In an essay on Gippsland from April 1843, Henry Bebb Morris described a mock fight between six Kurnai men using spears, boomerangs and waddies: they are small men, and when in repose would not be remarked for beauty or figure, but under the excitement of the fight they put every muscle into motion, and threw themselves into attitudes which would have graced a Grecian warrior. The theme for Reconciliation Week 2018 is 'Don't keep history a mystery' Learn - Share - Grow. The Australian reported in August: The Prince George touched at Port Albert on the 25th ultimo, and reports that the Agenoria is taking in cattle there, the captain of which reported the blacks to be in a very riotous state. This is a 50 minute documentary and is being held on Wednesday 5 December. <> 0000010851 00000 n 2151 It really hadnt happened before and it just was not even acknowledged or recognised.. I knew two blacks, who though wounded came out of the hole alive. Searching for information on frontier conflict in old newspapers (film or hard copy) was the proverbial "needle in a haystack" task - time consuming and exhausting with few . 0000003041 00000 n Power your marketing strategy with perfectly branded videos to drive better ROI. Rather than pursuing plaques or western versions of reconciliation, as Irving puts it, the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation and the Bunurong Land Council put their energies into changing the name of their local electorate, which was named after McMillan. % Because to move forward we must acknowledge our past. One might assume that Balderstone was blissfully unaware of this when she moved to the farm in 1974, but she explains she knew about Warrigal Creek from the beginning. In a letter to his family in England dated April 1846, the Gippsland squatter Henry Meyrick said: .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. The validity of the will remains a problem. 0000002733 00000 n Smith Street and Albert Street, Warragul, 3820, VIC, AU. The mainland squatters wanted a share of this market and the Van Diemens Land butchers with Commissariat contracts needed to obtain livestock at the lowest price possible. >> Balderstone and Irving hope that one day Australia fully recognises the extent of the massacres through a truth and reconciliation commission. McMillan is not implicated in any of the material cited as evidence against him. GLaWAC has been given permission to screen the Warrigal Creek Massacre film at our office at Forestec. Bass Coast South Gippsland Reconciliation Group members Marg Lynn and Florence Hydon say they have been left completely unsatisfied: Stage one was getting rid of McMillan, of course, but stage two was totally frustrating.. 0000115891 00000 n %PDF-1.5 *OAQg( n}wWdcKuYl7nfTTYP0|8o6rlBUb[O>03v-Jg1]sng~f5!M .]e?n? 6 0 obj The current awareness of the Warrigal Creek massacre stems largely from the writing of the self-published historian Peter Gardner, who contends that his work represents currently accepted history. Oh how I wished I had written down the stories my grandmother used to regale us with. Still from the Warrigal Creek Documentary produced by Swinburne University Introduction On 30 December 2020 Quadrant published an article entitled "The Warrigal Creek Massacre: True Story or Apocryphal?" by Wayne Caldow1, which was a general attack on my work and in particular on the Warrigal Creek massacre. 0000116911 00000 n Bells account and the report of the massacre involving the Native Police in April 1845 can be found by simple searches on Trove. 0000008955 00000 n Convicts were present in the early years of settlement in Gippsland in two very different ways: first, as the slave labour of the squatters, and second, as escapees congregated around Alberton. The Warrigal Creek Massacre on Vimeo. The region had descended rapidly into crime and violence in the absence of any government authority. Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a77bf3dc11d263ed9065ff8247406b97" );document.getElementById("bc64d4fe72").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Peter Gardner has written three books in which he asserts that Angus McMillan, The Butcher of Gippsland, was responsible for several massacres of Kurnai people. Elizabeth Balderstone leads a lifestyle that many city dwellers fantasise about, on a farm in Victorias Gippsland, surrounded by friendly sheep, with a humble little creek just 60 metres from her house. Their submission was denied; McMillan was renamed the Monash electorate instead. Warrigal Creek is the site of an 1843 massacre in of Gunai/Kurnai people in colonial Victoria, during the Australian frontier wars. @7k_|F_j}t'J'fu_}"Y5Xgx{ps:KQb#wOQ:/[]6Hy One man was killed with thirteen spears, his body was mutilated, and his arms and legs were removedthe Kurnai were cannibals. [46] Gardner admonished Hoddinott, stating, in this account he failed to implicate McMillan as he had done 15 years earlierbut neither version implicated McMillan.[47]. External Lived Experience Employment Opportunities, Complete the VMIAC Conference 2023 Survey, CEO Update with Craig Wallace | 17.02.2023, New Consumer Register Opportunity: Access Policy & Triage Guidelines, CEO Update with Craig Wallace | 03.02.2023, CEO Update with Craig Wallace | 20.01.2023. I think the first thing for Gippsland is to acknowledge that it does have that history, like other places where bad things have happened, where massacres have occurred, where theres some acknowledgement of whats occurred instead of masking it, a Gurnaikurnai elder, Doris Paton, told the film-makers Andrew Dodd and Lisa Gye. Many Bunurong joined the police and used the guise of their role to extract vengeance on the Kurnai. Voice.Treaty.Truth. 2 0 obj Frustrated with the hidden history of the massacre, the makers of this 50-minute documentary sought oral histories and combed through archival works to capture and relay the truth of Australias violent past. We acknowledge that in our past, as in most nations, bad things have happened. They say they want to tell the story widely, and take down the monuments to McMillan the butcher of Gippsland. true /ColorSpace 25 0 R /Intent /Perceptual /SMask 26 0 R /BitsPerComponent Captain Charles Tyers RN arrived in Gippsland in January 1844 as the Commissioner for Crown Lands. First though, it is necessary to establish the circumstances that led to the European settlement of Gippsland and the resulting conflict with the indigenous Kurnai people, which is the root of the massacre story. Here are some resources for further research. The other was a little older; he made his escape up the creek by swimming and diving. Bell stated: The historic pen of Victorian settlement would paint with truth the horrors of many a scene of Gipps Land life; it was in 1843 that the aggressions of the blacks were so frequent. Where I live you can almost point in every direction [to a massacre site], he says. The themes in this page may cause distress. Gardners reliability can best be judged by his rewriting of an inter-tribal massacre at Tambo Crossing. It was, of course, impossible to identify any blackfellow concerned in the outrage, and therefore atonement must be made by the tribe. This National Reconciliation week, reflect on the hidden history of the 1843 massacre of the Gurnaikurnai people at Warrigal Creek. [12] The first reported attack on the squatters came in 1841 when, it was said, 600 Kurnai attacked Macalisters run. 0000030150 00000 n This was the cause of great enmity among the surviving Bunurong. 6az Q";cM;|?)/ Bg~VK7QVK_6 +K}\\&h"DmWK+^>Pnu"8H8@sF1jO-@g?XjGs=2]v'x9y[6p X &.-Yl;;]+/[r=w(\QwG SDB?#86mXpqrOzX\R++QkEfz75Br,=t'F4_]Ug@dNq{":Q7 &DvB )vBqKwbm%aM!._aiaekE)hc_9lujzR10IrR--6HWXSA[Wd{DS#~}wDvenr,rFU-}aOe(d}b xref [15]. According to Tyers, at least fifty Kurnai were killed by the Native Police and other Aborigines attached to the search parties. The attack on the Brataualung people camped at Warrigal Creek was one of several incidents resulting in loss of life among the Gunai Kurnai people. [23] To put this in context, crimes against livestock carried a heavy penalty. [2], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}374014S 1463957E / 37.67056S 146.66583E / -37.67056; 146.66583, Last edited on 26 February 2023, at 01:43, List of massacres of Indigenous Australians, "Victoria's Deadly & Proud campaign remembers Indigenous victims of Warrigal Creek massacre in South Gippsland", "Living on a massacre site: home truths and trauma at Warrigal Creek", "Victoria to introduce Australia's first truth-telling process to address Indigenous injustices", "Victoria to establish truth and justice process as part of Aboriginal treaty process", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Warrigal_Creek_Massacre&oldid=1141638012, "The Settling of Gippsland - A Regional History", by Patrick Morgan, published by Gippsland Municipalities Association, Traralgon, 1997. The Warrigal Creek Massacre | About the film When Angus McMillian and the Highland Brigade rode through Gippsland in 1843, they aimed to murder as many Gunai Kurnai children, women and men as they could. He stated: Mr. Ranold McAlister, nephew of the allegorical author, was dragged off his horse, and cruelly murdered, on the township of Alberton, his head being so totally disfigured that his countenance could not be recognised among even his most intimate friends, by these harmless, innocent denizens of the wild of Gipps Land . 0000015443 00000 n 0000024998 00000 n The blacks were found encamped near a waterhole at Gammon Creek, and those who were shot were thrown into it, to the number, it was said, of about sixty, men, women, and children; but this was probably an exaggeration.[57]. During this time he collected information for stories that were published in the magazine Austral Light. Bunjileene was a leader of the Gunaikurnai people and Purrine was the head of the Lowanjerri tribe of the Bunurong. These stories contain the earliest known account of a massacre as revenge for the death of Macalister. In July 1843, up to 150 Gunaikurnai people were killed near the banks of what is now known as Warrigal Creek. Welcome to you all., Read Quadrant online or as a printed magazine Starting at $88.00 a year. They travelled with Edward Hobson, who was attempting to find an overland route to Gippsland. [35] This simplistic reductionism obscures the complexity of Gippslands early history, evident in his rejection of Robinsons observations on the escaped convicts. [11] The violent response from the Kurnai was the same as that meted out to their tribal enemies when defending their territory. Film Screening The Warrigal Creek Massacre This country has a hidden history that is not widely acknowledged. Use your same username and password to log in and you'll be Following the murder, Lachlan Macalister wrote a letter to Governor Sir George Gipps via the Sydney Morning Herald in which he implicated the governor for the state of anarchy in Gippsland due to the lack of official protection. [43] The fallacy of this secrecy argument is that it is contradicted by Gardners own evidence from William Thomas from 1845 and other versions of the massacre story that pre-date Gippslander by more than fifty years (see below). Purchase tickets, This raises the inevitable question of whether the massacre story, based on Gardners interpretation, should be seen as historical fact or an apocryphal tale. Howitt noted that the Kurnai killed by the Europeans were mostly, though not all, fighting men of the tribe. Some basic research puts Hatchers account into context. Some themes may be unpalatable, including tribal warfare, the murderous role of the Native Police, and the role of convicts as both slave labour and perpetratorsthey are part of the historical record but not always part of the written history. There are two significant aspects to this story: Dunderdale specifically named Lachlan Macalister as the perpetrator and he added the caveat on the death toll. His reports correlate with the newspaper accounts in describing the violent state of Gippsland. In March 1840, twenty Bunurong men from Westernport escaped the supervision of Assistant Protector William Thomas to undertake a raid into Gippsland. Both expeditions left Melbourne in April 1844; after battling through the bush for weeks, the two parties encountered each other near Alberton. 3 0 obj These passages represent the sum total of Gardners evidence against McMillan (left), but he does not explain how the story implicates McMillan. [6] It's an atrocity which historians found fitting the criteria of 'genocidal massacre.' [3] According to Gardner, the Warrigal Creek massacre was revenge for his murder. 0000021061 00000 n [55] The murder of Macalister may have marked a turning point in which the Europeans went on the offensive. The aim of this article is to examine Gardners interpretation of the Warrigal Creek massacre story and his accusations against McMillan. Light refreshments will be available. endstream News; Warrigal Creek doco at the Memo. They murdered, according to Gippslander, 150 at Warrigal Creek, which would make it one of the largest known massacres of Aborigines in Australian history.[36]. In his first notes [in the 1970s], he talks about the massacre and, from the beginning of my time here, no one ever kept a blanket over the story. 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