Some Known Conflicts in New South Wales

WE Cawthorne, A Fight on the Murray. In the scene painting style [beneath image] Adelaide, February, 1844. (Caption almost illegible). This painting is of the massacre at Rufus River near Lake Victoria that took place about three years earlier in 1841. Rufus River is near Wentworth, New South Wales, Australia. Image in the collection of the State Library of New South Wales

Additional locations and short descriptions of conflicts, where information is known, will be added to this list as time permits. Some of the main sources, that also refer to primary documents such as diaries, letters, government records etc., for information about conflicts that happened in New South Wales, include publications such as:

A Documentary History of the Illawarra and South Coast Aborigines 1770–1850, Michael Organ, Aboriginal Education Unit, Wollongong University, 1990

A History of Aboriginal Illawarra, Volume 2: Colonisation, Mike Donaldson, Les Bursill and Mary Jacobs, Dharawal Publications, Yowie Bay, 2017. Available from Research Online, University of Wollongong, New South Wales.

‘A History of Aboriginal Sydney,’ University of Western Sydney at: https://www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au/south-west/1810s

A Hundred Years War: the Wiradjuri People and the State, Peter Read, Australian National University Press, 1988

‘Appin Massacre,’ Grace Karskens, 2015, in Dictionary of Sydney at: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/appin_massacre

Baal Belbora, The End of the Dancing: The Agony of the British Invasion of the Ancient People of the Three Rivers–The Hastings, the Manning, and the Macleay in New South Wales, Geoffrey Blomfield, Alternative Publishing Co-Operative, 1986

Blood Revenge: Murder on the Hawkesbury, Lyn Stewart, Rosenberg Publishing, 2015

Bluff Rock: Autobiography of a Massacre, Katrina A Schlunke, Curtin University Books, Western Australia, 2005

Early History of the Upper Murray, CA Smithwick, edited by John Henwood and Margaret Swann, publised by John Henwood, 2003

‘Frontier Wars on Ravensworth Estate,’ Louise Nichols, Singleton Argus, 3 August 2021:
https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7368872/frontier-wars-on-ravensworth-estate/

Historical Records of the Illawarra Region of New South Wales, Australia 1770–1855: A Chronologoical Guide to Sources and Events, Michael Organ and AP Doyle, 1995

‘Hospital Creek Massacre,’ see for example, the Wikipedia entry on this incident at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_Creek_Massacre, accessed 2 May 2021

Narrandera Shire, Bill Gammage, 1986

‘“no moral doubt …”: Aboriginal evidence and the Kangaroo Creek poisoning, 1847–1849’, Jane Lydon, Aboriginal History, 1996, 20, pp. 151–175

Our Original Aggression: Aboriginal Populations of Southeastern Australia 1788–1850, Noel Butlin, North Sydney, 1983

Passages to the North-west Plains: The Colonial Discovery and Occupation of East-Central New South Wales, 1817–26, (Incorporating an extended discussion of the armed conflict between Aborigines, settlers, and police in the Hunter Valley, 1825–26), Michael O’Rourke, Canberra, December 2009. Covers exploration by Oxley, Howe, Lawson and Cunningham and includes an extended discussion of the armed conflict between Aborigines, settlers and police in the Hunter Valley, 1825–26. Available online at SCRIBD: https://www.scribd.com/doc/24478047/Muswellbrook-Merriwa-Mudgee-Aborigines-and-Settlers-1817-26

Report of the Myall Creek Massacre, 10 June 1838, State Archives and Records of New South Wales

Held by New South Wales State Archives and Records, this is one of the first official reports of the atrocity that happened on Myall Creek station on 10 June 1838 when stockmen murdered 28 Aboriginal men, women and children.

‘In October 1836, William Hobbs became an overseer of Mr Henry Dangar’s three cattle stations on the Big River, one of which was on the Myall Creek (near Inverell). As the first person encountering evidence of the incident [at Myall Creek] and formally reporting it, he became one of the main Crown witnesses in the subsequent murder trials in Sydney. Seven men were eventually convicted and executed for their involvement in the massacre. It was the first time a group of white men were hanged for the murder of Aboriginal people, although the murder of an Aboriginal man by a runaway convict, 1820 had resulted in the execution of an individual (the convict John Kirby.) Hobbs subsequently had difficulty finding employment in the pastoral industry, but he was appointed Chief Constable, Wollombi and McDonald River from 1847-50, Chief Constable Windsor, 1850-64, Gaoler at Windsor 1864-65; and Gaoler at Wollongong from 6 September 1865 until his death on 8 April 1871.’

A copy of the original Report of the Myall Creek Massacre, 1838, and a transcript are available at: https://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/index.php/galleries/50-years-at-state-records-nsw/2-10/

Shared Landscapes: Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, Studies in the Cultural Construction of Open Space, Volume 3, Rodney Harrison, UNSW Press and Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW), 2004

‘Skeletons in the Family Tree,’ Sheridan Jobbins, A&DHS Bulletin, October 2023, pp. 2–7

The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838, John Connor, University of New South Wales Press, 2002

The First Frontier: the Occupation of the Sydney Region 1788–1816, Peter Turbet, Rosenberg, 2011

The Quiet Invasion: A History of Early Sydney, Tim Ailwood, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018

Rivers of Blood: massacres of Northern Rivers Aborigines and their resistance to the white occupation 1838–1870, Rory Medcalf, Lismore, New South Wales, c. 1989, 1993

Sir Thomas Mitchell, explorer, some sources:
‘Explorer Mitchell Not Really Squeaky Clean’, Sovereign Union, 13 March 2026
Thomas Mitchell, 1828, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol. 2, Boone, London, pp.102–103 and pp. 269–270. Review in Sydney Herald, Thursday 11 March 1841, p. 4 and Sydney Herald, Thursday 11 March 1841, p. 4 (Available in the National Library of Australia’s Trove). Examples of some other articles relating to Mitchell’s conflicts with First Peoples available in the National Library of Australia’s Trove:
‘ Law Intelligence. Criminal Side.’ Sydney Herald, Thursday 11 August 1836, p.2, The Australian, New South Wales, 2 February 1837, p.2
‘B. Examination of Alexander Burnett before the Executive Council, December 16, 1836,’ Colonist, Thursday 2 February 1837, p. 7

Survival Legacies: Stories from Aboriginal Settlements of southeastern Australia, Peter Kabaila, Canberra, 2011

Waterloo Creek: the Australia Day Massacre of 1838, George Gipps and the Conquest of New South Wales, Roger Millis, McPhee Gribble, New South Wales, 1992

Windradyne of the Wiradjuri: Martial Law at Bathurst 1824, Studies in Australian and Pacific History: No. 4, T. Salisbury and PJ Gresser, Wentworth Books, Sydney, 1971

Wiradjuri Places, (Three volumes), Peter Rimas Kabaila, 1998

Window on Dandaloo: A Community on the Bogan River, Diana Chase, Tottenham Historical Society Inc., 2009

For more references see the Bibliography, Books and Journal Articles.

To see a map of some known conflicts that happened in New South Wales, please follow this link. All coordinates are approximate. Work on the maps is ongoing and do not include all locations in the following list at this stage.

WARNING: Some of the names of places included in the following list, derived from geographical names registers, historic and modern-day maps and other primary and secondary sources, are offensive and may be upsetting to some people. These placenames reflect the attitudes, racism and activities of people who gave these places English names during the frontier period.

Updated 15 January 2022, 7 March 2022, 13–15 April 2022, 3 June 2022, 8 August 2022, September 2022, 13 July 2023, 4 October 2023, 3 April, 15, April, 16 April 2026.