Warrigal Creek Massacre: A Truth-telling Documentary. [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). These stories contain the earliest known account of a massacre as revenge for the death of Macalister. Host virtual events and webinars to increase engagement and generate leads. Over there, thats where the whitefellas killed our old fellas., The Gurnaikurnai artist Steaphan Paton says the monuments to McMillan one calls him Gippslands discoverer should be removed: They belong in a museum, they dont belong on our land.. It beggars belief that it was accepted as a completely reliable historical source. His alleged role in the massacre is a construct entirely of Gardners own making, where he attached McMillans name to the Gippslander story without revealing this to his readers. Welcome to you all., Read Quadrant online or as a printed magazine Starting at $88.00 a year. 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. Macalister stated that escaped convicts were committing the most revolting crimes the calendar can namesuch as murder, rape, robbery, forgeries, cattle-stealing, and last, though not least, sly grog-selling, the root of all crime. % He has attached his own assertions to his source material without distinguishing between them, and these assertions are made without proof or explanation. Truth-telling about the wrongs of the past is necessary for reconciliation. Gunaikurnai people have visited the land for years to pay their respects, giving Balderstone some understanding of the pain and intergenerational trauma they still experience. I knew two blacks, who though wounded came out of the hole alive. 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. Happy New Year to all. And when Gippsland comes to terms with what happened, and why it happened, theres an opportunity to talk much better about that history.. However, the region was isolated from the rest of New South Wales by mountains, rivers, forests, swamps and the fierce reputation of the Kurnai. He was hit in the eye by a slug, captured by the whites, and made to lead the Brigade from one camp to another. A European convicted of cattle stealing in the Port Phillip District faced the penalty of transportation for fifteen years; in Van Diemens Land, it was for life.[24]. The Chief Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson (right), noted that the settlers were not the only ones to suffer from the convicts: There is however reason to fear that before the arrival of the Commissioner a large amount of mischief had been inflicted upon the original Inhabitants by the lawless and depraved who had infested the port from Van Diemens Land and the Middle Districts [present-day New South Wales] and that the instance recorded (if reports be true) is not the only one in which the Blacks have suffered. [50] This raises two issues: first, this is a fallacious misuse of the material; Hatcher said the bones might be gathered uphis might be has transmogrified into Gardners were. Production and research by Danielle Bowen, Jonathan Boadle, Jakeb Fair, Alex Owsianka, Don Sheil and Ben Winnell. /Im4 20 0 R /Im1 8 0 R >> >> [34] How left is open to interpretation given that his third book, Our Murdering Founding Father (a diatribe against McMillan), begins with the property is theft quote from the nineteenth-century anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. 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. The Gippslander account mentions the Highland Brigade and a death toll of 100 to 150, but McMillans involvement, Scotsmen, the swearing to God and the Queen, and secrecy, are entirely Gardners creation. [8], Michael Connor: The Massacre Maps shoddy research, In order to export livestock, the squatters needed a port and grazing land in Gippsland, as it was the closest part of the mainland to Van Diemens Land. Following the screening, VMIAC will facilitate a discussion about the film and its importance in understanding the effects of colonisation and inter-generational trauma and resilience for First Nations peoples. This documentary captures a story from Victoria, however there were similar stories as the waves of colonisation swept across the country. In other words, by coincidence, Robinson and Hatcher arrived in Gippsland at exactly the same time. McMillan is not implicated in any of the material cited as evidence against him. 0000008955 00000 n NAIDOC Week 2019. %%EOF This letter indicates that the Kurnai were still harrying the squatters the year after the massacre is believed to have occurredthere was conflict with the Kurnai before and after the murder of Macalister. Tyerss Convict Return for 1844 shows that convict labour was an integral part of the squatter economy. Intertribal warfare was endemic in the region with raid and counter raid where men, women and children were slaughtered as they slept, and then eaten. It is cited in the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for McMillan, which is in turn cited on the Victorian Parliament website. Lachlan Macalisters demand of Gipps to provide protection for the settlers gives the impression that the settlers were on the defensive against both the Kurnai and the convicts. Third, Gardners narrative is constructed around a story written for schoolchildren in 1925, a story that could at best be considered as folk history. the Warrigal Creek massacre - possibly even a participant in it 10. 0000000016 00000 n This changed with the arrival of Tyers, who told La Trobe: The run-away Convicts, and other bad characters with which the District was infested a few months ago have, I believe been nearly all driven out by the system of surveillance pursued by the Border Police, acting under my instructions.[29]. Some of the tale also bears a resemblance to accounts of the Hospital Creek massacre in New South Wales that emerged between 1911 and 1919, in which the survivor was a one-eyed Aborigine. 0000002096 00000 n While the murder was well documented in contemporary newspaper accounts, the reports also indicate that by mid-1843, Gippsland was in a state of disarray. One thing is clear from his work: the Kurnai men were warriors. Just before European settlement, the Kurnai raided as far as Brighton and Arthurs Seat on Port Phillip Baya distance of at least 120 kilometres as the crow fliesand they are believed to have wiped out about half of the Bunurong. 91 0 obj <> endobj stream 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. Unfortunately, in Gippsland, his diatribe against McMillan has been conflated with issues such as Reconciliation and Black Lives Matter. There were simple economic facts that led to this. << /Type /Page /Parent 3 0 R /Resources 6 0 R /Contents 4 0 R /MediaBox [0 0 595 842] The official reports from Tyers to La Trobe from 1844 to 1845 thus describe the situation in Gippsland where the settlers were being attacked by the Kurnai and their stock was being killed. 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. In July 1843, up to 150 Gunaikurnai people were killed near the banks of what is now known as Warrigal Creek. Produced and directed by Andrew Dodd and Lisa Gye. Bells account and the report of the massacre involving the Native Police in April 1845 can be found by simple searches on Trove. According to Tyers, at least fifty Kurnai were killed by the Native Police and other Aborigines attached to the search parties. Messrs. Pearson and Cunninghame have been the latest sufferers by those cannibals; it is not only the stock they kill we feel the loss of, but running the remainder off their runs, and the expense the proprietors are put to in collecting their cattle, and procuring guns and ammunition for everyone engaged in their employment.[22]. To those who came by jet plane yesterday. The Warrigal Creek Massacre, a documentary exploring the history of colonisation in Gippsland in the 1800s, is screening at the Memo in Healesville on Wednesday 27 February at 6:45pm. Facebook. In Chapter 1 of Gippsland Massacres, he states: There was a brigade formed by McMillan, which according to Gippslander, was called the Highland Brigade, and mainly consisted of Scotsmen who swore before God and their Queen not to inform on their fellow desperados, and to maintain complete secrecy of the affair in which they were about to participate. Light refreshments will be available. Use your same username and password to log in and you'll be Gardner accepted Hoddinotts Gippslander story literally and uncritically, stating that it is completely reliable due to its vividness and detail. [23] Inwards correspondence Tyers to La Trobe 44/1367 p.5 PROV, [24] Port Phillip Gazette 21 May 1842, p.3, [25] Tyers to La Trobe Inwards Correspondence 45/324 PROV, [27] Tyers to La Trobe Inwards Correspondence 46/219 PROV, [28] Tyers to La Trobe Inwards Correspondence 44/2112, PROV; Port Phillip Patriot 12 August 1839, p.4, [29] Tyers to La Trobe Inwards Correspondence 44/1367, p.4, PROV, [30] Port Phillip Patriot 12 August 1839, p.4, [31] Gardner, P. D. (1994) Through Foreign Eyes, Ngarak Press, Ensay, p.45, [32]Gardner (1993) p.58; (1990) Our Murdering Founding Father, 2nd Edition, Ngarak Press, p.28, [33] The Guardian 6 March 2019; 8 March 2019; Gippsland Times 16 June 2020, [34] Gardner (1993) pp 6-7; (2015) Some Random Notes on Massacres 2000-2015 (on-line essay). Your email address will not be published. [42] Elsewhere he states that Hoddinotts desire to remain anonymous would seem to indicate that the telling of the story may have had undesirable repercussions. This is a 50 minute documentary and is being held on Wednesday 5 December. They were feared by their tribal enemies for their ability to attack at nighta skill the Europeans were to encounter.[5]. And forward if you like. Balderstone and Irving hope that one day Australia fully recognises the extent of the massacres through a truth and reconciliation commission. 0000885516 00000 n /TT4 13 0 R /TT6 15 0 R /TT1 10 0 R >> /XObject << /Im2 16 0 R /Im3 18 0 R x]xG)mIq$hpwwR+VKqPMps^63.ffv>Y ?hiO#'FZ@&.JGr4O,D5nHEK{GDs ,2fspcd88qpB[V,4~nfrpe8,$Y}i{rq]v9sl{3g &6mBRii&"0k2dZNPR5foHWJcJWLlel+_0d)[Vs[ ])[UJT+Wd41 [3] Their customs and society were studied in detail by Alfred W. Howitt, but due to violence and the effects of disease, alcohol and the mission system, much traditional knowledge had already been lost by the time he began recording information in the mid-1860s. 0000116911 00000 n Thu % Gardners cover-up conspiracy theory thus rests on an obvious misrepresentation of Hatchers account. Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging. 5 0 obj Bookings free, but essential. In Chapter 4, he gives another rendition of the Gippslander story, stating the massacre was lead [sic] by McMillan. Balderstones daughter Alice Irving calls the site a powerful place. 2 0 obj 0 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. We are here to help! 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