemen against them and killed twelve men, women and children. Jobbins had claimed Wiradjuri camping grounds as his own and was known for his extreme violence.

Death toll: 12 Wiradjuri people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Smethwick 2003 p. 2; Schneider 2016 p. 29.

Surveyor General Major Thomas Mitchell, fearing his exploring party was being followed, laid an ambush in thick scrub and sent the bullock drivers ahead cracking their whips to make it seem the party was still moving. When the Kureinji or Dadi Dadi group walked into the trap, his men opened fire and kept shooting at people swimming across the river. Mitchell named the place Mount Dispersion and reported shooting the leader, recognisable by his cloak.

Death toll: About 30 Kureinji or Dadi Dadi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: The Australian 8 Nov 1836; Mitchell 1839 vol. 2; HRA I vol. 18; Milliss 1992.

Sergeant Temple led a detachment of mounted police, together with stockmen and settlers including T. S. Hall, to clear the Barraba district of Aboriginal people. Missionary Lancelot Threlkeld recorded that about 80 Gamilaraay people were killed, and British Parliamentary Papers from 1839 briefly mention the operation.

Date: June–July 1836.

Death toll: About 80 Gamilaraay people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: BPP 1839 vol. 34 paper 526; Gunson 1974 pp. 136, 275–6, 279.

After settler Charles Franks and shepherd Thomas Haines were killed on 9 July, a party of eight colonists, among them Henry Batman, and nine Aboriginal men from Sydney and Port Phillip went after those they blamed. They found a Wathaurong group with Franks' belongings and opened fire. Witnesses were reluctant to talk, but about ten men, women and children appear to have been killed.

Death toll: About 10 Wathaurong people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: Cornwall Chronicle 30 July 1836; Cannon and McFarlane 1982; Sayers 1983; Boyce 2011; Rogers et al. 2016.

After soldier Isaac Green and workers Edward Jones and Peter Chidlow were speared in mid-1837, colonists demanded harsh reprisals against the Whadjuk and Ballardong Noongar. Reverend Louis Giustiniani reported that Lieutenant Bunbury and the Government Resident told soldiers to shoot Aboriginal people in all directions, killing eighteen people who were never charged or tried. He wrote that ears were cut from the bodies as trophies.

Date: June–November 1837.

Death toll: 18 Whadjuk and Ballardong Noongar people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: Sydney Herald 13 Oct 1836; Perth Gazette 22 July 1837; Swan River Guardian June–Nov 1837; Bunbury 1930; Green 1984; Borowitzka 2011; Blight 2024.

Over four years the Bussell brothers, who settled the land that became Busselton, used shootings, hostage-taking and even a wooden cannon against the Wardandi owners. When a missing calf was blamed on two men, Gaywal and Kenny, an armed party went to Yulijoogarup and shot at least nine people. Charles Bussell wrote that the war had been properly conducted, though the government reprimanded the family.

Death toll: At least 9 Wardandi men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Shann 1978; Jennings 1983; Allbrook 2014.

When Wardandi people were heard shouting near the estuary, everyone at Cattle Chosen armed themselves and went out. Bessie Bussell wrote in her diary that three women, a man and a boy were known to be dead and more were dying, and that she feared more women than men had been killed.

Death toll: 5–7 Wardandi people killed (database figure: 7); no colonists killed.

Sources: Shann 1978; Jennings 1983; Allbrook 2014; Carmody 2021.

In 1837 stockmen on the Gwydir raided Gamilaraay camps to abduct women, and Gamilaraay men killed livestock and five colonists. Commissioner Mayne later found evidence that stockmen had killed as many as 200 people at Gravesend, a mountain near Cobb's station. He told an inquiry that the stockmen's outrages had come first.

Date: Late October 1837.

Death toll: About 150 Gamilaraay people killed (Mayne reported up to 200); no colonists killed.

Sources: Mayne, evidence to Committee on Police and Gaols, 5 Sept 1839; The Sydney Herald 10 Dec 1838 p. 2; Gunson 1974 vol. 1 p. 145; Milliss 1992 p. 159.

After Gamilaraay men killed two shepherds at Cobb's station, in retaliation for abuses against Gamilaraay women and men, armed stockmen went after the people they held responsible. Threlkeld recorded that they found some wearing the dead shepherds' clothes, hacked them to pieces with hatchets and killed others.

Date: November–December 1837.

Death toll: About 40 Gamilaraay people killed; no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: The Sydney Herald 10 Dec 1838 p. 2; Gunson 1974 vol. 1 p. 145; Milliss 1992 p. 159.

Fitzherbert Mundy and his partner Smyth set up the first sheep station on Taungurung land in 1837, and during a drought the Taungurung asked them for food. Mundy handed out flour, then he and his men rode down on the people while they were preparing it and shot as many as they could. A survivor, Bulgertheroon, told Assistant Protector James Dredge, who wrote that he would not be surprised if retributive justice overtook the killers.

Death toll: At least 6 Taungurung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bassett 1989 p. 26; Broome 2005 p. 79.

During a month-long campaign by Major James Nunn's mounted police, 26 troopers under Lieutenant Cobban, with stockmen and settlers, drove Gamilaraay people into a lagoon and shot at least forty. It followed a spear wound to a trooper two hours earlier. Squatters who visited said sixty or seventy were killed, some shot like crows in the trees (Waterloo Creek massacre).

Death toll: 40–70 Gamilaraay people killed (some estimates for the whole campaign run to 200–300); no colonists killed.

Sources: BPP 1839; HRA I vol. 20 pp. 244–57; SMH 2 July 1849; Town and Country Journal 28 Feb 1874; Gunson 1974; Milliss 1992; Ryan 2003.

Shepherds overlanding 4,000 sheep for William and George Faithfull camped at a Yorta Yorta ceremonial ground on the Broken River and tried to take women from the families already there; people may also have been shot at the Ovens River earlier. About 20 warriors attacked as the party moved on. One shepherd shot a warrior dead, and eight shepherds were killed as they ran. Historian Judith Bassett saw it as a traditional revenge attack linked to the earlier killings.

Death toll: 8 colonists killed; 1 Yorta Yorta warrior killed.

Sources: Argus 13 Sept 1883; Bride 1898; Cannon 1982; Atkinson and Aveling 1987; Bassett 1989; Russell 2002.

Day's 1839 evidence named Vinegar Hill, Slaughterhouse Creek and Gravesend among the places where great numbers of Gamilaraay people had been killed by armed stockmen. Researchers think Biniguy, at the mouth of Slaughterhouse Creek, was another killing site of the same expedition. The name Vinegar Hill may be a corruption of the Aboriginal place name Binegar.

Death toll: About 20 Gamilaraay people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Day correspondence and evidence 1838–9; North West Champion 20 Oct 1949; Reece 1974; Telfer 1980; Milliss 1992.

Police Magistrate Edward Denny Day reported a war of extermination on the Gwydir, where Gamilaraay people had been repeatedly hunted by parties of armed, mounted stockmen. Local accounts say the people at Slaughterhouse Creek were driven into a stockyard or surrounded in a ravine while they slept. Day blamed the conflict on stockmen interfering with Aboriginal women, and the killings were part of the campaign later called "the Bushwhack" or "the Drive".

Date: May–early June 1838.

Death toll: About 200 Gamilaraay people killed (some accounts say 300); no colonists killed.

Sources: Day correspondence and evidence 1838–9; Mayne evidence 1839; North West Champion 1949; Reece 1974; Telfer 1980; Milliss 1992.

Settler Thomas Alexander told Assistant Protector Dredge that in the winter of 1838 Aboriginal people drove off a flock of 800 to 900 sheep from Captain Sylvester Brown's run. When his men found them, thirteen Dja Dja Wurrung people were shot before the sheep were recovered.

Date: Winter (June–August) 1838.

Death toll: 13 Dja Dja Wurrung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1995 p. 89.

John Coppock and seven other settlers and stockmen pursued about 50 Aboriginal people accused of taking sheep and found their camp on the Coliban River. Coppock said there was a regular engagement for about three-quarters of an hour and that seven or eight Aboriginal people lay dead. When they returned the next day the bodies had been partly burned, and Coppock's account suggests the settlers burned them.

Death toll: 7–8 Dja Dja Wurrung or Ngurai-illam wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Cannon and McFarlane 1982 pp. 336–40; Clark 1995 p. 98.

While the overseer was away, John Henry Fleming and eleven stockmen rode to Myall Creek station, tied up 28 Wirayaraay men, women and children who were camped there peacefully, led them away and killed them with guns and swords. They came back the next day to burn the bodies. The station hand reported it, and seven of the men were hanged in December 1838, the only frontier massacre in New South Wales that ended in executions (Myall Creek massacre).

Death toll: 28 Wirayaraay (Gamilaraay) people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: HRA I vol. 19; The Australian 17 July, 17 Nov and 1 Dec 1838; SMH 2 July 1849; Tedeschi 2016; Lydon and Ryan 2018.

After Aboriginal people drove sheep off Henry Bowerman's run, his overseer John Allen shot between 10 and 14 of them while recovering the flock. It was the first of two massacres Allen carried out on Bowerman's station.

Death toll: 10–14 Dja Dja Wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Lang 1847 p. 132; Clark 1995 pp. 89–90.

Station manager Charles Eyles and stockmen James Dunn and William Allen shot nine Gamilaraay people on Ardgowan Island, then burned the bodies and buried them in a shallow grave. The remains were found in February 1839. Eyles and Dunn disappeared, and Allen was charged with murder by Edward Denny Day but never brought to trial.

Death toll: 9 Gamilaraay people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Milliss 1992 pp. 580–2, 678.

After shepherd William Heath was killed on the Henty family's Merino Downs run, about fourteen armed men went out for revenge. One account says they found a hut full of people in the evening and shot them as they came out, and that mothers holding infants were run through. Edward Henty denied taking part, and Captain Fyans' inquiry could not confirm it, but the killing helped set off the Eumeralla Wars.

Death toll: About 14 Wulluwurrung or Nundadjali people killed (single source); no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: Hamilton Spectator 29 Nov 1884; Argus 25 Apr 1885; Labilliere 1878; Bride 1898; Fyans 1986; Critchett 1990; Clark 1998; Peel 2013.

Overseer William Allen told convict shepherds John Davis and Abraham Braybrook to warn him when Aboriginal people came to the hut, then ordered them shot when they arrived peacefully. In April 1839 Assistant Protector Charles Sievwright arrested the three men and found pieces of skull and Aboriginal skulls displayed over the huts. Because Aboriginal evidence was inadmissible, the men were charged only with disposing of the bodies and acquitted even of that.

Death toll: 6–8 Dja Dja Wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Orton journal 12 Jan 1841; Cannon and McFarlane 1983 pp. 642–3; Clark 1995 pp. 89–93; Clark 1998 p. 192.

The Southern Australian reported that overlanders McLeod and McPherson, arriving in South Australia with stock, were said to have clashed with Aboriginal people on the way and killed forty. Another Adelaide paper denied the story three days later, but the database concludes a massacre of Tati Tati people probably took place where the Darling River meets the Murray.

Death toll: About 40 Tati Tati people killed (single source, publicly denied at the time); no colonists killed.

Sources: Southern Australian 24 Apr 1839 p. 3; South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register 27 Apr 1839 p. 2.

After two station workers were killed and 700 sheep taken in May 1839, settlers asked the Melbourne mounted police for a punitive expedition. A party under Sergeant Dennis Leary, with settlers and stockmen, reported that at least six Aboriginal people were killed in a clash. Assistant Protector E. S. Parker said nearly 40 were shot, everyone in the group except a woman and a child, and called it a deliberately planned, illegal reprisal.

Date: Early June 1839.

Death toll: 6–40 Dja Dja Wurrung people killed (database figure: about 40); no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: Randell 1982 pp. 288–99; Cannon and McFarlane 1983 pp. 668–74; Clark 1995 p. 94.

After one of his stockmen was badly hurt, overlander James Byrne's party cut Wiradjuri warriors off from the river. On a second attempt they fired as the people appeared, then rode them down with cutlasses, killing nine before the rest escaped across the river.

Death toll: 9 Wiradjuri men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Byrne 1848 vol. 2 pp. 230–2.

Overlanding parties driving stock along the Murray in 1839 met resistance from Marrawarra and Ngintait people. An 1841 diary by Major O'Halloran describes a spot where several parties, including Edward John Eyre's, had been attacked, a European grave, and several Aboriginal people killed on different occasions.

Date: September–November 1839.

Death toll: At least 8 Marrawarra or Ngintait people killed (single source); no colonists recorded killed in the massacre.

Sources: O'Halloran diary 1841, in Burke et al. 2016 p. 154.

In reprisal for sheep killing, settlers and stockmen led by Frederick Taylor attacked a camp of about 45 to 52 people at dawn, shouting and firing. Survivors later pulled bodies out of the waterholes, and a woman known as Queen Fanny escaped with a child by swimming across Lake Bullen Merri. The bodies were burned and the bones removed, and Taylor left for India before Assistant Protector Sievwright could investigate.

Date: October 1839, at dawn.

Death toll: 20–35 Djargurd Wurrung or neighbouring people killed (database figure: 35); no colonists killed.

Sources: Kiddle 1961 p. 122; Shaw 1969 p. 27; Clark 1995 pp. 105–18.

An overlander named Buchanan wrote that his party fired on a group of Tati Tati people and killed their old chief. When the rest took to the river, the party kept shooting as long as they were in range, killing five or six and wounding many.

Death toll: 5–6 Tati Tati people killed and many wounded (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Buchanan 1922–3 p. 72.

At Captain Dugald McLachlan's Glengower station, the cook gave Dja Dja Wurrung people flour mixed with plaster of Paris. They speared the cook and took mutton, and McLachlan's men chased them to a waterhole on Middle Creek. The people dived in and were shot one at a time as they came up for air, and the place is still called the Blood Hole.

Date: December 1839–January 1840.

Death toll: At least 6 Dja Dja Wurrung people killed (single source); no colonists killed in the massacre.

Sources: Massola 1969 p. 88; Clark 1995 p. 97.

Matthew Moorhouse, Protector of Aborigines in South Australia, reported that a Marrawarra or Ngintait group tried to seize the drays of a cattle party. About ten mounted colonists drove them off with gunfire and then chased them for about 15 miles, firing the whole time.

Death toll: At least 6 Marrawarra or Ngintait people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Moorhouse to Mundy 12 July 1841, in Burke et al. 2016 p. 158.

After Aboriginal people attacked shepherds at George Winter's station, a party that included Winter rode out in reprisal and killed at least five Wulluwurrung people, according to sworn statements. The missionary Joseph Orton wrote in his diary that the killings were "equally atrocious and unjustifiable".

Date: January–February 1840.

Death toll: 5–6 Wulluwurrung people killed (database figure 6; single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Orton diaries 1840–42; Clark 1995 p. 25.

A party of Aboriginal men armed with muskets travelled four days to attack another group, shot seven men who were fishing and more in the river, and then killed the old men and children they had captured. The account comes from the settler J.M. Clow in Letters from Victorian Pioneers. The attackers were themselves Aboriginal.

Death toll: About 20 Aboriginal people killed (group not recorded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bride 1898 p. 359; Gunson 1968 p. 8.

Flour laced with arsenic was given to Aboriginal people at Wootong Vale, and seventeen Wulluwurrung or Nundadjali people died from it. The only record of the poisoning is a local history.

Death toll: 17 Wulluwurrung or Nundadjali people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Trangmar 1964 pp. 1, 5.

After 127 sheep were taken, the five Whyte brothers and four convict shepherds surrounded a group of Nundadjali people at a rocky outcrop in the Wando River gorge, and one shepherd, Daniel Turner, was speared. Assistant Protector Charles Sievwright recorded that 41 Aboriginal people died. Crown Prosecutor James Croke declined to bring charges.

Death toll: 30–80 Nundadjali people killed (database figure 41); no colonists killed.

Sources: Orton diaries; Robertson to La Trobe 1853; Critchett 1990; Clark 1995.

Less than a month after Fighting Hills, hands from the Whyte brothers' station, among them Henry Skilton and William Fox, shot a whole camp of old men, women and children. Local historians record that they "shot the lot". No legal action followed.

Death toll: At least 20 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1995 pp. 152–5; Palmer 1973 p. 72; Trangmar 1964 p. 5.

A party led by a Mr Freer tracked 370 stolen sheep and found Dhanggati people roasting mutton. They chased them twelve miles up Kunderang Brook, fired on them and got back 220 sheep. A newspaper report said two to three dozen men were slaughtered.

Death toll: About 24 Dhanggati people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Herald 10 June 1840; Henderson 1851; Frost 1992 p. 34.

After sheep were driven off across the Serra Range, Peter Aylward and seven horsemen, among them Augustine Barton and Robert Knowles, fired on a large gathering of Djab Wurrung and Gai wurrung people for about fifteen minutes. Aylward said several were killed and many wounded, while Knowles said he saw none dead.

Death toll: About 8 Djab Wurrung or Gai wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1995 p. 66; Clark 1998; Critchett 1990; Christie 1979.

Protector Matthew Moorhouse reported that an overlanding party from Sydney routed Aboriginal people at the crossing with great loss. Firearms and bayonets were used. It was the second massacre at this crossing.

Death toll: About 6 Marrawarra or Ngintait people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Moorhouse to Mundy 12 July 1841, in Burke et al. 2016 p. 158.

After overseer Patrick Codd was killed in May 1840, settlers rode out against the Djab Wurrung. Taigara ("Roger") was later hanged for the killing, although Superintendent La Trobe doubted his guilt. Settler Charles Wedge wrote that squatters were determined to exterminate the people, and George Augustus Robinson recorded that twenty were killed in revenge.

Death toll: About 20 Djab Wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Critchett 1990; HRA I vol. 21 p. 242; Clark 1995; Shaw 1989.

Twenty-six survivors of the wrecked brigantine Maria were killed by Milmenrura people on the Coorong. Governor George Gawler declared martial law, and police under Commissioner Thomas O'Halloran hanged two men in sight of their clan and allegedly killed others (Maria massacre). It is recorded as the largest killing of colonists by Aboriginal people.

Death toll: 26 colonists killed; Milmenrura deaths in the reprisal not counted (2 hanged, others allegedly shot).

Sources: SA Register Aug–Sept 1840; Hamann 1973; Clyne 1981; Foster and Nettelbeck 2001; ADB (Gawler, O'Halloran).

The Wedge brothers shot about ten Djab Wurrung people in the Grampians. Charles Wedge later wrote that the depredations "did not cease till many lives were sacrificed".

Death toll: About 10 Djab Wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Bride 1899; Clark 1995; Reece 1974; V&P 1844 p. 718.

Charles and Henry Wedge, Joseph Read, Thomas Grant, William Marsh, John Cox and Robert Knowles went after about 1,300 sheep and killed thirteen Djab Wurrung people while getting them back. The Crown Prosecutor decided it had been self-defence.

Death toll: 13 Djab Wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Bride 1899 p. 163; Clark 1995 pp. 156–8; Orton; Shaw 1996; HRA I vol. 21 p. 242.

In reprisal for the killing of two stockmen, Angus McMillan's stockmen attacked Gunai/Kurnai people where the Avon and Perry rivers meet. Historian Peter Gardner puts the dead at fifteen to twenty.

Death toll: 15–20 Gunai/Kurnai people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Pepper and de Araugo 1985; Sayers 1983; Gardner 2001 pp. 44–9.

Thomas Connell, a hutkeeper on a station of the Henty brothers (Edward Henty), mixed arsenic into damper and gave it to Aboriginal people. Between fifteen and seventeen died, some of them drowning in the stream, and Connell fled. Augustine Barton reported it to Superintendent La Trobe.

Death toll: 15–17 Aboriginal people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Robinson Papers vol. 54; Trangmar 1964; Clark 1998; Shaw 1996.

Two men named Kirk and Rutter shot two Pirtpirtwurrung women carrying infants, and Horatio Spencer Wills and others shot more people in the same period. About ten people were killed overall.

Death toll: 7–10 Pirtpirtwurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1995 pp. 73, 77; Clark 1998 pp. 335–6.

After cattle were speared, Angus McMillan, Dr Arbuckle, the Macalisters, Colin McLaren and others, guided by two Aboriginal men from Omeo, trapped Tatungalung people at an inlet of Lake Victoria east of Metung. About thirty were killed.

Death toll: About 30 Tatungalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Gardner 2001 pp. 49–52; Gardner 2010.

Bundjalung oral tradition records that a whole clan was massacred on the South Arm of the Clarence near Tyndale. No colonial record of the killing has been found.

Death toll: About 20 Bundjalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: McSwain and Switzer 2006 p. 17.

P.C. Pagan of East Tabulam fired into a Bundjalung camp over a blanket and was speared. A posse of stockmen and Border Police then killed everyone in the camp.

Death toll: About 20 Bundjalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Keane 1957 p. 12.

Two stockmen abducted Paakantyi women and were killed for it. Stockmen then charged the camp, and skulls with musket-ball marks could be seen at the creek for years afterwards.

Death toll: About 30 Paakantyi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Dargin 1976 pp. 51–2; Thomas 2012.

After two of Timothy Nowlan's stockmen were killed at Walleroba, mounted police attacked a Worimi camp at Spring Gully. Only one person, Mundiva, is said to have survived, and musket balls were later chopped out of the trees.

Death toll: About 20 Worimi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Ford 1995 p. 128; Clarke and Irwin 1975.

After Gumbaynggirr people allegedly overpowered a man at Glenugie station, Crown Lands Commissioner Henry Oakes led Border Police from Port Macquarie against them. The police fired on a camp at Blackadder Creek, chased survivors to the Corindi River, and drove some off the headland at Red Rock. Gumbaynggirr people still pass down the story.

Death toll: At least 10 Gumbaynggirr men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Herald 19 July 1841; Clarence and Richmond Examiner 10 July 1886; Somerville and Perkins 2010.

In a dispute over pay on John Layman's farm, Layman grabbed the Wardandi man Gayware by the beard, and Gayware speared him dead. Magistrate John Molloy and John Bussell led settlers and soldiers who killed seven people, then carried the hunt north toward Bunbury and killed more around Lake Minninup, including men who tried to surrender.

Death toll: 7–15 Wardandi Noongar people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Perth Gazette 13 March 1841; Kimberly 1897; White 2017; Carmody 2021.

After cattle were allegedly stolen from Ramornie station on the Clarence River, Commissioner Oakes swore in stockmen as special constables. They surrounded a Bundjalung camp at night and at daybreak killed men, women and children without distinction. Historian David Kent notes that a colonist named Lynch was later charged with the theft.

Death toll: At least 20 Bundjalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Kent 2006 pp. 36–41.

After three shepherds were killed and 2,000 sheep taken from Frederick Eldershaw's outstation, Eldershaw led ten mounted men to a Baanbay camp near the south arm of the Clarence and fired volleys into it from above. He estimated at least thirty dead, and later defended the killing as making the people "harmless, tractable and subdued".

Death toll: About 30 Baanbay people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Eldershaw 1854 pp. 63–74; Blomfield 1981 pp. 85–91; Elder 2003 pp. 105–17.

In April a large group of Aboriginal people had taken the sheep and drays of Henry Inman's overland party near Lake Bonney. A volunteer party including Henry Field, James Hawker and Lieutenant William Field went to recover them and clashed with the same group. Governor George Grey reported that the Aboriginal side lost "from eight to ten men".

Death toll: 8–10 Marrawarra or Ngintait people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Burke et al. 2016 pp. 151–2, 157.

Robert Knowles, manager of Dr Robert Martin's station, rode into a Djab Wurrung camp looking for missing cattle, and when spears were thrown at him and a stockkeeper, they opened fire and killed six people. George Augustus Robinson protested that attacking camps on the pretence of looking for stolen property "ought not to be tolerated".

Death toll: 6 Djab Wurrung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1998b pp. 305–6.

John Francis, the hot-tempered manager of William John Turner Clarke's run, shot six or seven Knenknenwurrung people, whom Clarke accused of killing his sheep. Clarke later admitted that "a number of blacks, I am sorry to say, were shot", and historian Jan Critchett has named seven of the dead.

Date: June–July 1841.

Death toll: 6–7 Knenknenwurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Shaw 1996 pp. 130, 134; Critchett 1990 p. 248.

Commissioner Oakes and his mounted police, returning from the Clarence to their base at Kempsey, said they were attacked by a large group of Gumbaynggirr people and fired on them, killing about twenty. An inquiry was proposed, but no report survives.

Death toll: About 20 Gumbaynggirr people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Herald 19 July 1841 p. 2.

An overland party taking cattle from Gundagai to South Australia met about 300 Aboriginal people near the Rufus River. The overlanders opened fire, and their leader Robinson wrote that each man fired about eight rounds before the people gave way. This was the day before the Rufus River massacre.

Death toll: About 7 Marrawarra or Ngintait people killed (about 15 killed and wounded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Burke et al. 2016 pp. 145–79; Inquirer 24 Aug 1842.

Protector Matthew Moorhouse arrived with police and Aboriginal scouts to see Robinson's party across the river. When a large group approached, shooting broke out and people were driven into the river, and Moorhouse counted 21 bodies. An inquiry found the conduct of both European parties "justifiable" (Rufus River massacre).

Death toll: 21–40 Marrawarra or Ngintait people killed (database figure 21); no colonists killed.

Sources: Burke et al. 2016 pp. 145–79; Inquirer 24 Aug 1842.

At dawn, James "Cocky" Rogers, superintendent of Mocatta's station, George Somerville of Tent Hill and their armed servants attacked a Yugara camp and kept firing for about half an hour. It was revenge for the killing of shepherds at both stations and attacks on James Balfour's Colinton station.

Death toll: About 6 Yugara or Giabal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Evans 2007 p. 53; Hodgson report 27 Oct 1841; Moreton Bay Book of Trials 13 Jan 1842.

William Lee's overseer took over waterholes on the Bogan in a drought, breaking his licence terms, and Ngiyampaa people killed three of his men. Mounted Police under Corporal Reilly, with squatter Joseph Moulder and stockmen, killed twelve people in reprisal. Governor George Gipps cancelled Lee's licence despite settler protests in the Legislative Council.

Death toll: About 12 Ngiyampaa people killed; 3 colonists killed beforehand.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 24 Aug 1842; Mitchell 1848; Reece 1974; Muir 2014.

George Faithfull and about eighteen armed men met what he called "some hundreds of painted warriors" on the King River and fought them from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A shepherd, James Howard, said in 1883 that about 200 were killed and more were hunted down upriver.

Date: December 1841–February 1842.

Death toll: 150–300 Aboriginal people killed (database figure 150; group not recorded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bride 1889; Sayers 1969 pp. 220–1; Argus 13 Sept 1883.

Warriors from the Omeo, Mokeallumbeets and Tinnermittum groups attacked a camp two miles above Tambo Crossing and killed old people and children with clubs and spears, sparing five young women. The attackers were themselves Aboriginal.

Death toll: About 70 Tatungalung or Brabralung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Mackaness 1941 p. 13; Clark 1998d p. 102.

Two shepherds working for Evan Mackenzie mixed strychnine into flour and gave it to a large gathering of Aboriginal people, killing about sixty. Escaped convicts later reported that fourteen or fifteen groups met at Booroon in the bunya scrub to plan a response.

Death toll: About 60 Giggarbarah, Woongunbarah and other people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Lang 1847 p. 279; Sydney Morning Herald 5 Dec 1842; Queensland LA 1861; Queenslander 21 May 1892; Lauer 1977; Marr 2023.

Six colonists shot six Aboriginal people asleep in tea-tree by a creek: three women, one pregnant, a boy and two others. Survivors told Assistant Protector Charles Sievwright, who found the bodies. Rewards of up to 100 pounds brought no evidence from the station, but in May 1843 a witness came forward and the six men were tried and acquitted.

Death toll: 6 Gai wurrung or Djab Wurrung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1995 pp. 35–42; Robinson journal 1843; Christie 1979; BPP 1844; Port Phillip Gazette 2 Aug 1843.

Raiders led by Jupiter (Tarerer) and Cocknose (Tykoohe) attacked James Hunter's shepherds and took 1,014 sheep. On 18 August his men tracked them about eight miles, shot three dead and wounded several others, and historian Jan Critchett thinks more died of their wounds (Eumeralla Wars).

Death toll: 3–6 Aboriginal people killed (database figure 6); no colonists killed.

Sources: BPP 1844 p. 234; Critchett 1990 pp. 107–8, 250.

After sheep were taken from an outstation, the overseer led stockmen to a Bundjalung camp and shot about twenty people. The Sydney Morning Herald reported it, but station owner Gordon Sandeman then wrote to the paper denying it had happened.

Date: September–November 1842.

Death toll: About 20 Bundjalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 23 Nov and 14 Dec 1842.

Edward and Leonard Irby, their overseer John Windeyer and other men raided a camp of about a hundred people at night in reprisal for a stockman's death, burned the camp and took back 102 sheep. One of the Irbys wrote that they "completely routed them" (Deepwater).

Death toll: About 20 Aboriginal people killed (Anaiwan, Ngarabul or related groups; single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Irby 1908 pp. 60–3.

Nine Aboriginal people, three men, three women and three children, died in agony after eating flour from the station overseer. Dr John Watton found the overseer had received a large amount of arsenic, but the bodies had been burned and nobody was charged. Earlier, the owner Dr James Kilgour had led 40 men against a camp and killed three or four people.

Death toll: 9 Koornkopanoot or Bi:gwurrung people killed by poison (plus 3–4 earlier); no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1995 pp. 43–55; Clark 1998c p. 89.

Squatter Sydenham Russell and stockmen Ralph Gore and Domville Taylor found Aboriginal people rounding up cattle between Yandilla and Tummaville. In the half-hour fight that followed, Russell wrote, the group of about 300 "kept admirable order and showed unusual courage".

Date: October–December 1842.

Death toll: About 6 Bigambul people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: French 1989 pp. 102–3; Russell 1888 pp. 328, 348.

After two shepherds were killed at Lindenow, Angus McMillan and other settlers attacked Gunai/Kurnai people at Hollands Landing. A boat carrying a cannon from the wrecked steamer Clonmel fired on the camp while mounted men drove in from several sides.

Death toll: About 6 Tatungalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Gardner 2016; Dunderdale 1973.

After five white men were killed at Pelican Creek, about eleven stockmen drove a Bundjalung camp toward Goanna Headland, where crews of two anchored schooners joined the shooting. Elder Mary Cowlan said they killed "women, men, children, babies", and only two Birihn children are said to have survived.

Death toll: About 100 Bundjalung (Birihn) people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Medcalf 1993 pp. 5–7.

Soldiers of the 99th Regiment posted near Helidon drove a group of Aboriginal people to a waterhole near Tent Hill and shot them all. The creek became known as Blackfellows Creek because of the great quantity of bones found there.

Death toll: At least 6 Aboriginal people killed (group not recorded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Gardner 1854 vol. 2 p. 124; Queensland Times 26 Nov 1927 p. 13.

After Dhanggati men speared a calf, the station boss and stockmen chased them to a cliff edge and forced them over it. The next day one of the young station hands found a baby alive below, and the child was raised at Towel Creek station.

Death toll: About 6 Dhanggati people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Blomfield 1981 pp. 40–1.

After Ronald Macalister, nephew of squatter Lachlan Macalister, was killed, an armed party including Angus McMillan rode out and shot Brataualung people around a waterhole at Warrigal Creek. It was the largest of a string of killings that month, and estimates of the dead run from 60 to 150 (Warrigal Creek massacre). The Brataualung fell to 17 people within 30 years.

Death toll: 25–150 Brataualung people killed (database figure 25); no colonists killed.

Sources: Dunderdale 1973; Gardner 1983–2022; Clark 1998d; Shaw 1996; Cannon 1990; Bartrop 2004; The Age 1874.

Part of the same reprisal. In 1912 Rev. George Cox reported that a local teacher had dug up the bones of men, women and children at the creek mouth, with skull fractures suggesting they were killed by blows to the head.

Death toll: About 25 Brataualung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Gardner 2001, 2022; Cox 1912; Ta'ala et al. 2006; Dunderdale 1973.

Part of the same reprisal. In 1845 Assistant Protector William Thomas was told that after the Macalister killing "a cart load of Blks bones might be gath.rd up" at a station on Bruthen Creek.

Death toll: About 25 Brataualung people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: William Thomas 1845, cited in Caldow 2020 and Gardner 2022; Dunderdale 1973; Shaw 1996; Clark 1998.

Part of the same reprisal. A Brataualung survivor known as Darby told settler Charles Lucas how mounted men attacked his people in daylight at Freshwater Creek.

Death toll: About 25 Brataualung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Gardner 1983 p. 57.

Unable to find the men who killed his nephew, Lachlan Macalister's party attacked a Brataualung camp by a waterhole at Gammon Creek and threw the bodies into it. An early account says about sixty men, women and children died, though it calls that figure "probably an exaggeration".

Death toll: 25–60 Brataualung people killed (database figure 25); no colonists killed.

Sources: Dunderdale 1973; Gardner 1983–2022; Shaw 1996; Cannon 1990.

After Yugara warriors killed shepherd Richard White and drove off 1,874 sheep from Haldon station, Crown Lands Commissioner Christopher Rolleston led a party that cornered them in daylight in the scrub of the Range. Rolleston himself estimated that twelve Yugara people were killed.

Death toll: About 12 Yugara people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: French 1989; Rolleston to Colonial Secretary 15 Aug and 12 Oct 1843.

After 180 sheep were driven off from W.J. Purbrick's Koroite station, Captain Henry Dana and seven troopers of the Native Police followed the warriors into the Victoria Range. A newspaper reported that the police fired four or five volleys, killing seven or eight on the spot and wounding many. About twenty died in all, and settlers celebrated the result.

Death toll: About 20 Djab Wurrung or Nundadjali people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Port Phillip Gazette 26 Aug 1843; Thomas Papers 1843; Clark 1995.

Warriors led by Koort Kirrup killed colonists and took sheep into the wetlands around Budj Bim. Dana's Native Police found the sheep on an island in the swamp, and when the Gunditjmara taunted them from the scrub, Dana attacked at dawn and killed eight or nine people. He told La Trobe it was needed to punish the earlier killings.

Death toll: 8–10 Dhauwurd wurrung (Gunditjmara) people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Dana to La Trobe 6 Sept 1843; Clark 1995; Shaw 1996; Critchett 1990.

After the Battle of One Tree Hill, colonists chased Multuggerah's warriors into the Rosewood Scrub. Commissioners Rolleston and Simpson, armed settlers and ten soldiers of the 99th Regiment under Lieutenant Johnstone attacked them, and about twelve Yugara people were killed.

Date: September–October 1843.

Death toll: About 12 Yugara people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 12 Oct 1843; Copland et al. 2006.

The Native Police shot six Aboriginal people at Clunie station. A few days earlier a settler named Ricketts had shot three people over attacks on his stock. The killings appear on the official list of Aboriginal people killed in the district from 1836 to 1844.

Death toll: 6 Nundadjali or Mardidjali people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Official List of Aborigines Killed 1836–44 (NSW Legislative Council); Critchett 1990; Cannon 1990; Shaw 1996.

After stock losses and the deaths of station workers on the Murray, detachments under Henry Dana and Henry Smythe went into the Moira swamps on Yorta Yorta country. Dana reported that 20 men, one woman and five children were shot, but later inquiries claimed self-defence and few deaths. A former sergeant, Broderick, said they fired indiscriminately on a camp, yet both leaders were cleared.

Death toll: 26 Yorta Yorta or Bangerang people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clark 1998 (Robinson journals); Franklin 2021; Geelong Advertiser 8 Jan 1844; Port Phillip Gazette 31 Jan 1844.

Thomas Crampton, the first settler near Goondiwindi, was checking cattle when he found Aboriginal men with spears in the trees. He is said to have shot "no less than fifteen" of them.

Date: 1844–1847.

Death toll: About 15 Gawambaraay or Bigambul people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Copland 1990 pp. 17–19; Browne 1922 pp. 22–4; Gunn letter (Royal Queensland Historical Society).

After a shepherd named Robinson was killed at the Irby brothers' Bolivia station, Edward Irby, Thomas Windeyer and their servants Connor and Weaver found Bundjalung people sheltering under the rocks. Irby and Windeyer lay on top of the rocks and fired down at them, and the servants joined in.

Death toll: About 10 Bundjalung, Marbal or Ngarabul people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Irby 1908; Walker 1966; Schlunke 2005.

Two Aboriginal youths working at Talgai station allegedly assaulted women of another group, and warriors gathered to respond. Warned of a raid, the station's owners and hands struck first and killed several people.

Death toll: About 6 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Hall 1925; French 1989.

After shepherds were killed at Kunderang station, Crown Lands Commissioner Robert Massie led an armed party to get back the sheep. At a large camp a fight broke out, and the well-armed colonists, firing from behind trees, killed many of the Dhanggati who greatly outnumbered them.

Death toll: About 6 Dhanggati people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: McMaugh n.d. p. 6; Blomfield 1981 pp. 36–8.

Border Police under Commissioner Oliver Fry fired without warning on a group of Aboriginal people near the Windeyer family's Deepwater station. Seven men, four women and five children were killed.

Death toll: 16 Guyambal, Ngarabul or Marbal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Walker 1966 p. 30; Reece 1974 p. 187.

After an attack on Baillie's station near Mount Arapiles, Henry Dana's Native Police shot at least three Mardidjali people and wounded many others, who later died.

Death toll: About 6 Mardidjali people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Critchett 1990 p. 254.

After settler William Brown was killed, John Oliver and his neighbours rode after the people they blamed and found them in the ranges behind Naracoorte with Brown's gun and coat. They opened fire, and a witness later said that "many of the blacks went under" without resistance.

Death toll: About 6 Buandig people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Critchett 1990 p. 254; Cannon 1990 pp. 154–5.

After a gathering of 150 to 200 Aboriginal people and raids on five stations, Mounted Police under Sergeant Anderson and local colonists followed the warriors to Mount Foster to arrest men named in warrants. When an officer was wounded, the police said they were "compelled to fire", and ten men were killed.

Death toll: 10 Wailwan, Wongaibon or Wiradjuri men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: HRA I vol. 25 pp. 8–10.

Settlers including Frederick Walker, Edmund Morey and William Ross trapped 70 to 80 Dadi Dadi or Weki Weki men on both banks of the Murray River and shot them, to clear the land for Ross's station. Morey later wrote that the massacre "broke their spirit".

Death toll: 70–80 Dadi Dadi or Weki Weki people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Collins 2002 pp. 48–9.

James Conroy was killed with a tomahawk by Gadubanud people, reportedly while trying to abduct an Aboriginal woman. Surveyor George Smythe then gathered a heavily armed posse, with armed Barrabool (Wathaurong) men, and attacked a Gadubanud camp across the river at dawn, killing the headman and many women and children.

Death toll: 8–20 Gadubanud people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Geelong Advertiser Aug 1846; Cannon 1990; Niewojt 2010.

After cattle were speared, two graziers and at least six armed horsemen fired on Dhanggati people swimming where Dourallie Creek meets the Macleay, and shot those trying to escape up the cliff. A Dhanggati elder, Victor Shepherd, later said about sixty men, women and children were killed.

Death toll: About 60 Dhanggati people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 20 Oct 1846 p. 2; Blomfield 1981 pp. 46–7.

Expeditions searching for a white woman believed to be held by the Kurnai reached camps on the Snowy River on 19 and 20 December. Accounts of the dead range from one to fifty, and Governor Gipps criticised the Native Police commander's "great want of discretion". Commissioner Charles Tyers later said at least fifty were killed during the searches.

Death toll: About 50 Tatungalung or Krauatungalang (Gunai/Kurnai) people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Port Phillip Herald and Patriot 1847; official correspondence; Select Committee 1859; Fels.

Station servants, one named Coppin, left a mixture of arsenic and flour in a hut for Aboriginal people to find, and about fifty died after eating it. Another servant, Brown, reported it. The servants claimed the arsenic and flour had been left separately and mixed by the victims themselves.

Death toll: About 50 Buyibara or Yugarabul people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: The Australian 13 Apr 1847 p. 3; Moreton Bay Courier 24 Apr 1847 p. 2; Connors 2015 pp. 126–7.

After a shepherd was killed and sheep taken, armed settlers with Aboriginal guides attacked the Gunditjmara stronghold at dawn while families were eating. Historian James Bonwick recorded that they fired "without a word of warning" and that mothers, husbands and babies "lay about the stones shrieking in maddening pain".

Death toll: 30 or more Gunditjmara people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bonwick 1970; Broughton 1980; Clark 1995.

James Marks's son Johnny was killed on 10 September, reportedly in revenge for Marks shooting an Aboriginal messenger. Marks gathered settlers and stockmen, found forty Bigambul or Gawambaraay people camped in a bend of the river at Boonall, shot them and burned the camp. The victims seem to have had nothing to do with his son's death, and it began six months of revenge raids by Marks.

Death toll: About 40 Bigambul or Gawambaraay people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Bligh 1849; Watts 1901; Webb 1922; Telfer 1980; Copland 1990.

Continuing his revenge campaign, Marks and two chief constables, McGee and Hancock, recruited stockmen and landholders as a vigilante party. They attacked Aboriginal camps at Callandoon and killed about 47 people.

Death toll: About 47 Aboriginal people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Tonge n.d.; Copland 2001; Richards 2008; Sydney Morning Herald 15 Oct 1847.

Squatter Thomas Coutts was accused of giving arsenic-laced damper to Gumbaynggirr people at his Kangaroo Creek station, and Commissioner Oliver Fry found decomposed bodies at their camp. Coutts was discharged in May 1848 because Aboriginal witnesses could not legally give evidence, though Attorney General J.H. Plunkett said he was "in no moral doubt" of his guilt.

Death toll: 23 Gumbaynggirr people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: HRA I vol. 26; Maitland Mercury 2 Feb 1848; Lydon 1996.

After a stockman named Tierney was killed at Warroo, 25 colonists and about 150 Aboriginal allies from across the river attacked a sleeping Bigambul camp at night. An old account says the people were "surprised and shot down like so many sheep", and a large burial mound marked the site.

Death toll: About 100 Bigambul people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Telfer 1980; Collins 2002; Sydney Morning Herald 1859.

After an attack on Burgurrah station, at least ten mounted stockmen charged the Aboriginal camp with swords and guns, "shooting and cutting them down as they fled". About forty people were killed, including a headman.

Death toll: About 40 Mandandanji, Bigambul or neighbouring people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Telfer 1980 p. 70; Collins 2002 p. 18.

Assistant Protector Parker heard from a shearer that "a Mr Beveridge had 'settled' the blacks by leaving a quantity of poisoned flour in their way", and about twenty people were said to have died. Aboriginal people on neighbouring runs told of similar poisonings, but a magistrate at Moulamein dismissed it all as groundless rumours.

Death toll: About 20 Wemba Wemba or Wadi Wadi people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Cannon 1990 pp. 230–1.

Settler James Brown and two employees shot an old man, three women and five girls of the Wattatonga people and burned the bodies. A white witness and an Aboriginal witness both disappeared before the trial, and the Aboriginal witness was probably killed. Brown was arrested but never tried.

Death toll: 8–9 Wattatonga people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Foster and Nettelbeck 2001 pp. 78–80; Foster 2009.

After John Gore and William Lowe were killed at Mount Abundance station, settler Allan Macpherson led an armed party on horseback against the Mandandanji and shot about six people.

Death toll: About 6 Mandandanji people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Macpherson 1879 p. 14; Collins 2002 p. 27.

After two of Mount Abundance's bullock drivers were killed carting wool to Brisbane, Macpherson led ten armed men, with Commissioner Jack Durbin and the Border Police, to Yamboucal, where they shot forty Mandandanji people.

Death toll: About 40 Mandandanji people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Telfer 1980 p. 43; Collins 2002 pp. 36–7.

Frederick Walker, commandant of the new Native Police, led fourteen troopers and twenty squatters and drovers against people accused of killing cattle. A drover, William Telfer, put the dead at about 100. A local politician boasted that the people were "completely put down" and that property became "fifty per cent more valuable".

Death toll: About 100 Wiriyaraay or Gawambaraay people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Skinner 1975; NSW Legislative Council V&P 1858 vol. 2; Copland 1990; Collins 2002.

Walker's Native Police hid under a carrier's dray at Beebo station, and when warriors arrived in war paint they opened fire and chased them into the scrub. A witness, John Watts, wrote that "the number they killed no one but the commander and themselves ever knew".

Death toll: At least 6 Marbal or Guyambul people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Skinner 1975 pp. 30–1.

Shepherd Patrick Dwyer, angry that Aboriginal people were taking flour from his hut, laced some of it with arsenic. Five Nawu people died at once and three more later. Dwyer was charged with murder but released for lack of evidence, and fled to California.

Death toll: 8 Nawu people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Foster, Hosking and Nettelbeck 2001 p. 83.

After Captain James Beevor and Anne Easton were killed in early May, a settler posse allegedly chased Wirangu and Nauo people to Waterloo Bay and shot at least ten as they hid in the coastal scrub (Waterloo Bay massacre). Historians Foster and Nettelbeck found no direct evidence in official records, but the Aboriginal community is certain it happened.

Death toll: At least 10 Wirangu and Nauo people killed (single source; disputed); no colonists killed.

Sources: Foster, Hosking and Nettelbeck 2001 pp. 44–73; Burgoyne 2000 p. 114; Gage 2017.

After shepherds were killed at Gin Gin station, Gregory Blaxland, William Forster, the Thompson brothers and more than fifty station hands attacked a large Taribelang camp as people slept. Many drowned trying to escape into the Burnett River, and remains and weapons were found there decades later.

Date: June–July 1849.

Death toll: About 60 Taribelang men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Laurie 1959; Lack 1967; Coffey 2006.

A Native Police detachment, possibly under Walker, shot twelve Bigambul people who worked on the station. In 1848 the lessees, Jonathan and Margaret Young, had reported James Marks for killing two Bigambul women there. Historian Copland thinks this attack was meant to intimidate the Youngs for breaking the frontier's code of silence.

Death toll: 12 Bigambul people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Tonge; Copland 1990; Goodall 1999.

Commissioner Jack Durbin and stockmen fought a large group at Talavera. A constable reported that "the blacks made a good stand but were put to rout losing their Chief (Willari) who was shot with about fifty others". Several colonists were speared but none died.

Death toll: About 50 Mandandanji, Bigambul or neighbouring people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Telfer 1980; Collins 2002.

Stockmen surprised a Kurnai group feasting near a limestone outcrop and trapped them against a bluff, where 15 to 20 were shot. The bodies were reportedly thrown into the river where it runs under the hill. Historian Peter Gardner thinks it happened before the Brodribb River killings and was kept secret.

Death toll: 15–20 Tatungalung or Brabralung (Gunai/Kurnai) people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Gardner 2001 pp. 76–85; Broome 2005 p. 81.

The killing is known from Gunditjmara oral history. Rose Donker told how her grandmother Hannah MacDonald hid in the reeds until the fighting was over, and another survivor, Johnny Dutton, also hid in the water. The date is uncertain, somewhere between 1849 and 1860.

Date: 1850–1860.

Death toll: About 6 Dhauwurd wurrung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Portland Guardian 1946; Clark 1995; Hope 2021; Connor 2021.

After Mandandanji people burned Wallann station in 1849, Lieutenant Richard Marshall's Native Police, with the superintendent and a co-owner, tracked them down. The superintendent claimed they fired because of resistance, but historian Patrick Collins calls it "an encounter of major proportions" and suggests it was meant to show buyers the station was safe.

Death toll: About 30 Mandandanji or Barunggam people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Moreton Bay Courier 6 Apr 1850; Collins 2002; Copland et al. 2006.

Sergeant Skelton and Matthew McGrath led Native Police to Ukabulla station to hunt Mandandanji refugees who had moved into the Maranoa, running them down in daylight.

Death toll: About 13 Mandandanji or Barunggam people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Collins 2002 p. 203.

Station cook Dan Moylan abducted and assaulted a young Krauatungalang girl and was speared to death by her people. Settlers, helped by warriors from the Mitchell River, tracked the group to Milly Creek and then hunted survivors past Buchan and the Pyramids, driving people over the cliffs into the Murrindal River.

Death toll: About 15 Krauatungalang people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Pepper and de Araugo 1985; Gardner 2001; Broome 2005.

Colonists saw K'gari as a stronghold for attacks, so Native Police Commandant Walker, Lieutenant Marshall and 24 troopers, with the crew of the schooner Margaret and Mary sworn in as constables, went to break up the Butchulla and other clans sheltering there. Troopers fired on retreating boats, and accounts tell of people driven into the sea. It was the largest Native Police operation in the northern districts.

Date: 24 December 1851–3 January 1852.

Death toll: About 50 Butchulla and other people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 22 Jan 1852; Lauer 1977; Collins 2000.

Three days after stockman Robert Richardson was killed at Aroona station, Johnson Frederick Hayward led a dawn raid on a Yura (Adnyamathanha) camp in a gorge between the Heysen and ABC ranges. Hayward described "a good fusillade", first said most escaped, and later admitted killing about fifteen men, women and children.

Death toll: About 15 Yura (Adnyamathanha) people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Foster and Nettelbeck 2001 pp. 94–105.

Sergeant Richard Dempster let a stockman named Johnston lead his Native Police troopers against the Mandandanji at Yamboucal. Commissioner Henry Whitty warned that a civilian could not command troopers, and Dempster was reportedly suspended, but the number killed is unknown.

Death toll: At least 6 Mandandanji people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Collins 2002 pp. 164–79.

After Mrs Sullivan, a shepherd's wife, was killed at Aberfoyle station, Constable Michael Clogher led a mounted party of settlers after the Baanbay warriors. They surrounded them at Paddys Land and, witnesses said, "shot down as many as they could".

Death toll: About 10 Baanbay people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Dungog Chronicle 7 June 1932; Uralla Times 19 Apr 1923; Don Dorrigo Gazette 1939–53; Daily Examiner 28 Oct 1942; Clayton-Dixon 2019.

After colonists including the Meldrum family were killed at Bald Hills, Major Edward Parke and Constable Clogher led mounted police and settlers after the Baanbay. Historian Callum Clayton-Dixon writes that people were chased to the edge of a sheer bluff and "either shot or pushed over the edge, probably both".

Death toll: About 6 Baanbay men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Goulburn Herald 18 Sept 1852; Dungog Chronicle 7 June 1932; Clayton-Dixon 2019.

Missionary William Ridley reported in 1853 that Gamilaraay or Bigambul people had been shot near Mr Pearce's station on Moonie Creek. The first story claimed self-defence, but Ridley later heard on better authority that they had only been spearing cattle. Historian Patrick Collins thinks Sergeant Dempster's Native Police were responsible.

Date: September 1852–September 1853.

Death toll: About 19 Gamilaraay or Bigambul people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Empire 3 Dec 1853; Reuss and Browne 1860; Collins 2002.

After a shepherd was killed on the Dawson River and stations complained of stock theft, Native Police under Sergeant James Skelton, with stockmen Paddy McEncroe and D.W. Duncomb, attacked in daylight. The dead included Bussamarai, a Yiman leader from the Dawson.

Death toll: At least 6 Mandandanji and Yiman people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Skinner 1975 pp. 96–7; Collins 2002 pp. 203–5.

Native Police killed about thirty Bundjalung men, women and children in reprisal for the alleged killing of two white men north of the Tweed River. There was no evidence that the people at Angel's Beach had anything to do with it. A memorial was placed at the site in 2001.

Date: December 1853–January 1854.

Death toll: About 30 Bundjalung people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Ainsworth 1987 pp. 45–6.

After cattle were speared, colonists on horseback drove Wiradjuri people onto an island in the river below Buckingbong and shot men, women and children, so that the place became known as Murdering Island. One survivor, Mungo, is said to have hidden underwater breathing through a reed. Accounts of the dead range from 35 to 300.

Death toll: 35–300 Wiradjuri people killed (database figure 70; single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Wagga Wagga Express 5 Nov 1873; Freeman's Journal 5 Jan 1895; Labor Daily 1 Jan 1926; Daily Advertiser 27 May 1935.

After Aboriginal people threatened to kill settler Lockyer Burgess's stock, Deputy Superintendent John Nicol Drummond led police and station hands against their refuge at Bootanell swamp, armed with muskets, swords and bayonets. Follow-up raids over the next two months targeted people on the Irwin, Bowes and Chapman rivers.

Death toll: 15–30 Naaguja and Nanda people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Pashley 2002 pp. 53–6.

A stockman, James Dixon, wrote to a friend in December 1854 about "a great battle" near Apsley in which eighteen Jandwadjali people and two colonists were killed. He described spears that "penetrate right through you".

Death toll: 18 Jandwadjali people killed (single source); 2 colonists killed.

Sources: James Dixon to S. Wilson, 5 Dec 1854 (private collection).

Aboriginal people ate flour laced with strychnine that had been taken from Henry Palmer's store. A local historian recorded "a great wailing" in the camp at Granville that night, and several people were found dead the next morning.

Death toll: About 6 Gubbi Gubbi or Butchulla people killed by poison (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bottoms 2013 p. 86.

A large party of Gayiri warriors attacked Mr Young's station and killed about seven people, including stockkeepers, women and Aboriginal workers; a newspaper said they "murdered every person on the establishment". It was one of several attacks on Port Curtis stations that summer. The attackers were Aboriginal.

Death toll: About 7 colonists and station workers killed; no Gayiri deaths recorded.

Sources: Commissioner Wiseman 5 Jan 1856; Sydney Morning Herald 18 Feb 1856; Empire 28 Jan and 22 Apr 1856; McDonald 1981.

Two settlers tracked Dhanggati people up Towel Creek and loaded their guns overnight. An Aboriginal servant, Jimmy Taylor, warned the group, who hid in the rainforest upstream, but "one man coughed" and gave away their hiding place. Among the dead was the mother of a man later known as Jack Scott.

Death toll: About 6 Dhanggati people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Blomfield 1981 pp. 45–6.

In reprisal for the Mt Larcom killings, Lieutenant John Murray led five Native Police troopers, a settler named William Young, a constable and an Aboriginal guide to a Darumbal camp on Nankin Creek, where they shot eleven men dead and badly wounded three. Murray's own report admitted that troopers had fired on Port Curtis people before the Mt Larcom attack.

Death toll: 11 Darumbal men killed and 3 wounded (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Skinner 1975 pp. 208–12.

At dawn, Yiman warriors attacked the Fraser family's homestead, killing five Fraser brothers, three workers, Mrs Fraser and two of her daughters, who were also assaulted. Fourteen-year-old Sylvester Fraser escaped. Historian Jonathan Richards links the attack to the Fraser sons' sexual abuse of Yiman women (Hornet Bank massacre).

Death toll: 11 colonists killed; no Yiman deaths recorded.

Sources: The Age 20 Nov 1857; Reid 1980, 1982; Richards 2008.

Twelve settlers, among them Ernest Davies, George Serocold and Thomas Murray-Prior, with two Aboriginal trackers, hunted Yiman people across the upper Dawson for three weeks. Serocold wrote that they "spared none of the grownup blacks which we could find", and another settler said they shot "upwards of eighty men, women and children".

Death toll: About 80 Yiman people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Settler autobiographies; Davies 1958; Richards 2008.

William and Sylvester Fraser, surviving sons of the family, carried out their own revenge killings. William later told grazier Andrew Murray he had shot "seventy blacks to date", and Aboriginal people came to call him Nemesis and Debil Debil.

Death toll: About 70 Yiman people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Richards 2008 p. 64.

Newspaper accounts describe colonists in the Brewarrina district gathering for "a bit of sport" and hunting Aboriginal people along the river. Two Aboriginal men working for colonists took part, and one claimed 170 deaths. Warraweena is named as one of three killing sites, with Hospital Creek and Yambecoona.

Death toll: About 20 Barranbinya people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Kiama Independent 1 Apr 1869; Maryborough Chronicle 9 May 1876.

Native Police detachments hunted Yiman people through the ranges of the upper Dawson. Officials noted concern that people had been "shot dead as they were running away". It was the third large reprisal after Hornet Bank.

Death toll: About 20 Yiman people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Richards 2008 pp. 63–4; Colonial Secretary correspondence 58/920 (Queensland State Archives).

After cattle were speared at Quantambone station, Con Bride led about twenty armed stockmen against a gathering of some 300 people at the Brewarrina fish traps and fired volleys into them, killing women and children. Survivors fled toward the Culgoa River. The creek was named Hospital Creek after an Aboriginal woman was seen tending the wounded there.

Death toll: About 200 Murrawarri and neighbouring people killed (some accounts say 300); no colonists killed.

Sources: Farmer and Settler; Sydney Mail; Freeman's Journal (accounts 1869–1928).

Journalist A. Norton, travelling on the river steamer Gemini in 1859, wrote that the Native Police "had been there before my visit, and it was common rumour that the blacks had been shot down without mercy through the district".

Date: January–February 1859.

Death toll: About 20 Paakantyi men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Dargin 1976 pp. 54–5; Maryborough Chronicle 9 May 1876.

After a colonist was killed, Second Lieutenant Murray's Native Police tracked Yiman people to a scrub camp near Kelman's and Dutton's stations. Murray reported that they "stood their ground for about half an hour" before scattering, "leaving six of their number dead, and many more wounded".

Death toll: 6 Yiman people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives COL/A26/1860/79; Central Queensland Herald 24 Aug 1950.

Eighteen survivors of the wrecked ship Sapphire were killed by Gudang warriors on Keriri (Hammond Island) in the Torres Strait. One of the attackers was killed. The attackers were Aboriginal.

Death toll: 18 colonists (sailors) killed; 1 Gudang man killed.

Sources: Moreton Bay Courier 24 Mar 1860; Mullins 1994; Bottoms 2013.

In a conflict over water, mounted settlers with breech-loading rifles attacked Kaniyang (Noongar) people at Eight Mile Well, a traditional waterhole, before police were posted to Bridgetown. Survivors moved to Three Acre Pool on the Blackwood River, where many later caught chicken pox and pneumonia.

Death toll: About 20 Kaniyang (Noongar) people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brad Goode & Associates 2011; Hadley; Heritage Council of Western Australia.

After complaints about Yiman people near Bendemere, Second Lieutenant Carr and seven troopers found a camp of more than a hundred. Carr said the people "commenced a most determined assault on the Police", and his men fired for over an hour. One of the dead was said to be linked to Hornet Bank.

Death toll: About 15 Yiman people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives COL/A2/1860 60/381; Collins 2002 p. 213.

Men from two stations in the Armidale police district rode out against Aboriginal people. The Armidale Express reported that the Aboriginal people were so scared they were "not likely to be heard of again near Armidale for some time to come".

Death toll: About 6 Anaiwan or Macleay River people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Armidale Express 23 June 1860 p. 2; Clayton-Dixon 2019 p. 103.

After settlers complained of cattle killing, Second Lieutenant E.V. Morisset's Native Police found Wakka Wakka people "collected in several places in very large numbers" and said it was "necessary to fire upon them before they would disperse". At least eight were found dead, and an official inquiry called it self-defence.

Death toll: At least 8 Wakka Wakka people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland Legislative Assembly papers 1861; Bottoms 2013.

At settler John Hardie's request, Lieutenant Frederick Wheeler led Native Police against a Yuggera camp in the Dugandan Scrub and "killed nearly all of them", men, women and children.

Death toll: About 40 Yuggera people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland V&P 1861; Rosser 1990; Bottoms 2013.

Gayiri warriors killed squatter Horatio Wills, his family and workers, nineteen people including women and children, on his newly taken-up station. It was revenge for Native Police killings of Gayiri people at Jesse Gregson's neighbouring station about a week earlier (Cullin-la-ringo massacre).

Death toll: 19 colonists killed; no Gayiri deaths recorded.

Sources: The Courier, Sydney Morning Herald and Rockhampton Bulletin 1861–2; Carment 1980; Reid 1980–1; Perrin 1998.

Second Lieutenant Marlow took six unarmed Gungabula visitors to his new Native Police camp as scouts. When about thirty armed men arrived, Marlow said they "at once commenced an attack", and ten were killed.

Death toll: 10 Gungabula people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Collins 2002; Queensland State Archives COL/A23/61/3266.

Before the Native Police arrived, two parties of armed settlers chased the Gayiri to the Nogoa River in reprisal for Cullin-la-ringo. Governor Bowen reported that "about thirty of the tribe of murderers are said to have fallen", and one later account put the toll across all the raids at over 200.

Death toll: About 30 Gayiri people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Reid 1980–1; Queensland State Archives; The Courier Nov 1861; Sydney Morning Herald Dec 1861.

Lieutenant Cave and eight troopers tracked Gayiri people for four days and cornered them on a steep hill, coming up from behind. A witness recorded people calling out "Me no kill white fellow!" Cave reported that "their loss was heavy", and many died falling from the cliffs.

Death toll: 60–70 Gayiri people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives; Bowen correspondence 16 Dec 1861; Sydney Morning Herald 10 Dec 1861.

Frederick Walker's party, searching for the lost Burke and Wills, met about thirty armed Mbara men. Walker wrote that "a continued steady fire was kept up" with breech-loading rifles, and twelve men were killed.

Death toll: 12 Mbara men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Walker journal; Argus 15 Apr 1862; Bottoms 2013.

Walker's search party saw Ngawun men approaching in a half-moon formation in three groups, which he called "stockyarding", and ordered mounted charges on both flanks. The left and centre groups suffered heavy losses before the rest escaped across the river.

Death toll: About 6 Ngawun people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Argus 16 Apr 1862; Walker 1863.

Native Police reinforcements were sent after Cullin-la-ringo. Cadet Johnson pursued a gathering near Roxborough station that he accused of taking sheep, and at Mimosa Creek met about 300 people. He reported: "The Blacks again attacked me, & I was obliged to fire upon them, 10 fell."

Death toll: 10 Mandalgu people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives GOV/23/61/74, COL/A23/61/3038, COL/A26/62/823.

Second Lieutenant W. Moorhead tracked a group for seventeen days to a brigalow scrub camp east of the Expedition Range. When they resisted, he "was forced to order the Police under my command to fire upon them", and nine were killed. Some station owners sheltered survivors, to the annoyance of officials.

Death toll: 9 Mandalgu people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives GOV/23/61/74, COL/A26/62/823.

Native Police under Second Lieutenant Alfred March Patrick attacked Gayiri people on Christopher Rolleston's Albinia Downs station. Former commandant Frederick Walker complained that the "peace was broken by the Native Police under Mr Patrick, attacking and killing and wounding several of the friendly blacks".

Death toll: About 6 Gayiri men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bottoms 2013 p. 49.

Station manager Walter Chippindall, stockman Richard Jones, John Farquharson and four others ambushed Gubbi Gubbi men fishing from canoes at Murdering Creek during the bunya season and killed about 25 of them.

Date: February–April 1862.

Death toll: About 25 Gubbi Gubbi men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Gibbons 2014 pp. 142–7, 282.

Lieutenant Wheeler's Native Police attacked a corroboree without provocation, killing seven men and a woman. Wheeler said he had orders to disperse gatherings, but the Courier noted the people "had been very peaceably and quietly disposed of late".

Death toll: 7–8 Buyibara people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: The Courier 4 Oct 1862 p. 2.

A Native Police lieutenant, unnamed in the record, and six troopers "cleared out" an Aboriginal camp at Pigeon Creek station in daylight, killing 27 people.

Death toll: 27 Aboriginal people killed (group not recorded; single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Chambers 1988 pp. 45–60.

A retired Native Police trooper told James Cassady that his detachment had "dispersed" nine Aboriginal men at Waterview station in revenge for the deaths of two white men near Strathalbyn station. Cassady wrote in 1880 that their skeletons could still be seen.

Death toll: 9 Aboriginal men killed (group not recorded; single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: The Queenslander 23 Oct 1880 p. 530; Bottoms 2013 p. 114.

After two shepherds were killed at Hermitage station, Sub-Inspector Reginald Uhr and volunteers found Jangga people in the scrub near the junction and shot twelve, taking women captive. One of the volunteers later recalled dining "surrounded by the corpses and the bound and roped women".

Death toll: 12–14 Jangga people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Maryborough Chronicle 1 Apr 1865; Fetherstonhaugh 1917; Richards 2008; Bottoms 2013.

At the newly founded De Grey station, the Ngarla were said to have planned an ambush at a corroboree. Manager Charles Nairn was attacked and rescued by an employee, Conway, and colonists then pursued and killed about ten Ngarla people.

Date: January–August 1864.

Death toll: About 10 Ngarla people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Perth Gazette 12 Aug 1864; Western Mail 6 Mar 1886; Smith 2020; Blight 2024.

After soldiers were wounded and horses speared at the new northern settlement, Colonel Boyle Travers Finniss sent his son Frederick on a reprisal raid. Frederick allegedly told his men to "shoot every bloody native you see", and the party destroyed a Woolna camp. A colonist, Alaric Ward, was later killed in retaliation.

Death toll: About 10 Woolna people killed; 1 colonist killed later.

Sources: SA Parliament Northern Territory Commission of Inquiry 1866; Reid 1990; Austin 1992.

After four shepherds were killed and sheep taken at Mungullalla, Native Police under Captain Lambert tracked the raiders. A newspaper reported that an ambush was "frustrated by the vigilance of Mr. Lowe" and that the police laid "eight or nine of the rascals in the dust".

Death toll: 8–9 Gunggari or Mandandanji people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Maitland Mercury 13 Dec 1864.

Frank and Alexander Jardine were droving cattle from Rockhampton to Somerset when Kunjen warriors faced them at a creek crossing. The brothers' journal says they fired carbines when the warriors tried to surround them, killing eight or nine men.

Death toll: 8–9 Kunjen or Kokomini men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Byerley 1867 (Jardine brothers' journals).

Two days later the Jardines' party claimed that 70 to 80 warriors attacked them. Their journal says the people were trapped at the water's edge while "ten carbines poured volley after volley into them from all directions", killing about thirty, with many more wounded or drowned.

Death toll: About 30 Kunjen or Kokomini men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Byerley 1867 (Jardine brothers' journals).

Native Police and settlers, including Lieutenant Walter Compigne, visited North Keppel Island to see if it suited cattle. They found Woppaburra people sheltering in a cave and at dawn shot seven or eight men and a woman carrying a disabled child. Survivors' accounts and skulls later held by the Queensland Museum confirm the killings.

Death toll: About 10 Woppaburra people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Rowland 2004.

After John Dowling was killed by his Aboriginal assistant, Vincent Dowling was reportedly told to "take whatever measures he thought best". Armed colonists attacked a Kullilla camp near Thouringowa and killed about thirty, and a second massacre followed twenty miles downriver. The killings are remembered in Kullilla oral history.

Death toll: About 30 Kullilla people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Mail 1865; Maxwell 1889; McKellar 1984; Dillon 2019, 2020.

Explorers Panter, Harding and Goldwyer were found speared and clubbed to death near La Grange. A search party led by Maitland Brown then attacked Yawuru and Karajarri people on 6 April, killing up to twenty. The Explorers' Monument in Fremantle was later amended to acknowledge the Aboriginal dead.

Death toll: 15–30 Yawuru and Karajarri people killed; no colonists killed in the reprisal.

Sources: Australian News for Home Readers 1865; Scates 1989; Forrest 1996; ADB.

This was the second massacre on the Bulloo, after the killings near Thouringowa waterhole. Armed colonists killed about thirty Kullilla and Bitharra people in daylight in reprisal.

Death toll: About 30 Kullilla and Bitharra people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Mail 1865; Maitland Mercury 1864–5; Sydney Morning Herald 1865; McKellar 1984; Dillon 2019, 2020.

Sub-Inspector Reginald Uhr's Native Police "dispersed" a gathering of more than 200 Yuru people camped near Euri Creek. A newspaper said they were "evidently bent on mischief of some sort from the number of spears they had made".

Death toll: About 30 Yuru people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Wagga Wagga Express 25 Aug 1866.

After an attack on a horse belonging to William Sly, one of Bourke's first publicans, a Native Police officer and troopers from Yougha Creek went after the Margany. The Maitland Mercury reported that "a lesson has been gently taught them not likely to be forgotten".

Death toll: About 6 Margany people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Maitland Mercury 6 Sept 1866; Evening News 27 Sept 1877.

After Henry Clark was killed on the Belyando River, eighteen Native Police troopers under Reginald Uhr and Frederick Murray, with a station manager, pursued Aboriginal people for several days. The Brisbane Courier reported they "succeeded in shooting eight or ten of the blacks".

Death toll: 8–10 Aboriginal people killed (group not recorded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 2 Nov 1866; Gympie Times 19 Dec 1903.

A Native Police party from Mount McConnell rode 83 miles in reprisal for Henry Clark's death, and the Queenslander reported that they "succeeded in shooting eight or ten of the blacks". The database lists this separately from Dunjarrobina, but it may be the same killing.

Death toll: About 9 Aboriginal people killed (group not recorded; single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: The Queenslander 3 Nov 1866 p. 9.

After cattle were speared at Balnagowan station, Native Police under Acting Sub-Inspector Johnstone patrolled the Pioneer River district, where camps held more than 200 people. The Mackay Mercury said they were "dealt with in the usual and only effectual mode". Historian Clive Moore concluded that people at Mt Mandurana had to face the carbines or go over the precipice.

Death toll: About 50 Aboriginal men, women and children killed (group not recorded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Mackay Mercury 24 Apr 1867; Moore 1990.

After a shepherd's hut was allegedly robbed near the Morinish diggings, Sub-Inspector Myrtil Aubin and four troopers raided a camp at dawn. Horrified locals found bodies in a waterhole, including a man called Tommy, a girl and a young boy. Aubin was dismissed by the Executive Council.

Death toll: About 6 Aboriginal people killed (group not recorded); no colonists killed.

Sources: Rockhampton Bulletin 16 July 1867; Brisbane Courier 18 July 1867; Queensland Times 20 July 1867; Richards 2008.

An Aboriginal stockman working for police magistrate Frank Jardine shot ten Yadhaigana people at Turtle Head Island, about 20 km south of Somerset, in reprisal for disturbing cattle.

Date: September–December 1867.

Death toll: About 10 Yadhaigana people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Sharp 1992 p. 41; Bottoms 2013 p. 128.

After Iningai people killed a station worker at Eight Mile Lagoon, colonists tracked them to a cave near Gray Rock. A newspaper account a decade later claimed the station manager went into the cave alone with two revolvers and "shot down the whole band, who, paralysed with fear, offered no resistance".

Death toll: 13 Iningai people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Capricornian 13 Jul 1878; Bottoms 2013.

After horses were speared near Burketown, Native Police under Sub-Inspector D'Arcy Uhr went after the local people with Snider rifles. The Brisbane Courier reported that they "succeeded in shooting upwards of thirty blacks".

Date: April–May 1868.

Death toll: About 30 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 9 Jun 1868; Queenslander 13 Jun 1868; Loos 1982; Ashwin 2002; Roberts 2005.

After three men, Cameron, Manson and a Chinese worker, were killed near the Norman River and their bodies left in a waterhole, Uhr's police rounded up and shot three groups of 14, 9 and 8 people. One man was reported to have survived "eighteen or twenty bullets" before a trooper killed him.

Date: April–May 1868.

Death toll: 31 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 9 Jun 1868; Queenslander 13 Jun 1868; Roberts 2005.

After Police Constable William Griffis and two others were killed in February 1868, Government Resident Robert John Sholl authorised armed expeditions, and parties led by Alex McRae and John Withnell kept killing Jaburara people for weeks, even though three men had already been convicted. One participant, David Carley, said "quite sixty natives, men, women and children" were shot dead in a single day, and Sholl was said to have been "sickened by it" and stopped it (Flying Foam massacre).

Death toll: About 60 Jaburara (Yaburara) people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Inquirer 1868; State Records Office of WA; Gara 1983; Dyson 2002; Owen 2016; Gifford 2017.

Police magistrate Frank Jardine organised an ambush of Gudang turtle hunters near Somerset. His party, which included marines and the surgeon Dr Richard Cannon, killed four people on the beach and later six more in a canoe.

Death toll: 10 Gudang people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Bottoms 2013 pp. 127–8; Sharp 1992 pp. 38–9.

The brig Sperwer ran aground off Prince of Wales Island, and the crew who went ashore for wood and water were killed with clubs and spears. Captain Gascoigne, possibly his wife and child, and fourteen Javanese crew died; their remains were found two months later. The attackers were Torres Strait Islanders.

Death toll: 17 colonists and crew killed; no Islander deaths recorded.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 3 Dec 1869; Inquirer 5 Jan 1870.

In reprisal for the Sperwer killings, Jardine led Native Police and Aboriginal helpers against the Kaurareg people; the first camp was deserted, but a second was rushed and people were shot. Some were spared through kinship with the mainland Aboriginal men in the party, and Police Magistrate Henry Chester later executed three more. Kaurareg oral tradition says the Adai were "totally massacred".

Death toll: 6 Kaurareg people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Memmott et al. 2021; Brisbane Courier 9 Nov 1869; Herald 30 Oct 1869; Inquirer 5 Jan 1870.

After a shepherd, William Griffiths, was killed on the Ashburton, Farquhar McRae, E.T. Hooley, Robert Sholl and others, with an Aboriginal assistant, attacked Thalanyji groups near the junction of the Henry and Ashburton rivers between 10 and 15 July. A later poem describes McRae shooting the group's leader.

Death toll: 20 to 50 Thalanyji people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Colonial Secretary's correspondence 1869; Forrest 1996; Gifford 2018; Sunday Times 1918; Western Mail 1935.

While droving near Bladensburg, George Fraser's men were attacked by Guwa people, who killed one of them after two Aboriginal women were assaulted. Sub-Inspector Robert Moran's Native Police and Fraser's men surrounded the camp at dawn from high ground and cut down people fleeing to a waterhole; a stockman, Hazelton Brock, estimated about 200 dead.

Death toll: About 180 to 200 Guwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 20 Apr 1901; Lumholtz 1889; Bottoms 2013.

Native Police attacked a Djira camp at dawn near the mouth of the Murray River with carbines and knives. The acting sub-inspector reported that he "judged it advisable to take the extreme measure of dispersing the camp at once".

Death toll: 6 Djira people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives COL/A185/1873/993.

Colonists, including staff of the Normanton customs station, landed on Sweers Island, home of the Kayardild, and "a number of Blacks were shot". A magisterial inquiry was held early in 1873, but no one was arrested.

Death toll: About 6 Kayardild people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Richards 2008 p. 57; Bottoms 2013 p. 169.

After John Cook was killed near the Woolgar River, Robert Gome guided Sub-Inspector Alexander Salmond and five troopers to a group of Ngawun people, who were "dispersed". Salmond admitted there was no evidence linking them to the killing.

Death toll: About 6 Ngawun people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Richards 2008 p. 22.

After two stockmen, Maloney and Welford, were killed (Maloney by Birria people after he shot their dog), Sub-Inspector Gilmour's Native Police "shot an entire camp of Kungkari at Wombunderry waterhole".

Death toll: About 40 Kungkari people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Bottoms 2013 pp. 65–7; Durack 2008 p. 139.

The brig Maria, carrying 75 gold prospectors bound for New Guinea, was wrecked on Bramble Reef on 26 February 1872. Two boats reached Cardwell, but three craft landed near Mission Beach, where Djiru people killed fourteen men, including the captain. The attackers were Aboriginal.

Death toll: 14 colonists killed; no Djiru deaths recorded.

Sources: Queenslander 6 and 13 Apr 1872; Brisbane Courier 4 Apr 1872; Forster 1872.

Lieutenant Sabben RN and a party of sailors were sent to search for the Maria survivors. About 120 Djiru people approached their boat at Clump Point, and after half an hour's fighting, eight were killed and eight wounded.

Death toll: 8 Djiru people killed and 8 wounded; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 6 Apr 1872; Queenslander 13 Apr 1872; Moresby 1876; Bottoms 2013.

Captain John Moresby and Lieutenant Hayter of HMS Basilisk, with Native Police aboard the Peri, attacked Djiru camps around Tam O'Shanter Point, found belongings of the Maria crew and destroyed the camps. Moresby wrote that it was done "for the sake of justice" but noted the troopers' "unrestrained ferocity".

Death toll: 45 Djiru people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 6 Apr 1872; Moresby 1876; Bottoms 2013.

The steamer Governor Blackall carried volunteers, water police and trackers under Lieutenant Gowlland and Sub-Inspector Robert Arthur Johnstone along 50 miles of coast. On 21 and 22 March Johnstone's troopers killed 43 Djiru men, women and children, and said they had found property belonging to the missing colonists.

Death toll: 43 Djiru people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Moresby 1876; Queenslander 6 and 13 Apr 1872; Bottoms 2013.

A party droving horses from Burketown to Port Darwin (Dillon Cox, W. D'Arcy Uhr, James Barry, William Harvey, James Broderick, Jimmy Soo and Ah Choo) had boomerangs thrown at them, and the men charged and fired. Historian Tony Roberts writes that Uhr's practice was to "teach them a lesson".

Death toll: About 6 Yanyuwa or Garrwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 16 Sep and 27 Oct 1874; Roberts 2005.

Aboriginal people camped peacefully at Wyandote with the owner's permission were attacked without warning by Acting Sub-Inspector Johnstone's Native Police. "Several were shot and two Gins taken away", and the bodies of eight men were left by the road.

Death toll: 11 Aboriginal men and women killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Richards 2008 p. 241; Bottoms 2013 p. 137.

The same Burketown to Port Darwin droving party was speared at Calico Creek by Yanyuwa or Garrwa warriors. They "retaliated with a brisk fire" from Westley Richards rifles and destroyed the weapons left at the camp.

Death toll: 15 Yanyuwa or Garrwa warriors killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 27 Oct 1874; Queenslander 24 Oct 1874; Roberts 2005, 2009; Dymock 1991; Morrison.

Three overlanders from Queensland, Joe Walker, Tommy McBride and Billy Banks, fired on Garawa and Gunindiri people with Colt revolvers, including at night as people crossed the river on pandanus logs. One account says they "fired into them as fast as they could".

Death toll: 10 Garawa and Gunindiri people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005; Ashwin 2002.

About 50 Yanyuwa people were following the tracks of the same party. Joe Walker "galloped straight at the leaders" on a one-eyed horse, firing his revolvers.

Death toll: 6 Yanyuwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005; Merlan 1978; Ashwin 1927.

After a fugitive known as 'Spider' was captured near Gladstone, Native Police under Sergeant Ware and Acting Sub-Inspector Alexander Douglas attacked a Goreng Goreng family camp. Miriam Vale station owners protested the "massacre of the innocents", and police magistrate C.W. Rich held an inquiry in February 1873, at which Douglas called the victims "scoundrels".

Death toll: 12 Goreng Goreng people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 1 Mar 1873; personal communication 2020.

Sub-Inspector Johnstone's Native Police "dispersed a large mob" using Snider rifles. James Cassady later recalled Johnstone saying he "shot as many as thirty-five in one camp".

Death toll: 35 Aboriginal men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 23 Oct 1880; Bottoms 2013.

On 16 July 1873 the station manager J.C. Watson wired Charles Todd in Adelaide for authority "to go out & try & disperse the whole tribe" of Kaytetye people. The raid included the abduction of Aboriginal women to the telegraph station, which led to the 1874 attack. Aboriginal oral history says: "They bin killem whole lot...Shootem."

Death toll: About 30 Kaytetye men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Wilson 2000 pp. 270–1; Vallee 2004 pp. 103–9.

During the Pine Creek gold rush, miners killed Wagiman, Mayall and Jawoyn people around Yam Creek. Letters to the local paper called for Aboriginal people to be "effectually hunt[ed] down", and in 1878 a writer expected "a little more shooting before long".

Date: October 1873–May 1878.

Death toll: About 15 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 26 Dec 1873, 30 Jan 1874, 19 Jun 1874, 13 Apr 1878.

An expedition of about 90 miners and others, led by a government mining engineer and the Cooktown police magistrate, was heading for the Palmer River goldfield when it came on a large Gugu-Warra camp. The party shot people as they prepared breakfast and as they sheltered in waterholes; when the Telegraph reported it in January 1874, all sixteen miners questioned at an inquiry denied any killing.

Death toll: About 80 Gugu-Warra people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Telegraph 22 Jan 1874; Queenslander 19 Jun 1880; Jack 1922 vol. 2 pp. 421–2; Shay 2012; Bottoms 2013 pp. 117–19.

Kaytetye warriors attacked the Barrow Creek Telegraph Station on 22 February 1874, killing stationmaster James Stapleton and linesman John Franks, in retaliation for raids on their camp and the abduction of women. Trooper Samuel Gason then led four punitive expeditions over six weeks; the official count was 11 dead, but eyewitness accounts range from 50 to 90.

Death toll: About 50 Kaytetye, Anmatyerre, Warumungu, Alyawarra and Warlpiri people killed (official figure 11); 2 colonists killed.

Sources: Barrow Creek Telegraph Station Heritage Assessment 1995; South Australian Register 25 Jun 1874; Bell 1983; Kimber 1991; Nettelbeck and Foster 2007; Bradley 2019.

A publican, Alfred Court, and a miner, Charles Standon, found the bodies of three members of the Stroh family beside an abandoned dray on the road to the Palmer goldfield. Native Police under Inspector Thomas Coward and Sub-Inspectors Alexander Douglas and Edwin Townsend pursued a Kuku-Warra group across the Normanby River and "quietly dispersed" them at the place later called Skull Camp.

Death toll: About 40 Kuku-Warra people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 7 Nov 1874; Richards 2008 pp. 27–8; Bottoms 2013 pp. 119–20.

A miner's letter in the Brisbane Courier in May 1876 said that "not long since 'the niggers got a dressing there'" and described human remains at the site. Historian Jonathan Richards identifies the former Sub-Inspector D'Arcy Uhr as the leader of the party of miners.

Death toll: About 10 Kokomini people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 1 May 1876; Queenslander 6 May 1876; Richards 2008 p. 264; Orsted-Jensen 2011 p. 72.

Three pastoralists took up a lease at Mount Burrell in the 1870s, and when Luritja people speared their stock, the pastoralists made shooting raids on their camps and kidnapped Aboriginal women. A 2016 land claim report by Justice John Mansfield found that "there was often violence" between the first pastoralists and local Aboriginal people.

Date: 1875–1879.

Death toll: About 15 Luritja people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Mansfield 2016, Frances Well Land Claim Report No. 64.

A pastoralist named Conrick found the remains of about 42 people with bullet wounds at Thundapurty Waterhole. The killing is attributed to the Native Police; its cause is unknown.

Death toll: About 42 Karuwali men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Watson 1998 p. 98; Bottoms 2013 p. 71.

John Lewis's overlanding party met 60 to 70 armed Kunwinjku people near the East Alligator River and opened fire after spears were thrown; Lewis recalled, "We shot twenty-one rounds, and then had only our revolvers left." The next day the party was attacked from the cliffs and "kept up fire for a long time".

Death toll: About 20 Kunwinjku people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 7 Aug 1875; Lewis 1922 pp. 141–4; Daly 1887 pp. 226–7.

Charles Henry Johnston was killed by Mangarrayi men at Roper Bar on 29 or 30 June 1875. An overlanding party led by George De Lautour and William Batten found his body and attacked Mangarrayi people at Mount McMinn, leaving a note that they had "dispersed them and did their best to avenge Johnston's death".

Death toll: About 40 Mangarrayi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Reid 1990; Northern Territory Times and Gazette Jul–Dec 1875; Toohey 1982; Austin 1992; Wilson 2000; Roberts 2005; Roper River Police Station Heritage Assessment 2015.

Two reprisal parties totalling 20 men, including Mounted Police under Corporal George Montagu, travelled up the Roper to Crescent Lagoon. Over ten days, about 40 Mangarrayi men, women and children were killed, part of a series of reprisals that also struck Mount McMinn, Harris Lagoon, Calder Range and Mole Hill.

Death toll: About 40 Mangarrayi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 18 Sep, 4 and 25 Dec 1875; Toohey 1982; Austin 1992; Wilson 2000; Roberts 2005; Heritage Assessment 2015.

Tom Walker's government-supplied gold prospecting party had clashed with Yolngu people since June, when Charles Bridson was wounded. On 9 August at Blue Mud Bay, Walker was killed and David Marshall badly wounded, and more than 40 Aboriginal people were killed before the government schooner Woolner arrived in October.

Death toll: More than 40 Yolngu people killed; 1 colonist killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times 30 Oct and 18 Dec 1875; Macknight 1981; Reid 1990; Roberts 2005, 2009.

A police party left Roper Bar on 18 August, attacked a camp at Harris Lagoon, and reported it had "dispersed them thoroughly" and "fully avenged Johnston's death". Across 200 km of the river the reprisals probably killed 150 to 200 people, many of whom had no link to Johnston's death; an Aboriginal man named Ural was tried for the killing in December 1875 and released.

Death toll: About 40 Yanyuwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 18 Sep, 4 and 25 Dec 1875; Toohey 1982; Austin 1992; Wilson 2000; Roberts 2005.

An armed party attacked a Mangarrayi camp north of the Roper beneath the Calder Range and shot about 40 people. Inspector Paul Foelsche had told his men, "I cannot give you orders to shoot all natives you come across", but sent his second-in-command to "have a picnic with the natives", which historian Bill Wilson reads as licence to kill.

Death toll: About 40 Mangarrayi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times 18 Sep, 4 and 25 Dec 1875; Toohey 1982; Austin 1992; Wilson 2000; Roberts 2005; Heritage Assessment 2015.

In the last of the five reprisals, a volunteer posse led by Corporal Montagu "with a large amount of ammunition" attacked a Mangarrayi camp at Mole Hill. Historian Tony Roberts estimates that 150 to 200 Mangarrayi people died in the six-week campaign.

Death toll: About 40 Mangarrayi men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette Jul–Dec 1875; Toohey 1982; Austin 1992; Wilson 2001; Roberts 2005; Heritage Assessment 2015.

William Batten was killed on 2 December 1876 while handing out rations near the Nicholson River. Six days later a punitive party under Sub-Inspector Lyndon Poingdestre, with George De Lautour, left Normanton, and a traveller later described the lagoon about 50 miles south-west of Burketown where Aboriginal people had been "deservedly punished".

Death toll: About 20 Aboriginal people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005 pp. 38–9; Queenslander 26 Jan, 10 Aug and 5 Oct 1878.

After a teamster, James Ellis, was killed in January 1878, Mounted Constable William Stretton, two troopers, civilians and an Aboriginal tracker shot at least 17 Malak Malak people near the Daly River. A jury found that "the only available retaliation is to give a lesson to the tribe".

Death toll: At least 17 Malak Malak people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette Jan–Mar 1878; South Australian Register 28 and 30 Jan 1878; Kelsey 1975; Reid 1990; Austin 1992; Roberts 2005, 2009.

After the schooner Louisa Maria was wrecked in the Whitsundays, Aboriginal warriors attacked the crew and fatally wounded a crewman, Johnston, with a tomahawk. Sub-Inspector George Nolan, ten troopers and Captain McIvoy spent a week on Dent Island and "permanently dispersed" the people there.

Date: August–September 1878.

Death toll: About 30 Aboriginal people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 21 Sep 1878; Richards 2008 p. 147.

After a man named Travers was clubbed to death in his camp, overlanders including Nat Buchanan, Wattie Gordon, Sam Croker and Charles Bridson carried out a reprisal on Yanyuwa people. In 1911 the Chief Protector found a remote cave holding 40 to 50 skeletons, and an old Aboriginal man said he had been taken there the day after the killings.

Death toll: About 30 Yanyuwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Evening Journal 20 Jan 1879; Daly 1887 pp. 229–31; Reid 1990 pp. 86–7; Roberts 2005 pp. 48–50.

In January 1879 Yalarrnga and Pitta Pitta warriors killed stockman Bernard Molvo and three others at Wonomo Waterhole, reportedly after the stockmen witnessed sacred ceremonies and abducted women. Sub-Inspector Ernest Eglinton then led Native Police and settlers, including Alexander Kennedy, Robert Currie and William Paterson, in five reprisal massacres, of which Buckingham Downs was the first; Yalarrnga descendants say more than 100 people died.

Death toll: About 20 Yalarrnga people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Morning Bulletin 1 Mar 1879; Brisbane Courier 5 Mar 1879; Evening News 10 Mar 1879; Queenslander Jan 1921; Townsville Daily Bulletin 1917, 1931, 1948; Fysh 1961; Bottoms 2013; Davidson et al. 2020.

The second of Eglinton's five reprisals for the Wonomo Waterhole killings was at Sulieman Creek. The party carried Snider and repeating rifles.

Death toll: About 20 Yalarrnga and Pitta Pitta people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Morning Bulletin 1 Mar 1879; Brisbane Courier 5 Mar 1879; Evening News 10 Mar 1879; Queenslander 8 Jan 1921; Townsville Daily Bulletin; Fysh 1961; Bottoms 2013; Davidson et al. 2020.

Goodwood station was the third site in the series. Descendants' estimate of more than 100 deaths across the five sites suggests about 20 were killed here.

Death toll: About 20 Yalarrnga and Pitta Pitta people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Morning Bulletin 1 Mar 1879; Brisbane Courier 5 Mar 1879; Queenslander 15 Jan 1921; Townsville Daily Bulletin; Fysh 1961; Bottoms 2013; Davidson et al. 2020.

The fourth massacre in the series was at Monastery Creek, where the party, now joined by Frederick Margetts and stockmen, used Sniders, repeating rifles and machetes.

Death toll: About 20 Yalarrnga and Pitta Pitta people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Morning Bulletin 1 Mar 1879; Brisbane Courier 5 Mar 1879; Queenslander 15 Jan 1921; Townsville Daily Bulletin; Fysh 1961; Bottoms 2013; Davidson et al. 2020.

The last of Eglinton's five reprisal massacres was at the place now marked by the Dajarra monument. Men, women and children were among the dead.

Death toll: About 20 Yalarrnga and Pitta Pitta people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Morning Bulletin 1 Mar 1879; Brisbane Courier 5 Mar 1879; Queenslander 8 Jan 1921; Townsville Daily Bulletin; Fysh 1961; Bottoms 2013; Davidson 2020.

After a cedar cutter was killed, Sub-Inspector O'Connor and six troopers cornered 28 Guugu Yimidhirr men and 13 women in a gorge at Cape Bedford. The Brisbane Courier reported that "twenty four were shot down on the beach, and four swam out to sea"; the women were released.

Death toll: 24 Guugu Yimidhirr men killed (single source); 4 more presumed drowned; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 1 Mar 1879 p. 6.

Sub-Inspectors William Kaye and William Gough and three Native Police troopers attacked a Pitta Pitta camp near Annandale while hunting the killer of a stockman from Murgah station, who escaped to South Australia. A settler, William Paull, reported 27 people killed, the first of two Native Police massacres of the Pitta Pitta.

Death toll: 27 Pitta Pitta men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 24 May 1879 p. 668; Bottoms 2013 pp. 71–2.

About a month after a stockman named Scott was killed, Sub-Inspector Kaye led a Native Police patrol up the Herbert River to Glengyle. There he "dispersed a large camp of niggers as punishment" for the killing, using Snider rifles.

Death toll: About 40 Pitta Pitta men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 24 May 1879 p. 668; Bottoms 2013 pp. 71–2.

After four shepherds were killed on Mt Spencer station, the lessee, Henry Stormont Finch-Hatton, allegedly left a dray of rations with strychnine-laced flour beside Long Lagoon. His brother Harold Finch-Hatton later wrote: "Not one of the mob escaped...More than a hundred Blacks were stretched out."

Death toll: About 100 Aboriginal people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Finch-Hatton 1886 pp. 132–3; Lumholtz 1889 p. 373; Bottoms 2013 pp. 87–9.

After Djabugay raids cost the settler Patrick Molloy eight draught horses, Molloy joined other settlers and Native Police in pursuing the Djabugay to Bunda Bugal at the head of Rifle Creek. There they were "dispersed" and "taught a lesson".

Death toll: About 6 Djabugay people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bottoms 2013 p. 151.

Biddy Malingal later described colonists attacking a ceremonial gathering at Lightman Creek; after failing to catch three brothers who fled, they returned and killed those who had climbed trees to hide. "They shot all the babies, kids and teenage girls...They shot them down like birds," she said, and the bodies were burned.

Date: 1880–1899.

Death toll: 10 to 20 Worla and Kitja people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Biddy Malingal, in Ross and Bray 1989 p. 9.

After a spear struck the tent of a brumby-hunter, Dick Moore, he allegedly hunted the local people for months with his Aboriginal tracker and another rifleman. According to Gordon Buchanan they "shot down 'bush blacks' on sight", once killing thirteen people crossing a plain, and captured young women.

Date: October–December 1880.

Death toll: About 30 Garawa, Mara and Yanyuwa people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005 p. 53.

After John Dunn was killed at the station, the colonists were given authority to shoot Minang Noongar people for a month and pursued them across the district. At Carracarrup Rock Hole two men were shot as they drank; Walter Dunn wrote that "two dusky souls were sent home to their Maker".

Date: October–November 1880.

Death toll: 30 to 50 Minang Noongar people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brockway 1998 pp. 429–45; Western Mail 17 Oct 1935; de Landgrafft, ABC News.

After mainland warriors killed a Chinese worker and wrecked the beche-de-mer station cottage, Mary Watson, her infant son and a wounded servant fled the island and died at sea, though at the time she was believed to have been killed. In reprisal, Native Police under Inspector Hervey Fitzgerald "dispersed" about 150 people at Snake River; historians note the worker may have been killed "for disturbing sacred ground".

Death toll: About 150 Guugu Yimidhirr men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Falkiner and Oldfield 2000 pp. 114–20, 224; Richards 2008 p. 92.

Duncan Campbell was killed at Elsey Station on 15 July 1882. Police under Corporal George Montagu camped at Red Lily Lagoon, where two Aboriginal men said a Mangarrayi man named Charley had killed him; the station manager, Harold Thonemann, reported that "reprisals" followed.

Death toll: About 20 Mangarrayi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 7 Oct 1882; Gunn 1908; Merlan 1978; Reid 1990; Clement and Bridge 1991; Roberts 2005; Morrison.

Mounted Constable August Lucanus led a dawn raid on a camp near the Elsey telegraph station, his men creeping between the sleeping camp and the spears stored in a banyan tree. When the Mangarrayi woke and ran for their spears, the police opened fire; among the dead was Charley, who had a mosquito net taken from Campbell.

Death toll: 12 Mangarrayi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Clement and Bridge 1991; Roberts 2009; Morrison.

After an Aboriginal raid on Normanton in the 1883 wet season in which supplies and ammunition were taken, Native Police under Sub-Inspector Walter Jones pursued the group. The Brisbane Courier reported "satisfactory tidings that the mob had been too thoroughly dispersed to trouble Normanton again this season".

Death toll: 6 Aboriginal men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 31 Mar 1883 p. 6.

Native Police officers Frederick Clerk and Alfred Smart attacked Kalkadoon people camped on Coolullah on an unconfirmed rumour that two prospectors had been murdered; the prospectors were later found alive. A witness said the police "crossed, full gallop, and straight at the unfortunates they went", shooting "every one of them except four women" and some children at a waterhole.

Death toll: About 20 Kalkadoon people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 27 Oct 1883 p. 669; The Leader 30 Aug 1884; Marr 2023 pp. 356–7.

An 18-year-old, Jack Kane, joined police and Aboriginal trackers in a week-long operation that surrounded a Yidinydji camp at dawn. "At dawn one man fired into their camp and the natives rushed away," he recalled; the trackers killed children, and survivors were pursued towards the Mulgrave and Four Mile.

Death toll: About 20 Yidinydji men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Bottoms 2013 pp. 147–8.

Garawa people stampeded cattle being delivered to McArthur River station and speared the drovers' hobbled horses. Jack Watson's party found them "in the act of cooking the horse meat", and Charley Gaunt later recalled that Watson "tracked and hunted those niggers, shooting them down...until there was not a black on the creek".

Death toll: About 50 Garawa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Standard 13 Oct 1931; Roberts 2005 p. 59; Lewis 2021 p. 11; Ritchie, Lead in my Grandmother's Body.

Settlers from the Westmoreland homestead rounded up and shot Nyangga people at an inlet. Elders call this period "Wabulinji" ("Wild Time"), when their people "struggled and died fighting to stay on country".

Death toll: About 30 Nyangga people killed (single source, mainly oral history); no colonists killed.

Sources: Garawa Land and Sea Country Plan p. 7; Queensland Places, Burke Shire; personal communication 2021; NLA pastoral maps.

After James Powell was killed at Mistake Creek in July 1884, Sub-Inspector Frederick Urquhart, seven troopers and settlers including Alexander Kennedy found a large Kalkadoon camp in a gorge. Urquhart called on them to surrender, then "gave the order to fire and thirty of the blacks were shot"; 18 graves were recorded in 2007.

Death toll: About 30 Kalkadoon people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Queensland State Archives COL A/49714; Fysh 1961; Whittington 1965; Agee 2011; Bottoms 2013.

After Harry Figg was killed, Mounted Constable Erwein Wurmbrandt led a reprisal against Anmatyerre people; a cattleman, Sid Stanes, recalled that he "was shooting them wholesale and he was recalled". The rock was named after Wurmbrandt, who "was a pretty savage chap", and named victims include Slim Jim, Boko, Clubfoot and Jimmy Mullins.

Death toll: About 100 Anmatyerre people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Adelaide Observer 20 Sep 1884; Northern Territory Times and Gazette 25 Oct 1884; Wilson 2000; Kimber 2003; Nettelbeck and Foster 2007; Traynor 2016.

After Anmatyerre people attacked Figg and Coombes at Anna's Reservoir and drove off a supply wagon's teamsters, about 20 cattlemen, telegraph staff and Alice Springs police, probably led by William Coulthard, trapped a large group on a razorback hill 15 km south-west of Alice Springs. One recalled: "We rounded 'em up on that razorback hill...There must have been 150 to 170 of 'em on that hill."

Death toll: About 150 Anmatyerre people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sid Stanes, Trish Lonsdale Collection NTRS 3414; Kimber 1990; Parks and Wildlife Commission NT 2002.

After the attack on Harry Figg and Thomas Coombes at Anna's Reservoir on 7 August 1884, a police and volunteer reprisal party rode through Anmatyerre and Arrernte country. Elder Ken Tilmouth Penangk recalled: "They ran them down with their horses...Some hid in caves, but they were shot inside the caves."

Death toll: About 75 Anmatyerre and Arrernte people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: South Australian Advertiser 11 Aug 1884; Adelaide Observer 20 Sep 1884; Perkins 1975; Olney 1993; Bowman 2015.

Urquhart's Native Police and Alexander Kennedy pursued Kalkadoon warriors after a Chinese shepherd was killed at Granada station and found about 150 of them on a hill. A 1965 account says "most of their warriors were wiped out in repeated charges against the rifles" of the police, none of whom were hurt.

Death toll: About 30 Kalkadoon people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Urquhart to Ahern 15 Mar 1885; Brisbane Courier 13 Oct 1900; Beaudesert Times 17 Aug 1951; Whittington 1965; Richards 2010; Bottoms 2013 pp. 164–6.

On 2 September 1884 four miners at the Mt Hayward copper mine, John Landers, Johannes Noltenius, Thomas Schollert and Henry Hauschildt, were killed. Reprisal parties under Mounted Constable George Montagu, Inspector Paul Foelsche and a civilian party under August Lucanus followed; Montagu reported 20 to 30 deaths, but the Protector of Aborigines estimated "not less than 150".

Death toll: About 70 Murrinh-patha, Malak Malak and Woolwonga people killed (official figure 20 to 30); 4 colonists killed.

Sources: North Australian; South Australian Register; Evening Journal; Markus 1974; Wilson 2000; Nettelbeck 2004; Morris 2019.

Three teamsters claimed they shot Aboriginal visitors in self-defence when the group came back armed demanding food. The Protector of Aborigines, Dr Robert Morice, doubted it, noting "none of the teamsters were wounded" and that women were among the dead, since Aboriginal people "when they mean mischief always keep their women out of the way".

Death toll: 6 Ngan'gikurrunggurr men, women and a child killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 4 Oct 1884; Government Resident's Report 30 Sep 1884; Evening Journal 4 Jun 1885; SA Register 12 Feb 1886; Austin 1992.

Native Police under Sub-Inspector William Nichols and Cadet Roland Garraway killed at least six Aboriginal people at Irvinebank. Visitors later found no remains, "a large fire having been evidently built on them".

Death toll: At least 6 Aboriginal men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 14 Nov 1884; Genever 1996 p. 16; Richards 2008 p. 33.

Responding to an alleged attempted murder at Glen Helen station, Wurmbrandt's party arrested three men at Hermannsburg mission and chained them by the neck. He claimed they died trying to escape, but the missionary Schwarz found the bodies still in chains, and witnesses said 17 Arrernte men, women and children were shot near Mount Sonder.

Death toll: 17 Arrernte people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Kimber 1990; Wilson 2000; Nettelbeck 2004, 2007; Roberts 2005; Traynor 2016.

When Yolngu people killed cattle on Florida station, near present-day Ramingining, the owners handed out poisoned horsemeat to several clans. "That evening they ate, thanking the pastoralists for their good gifts," until people fell violently ill, and a guerrilla war followed until 1893, when the station was abandoned.

Death toll: About 40 Yolngu and Djinang people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Trudgen 2000 pp. 19–20; Baker 2018 p. 8.

The owner, Charles Fraser Gardiner, and his workers tracked people who had been raiding horses and cattle to a lagoon camp of about 200 people. The manager, Robert McCracken, wrote that "wholesale slaughter" was needed because "killing odd ones or even twos or threes is no good"; about 90 were killed or wounded.

Death toll: About 60 Garawa, Mara and Yanyuwa men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Robert McCracken to Mattie 1 Sep 1885; Searcy 1909; Roberts 2009.

The missionary J.B. Gribble reported that "five natives had been shot dead by white men near Mount Clare, and about the same time two more were shot" near Mount Labouchere. An official report to the Governor recorded eleven Yamatji people shot at the two places.

Death toll: 11 Yamatji people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Gribble 1886, Dark Deeds in a Sunny Land; Governor's statement on Gribble (State Records Office of WA).

After Ted Lenehan was speared, Tom Lynott and Tommy Campbell followed Aboriginal people to Dunganminnie Spring, a hidden gorge with "one entrance and no exit", and attacked at dawn. A survivor recalled: "They shot at the whole mob. Some fellas got out, some got up the steep cliffs."

Date: April–May 1886.

Death toll: About 22 Garawa, Yanyuwa and Gudanji men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005 pp. 180–1.

Constable William Curtis and five native police, joined by station manager Tom Lynott, 15 stockmen and Queensland trackers, pursued 70 to 80 Aboriginal people after Lenehan's death. Some elderly women "couldn't keep up and were left behind", and the stockman Charley Gaunt said nothing of their fate.

Date: April–May 1886.

Death toll: About 25 Garawa and Ngandji men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 24 Apr 1886; Costello 1930; Northern Standard 16 Oct 1931, 29 May and 1 Jun 1934; O'Brien and Adams 1999; Roberts 2009; Bottoms 2013.

After station workers were speared on 30 April and 1 May 1886, colonists and Aboriginal men from elsewhere attacked a camp at dawn; Ronnie Wavehill Wirrpngayarri said they "ambushed people there and shot all the ngumpin". Two colonists who came back to burn the bodies were themselves killed by two Aboriginal men and burned on the same fire.

Date: April–June 1886.

Death toll: About 30 Ngarinman and Bilinara men, women and children killed; 2 colonists killed.

Sources: North Australian 30 Apr 1886; Northern Territory Times and Gazette 1 May 1886; Charola and Meakins 2016; NT News 19 Aug 2016.

In June 1886 a gold miner, Fred Marriot, was speared, and there is evidence he had abducted an Aboriginal woman. Prospectors went out on a punitive expedition, and George Hales wrote that "having bailed up a large number of blacks in a gully...they proceeded to slaughter them with repeating rifles...some say at least a hundred."

Date: July–September 1886.

Death toll: 20 to 100 Jaru, Kitja and Wawarl people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Police reports; Green 1995; Kimberley Language Resource Centre 1996; Clement 2000; Owen 2003, 2016.

Lawrence Wells recorded in 1886 that station managers and stockmen had killed Garrwa men, women and children at The Pocket on Branch Creek in retaliation for cattle spearing. He called them "rough, hard cases, quite capable of retaliating and taking the law into their own hands".

Death toll: About 15 Garrwa people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005 p. 201.

After Yanyuwa people attacked the cutter Smuggler on 28 July 1886 and killed Captain Alfred Toms, the crew retaliated against people gathered on the beaches. "A shot from a heavy rifle rang out and a man in the group fell," and the sailors went ashore and "began shooting people, apparently for sport".

Death toll: About 20 Yanyuwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 18 Sep 1886; Roberts 2005 pp. 190–1.

After John "Big Johnny" Durack was speared near Mount Duncan, a party set out to "administer a lesson such as will not be soon forgotten". One account says "ammunition ran out so there was wholesale slaughter of natives"; a survivor hid in an ant-bed and escaped after dark.

Date: 17 November 1886–21 January 1887.

Death toll: About 100 Ngarinman men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: North Australian Dec 1886–Jan 1887; SA Register Dec 1886; Northern Territory Times and Gazette Dec 1886; Durack 1959; Lewis 2018 pp. 51–2.

Police and colonists, including Michael Durack, also hunted Aboriginal people on the Western Australian side after John Durack's death. Official reports claimed two deaths, but the solicitor Richard Septimus Haynes later wrote of "100 or 150 natives slaughtered in cold blood", and police records point to about 120 men, women and children.

Date: 17 November 1886–11 January 1887.

Death toll: About 120 Worla, Jaru and Kitja people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: WA Police records 1886–7; The West Australian 14 Nov 1892; Durack family accounts 1933; Owen 2003, 2016.

Native Police under Lyndon Poingdestre shot six Aboriginal people and burned their bodies. Because the evidence was destroyed, no one could be convicted.

Death toll: 6 Aboriginal people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Richards 2008 p. 34.

After cattle spearing across Central Australian stations, native police under Wurmbrandt were sent in with Martini-Henry rifles and killed about 30 alleged cattle killers. Sid Stanes later said Wurmbrandt "was shooting them wholesale" until he was recalled.

Death toll: About 30 Arrernte people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: The Register 26 Sep 1928; Sid Stanes oral history, Trish Lonsdale Collection; NT Police Historical Society; Roberts 2009.

Colonists attacked Garawa, Gudanji and Yanyuwa people gathered for a funeral ceremony at Manangoora after a dispute over cattle. Those who fled to caves were tracked by their smoke and the cries of children, and oral testimony says the attackers "stood them up in a line and shot them".

Death toll: About 40 Garawa, Yanyuwa and Gudanji people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005 p. 198.

Police Constable Graham, an Aboriginal assistant named Banjo and five colonists, ostensibly investigating horse spearing, shot Kitja and Worla people to "teach them a lesson". All were charged with murder, to outrage in Wyndham, but none was convicted; one report said "as many as eighty natives may have been butchered".

Death toll: 6 to 80 Kitja and Worla people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Colonial Secretary's Office file 2776/1888 (SROWA); Sunday Times 13 Sep 1908; Owen 2016 pp. 236–40.

After George Barnett was speared between Fletcher Creek and Halls Creek, a punitive expedition followed that was called "one of the most sweeping in local history". Mary Durack wrote that Barnett's brother "cut a triangular notch...for every native he shot...the notches numbered thirty-five!", and Government Resident Colonel Angelo later put the toll at sixty to seventy.

Date: July–September 1888.

Death toll: About 35 Kija people killed (estimates to 150); no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times 18 Aug 1888; Eastern Districts Chronicle 13 Oct 1888; Daily News 5 Sep 1929; Durack 1936; Angelo 1948; Clement and Bridge 1991; Owen 2016.

People from Mirki camp near Milingimbi were accused of killing cattle, and colonists made a night attack on a ceremony, firing on people who had climbed into a tree to hide. The next day, survivors were hunted down, and "the 'boss' of the colonists took a repeating rifle, found the children, formed them into two lines and shot them".

Date: 1889–1896.

Death toll: About 40 Yolngu and Djinang people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Standard 10 Jul 1934; van der Heide 1985 p. 16; Read and Read 1991 p. 24.

Pastoralists at Elkedra, including Frank MacDonald and the manager Billy Coulthard, shot Alyawarre men resisting their occupation; MacDonald boasted, "I threaded the bastards, just like putting thread through a needle." The Willowie Pastoral Company eventually abandoned the station.

Date: 1889–1897.

Death toll: About 40 Alyawarre people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Trish Lonsdale Collection NTRS 3414; Bell 1978; Whitebeach 2006; Luke 2019.

After Edmund Watson was killed at Pine Tree station on 11 May 1889, Sub-Inspector Urquhart assembled about 40 armed men, including three Native Police detachments, Watson's brother and local stockmen. Over two weeks in June they made five attacks on Kaanju camps around the Batavia River; this was the first.

Death toll: About 20 Kaanju men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 20 and 28 May 1889; Queenslander 1 Jun 1889; Vogan 1890; Loos 1982; Bottoms 2013.

The second attack in Urquhart's campaign struck a Kaanju camp on the Archer River. The party was mounted and armed with Snider rifles.

Death toll: About 20 Kaanju men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Vogan 1890 p. 137; Loos 1982 p. 61; Bottoms 2013 p. 124.

A third Kaanju camp on the Archer River was attacked during the same campaign.

Death toll: About 20 Kaanju men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 20 and 28 May 1889; Queenslander 1 Jun 1889; Vogan 1890; Loos 1982; Bottoms 2013.

The fourth attack, on the Archer River, was carried out by the combined force of Native Police and station workers from Cape York.

Death toll: About 20 Kaanju men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 20 and 28 May 1889; Queenslander 1 Jun 1889; Vogan 1890; Loos 1982; Bottoms 2013.

After collecting provisions at Merluna station on 9 June, the party, out to give "the blacks a lesson", met Kaanju people on the Batavia River on 11 June. They "dispersed them and recovered telegraph wire, iron pins and insulators in their camp".

Death toll: About 20 Kaanju men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Vogan 1890 p. 137; Loos 1982 p. 61; Bottoms 2013 p. 124.

After a station cook was killed, colonists attacked a large ceremonial gathering of Mindiri and Wardumba people. The linguist Luise Hercus recorded the account in the 1960s from Ben Murray, nephew of a survivor, and the journalist George Farwell heard of it on the Birdsville Track in the 1940s, noting that "no official enquiries were ever held".

Death toll: About 40 Mindiri and Wardumba people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Hercus 1977 p. 56; Farwell 1950 pp. 36–40, 132.

Settlers opened fire on Gadjerong people at Newry station in the 1890s. Jack Sullivan later said, "There were all Gadjerong people along the coast until the white men shot them," and that some of the surviving young men were taken into the stations "to quieten them and to learn the horses".

Date: 1890–1899.

Death toll: 40 to 60 Miriwoong and Gajirrabeng people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Shaw 1983 p. 35; Owen 2016 p. 335.

Pastoralists and stockmen mounted a reprisal against Mindiri and Wardumba people who had killed cattle. Ben Murray told Luise Hercus that the massacre was "large scale".

Date: 1890–1899.

Death toll: More than 40 Wardumba people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hercus 1977 pp. 56–62.

A station owner shot several Aboriginal men in retaliation for the killing of a bullock, and days later Aboriginal stockmen found their heads in a hollow tree trunk. The stockmen left, forcing the station to close, and the artist Rover Thomas painted the massacre in 1985 from oral history.

Date: 1890–1899.

Death toll: About 10 Kitja and Jaru men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Rover Thomas 1985, Australian War Memorial.

Several killings are recorded: more than fifty people shot while fishing in a stream, and a larger group driven into tidal swamps and fired on. In a third incident, pastoralists avenging a spearing forced their victims to build a large circular pyre and burned "over 80 of them".

Date: 1890–1899.

Death toll: 50 to 80 Ngarluma and Kariyarri people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Wilson 1961 p. 61.

A Wanganuru man killed a colonist who had sexually assaulted a Wanganuru woman, and settlers and stockmen retaliated with repeating rifles. Hercus recorded it as the third massacre in the region, and Farwell heard similar accounts in the 1940s.

Date: 1890–1899.

Death toll: More than 40 Wanganuru people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Hercus 1977 p. 56; Farwell 1950 pp. 38–40.

Jack Britten told the researcher Helen Ross of an attack near Bamboo Creek (Spring Creek), where colonists shot people who had no warning and no way to escape. "They reckon 'oh lightning knocking em now, they shooting them everywhere,'" he said.

Date: 1890–1899.

Death toll: 10 to 20 Worla and Kitja people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Ross and Bray 1989 p. 16; Ryan 2001 pp. 71–5.

Police were taking about 60 Aboriginal men in chains from the Victoria River district to Wyndham for alleged cattle theft. At Mistake Creek a telegraph message said the man actually responsible for killing one bullock had been caught elsewhere; instead of releasing the prisoners, the police "shot the prisoners and burnt the bodies".

Death toll: About 60 Malngin and Nyinin men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Shaw and McDonald 1978 p. 130; Austin 1992 p. 17; Lewis 2018 p. 291.

After an Aboriginal man killed a miner, Frank Paske, at Waraimba Creek, a reprisal party including Fred Brown, several other settlers, a police sergeant and two trackers attacked a camp at Malanda at dawn and shot six people. Brown took an orphaned boy of five or six, later named Douglas Grant, who grew up with the taxidermists Robert and Elizabeth Grant and served in the First World War.

Date: January–March 1890.

Death toll: 6 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Townsville Daily Bulletin 2 Feb 1933 p. 10; Ramsland 2019 pp. 46–9.

After a prospector named Cahill and a companion were killed, Harold Cocking and others rode four days into the Goldfields in pursuit. A newspaper later reported that "a party of whites avenged this by shooting about 30 of the aboriginals".

Death toll: About 30 Wongai people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Southern Cross Times 24 Dec 1904 p. 25.

Ned Ryan's team sank Ryan's Well as a stock well in 1889. Pastor F.W. Albrecht, who arrived in Central Australia in 1926, recorded Arrernte people's "horrifying" experiences with the Ryans and estimated that about 30 people were killed.

Date: January–April 1890.

Death toll: About 30 Arrernte people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Albrecht 1981 pp. 5–6; South Australian Museum records 662/086; NT Government 1999, Ryan's Well Historical Reserve Plan of Management.

After a station worker known as Bismarck killed a Mr Hobson, Native Police surrounded the Barron River people's camp at dawn. "Without warning, the cordon of rifles fired into the camp, and left eight Aboriginals dead"; Bismarck and his companion were not among them and were arrested later.

Death toll: 8 Aboriginal men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Capricornian 6 Sep 1890 p. 6; Queenslander 19 Sep 1891 pp. 572–3.

At the new Frew River station, Bill Coulthard and his staff lived in a fortified compound in Alyawarre country with bloodhounds amid tension over Aboriginal women and harsh treatment of local people. On the night of 24 June they saw armed warriors outside the palisade and opened fire, and later tracking parties "got them all", including women and children at waterholes; Constable Wurmbrandt declared, "They are our enemies; they must go."

Death toll: About 30 Alyawarre, Wakaya, Kaytetye and Warumungu men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Evening Journal 6 Jul 1891; Adelaide Observer 11 Jul 1891; Bell 1983; Whitebeach 2006; Trish Lonsdale Collection NTRS 3413, 3414.

A party of 22 horsemen pursued 70 to 80 fleeing people to a camp on top of the Abner Range and surrounded it at dawn. "When it was finally light enough to see, an Aboriginal man sat up and stretched his arms"; a single shot started the killing, and those who tried to escape were "driven back with a deadly fire", leaving 52 dead and 12 more at the foot of a cliff.

Death toll: 64 Garawa men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Costello 1930; Northern Standard 1931, 1934; O'Brien and Adams 1999; Roberts 2009.

After the station worker George William Clarke and the cook Charles Deloitte were allegedly killed by two Aboriginal workers, Walter and Monkeyboy, station owner Tom Perry led a reprisal. Charles Gaunt wrote in 1932 that the party "rounded up these blacks, innocent of any crime", and that those "jumping into the water hole were slaughtered in dozens".

Death toll: About 30 Garawa and Yanyuwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 1892, 1897; Borroloola Police Letter Books 1893; Northern Standard 1932; Read and Read 1991; Ucko and Layton 1999; Morrison.

Perry's party went on hunting people "from camp to camp, killing on sight" after the killings at Creswell Downs on 30 January. Oral history recalls that "all the old ladies couldn't run fast enough" and were shot; a boy orphaned in the massacre, later named Peter, was taken as Perry's servant and years afterwards shot him dead.

Death toll: About 30 Garawa and Yanyuwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 1892, 1896, 1897; Borroloola Police Day Book; Northern Standard 1932; Read and Read 1991.

On 8 June 1892 Aboriginal men speared three station workers in the Leopold Ranges, killing Robert Allen and Thomas Henry. Police under Constable Armitage pursued the Bunuba people and Nyikina men for more than a month and shot the alleged spearman, Packer, and seven other men; Armitage wrote that "it was a matter of impossibility to effect the arrest of them alive".

Death toll: 7 or 8 Bunuba and Nyikina men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Western Mail 18 Jun 1892 p. 42; Colonial Secretary's Office file 939/1892 (SROWA); Owen 2016.

After the manager, Scott, was killed at Willeroo in October 1892, the owner, Lindsay Crawford, led a posse that charged the Aboriginal camp, where people had taken guns and ammunition from the station store. The party reported finding Scott's saddle and bridle; troopers arrived days later to help with the burials.

Death toll: About 30 Bilinarra, Wardaman and Karrangpurru people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 21 Oct, 4 and 11 Nov 1892; Willshire 1895; Lewis 2004 pp. 243–4; Morrison.

Mounted Constable Browne and stockmen pursued Aboriginal people into rough ranges near McClure Creek in a second reprisal for Scott's death. Oral history says one of them, Paddy Cahill, trapped Bilinarra people "yarded up in a cave" and "shot the whole blooming lot"; the Bilinarra population there was devastated.

Death toll: About 30 Bilinarra, Wardaman and Karrangpurru people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette Oct–Nov 1892; Willshire 1895; Davidson 1935; Arndt 1965; Lewis 2004; Meakins and Nordlinger 2014.

Iwaidja people killed six Makassan trepang fishermen at Malay Bay, reportedly because the Makassans had used ceremonial string to make fishing nets. The Iwaidja leader Wandy Wandy was convicted of murder in Darwin and hanged at Malay Bay on 25 July 1893 as "a lesson to the tribe" (Makassan contact with Australia). The attackers were Aboriginal; the database marks this site as under review.

Date: January–June 1893.

Death toll: 6 Makassan fishermen killed; no Aboriginal deaths recorded in the attack.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette Oct 1892, 11 Aug 1893, 15 Jan 1904; Read and Read 1991 pp. 16–18; Habeas Corpus 2017.

During a police raid on a camp suspected of cattle killing, Constable Joe Collins was speared, and police and their Aboriginal assistants then shot about 23 Miriwoong people. Bishop Matthew Gibney of Perth condemned it: "some...were deliberately shot down as they ran...This was hardly so much a fight as a battue a massacre."

Death toll: About 23 Miriwoong, Kitja and Jaru people killed; 1 colonist (Constable Collins) killed.

Sources: Daily News 27 Sep 1893; WA Record 5 Oct 1893; Northern Territory Times 20 Oct 1893; Colonial Secretary's Office records (SROWA); Owen and Choo 2003; Owen 2016; Lewis 2021.

After Collins's death, historian Darrell Lewis writes, "a large party of police and bushmen went out again to arrest or disperse other Aborigines in the region. Over the next two months they travelled 678 miles and shot another 30 men."

Death toll: About 30 Ngarinman and Bilinarra men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Lewis 2021 p. 528.

Sergeant Brophy, three constables and four Aboriginal trackers covered more than 1,000 km after Collins's death, killing four men on 14 October, six on 15 October and four on 19 October. In a dawn raid on 23 October on a camp he called "most treacherous", Brophy reported that "10 were shot dead"; 81 people were killed between July and November 1893.

Death toll: About 30 Kitja, Jaru and Miriwoong people killed in this patrol; no colonists killed.

Sources: Daily News 27 Sep 1893; Colonial Secretary's Office file 90/1894 (SROWA); Owen and Choo 2003; Owen 2016.

Mounted Constable William Willshire came on people allegedly killing cattle near Victoria River Downs; when they scattered and lit fires, he wrote, "the Martini-Henry carbines at this critical moment were talking English". The station manager, Lindsay Crawford, said that since settlement there had been no communication with local people "except with the rifle", and the Gurindji recalled these killings in their 1967 petition during the Wave Hill walk-off.

Death toll: About 20 Ngarinman and Bilinarra people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Willshire 1895 pp. 40–1; Mulvaney 1990; Rose 1992; Roberts 2009; Meakins 2017; NT News 19 Aug 2016; Morrison.

Willshire's patrol tracked people accused of killing cattle to a gorge, where they fled uphill with spears while women and children hid in rock crevices. Willshire wrote that "we brought the black gins and their offspring out from their rocky alcoves".

Death toll: About 35 Ngarinman and Bilinarra people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Willshire 1895 p. 43; Rose 1992 p. 12.

A Luritja elder recorded in the Watarrka National Park management plan said: "My father told us that...his father and grandfather took him into the hills behind Lilla to hide from a white man who was shooting Luritja people around Kings Canyon." Police are said to have shot the gathered Watarrka people in daylight.

Death toll: About 10 Luritja men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Watarrka National Park Joint Management Plan 2010.

Willshire led a mounted patrol from Gordon Creek in retaliation for the killing of an Aboriginal man employed by a justice of the peace. In his own account, "the black trackers were on the spot before she could give warning by her screams"; six people were killed and several women captured.

Death toll: 6 Aboriginal people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Willshire 1896, Land of the Dawning p. 47.

A Chinese gardener on the King River reported that Aboriginal people had occupied his hut, fired two shots and rode to Wyndham. Sergeant Wheatley, Constable Cadden and two Aboriginal assistants tracked six Yiiji or Ngarinyin people to the river, where about fifty were camped, and "the police dispersed the mob and returned to Wyndham".

Death toll: About 6 Yiiji and Ngarinyin people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Daily News 24 Sep 1894 p. 3.

Willshire led an attack on Aboriginal people trapped in a rocky canyon on the Victoria River. They tried to escape by climbing cliffs, diving into the water and hiding in cave fissures, and he wrote of "women and children huddled together in a cave".

Death toll: About 10 Aboriginal men, women and children killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Willshire 1896 p. 61.

On 3 November 1894 Jandamarra ("Pigeon") killed Constable William Richardson and freed thirteen prisoners, setting off a wave of reprisals. On 19 November Constable McDermott and Joseph Blythe pursued a group into Geikie Gorge, where Blythe was injured and seven Aboriginal people were shot.

Death toll: 7 Bunuba, Nyikina and Gooniyandi people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: The West Australian 8 Jan 1895; Western Mail 12 Jan 1895; WA Parliamentary Debates 1895; Aborigines Protection Board 1896; McGregor 1985; Pedersen 1995; Clement and Bridge 1998; Owen 2016.

Constable Richard Henry Pilmer led a patrol into Geikie Gorge on 13 December and by 26 December had killed "anywhere between seven and twenty people". Inspector Lawrence reported seventeen dead, "four being prisoners who had escaped when PC Richardson was murdered".

Death toll: About 17 Bunuba people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Inspector Lawrence telegram 5 Jan 1895; West Australian 8 Jan 1895; Western Mail 12 Jan 1895; WA Police Department 1895 (SROWA); Owen 2016 pp. 315–17.

After two station workers and some cattle were allegedly killed, Constable Spong and Aboriginal assistants attacked a camp. George Marsden reported that they "struck a camp of eighty buck natives" and dispersed them with "the loss of some twenty bucks", after which attacks on the station stopped.

Death toll: About 20 Unggarrangu, Umida and Warwa men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: George Marsden report 21 Dec 1896 (SROWA); Owen 2016 pp. 315–30.

Constable Pilmer and Aboriginal assistants were sent to MacDonald's station after reports of cattle killing and met about thirty people, probably Gooniyandi, who Pilmer said fled and threw spears so that "we were compelled to fire upon them". Nine men were killed: Murjarri, Widali, Wonboni, Coolya, Mulabia, Mungar, Calapi, Mulyalli and Culcul.

Death toll: 9 (possibly up to 20) Gooniyandi and Bunuba men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: WA Police Department file 1808/1895 (SROWA); Shaw 1981 p. 47; Owen 2016 pp. 322–4; Heritage Council of WA.

John Frederick Kelly gave poisoned alcohol to Gumbaynggirr people at Fernmount, and Tommy Doyle and five others died believing they were drinking rum. Kelly was tried for murder and acquitted.

Death toll: 6 Gumbaynggirr people killed by poison (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: National Advocate (Bathurst) 5 Aug 1895 p. 3.

About a hundred Kungarakany people had gathered at a railway siding where flour was being made into damper. "Weed-killing powder...was supposedly mistaken for baking powder and added to the flour," and those who ate it "became violently ill before their death"; it was one of at least three poisonings of the Kungarakany.

Death toll: About 80 Kungarakany and Warray people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Toohey 1981 p. 39; McGuinness 1991 p. 8; Murgatroyd 2001 p. 6; Kungarakan Culture and Education Association.

After teamsters John Mulligan and George Ligar were attacked at Tom Kilfoyle's camp in 1895, police carried out reprisals. In February 1896 Mounted Constable O'Keefe allegedly lured 15 to 20 Bilinarra men to the police station with tobacco to build a stockyard, chained them, and had hidden trackers shoot them; oral testimony says the bodies were covered with wood and burned with kerosene.

Date: July 1895–February 1896.

Death toll: About 60 Bilinarra and Wardaman people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette Jun 1895, Mar 1896; Willshire 1895; Austin 1992; Read and Read 1991; Sutton 2019; Lewis 2021.

The pastoralist Paddy Cahill was moving horses near Little Gregory Creek when Aboriginal people attacked: "A spear struck my hat, going through it." He wrote that "I could do nothing but shoot as quickly as possible".

Death toll: About 10 Aboriginal people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: SA Register 4 Sep 1900 p. 6 (Cahill letter); Lewis 2004 pp. 247–8.

Sergeant Wheatley's patrol tracked people suspected of cattle killing to a lagoon and ordered them out of the water. Two who came out, Ginnare and Cunbiliger, were arrested; when the others tried to escape, Wheatley wrote, "we fired on them killing twenty men, the women and children making good their escape".

Death toll: About 20 Kitja and Miriwoong men killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Wheatley diary 11 Nov 1895 (Battye Library); Owen 2016.

After repeated theft of supplies, Bradshaw station workers poisoned flour and left it where it would be taken. An elderly Aboriginal man named Johnson told historian Darrell Lewis that "a big mob of Aborigines were poisoned".

Death toll: About 15 (possibly 20 or more) Aboriginal people killed by poison; no colonists killed.

Sources: Lewis 2004 p. 229; Lewis 2018 pp. 65–6.

A police patrol of Sergeant Wheatley, Constable Rhatigan and four Aboriginal assistants worked across East Kimberley stations in November and December 1895. Sub-Inspector Orme telegraphed that a tribe at Ivanhoe had been "thoroughly dispersed" and that "they have had most successful trip", while other parties "dispersed several tribes" at Lissadell.

Death toll: 20 to 40 Miriwoong and Gajirrabeng people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Sub-Inspector Orme telegrams 15 and 27 Dec 1895; Colonial Secretary's Office file 823/1895 (SROWA); Owen 2003 pp. 360–4.

When Aboriginal people speared sheep, Bradshaw stockmen shot them on sight, and after one spearing several people were shot and their bodies burned by John McPhee and Hugh Young. Lewis writes that "in at least one instance Aborigines who had killed sheep were tracked down and shot by Bradshaw stockmen".

Death toll: About 30 (probably more) Ngarinman and Bilinarra people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 18 Sep 1896 p. 2; Lewis 2004 p. 206; Lewis 2021 p. 56.

David Turner told Helen Ross that white men came to Linnekar Gorge without provocation, "gathered all the blackfellas and tie em up with chains", and made them collect wood for a fire. They shot the bound people and burned the bodies.

Death toll: 10 to 15 Kitja and Jaru people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: David Turner, in Ross and Bray 1989 p. 19.

The Bradshaw station logbook records that Aboriginal people were "dispersed" after spearing livestock. A newspaper correspondent claimed they had threatened to "spear all the horses and then come along and spear all hands".

Death toll: About 15 Ngarinman and Bilinarra people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Lewis 2004 p. 207.

After Aboriginal people killed Lakefield station owner Macdonald Mackenzie, Native Police from Cooktown, Musgrave and Maytown were sent by special train. On the way they found Aboriginal people who had "evidently died of poison"; Constable David Hardie believed they had taken arsenic from Mackenzie's house "believing it to be baking powder".

Death toll: 6 Aboriginal people killed by poison (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Queenslander 9 May, 16 May and 6 Jun 1896.

After reports that Aboriginal people had attacked the Noonkanbah manager William Cox and speared a boundary rider, Sub-Inspector Ord and three constables tracked the Bunuba and Nyikina people responsible from 27 July and killed three near the St George Range. In a dawn raid on 14 August they "dispersed the mob", killing six more and wounding two, though "the alleged ringleaders escaped punishment".

Death toll: 9 Bunuba, Nyikina and Unggarrangu people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: West Australian 21 Aug 1896; Sub-Inspector Ord telegram 7 Aug 1896; McGregor 1985, 1993; Muecke et al. 1985; Owen 2016.

Police patrols under Constables Rhatigan and Freeman, with four Aboriginal assistants, recorded killings as "skirmishes", "resisting arrest" or "escaping", and people were shot for "being in possession of beef". When Rhatigan arrested seven people in January 1897, he "expended sixty rounds of ammunition in doing so".

Date: 22 September 1896–30 January 1897.

Death toll: About 50 (estimates up to 80) Kitja, Worla, Jaru and Miriwoong people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: WA Police journals 1896–7 (SROWA); Owen 2016 pp. 364–7.

At dawn, armed stockmen from Wollogorang led by the manager Robert ("Bob") Shadforth attacked Garrwa people gathered for a Kunabibi ceremony and kidnapped women. Peter Garinjamaji was shot in the shoulder, and survivors led by Illiburra ("Crooked Foot") fled to the hills and kept watch on the station.

Death toll: About 15 Garrwa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Roberts 2005 pp. 58, 201; Morrison; ABC News 19 Dec 2022.

After a Chinese gardener, Ah Sing, was killed in November 1898 by Yiiji and Ngarinyin men led by Nalmurchie, Constable Farley "sent his assistants to arrest or shoot Nalmurchie". Farley's own report said they raided a camp of 100 people without arrests, but later police correspondence said "Nalmurchie and fifty natives attacked police party...shot nine natives".

Death toll: 9 (possibly up to 50) Yiiji and Ngarinyin people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Colonial Secretary's Office file 2773/1898; WA Police Department file 2873/1899 (SROWA); Wyndham Police Letterbook; Green 1995; Owen 2016.

Hector Chunda told Helen Ross that colonists rounded up and shackled Kija and Miriwoong people, took them to Jail Creek, fed them, then tied them up and shot them, "every girl and boy", before burning the bodies with kerosene. "That's the way not much Kija people and Mirriwoong longa this country," he said.

Death toll: 50 to 100 Worla and Kitja people killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Hector Chunda, in Ross and Bray 1989 p. 18.

A museum index card at the Royal College of Surgeons of England records human remains "shot early in 1900 in a punitive expedition, in which forty natives male and female were killed" near the Victoria River. They were presented to the museum in 1920–21 by Dr Arthur Gedge.

Death toll: About 40 Ngarinyman (or Allura) men and women killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Royal College of Surgeons archive MS RCS-MUS/7/8; British Medical Journal Sep 1927; Canberra Times Nov 1988.

Jimmy Governor and Jacky Underwood attacked the Mawbey homestead at Breelong and killed seven members of the Mawbey family and their governess. They acted in retaliation for racial abuse of Jimmy's non-Aboriginal wife and for unpaid fencing wages. The attackers were Aboriginal.

Death toll: 8 colonists killed; no Aboriginal deaths in the attack.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald 23 and 28 Jul, 24 Nov 1900; Nepean Times 28 Jul 1900; Evening News Jul–Sep 1900; Dungog Chronicle 31 Jul 1900; Muswellbrook Chronicle 6 Oct 1900; Singleton Argus 19 Jan 1901.

In reprisal for the killing of cattle and horses, stockmen shot Alawa men who had been made to cut timber, killed children by striking them against trees or with stones, and shot women. One witness said "they bin like to killem, finishem up tribe. Take all of their country"; a few, including Old Charlie Waypuldanya, escaped.

Date: 1901–1902.

Death toll: 30 to 40 Alawa people killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Merlan 1978; Read and Read 1991; Ucko and Layton 1999; Olney 2003.

The remains of several Aboriginal men were found on the Ducie River, and an investigation followed. "Suspicion had pointed to Constable Hoole and the native police patrol which was in April last in the neighbourhood"; the bodies appear to have been burned.

Death toll: About 6 Aboriginal men killed (single source); no colonists killed.

Sources: Brisbane Courier 30 Sep 1902 p. 5; Richards 2008 p. 35.

After months of failed official pursuit of Aboriginal people killing horses and cattle around Ruby Gap, William Coulthard and others acted themselves. The stockman Sid Stanes said that after the group killed 60 to 80 horses in a gap, Coulthard and Wallis "shot all this mob", and that a small child left in the camp was then killed.

Death toll: About 20 Alyawarre men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: William Coulthard diary 1903 (NT Library); Sid Stanes oral history, Trish Lonsdale Collection NTRS 3414.

The Eastern and African Cold Storage Company, which leased Arafura from 1903 to 1908, used "2 gangs of 10 to 14 blacks headed by a white man or half caste to hunt and shoot the wild blacks on sight". George Conway said a hunting expedition he led in 1905–06 "killed dozens of Aborigines", and the station, run by Jack Watson of Skeleton Creek and Joe Bradshaw, "is remembered today for the extreme violence of its managers".

Date: 1903–1908.

Death toll: About 200 Yolngu and Djinang men, women and children killed; no colonists killed.

Sources: Northern Territory Times and Gazette 17 Mar 1905; Northern Standard 6 Jul 1934; Willey 1964; Merlan 1978; Dewar 1992; Olney 2003.