Why has the Myall Creek Massacre become a fixture in the Australian public memory?

BY SOPHIA MITCHELL, YEAR 12, 2021

The Myall Creek Massacre of 28 Wirrayaraay people on 10 June 1838 was just one event in a long and shameful history of Australian frontier violence between colonial settlers and the First Nations people. In our contemporary context, its horrors are confronting, yet the pursuit of justice that followed has imprinted this event as a fixture in the public memory as a symbol of post-colonial efforts towards acknowledgement, accountability and reconciliation. The massacre involved the unprovoked killing of innocent men, women and children by 12 white settlers at Myall Creek Station in Northern New South Wales. Whilst the criminal atrocity was not unusual in its context of persistent frontier violence, it was unique in the sense that the white witnesses, officials and legal experts were prepared to actively seek justice, by ensuring that the laws of the colony were applied to white settlers. The emotional public response to reports of the massacre sparked a movement, which has led to a recent nationwide effort to revisit the past and recognise its many injustices. Moreover, recent efforts of post-colonial historians and artists to bring authentic light to the voices of those who have been silenced in the past, has effectively turned historical dialogue into a tool for political and social reconciliation.

Public or collective memory refers to the circulation of recollections among members of society, in regard to specific events or incidents.1 The public’s understanding of the Myall Creek Massacre has been shaped over time, through a collaboration between traditional academic history, popular history, oral history and the media.2 Whilst there were some initial press reports of the incident, accurate historical coverage was limited to biased white perspectives until the late 1970s, when Indigenous voices began to emerge.3 It remains crucial for historians and members of the public to make an active effort to bridge the gap between the national public memory and the scholarly truths, by enlarging the public’s collective understanding of Australian history.4 The significance of the Myall Creek Massacre lies in the conversations and dialogue that arose in its aftermath, as this has shaped our national narrative and placed the event firmly within the forefront of public memory.

Although it would become the most acknowledged massacre of Australia’s Frontier Wars, the nature of the Myall Creek Massacre was not unique for its time. In the 1830s, frontier violence, a general sense of lawlessness, and government-sponsored massacres had become widespread. Historian Lyndall Ryan has defined a massacre as the killing of six or more undefended people and described its common characteristics; it is carried out in secret, the assassins make active attempts to remain undercover, and they often burn the bodies to achieve this.5 The perpetrators were usually comprised of groups of heavily armed stockmen on horseback, under the command of a white settler. Another horrific characteristic shared by these massacres was the abduction, rape and abuse of young Indigenous women during attacks. At Myall Creek, two innocent Wirrayaraay women were kidnapped by the perpetrators and raped for three days.6 In New South Wales, an estimated 270 similar frontier massacres occurred between 1794 and 1928, with particular prevalence in the Hunter Valley, Bathurst and Gravesend Mountain7. In Victoria, there were 68 massacres and an estimated 1,168 deaths.8 Evidently, the sheer prevalence of massacres consequently normalised the murder of Indigenous people by settlers, despite British law stating that it was a crime punishable by death.9

In 19th century Australia and until the landmark decision of the Mabo Case in 1992, the Government actively ignored the connection of Indigenous people to their country, and the settlement of land by white settlers was viewed as equivalent to ownership.10 Typical narratives of the time described ‘heroic’ white settlers defending themselves against bold Indigenous ‘warriors’ or ‘savages’ attempting to attack colonial property and steal livestock.

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However, the contrasting reality is that there were countless unprovoked attacks against unarmed groups of elderly men, women and children who were simply living on the land. At Myall Creek, the Wirrayaraay people sought sanctuary on Henry Dangar’s property at the station, and relations were initially peaceful between the Station men and proximate Indigenous groups. However, interactions quickly escalated into a state of relentless violence and hostile tensions.11 Consequently, these massacres progressively eroded Indigenous connections between kin and country. By turning a blind eye, the state was complicit in the systematic eradication of innocent lives and weakening of Indigenous voices. Accounts of the Myall Creek Massacre therefore represent only a fraction of the nation-wide, state sanctioned violence during the 19th century.

Whilst many massacre stories died with their victims, what made the Myall Creek Massacre unique among many similar incidents of frontier violence, was that it was reported to officials and the white perpetrators were punished. Five days after the incident, Myall Creek Station Managers Thomas Foster and William Hobbs visited the scene and made the pivotal decision to break the ‘code of silence’.12 In a lawless frontier, white settlers were afraid of speaking out or reporting criminal activity. This is evident as William Hobbs, a respected Superintendent of the Station, took three weeks to report the incident to the Police Magistrate on 9 of July 1838.13 Justice for the Myall Creek Massacre victims was challenging for the Prosecution to achieve. At the time, Indigenous people were not allowed to present evidence or provide court testimony, and all members of the jury were white and therefore there was significant bias in judicial processes.14 In the two similar cases of the Charles Eyles at Argdowan Plains in 1938 and Thomas Coutts at Kangaroo Creek in 1947, perpetrators were arrested and charged, but the cases were dismissed due to a lack condemning evidence.15 In the initial Myall Creek trial of 1838, the jury initially declared all eleven accused not guilty, after just twenty minutes of supposed deliberation in the NSW Supreme Court.16 The speed of this decision reflects society’s complicity towards violence, driven by fear, and a tendency to prioritise status above justice for Indigenous Australians. However, Attorney General John Huber Plunkett was not satisfied with this blatant injustice and ordered a retrial, in which the accused were found guilty and seven were sentenced to death by means of a public hanging at the Sydney Gaol.17 It is evident that the Station managers, Prosecution team and Attorney General persevered to overcome the limitations of traditional British law procedures,18 to achieve both criminal and social justice.19 Furthermore, a wealth of information and detail now exists within the court transcripts and documents of this trial, which can be utilised by contemporary historians in their research.

The diversity and controversy of public responses that arose in the aftermath of the legal trials indicates the conflicting and inconsistent attitudes of white settlers at the time. Because the seven perpetrators were the first British subjects to be executed for massacring Indigenous people, news of their conviction and punishment was shocking and confronting. Sensationalist media reports of the incident fuelled contentious reactions and public hostility, evident in articles of the Sydney Herald which described the “gross miscarriage of justice” and criticised the government which “cannot protect the whites from the aggression of the blacks”.20 The media also portrayed Plunkett as the agent of a severe misjustice, which was seen as worse than the massacre itself, as several fundraising appeals and petitions were established for the defendants.21 John Fleming, the perpetrators who escaped trial, was even glorified by some and elevated to a criminal hero through emphasis of the dramatic escape narrative.22 Unlike the perpetrators who hung for their crimes, Fleming was able to exploit the reputation of his family as wealthy landowners in the Hawkesbury River Region, to escape a death sentence.23 Thus, the controversy that followed the legal trials sparked an important debate about the admissibility of Indigenous evidence, and the inconsistent application of the law. Ultimately, a fundamental element of achieving change is the spark of public dialogue and conversation. In this way, the Myall Creek Massacre controversy was an important catalyst for social, legal and political change.

On an international level, initial responses to the Myall Creek Massacre were both polarised and contradictory. Many white colonists in Britain continued to dehumanise Indigenous people as ‘savage cannibals’ in an attempt to justify the prevalence of violence.24 Yet Humanitarians, influenced by the British antislavery movement which peaked during the 1830s, were outraged by the atrocity of the massacre. The anti-slavery movement effectively

extended their rhetoric to narratives from countries such as Australia, as they deployed emotive strategies through newspapers, poetry and art, which sought to evoke empathy and compassion towards the Indigenous people.25 Within three years of the massacre, an impactful representation of the massacre circulated widely through the British media in 1841.26 ‘Phiz’ Hablot Knight Brown’s engraving ‘Australian Aborigines Slaughtered by Convicts’, published in the newspaper ‘The Chronicles’ attracted widespread public attention in London.27 This artwork was one of the first to visually represent the brutality of frontier violence and innocence of the victims thus recognising Indigenous humanity. Immense suffering and struggle is portrayed through emotive imagery, with its emphasis on the tying of the victims’ hands, connoting the sympathetic anti-slavery rhetoric. However, there remained a deep political and social divide between white free settlers, and emancipated ex-convicts, who were viewed as secondclass citizens and thus blamed for all criminal activity. This is evident in the engraving’s negative depiction of the perpetrators as ruthless convicts, which indicates that society tended to frame criminal activity as merely ‘convict crime’, in an attempt to enshroud their own contribution and complicity with the government’s policy of systematic discrimination and violence.28 Thus, on an international level, society chose to ignore the contradicting and grim logic of frontier violence, and this prevented them from truly recognising or sympathising with Indigenous suffering.

Recent efforts of contemporary and post-colonial artists such as Ben Quilty has been essential in raising public awareness by conveying the horrors of frontier violence in a visual way to provoke an emotional and impactful response from the audience. Quilty’s Rorschach ink blot paintings of massacre sights including Myall Creek are explored in the 2019 ABC documentary Quilty: Painting the Shadows. 29 Ben Quilty’s methodology is important as he pursued information from oral history, through his travel to the site and conversations with local elders including Aunty Sue Blacklock and Uncle Lyall Munro. In the aftermath of massacres, news of violence spread quickly through Indigenous communities, and oral history was passed down each generation for over 140 years.30 In contrast to Hablot’s engraving, which focuses on human emotions and the cruelty of the perpetrators, Quilty focuses on the landscape itself to acknowledge the inextricable link between the land and Indigenous people.31 Quilty illuminates the emotional trauma and grief held in the land itself, through his use of vibrant colours, dark shadows, distorted shapes and ambiguous symbolism. His works are confronting and memorable, as his depiction of bloodshed amongst the landscape is greatly contrasted to the traditional 19th century paintings of a romanticised and peaceful bush landscape. Quilty affirms in an interview that “I can’t make paintings about the beauty of the landscape, without acknowledging the history of the human experience of this landscape”.32 By depicting the residual trauma in both a literal and metaphorical reflection of landscape, Quilty’s paintings encourage his audience to identify not only with Indigenous sorrow but also its reflection, ‘white shame’. The popularity of Ben Quilty’s work attests to the power of art in conveying history and challenging the public’s perception of the past through an accessible medium, aligning with the postmodern belief that history can be communicated to the public through a range of vehicles.33 It is apparent that both ‘Phiz’ Brown’s engraving and Ben Quilty’s Rorschach paintings have the ability to elicit emotions such as fear, sorrow and trauma in ways that extend history beyond forensic analysis and written evidence. These powerful mediums have thus imprinted a more wholistic depiction of the Myall Creek Massacre within the public memory over time.

Quilty’s work is a contemporary example of the methodology advocated by historian Elazar Barkan, whereby the acknowledgement of multiple perspectives of a political conflict can develop historical dialogue and debate into an effective tool of reconciliation and healing.34 Professor Barkan is a highly trained, academic historian from Brandeis University in the USA, whose research focuses on the role of history in contemporary society and politics.35 Barkan seeks to resolve conflict and achieve reconciliation by employing historical methodology and cooperation to create shared narratives between distinct social and political divides. The ‘difficult historical truth’ of frontier massacre stories is now being communicated through new artistic mediums, such as the recent film ‘High Ground’ released in 2021, which explores the confronting violence of Australian history and its massacres.36 Thus, recent efforts of artists, historians and producers have effectively expanded the nation’s collective understanding of the past, allowing for similar atrocities to be brought to light.

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The Myall Creek Massacre has enduring relevance as the public’s understanding and memory of the past continues to evolve. An emphasis on acknowledgement and recognition is evident in the establishment of community-based memorial sites, annual ceremonies and education programs. These seek to confront Australia’s traumatic past in a way that recognises the Indigenous connection between story and place, history and land. To acknowledge the site’s importance for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, in 2008 the Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site was created and added to the National Heritage List.37 The bronze plaque at the memorial site is an important source of information which acknowledges the atrocity and affirms that the Wirrayaraay people were ‘murdered on the slopes of this ridge in an unprovoked but premeditated act’.38 An annual ceremony at this site also facilitates continued grieving, healing and reconciliation. In this way, the memorial site acts not only as a site-specific reminder of the atrocity, but also as a national monument to represent and preserve the memory of past massacres, and the Indigenous voices which have been persistently silenced in the past. Moreover, in the past decade, the Myall Creek Massacre has become a part of the syllabus within the Indigenous Studies curriculum at high schools in New South Wales.39 This will facilitate continued storytelling through the generations, so that unheard voices reverberate these past injustices, to allow for acknowledgement and acceptance of the sorrow and trauma of Indigenous Australians.

Ultimately, despite its horror, the Myall Creek Massacre has been an opportunity for the public to address and reconcile with some of the shadows in Australian history. While the Myall Creek Massacre was unique in some aspects, its narrative was largely shaped by pre-existing and prevailing patterns of tense relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The ensuing trials and public debates indicate that this incident catalysed the nation-wide movement which advocates for Indigenous rights and reconciliation. Ultimately, the perennial impacts of this massacre have become imprinted within the fabric of society to lay the foundation for national-wide healing. Thus, the defining event was not the massacre itself, but the conversations and artistic responses that took place in its aftermath.

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FOOTNOTES

1. David Glassberg, “Public History and the Study of Memory,”

The Public Historian 18, no. 2 (1996): 7–23. https://doi. org/10.2307/3377910. 2. Alon Confino, “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,” The American Historical Review 102, no. 5 (1997): 1386–1403, https://doi.org/10.2307/2171069. 3. John Harris, “Hiding the Bodies: The Myth of the Humane

Colonisation of Aboriginal Australia,” Aboriginal Histories, ANU

Press 27 (2003): 79–82. 4. Glassberg, “Public History and the Study of Memory.” 5. Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan, “Remembering The Myall Creek

Massacre” (Australia: NewSouth Publishing, 2018), 7–8. 6. Zoe Smith, “Sexual Violence and Colonial Anxieties in Australian

Literature,” Australian National University Journals, 2020, 29–33. 7. “The Killing Times: The Massacres of Aboriginal People Australia

Must Confront,” the Guardian, March 3, 2019, http://www. theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/the-killing-timesthe-massacres-of-aboriginal-people-australia-must-confront. 8. Ian D Clark, “The Convincing Ground Aboriginal Massacre at

Portland Bay, Victoria: Fact or Fiction?,” Aboriginal History 35 (2011): 79–81. 9. Amanda Nettelbeck, “‘Equals of the White Man’: Prosecution of

Settlers for Violence Against Aboriginal Subjects of the Crown,

Colonial Western Australia,” Law and History Review 31, no. 2 (2013): 355–90. 10. Zsofia Korosy, “Native Title, Sovereignty and the Fragmented

Recognition of Indigenous Law and Customs,” Australian

Indigenous Law Review 12, no. 1 (2008): 83–90. 11. Lyndall Ryan, “‘A Very Bad Business’: Henry Dangar and the Myall

Creek Massacre 1838,” University of Newcastle, 2-3. 12. Heather Burke et al., “Nervous Nation: Fear, Conflict and Narratives of Fortified Domestic Architecture on the Queensland Frontier,”

Aboriginal History 44 (2020): 23–24. 13. Michael Sturma, “Myall Creek and the Psychology of Mass Murder,”

Journal of Australian Studies, May 18, 2009, 62–64, https://doi. org/10.1080/14443058509386904. 14. Russell Smandych, “Contemplating the Testimony of ‘Others’:

James Stephen, the Colonial Office, and the Fate of Australian

Aboriginal Evidence Acts, circa 1839-1849,” Australian Journal of

Legal History, AustLIII, 2004, 1–5. 15. Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan, “Remembering the Myall Creek

Massacre” (Australia: NewSouth Publishing, 2018), 99. 16. Macquarie Law School, R. v. Kilmeister (No. 2) (NSW Supreme Court 110 1838). 17. National Museum Australia, “Defining Moments – Myall Creek

Massacre,” 2021., https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/ resources/myall-creek-massacre. 18. Patricia Mary Withycombe and Lyndall Ryan, “The Twelfth Man:

John Fleming and the Myall Creek Massacre,” The University of

Newcastle, October 30, 2015, 19–20. 19. Macquarie Law School, R. v. Kilmeister (No. 2). 20. The Sydney Herald, “Sworn to No Master, of No Sect Am I,” National

Library of Australia, December 10, 1838. 21. Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan, “Remembering The Myall Creek

Massacre” (Australia: NewSouth Publishing, 2018), 96–97. 1. Duncan Wu, “‘A Vehicle of Private Malice’: Eliza Hamilton Dunlop and the ‘Sydney Herald,’” Oxford University Press, The Review of

English Studies 65, no. 272 (2014): 890–93. 2. Lyndall Ryan, “‘A Very Bad Business’: Henry Dangar and the Myall

Creek Massacre 1838,” University of Newcastle, 2017, 2-3. 3. Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan, “Remembering The Myall Creek

Massacre” (Australia: NewSouth Publishing, 2018), 83–84. 4. Edith F. Hurwitz, Politics and the Public Conscience: Slave

Emancipation and the Abolitionist Movement in Britain, 23 (London: Barnes & Noble Books, 1973). 5. See Appendix (1) (Editor note: Appendix has been removed for this publication) 6. Patsy Withycombe and Jilian Barnes, “Representation and Power:

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words – ‘Australian Aborigines

Slaughtered by Convicts’ 1841 (Myall Creek Massacre),” Journal of

Australian Indigenous Issues 18, no. 2 (2015): 62–67. 7. Dirk Moses, “Genocide and Holocaust Consciousness in Australia,”

Australia History Compass, Wiley Online Library, 2003, https:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1478-0542.028. 8. “Ben Quilty Paints Trauma of Myall Creek and Other Australian

Massacre Sites in Rorschach Landscapes – ABC News,” accessed

February 25, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/ artist-ben-quilty-painting-dark-australian-history-myallcreek/11707954.

9. Frances Peters-Little, Ann Curthoys, and John Docker, Passionate

Histories: Myth, Memory and Indigenous Australia, Aboriginal

History Monographs (ANU Press, 2010). 10. See Appendix (2) (Editor note: Appendix has been removed for this publication) 11. “Ben Quilty Paints Trauma of Myall Creek and Other Australian

Massacre Sites in Rorschach Landscapes – ABC News,”, Nov 20, 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/artist-ben-quiltypainting-dark-australian-history-myall-creek/11707954. 12. Keith Crawford, “Constructing Aboriginal Australians, 1930-1960:

Projecting False Memories,” Journal of Educational Media, Memory & Society 5, no. 1 (2013): 97–98. 13. Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan, “Remembering The Myall Creek

Massacre” (Australia: NewSouth Publishing, 2018), 11. 14. Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, “Elazar

Barkan,”, https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty-research/facultydirectory/elazar-barkan. 15. Stephanie Bunbury, “Tough Truths: A New Movie about a Massacre of Indigenous People in the 1920s Packs a Punch,” The Sydney

Morning Herald, January 23, 2021. 16. See Appendix (3) (Editor note: Appendix has been removed for this publication) 17. Australian Government – Department of Agriculture, Water and the

Environment, “National Heritage Places – Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site,” 2008, http://www.environment.gov.au/. 18. Teela Reid, “It’s beyond Time for Truth-Telling, but at Least There’s a

Move in Our Schools,” The Sydney Morning Herald, April 29, 2021. https://www.smh.com.au/national/it-s-beyond-time-for-truthtelling-but-at-least-there-s-a-move-in-our-schools-20210429p57nko.html.