The brutal slaughter of some twenty-eight indigenous…
June 1838 CE
The brutal slaughter of some twenty-eight indigenous Australian men, women and children who are camped peacefully next to the station huts on the Myall Creek cattle station in northern New South Wales on June 10, 1838 is the work of a gang of eleven convict and ex-convict stockmen, led by a squatter,.
They thirty-five campers are part of the Wirrayaraay (alternative spelling: Weraerai) group who belong to the Kamilaroi people.
They had been camped at the station for a few weeks after being invited by one of the convict stockmen, Charles Kilmeister (or Kilminister), to come to their station for their safety and protection from the gangs of marauding stockmen who are roaming the district slaughtering any Aboriginal people they can find.
These Aboriginal people had previously been camped peacefully at McIntyre's station for a few months and were therefore well known to the whites.
Most of them had been given European names such as Daddy, King Sandy, Joey, Martha and Charley; some of the children speak a certain amount of English.
It will be the only time in Australia’s history that white men—even of the eleven perpetrators—will be arrested, charged and hanged for the massacre of Aborigines.