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
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.
| Date | Location |
|---|---|
| 29 April 1770 | Botany Bay, Sydney, NSW.Captain James Cook fires a musket twice, wounds an Aboriginal man, as First Nations people defend themselves by throwing a stone at Cook’s party. The injured man defends himself with a shield. As Cook and party land, they are met with spears. |
| May 1788 | Bloody Point, (today the site of the UTS Rowers Club, Haberfield), Sydney, NSW., Convicts Samuel Davis and William Okey killed in reprisal for taking Eora canoes and the transgression of Aboriginal law on Wangal land at Bloody Point. For many years the site where Davis and Okey were killed was believed to be Rushcutters Bay. More recently historians have suggested the site was at Darling Harbour or White Bay. However, a 1788 chart of Sydney Harbour drawn by William Bradley, backed up by information from diaries of the time, is now believed to be the location of their deaths, according to the author of The Sydney Wars, historian Dr Stephen Gapps. Read more in Tim Barlass's story, 'Frontier wars: ‘Lieutenant's log maps Haberfield as ground zero', The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 March 2019 at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/frontier-wars-lieutenant-s-log-maps-haberfield-as-ground-zero-20190305-p511ss.html |
| 22 May 1788 | Woolloomooloo Bay, Sydney, NSW., Convict Peter Burn speared and killed by the Eora, most likely at Woolloomooloo. |
| 23 May 1788 | Blackwattle Bay, Sydney, NSW. convicts attack Eora, killing an Aboriginal person. |
| July 1788 | Sydney, NSW., Convict speared in the head. |
| 2 October 1788 | Botany Bay, Sydney, NSW. Cupper Handley murdered and mutilated because of competition between colonists and Aborigines for food and other resources. |
| December 1788 | Sydney, NSW. Arabanoo (Manly) captured. |
| 1789 | Toongabbie, Sydney, NSW, two Aboriginal adults killed. Their child, later called James Bath, taken in and brought up by colonists. |
| April 1789 | Sydney Cove and vicinity, NSW, about half the Aboriginal population (possibly more than 1,000 people) die from smallpox, possibly deliberately spread by the British military through gifts to Aboriginal people of blankets and handkerchiefs. The same tactic was used against North American Indians. The smallpox epidemic spreads rapidly to other parts of the colony as Aboriginal people had no immunity to the disease. No colonists die in the outbreak. |
| 26 September 1789 | Middle Head, Sydney, NSW, Henry Hacking, quartermaster, HMS Sirius kills or wounds two of about 50 Aboriginal men who have attacked him. |
| 25 November 1789 | Sydney, NSW, Bennelong and Colbee captured. |
| c. 1790 | Sydney, NSW, John McIntyre suspected of killing at least one Aboriginal man. |
| 1790 | New South Wales, Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars begin. |
| 1790 | New South Wales, punitive expedition against Pemulwuy, Tedbury and others begins. |
| 7 September 1790 | Manly, Sydney, NSW, Wileemarin, an Eora man, spears Governor Arthur Phillip in the shoulder. Phillip survives. |
| 9 or 10 December 1790 | Sydney, NSW, John McIntyre, Governor Phillip’s gamekeeper, speared. |
| 28 December 1790 | Sydney, NSW, Bangai, an Eora man, is tracked and killed by British marines after he takes potatoes from a local garden. |
| 1790–1800 | Sydney Cove War, NSW, 26 colonists and an unknown number of Aboriginal people die as a result of cultural clashes and the encroachment of the British on Aboriginal land and resources. |
| 20 January 1791 | Sydney, NSW, McIntyre dies of spear wound. |
| 1792 | Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, NSW, Sarah Hodgkinson's husband is murdered. Two Dharug men are killed by colonists in reprisal. |
| 1792–1802 | Prospect, Toongabbie, Georges River, Parramatta, Brickfield Hill and Hawkesbury River, NSW, misconduct of local colonists and kidnapping of Aboriginal children, unknown if any Aboriginal people or colonists die. |
| 1794 | Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, NSW, colonists drag Aboriginal boy over hot coals, throw him in the river then shoot him 'to teach the Blacks a lesson'. |
| c. February 1794 | Northern Boundary of Parramatta, NSW, two Aboriginal people shot dead in a maize (corn) field. |
| 1794–96 | Deerubbun (Hawkesbury) Region near Sydney, NSW conflicts |
| 1795 | Richmond near Sydney, NSW, Battle of Richmond Hill, Dharug people attack colonists whose cultivation has destroyed wild yams, a major Aboriginal food source, growing on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. Aboriginal retaliation is so great that Acting Governor Paterson believes the Hawkesbury River settlement may have to be abandoned. |
| 7 June 1795 | Parramatta or Hawkesbury River, NSW, Lt-Governor William Paterson sends troops from a detachment of the NSW Corps with instructions to kill as many Aboriginal people as possible, unknown number killed, 10 prisoners taken. |
| 26 February 1796 | Northern Boundary of Parramatta, NSW, Pemulwuy attacks farms. Bushrangers seen among Pemulwuy's warriors. |
| 1797 | Moruya, south coast, NSW, Yuin people kill 13 survivors of wreck of the ship Sydney Cove. |
| 1797 | Port Jackson; Georges River, south of Sydney; Toongabbie, NSW, Governor King orders reprisal against Aboriginal attacks. |
| January 1797 | 'Redcoat farm' (now Oatlands Golf Course), near Parramatta, NSW, Aboriginal raid on 'redcoat farm', possibly in retaliation for punitive expeditions by redcoats in 1796. A redcoat solider and a woman are murdered. |
| March 1797 | Toongabbie; Parramatta, NSW conflict involving Pemulwuy, Aboriginal clan members, armed soldiers and colonists. Up to 50 Aboriginal people are killed, one soldier speared. |
| 21 March 1797 | 'Redcoat farm' (now Oatlands Golf Course), near Parramatta, NSW, Aboriginal raid on 'redcoat farm'. Redcoats and colonists pursue Aboriginal people into North Rocks bushland. |
| 22 March 1797 | Bushland north of Parramatta, NSW, Pemulwuy pursues redcoat soldiers and colonists. Battle of Parramatta ensues. Pemulwuy wounded. |
| 1799 | Newcastle, NSW, unknown number of Aboriginal men shot after asking for axes in exchange for use of their land. |
| 1799 | Rosehill near Parramatta, NSW, troops sent out after the Aboriginal leader, Pemulwuy; five Aboriginal men killed; Pemulwuy injured in the head, taken to hospital but later escapes. (Some accounts, such as Lim in The Battle of Parramatta, suggest this happened in late March or April 1797, not 1799). |
| 1799–1805 | Black Wars, Hawkesbury–Parramatta, near Sydney, NSW |
| 1800s | Grafton, NSW, two Aboriginal men shot near showground. |
| 1801 | Georges River, south of Sydney, NSW, Pemulwuy spears a colonist. |
| 2 June 1802 | Parramatta, NSW, Pemulwuy shot, decapitated, head sent to Sir Joseph Banks in England. |
| 1804 | Newcastle, NSW conflict |
| 22 July 1804 | Jervis Bay, NSW, sailors from the Conquest kill Aboriginal people. |
| September 1805 | Mangrove Flat (Gentleman’s Halt) opposite Spencer, NSW, two Aboriginal men, Branch Jack and Woglomigh, killed. |
| 27 October 1805 | Jervis Bay, NSW. Report of Europeans speared by Aboriginal people at Jervis Bay. Possible reprisal for massacre by sailors from the Conquest previous July. |
| 5 December 1805 | Jervis Bay, NSW, Aboriginal people attack survivors of the Fly shipwreck. Mr Rushworth, master of the Fly speared, Thomas Evans killed. |
| 15 March 1806 | Twofold Bay, NSW, sealers from the whaler, George, shipwrecked on 3 February, massacre Aboriginal people. |
| 6 April 1806 | Twofold Bay, NSW, report that sealers, crew of the whaler George, have shot and killed nine Aboriginal people and hung their bodies from trees. |
| 15 May 1808 | Bateman's Bay, NSW, report that three of five crew of the Fly speared to death by Aboriginal people at Bateman's Bay. |
| October 1808 | Hawkesbury area, NSW, Aborignal people destroy crops on Singleton's farm, servant's leg gashed with a tomahawk. Joseph and Benjamin Singleton fire on Aboriginal people, killing one and wounding others. |
| 26 September 1809 | Bond Farm, George's River, NSW, Tedbury and others engage in skirmish with Meredith and other farmers, Meredith's ear grazed by a spear. |
| February 1810 | Parramatta, NSW, Edward Luttrell shoots Tedbury, Pemulwuy's son. |
| May–June 1814 | Appin area, NSW, skirmishes between colonists and Aboriginal people. In reprisal for earlier atrocities, Aboriginal people murder men on William Broughton's farm near Appin. (For more information for the conflicts that happened between 1814 and 1817 see, for example, John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–88, UNSW Press, 2002 and Stephen Gapps, The Sydney Wars: Conflicts in the early colony 1788–1817, NewSouth, 2018) |
| 1815 | Bathurst, NSW, possible killing by Aborigines of an escaped convict |
| March–May 1816 | Cumberland Plain, NSW, Aboriginal people murder one of Rev. Thomas Hassall's shepherds, Bromley. Governor Macquarie's undeclared war begins against Aborigines of the Cumberland Plain. |
| 9 April 1816 | Sydney, New South Wales, Governor Lachlan Macquarie issues secret orders to military regiments under his command to take punitive action against Aboriginal people in the Sydney area and to capture them as 'prisoners of war'––a de facto declaration of war by the British Crown, (Michael K. Organ, 2014, "Secret Service: Governor Macquarie's Aboriginal War of 1816", University of Wollongong, Research Online> See Bibliography on this website for a link to the paper. |
| 17 April 1816 | Appin Massacre, near Cataract Gorge, west of Sydney, NSW, killing of 14 Aboriginal people, capture of two women and three children, by a military detachment from the 46th Regiment's grenadier company commanded by Captain James Wallis. (John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838, pp. 49–51). |
| 4 May 1816 | Sydney, NSW, Governor Lachlan Macquarie's Proclamation against 'Aborigines or Black Natives' involved in killing of colonists, 'plundering and destroying' grain and property etc in the Sydney vicinity and elsewhere, published in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Saturday 4 May 1816, p. 1 |
| 1819 | Bathurst area, NSW, spearing of Lt William Lawson's horse |
| 27 October 1820 | Newcastle, NSW, Runaway convict, John Kirby, seriously wounds Burragong, '"King" Jack, Chief of the Newcastle tribe' with a knife, while Aboriginal men are trying to bring in Kirby and another convict, James Thompson to British authorities. Burragong subsequently dies from his wounds. Kirby is charged and executed for Burragong's murder. Kirby was the first European in New South Wales to be executed for the murder of an Aboriginal person. |
| 1821–39 | The Falls area, NSW, period of conflict between colonists and Aboriginal people. |
| February 1821 | Billyeena Station, Cudgegong River, north-east of Mudgee, NSW, George Cox leads a shooting party against Aboriginal people. Unknown number shot. |
| 6 February 1821 | Bathurst area, NSW, killing of Private James King |
| c. 1822 | Bathurst area, NSW, convict killed by Aborigines for raping an Aboriginal girl. |
| 1822 | Near Bathurst, NSW, Windradyne leads Wiradjuri resistance. |
| 1822 | New South Wales: large-scale killings of Aboriginal people |
| 1822 | "Claremont", William Lee's Farm, 10 km north-east of Bathurst, NSW, Aboriginal killing of a shepherd |
| 1822 | Billyeena Station, Cudgegong River, north-east of Mudgee, NSW, Aboriginal warning attack |
| 1822 | Swallow Creek (government station), NSW, Aboriginal attack on station |
| 15 Apr 1822 | Illawarra area, NSW, Seth Hawker murders an Aboriginal woman. He is tried but acquitted. |
| 1823–24 | Black War of Bathurst, NSW (some individual incidents listed below) |
| Oct, Nov 1823 | Swallow Creek, Molong, Wellington, Aboriginal people attack stations in these districts and those of Judge Advocate John Wylde, Rev. Samuel Marsden and Palmer's "Toulon" station west of Bathurst, NSW. |
| November 1823 | Swallow Creek (government station) NSW, Aboriginal attacks force abandonment of station. |
| c. January 1824 | Bathurst area, NSW, Windradyne captured, imprisoned for a month at Bathurst. Colonists use arsenic-laced flour and damper to poison hungry Aboriginal people. |
| 1824 | Bungendore (Bungendaw) run, NSW, Captain Richard Brooks's stockmen abduct two Aboriginal girls, Weereewaa assemble to avenge their kidnapping. |
| March 1824 | Kelso, near Bathurst, NSW, 'Potato Field Incident': Aborigines offered potatoes, return next day for more, fired upon and several shot, some wounded. Incident sparks Wiradjuri retaliations led by Windradyne. |
| March 1824 | Brymair, Capertee Valley, near Rylstone, NSW, Dabee massacre Two shepherds coax a young Aboriginal woman into a hut where they rape and keep her for days. She escapes back to her people. In retaliation the men go to the hut, kill the shepherds, then burn down the hut. When the shepherds' deaths are discovered, a detachment of soldiers is sent to punish the Aboriginal people. The soldiers shoot many Aboriginal people, particularly women and children. A few Aboriginal people survive so the story is handed down to their descendants. |
| 19 March 1824 | Swallow Creek (government station), NSW, after the colonial government reoccupies the station, up to 60 Aboriginal men attack it. Privates Softly and Epslom kill two Aboriginal men, capture "Taylor", Columbummero and Callalbegary. |
| 24 May 1824 | Warren Gunyah Station, Wattle Flat near Bathurst, NSW, two stock keepers killed; one speared. |
| 24 May 1824 | Winburndale Rivulet, north of Bathurst, NSW, shepherds killed, huts destroyed, sheep killed. |
| May 1824 | Near Mudgee, NSW at William Lane's farm, seven colonists killed. |
| 31 May 1824 | Near Mudgee, NSW, William Lane's farm, John Johnston, William Clark, John Nicholson, Henry Castles and John Crear involved in punitive expedition with four muskets and a sword. Claim not to have seen any Aboriginal people. Later admit killing three Aboriginal women in a "skirmish" with 30 warriors bearing spears. Colonists are charged with manslaughter but acquitted. |
| 31 May 1824 | Mrs Hassell's station, O'Connell Plains, NSW, Aboriginal men attack a stockman, wounding him twice with spears. |
| May? 1824 | Murdering Hut, Millah Murrah Station, south-west of Wattle Flat, near Bathurst, NSW, Samuel Terry builds homestead on a bora ground, poisons Aboriginal people with arsenic. |
| May? 1824 | Millah Murrah Station, Aboriginal revenge attack by Windradyne. Three colonists killed. |
| June 1824 | North of Bathurst, NSW, colonists' retaliation; unknown number of Aboriginal women killed. |
| Before July 1824 | William Lawson's Upper Station, Campbell River, NSW, four stock keepers killed. |
| Before July 1824 | North-east of Rockley near Bathurst, NSW, two stock keepers killed. |
| 12 August 1824 | Near Bathurst at Emu Plains, Sidmouth Valley and Two Mile Creek, NSW, farm labourer attacked and speared. Colonists retaliate, three Aboriginal women shot dead. Other Aboriginal people killed. |
| 14 August 1824 | Governor Thomas Brisbane declares Martial Law 'westward of Mount York,' a week after the acquittal of Johnston, Clark, Nicholson, Castles and Crear. Martial law was declared in the Bathurst Region of New South Wales following Wiradjuri resistance against incursions on their Country as traditional food sources were being depleted and sacred sites were destroyed. What sparked Governor Thomas Brisbane’s declaration was Wiradjuri retaliation to a massacre and injury of Aboriginal women and children, known as the 'Potato Field Incident', in March 1824 at Kelso near Bathurst. Hungry Aboriginal people offered potatoes but shot dead or injured when they return ned for more the next day. Governor Brisbane’s declaration of Martial law led to rising conflict between colonial troops of the 40th Regiment, armed colonial militias and the Wiradjuri until December 1824. For more information see for example, John Connor, 2002, The Australian Frontier Wars 1788–1838, University of New South Wales Press, ‘Windradyne and the Bathurst Wars’, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney Living Museums at: https://hydeparkbarracks.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/story/windradyne-and-the-bathurst-wars/ |
| 14 August– 11 December 1824 | Martial Law in place against the Wiradjuri; Battle of Bathurst, NSW |
| 26 August 1824 | Mill Post Station, Bathurst, NSW, hut keeper killed, hut destroyed in retaliation for station set up on sacred site and stock yards built on corroboree ground. |
| 27 August 1824 | Warren Gunyah station, Wattle Flat, Bathurst, NSW, three shepherds killed, huts burnt. |
| August 1824 | Millah Murrah station, north of Bathurst, NSW, three Aboriginal women and a boy killed in retribution for killing of shepherds. |
| 6 September 1824 | Mudgee, NSW, between five and 16 Aboriginal men killed by colonists in retaliation for dispersing cattle. |
| September 1824 | Bell Falls Gorge, NSW, massacre of Aboriginal people believed to have taken place during Major James Morisset's punitive expedition in September 1824. |
| 18 Sept–end Nov 1824 | Battle of Bathurst, NSW, up to 1,000 Aboriginal people believed to have perished in the Battle of Bathurst. |
| 1824 | Capertee Valley, north of Bathurst, NSW, military party massacre unknown number of Aboriginal people. |
| 1824 | Rainville station, south-east of O'Connell near Bathurst, NSW, three Aboriginal men murdered in retaliation for killing stock and rushing a mob of sheep. |
| 1824 | Clear Creek headwaters, about 15 km north of Bathurst, NSW, shepherd killed, large numbers of Aboriginal people rounded up and killed in retaliation. |
| 1824 | Billiwilinga station, Mt Rankin area on banks of the Macquarie River near Bathurst, NSW, after the Proclamation of Martial Law, Aboriginal group of about 30 (mostly women and children) massacred when offered food by military. |
| 1824 | Cox's landholding near Mudgee, NSW, Aboriginal people, including the warrior Blucher, shot when driving cattle off this land. |
| 28 October 1825 | Martindale south of Denman, NSW, Robert Greig and a convict worker killled during an Aboriginal raid. |
| October/November 1825 | Putty, NSW, soldiers pursue Aborigines who attacked at Putty. About five 'clashes' between colonists and Aborigines occur in the Hunter region in 1825. |
| Before 5 May 1826 | Inverary Park Station, Lake George (Weereewaa), NSW, stockkeeper is speared to death for attempting to abduct an Aboriginal man's wife. |
| June 1826 | Hunter region, NSW, shepherd wounded at Edinglassie; hut-keeper killed at Ravensworth. |
| July–August 1826 | Fal Brook Farm near Singleton, NSW, Aborigines attempt to plunder farm; two colonists wounded. |
| July-16 August 1826 | Scone, Muswellbrook, Denman and Singleton, NSW, mounted police capture Aborigines, execute some Aboriginal people. |
| August 1826 | Merton district, Hunter region, NSW, mounted police wantonly maltreat Aboriginal people, some arrested. |
| 1 August to 1 September 1826 | Hunter Valley, NSW, Wonnarua people face murders and massacres. (The Plains Clan of the Wonnarua People have sought to preserve and protect a significant Aboriginal area on the Ravensworth Estate, Hunter Valley, where these atrocities took place. See Louise Nichols, Singleton Argus, 3 August 2021: https://www.singletonargus.com.au/story/7368872/frontier-wars-on-ravensworth-estate/) |
| 28–29 August 1826 | Upper Hunter, NSW, 200 Aboriginal people visit Merton in response; 11 to 15 proceed to Fal Brook via Ravensworth; burn grass at several farms; two colonists killed, two wounded. |
| 31 August–1 September 1826 | Upper Hunter, NSW, magistrate Scott leads punitive expedition of 14 men; 18 Aboriginal people killed. More than 10 major and minor 'collisions' between colonists and Aboriginal people in 1826 according to magistrates. |
| 1827 | Near Cootralanta Lake, Monaro, NSW, Aborigines attack Richard Brooks Jnr and party, scattering cattle later found at 'Gejizric' (Gegedzerick) Flat near Berridale. |
| 11 December 1827 | Wellington, NSW, George Brown shoots Aboriginal girl, who had come to the door with other children, asking for food. |
| 1828 | Near Lake Bathurst, NSW, two of Edward Hall's stockmen killed, Aboriginal people suspected of killings. |
| 1830s | Coolac, north of Gundagai, NSW |
| 1830s–40s | Murrumbidgee River area, NSW Conflicts, including some massacres, between colonists and Aboriginal people recorded in primary sources and/or in oral history for the years and locations listed below: |
| Duck Bend, near Narrandera, NSW | |
| Green Swamp, near Buckingbong Homestead, near Narrandera, NSW | |
| Hulong (Ulong) Sandhill, near Narrandera, NSW | |
| Massacre Island (Murdering Island), near Narrandera, NSW (see also below in 1841) | |
| Poison(ed) Waterholes Creek, Sturt Highway, near Narrandera, NSW | |
| 18 December 1832 | Murramarang headland, south coast, NSW |
| 1834 | Fairy Bower Falls, near Bundanoon, NSW, (now in Morton National Park), believed, from oral history, to be a site where Aboriginal people were massacred. |
| 1835 | Mt Mackenzie near the Gloucester River, NSW |
| 11 July 1835 | Darling River, near Menindee, NSW, Major Thomas Mitchell and party encounter 'hostile' Aboriginal people. Several killed and wounded. |
| 25 April 1835 | Near Tabratong, NSW, Richard Cunningham, botanist with Thomas Mitchell's expedition, is killed by Aboriginal people 84 kms south-east of Nyngan, after being missing since 17 April. |
| 27 May 1836 | Mt Dispersion near Euston, NSW, between Mildura, NSW and Robinvale, VIC, Major Thomas Mitchell and party set an ambush for 'hostile' Aboriginal people they believed they had encountered on the Darling River in 1835. Seven Aboriginal people killed. On 27 April 2020, in the lead up to the 184th anniversary of the massacre, the New South Wales government gazetted the Mount Dispersion Massacre Site as a Declared Aboriginal Place. News about, and details of the declaration, are on the News page of this website under "Mount Dispersion Declared an Aboriginal Place", posted on 4 June 2020. |
| 1837 | Gravesend, west of Warialda, NSW |
| 1838 | Terry Hie Hie, NSW |
| Between 1 January 1838 and 31 January 1838 | Woodford Island, Clarence River, NSW, , cedar getters kill 20 Bunjalung people in a reprisal attack. Source: Jennifer Hoff, Bundjalung Jugun = Bundjalung Country, Richmond River Historical Society, 2006, p. 260 |
| 26 January 1838 | Slaughterhouse Creek (Waterloo Creek/Millie Creek) Massacre, south-west of Moree, NSW This famous massacre was not one incident but included clashes between colonists (mounted police and vigilantes) and the Gamilaraay between December 1837 and January 1838. |
| Mid-1838 | Gwydir River, NSW |
| 10 June 1838 | Myall Creek Massacre, near Inverell, NSW |
| July 1838 | Confluence of Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, NSW |
| 1838–1841 | Bathurst, NSW (Wiradjuri Wars) |
| 1839 | Dora Dora near Talmalmo, NSW, Massacre of Wiradjuri people led by John Jobbins. Sheridan Jobbins, 'Skeletons in the Family Tree,' A&DHS Bulletin, October 2023, pp. 2–7. See also, CA Smithwick, Early History of the Upper Murray, edited by John Henwood and Margaret Swann, 2003, p. 2, 10–13 |
| 1839 | Tamworth, NSW |
| 8 January 1839 | Brewarrena (Brewarrina) Station, NSW, hut keeper, Irish convict Dennis Denay, is ambushed and killed. |
| 22 February 1839 | Near Brillinball Station, Narrandera area, NSW, John Williams, Michael Byrne's convict servant, is speared to death. |
| 28 February 1839 | Near Billinbah, Murrumbidgee River, NSW, attack on two convicts, one Aboriginal man is shot. |
| August 1839 | North Yanco Station at Cudgel Creek, near Narrandera, NSW, Aboriginal people attack James Byrne, people chased across river, siege. |
| c. 1840 | Bogan River, NSW, William Lee's run, Aborigines attack stockmen while building a stockyard. Three stockmen killed, buried in stockyard. |
| c. 1840? | Hulong (Ulong) Sandhill, near Narrandera, NSW, posses of colonists battle with Aboriginal people. Many driven away, many killed. |
| 1840s | Kunderang Brook, Macleay River area, NSWApparent massacre of two to three dozen Aboriginal men in retaliation for taking some sheep. Rodney Harrison, Shared Landscapes: Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, UNSW Press, 2004, pp. 104–105, p. 117) |
| 1840s | Laidley, NSW |
| 1840s | Murdering Flat, Tooma River near Greg Greg, NSW |
| 1840s | Red Rock (Blood Rock), NSW |
| 1840s | Wabra Station, Towel Creek, Hendersons Creek, Sheep Station Bluff, Macleay River area, NSWMassacres of Aboriginal people by cedar cutters and other Europeans. (See Rodney Harrison, Shared Landscapes: Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, UNSW Press, 2004, p. 106) |
| 1840s? | Black Adder/Cassons Creek-Red Rock area, NSW |
| 1840s? | Green Hills, bank of Red Rock River, opposite Red Rock and Station Creek, NSW |
| 1840s? | Wire Fence (Minnie Water), NSW |
| 1841 | New England area, NSW |
| 1841 | Darkie (Darkie’s) Point, New England, NSWColonists pursue a group of about 200 Aboriginal people, shooting at and forcing many over cliffs to their deaths. |
| 1841 | Massacre (Murdering) Island, Murrumbidgee River, about 8 km south-east of Narrandera, NSW, local landholders massacre an unknown number of Aboriginal people. |
| 1841 | Orara River, NSW |
| 22 April 1841 | Clarence River, NSW, squatter, Peter Cunningham Pagan, is speared to death about a mile from his hut after an armed pursuit of Aboriginal people who enter the hut looking for food as it becomes scarce following the arrival of colonists in the area. |
| April/May 1841 | Clarence River area, NSW, many Aboriginal people shot by colonists in retribution for the spearing of Pagan. Mundi, then a child, is shot through the ear. He is one of only a few Aboriginal people to survive the attack. |
| 27 August 1841 | Rufus River Massacre, NSWDetails, for example on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_River_massacre |
| 1842 | Pelican Creek Tragedy, north of Coraki, NSW, five European men killed at Pelican Creek. Some details on Wikipedia under Richmond River massacres: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_River_massacres |
| 1842 | Evans Head (Goanna Headland) Massacre, NSW, reprisal for Pelican Creek deaths. See also Richmond River massacres on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_River_massacres |
| 1842 | Nyngan Massacre, north of Nyngan, NSW |
| 1842 | Near Tabratong, Bogan River, NSW, during a drought, Aboriginal people, camped at a waterhole, attack William Lee's men after they tried to make the Aboriginal people leave. Five of Lee's men are killed, one survivor with severe wounds. Aboriginal people are slaughtered in a reprisal by Lee, his men and police. Governor Gipps cancels Lee's squatting licence because of multiple attacks on, and killings of, Aboriginal people. |
| 1843 | Mudall Station, Bogan River, NSW, Alexander Mensies, stockman to William Balfour, and men are attacked by Aborigines while moving sheep. Two men killed. Three more men killed on Balfour's holdings before they are abandoned. |
| 1844 | Bluff Rock, near Tenterfield, NSW, conflicting versions exist of the massacre of Aboriginal people, and the reasons for it, at Bluff Rock in 1844. It is believed that Aboriginal people were thrown from the rock in a settlers' reprisal. |
| 1844 | Deepwater area north of Glen Innes, NSW |
| 17 October 1844 | Near Bolivia Station, near Deepwater, NSW |
| 1845 | Douralie Creek, Macleay River region, NSW, Possible reprisal murders of Aboriginal people in response to widespread cattle and sheep stealing in the area. (See Rodney Harrison, Shared Landscapes: Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, UNSW Press, 2004, p. 105) |
| 1845 | Kunderang Station, Upper Macleay, NSWTwo shepherds and their wives killed. Sheep stolen. Retaliatory killings of Aboriginal people. Numbers unknown. (See Rodney Harrison, Shared Landscapes: Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, UNSW Press, 2004, pp. 105–6) |
| 1845 | Upper Macleay, NSW, Aboriginal people are killed under a cliff. |
| c. 1845 | Hendersons Creek, Macleay area, NSW |
| c. 1845 | Sheep Station Bluff, Macleay area?, NSW |
| c. 1845 | Wabra Station, Macleay area, NSW |
| 15 April 1845 | Deepwater area, NSW |
| 1846 | "Murdering Stumps", Tabratong Station, NSW, Aborigines attack men on William Lee's station at night, killing all but one. |
| 1847 | Clarence River, NSW |
| c. 28 November 1847 | Kangaroo Creek run, Clarence River district, south-east of Nymboida. More than 20 Aboriginal people die after eating poisoned flour given to them by run-holder, Thomas Coutts. |
| c. 1848 or 1849 | Butcher’s Tree, near Brewarrina, NSW, massacre of Aboriginal people. (See Rodney Harrison, Shared Landscapes: Archaeologies of Attachment and the Pastoral Industry in New South Wales, UNSW Press, 2004, p. 154) |
| 1850s | Dreamtime Beach, Pooningbah (Fingal Head), NSW. The Aboriginal name for Fingal Head that separates the Tweed River from the Pacific Ocean, is 'P[B]ooingbah' or 'Mynjung Booning' meaning 'place of the echidna' reflecting the shape of the basalt outcrop at the top of the headland. There is a report of a massacre site on Dreamtime Beach, Fingal, dating from the 1850s: https://2011onthebench.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/every-story-tells-a-picture/ |
| 22 August 1852 | 'Meldrum Massacre', Bald Hills Station, Armidale district, NSW Murders, allegedly by Aboriginal people, of colonists John Meldrum, Mary Mason and her two children, aged 3 and 18 months. The murders may have been in retaliation for the poisoning of Aboriginal people, with arsenic-laced flour, by other colonists. |
| 1853–54 | Black Head, East Ballina, NSWNative police kill between 30 and 40 Bundjalung people near the old East Ballina Gold Course. More information on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_River_massacres |
| 1856 | Towel Creek, Macleay River, NSW |
| 1859 | Hospital Creek, near Brewarrina, NSW, massacre of about 300 Aboriginal men, women and children. For more information search Monument Australia, the National Library of Australia's Trove, the State Library of New South Wales's Gather website and Wikipedia. |
| Mid to late 1800s? | Bundaburra(h) Creek, near Forbes, NSW, Aboriginal people are poisoned with strychnine, 'thrown in river near Bundaburra Creek'. |
| 1860s | South Ballina, NSWMass attempt at poisoning of people from the Nyangbal clan of the Bundjalung Nation. About 150 adults die after eating poisoned damper. More information on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_River_massacres |
| 1870s/80s? | Mimosa Station, south-west of Temora, NSW, a hired hand shot and killed up to 1,000 Aboriginal people in this area. George Main in his book, Heartland: the regeneration of rural place, UNSW Press, p. 23 mentions Dame Mary Gilmore’s recollection as a child of hearing of a hired hand working on Mimosa station who had tracked down and shot an Aboriginal man who had taken a sheep. Gilmore also claimed this man had “slaughtered perhaps a thousand clanspeople”. Main’s source was Mary Gilmore’s poem, ‘The hunter of the black’ in The Passionate Heart and Other Poems, Angus & Robertson, 1969 [1948], pp. 66-8. |
| 1880 | Bland Creek, Lake Cowal, the Bland, central-western NSW, one survivor, a baby, William Joseph Punch (1880–1917). One survivor, a baby, William Joseph Punch (1880–1917). He was rescued, only to give his life in World War I. Read William Punch’s story on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Punch. The Australian War Memorial devotes a page to his story: https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/schools/resources/anzac-diversity/aboriginal-anzacs/william-punch and the National Archives of Australia also records aspects of Punch’s life and war service: https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/person/201425 |
| 1880s | Mt Drysdale (Billagoe), north of Cobar, NSW Mt Drysdale, New South Wales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Drysdale,_New_South_Wales Bonzle, Mt Drysdale, New South Wales: http://www.bonzle.com/c/a?a=p&p=302038&d=notes&cmd=sp&c=1&x=145.8678&y=-31.1681&w=40000&mpsec=0 Erskine, J., E. Ohlsen, Brad Steadman, 1997, ‘Mt. Drysdale: A Report on the Aboriginal Cultural Significance, prepared for the Western Zone of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. Sydney: Cultural Heritage Services Division. "Special Places for Aboriginal communities–Aboriginal places which tell us stories”, Bush Matters, Summer, 2003, p. 8 https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/howyoucanhelp/BushMatters2Summer2003Pt2.pdf (Story about Aboriginal place declaration of Mt Drysdale under section 84 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974) Jeremy Beckett, Tamsin Donaldson with Bradley Steadman and Steve Meredith, The Aboriginal World Around Mount Grenfell, 2003, p. 23. (Refers to accounts of killings at Mt Drysdale in 1884 and as late as 1934). Oz-Ark Environmental & Heritage Management, Draft Bourke Shire Aboriginal Heritage Study, January 2019, p. 42 (Refers to research by anthropologist Jo Erskine with the Ngiyampaa people in the 1990s and to a reference to a massacre at Mt Drysdale by George Main in his book, Gunderbooka: A ’stone country’ story, Resource Policy and Management, Kingston ACT, 2000, pp. 28–29 Heritage NSW, Monday 14 February 2022, “Billagoe (Mount Drysdale) listed on State Heritage Register”: https://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/celebrate/latest-announcements/new-listing-on-shr/ National Indigenous Times, 17 March 2022: “Decades-long campaign sees Billagoe added to NSW heritage list”: https://www.nit.com.au/decades-long-campaign-sees-billagoe-added-to-nsw-heritage-list/ |
| 1880s | Red Rock (Blood Rock), NSW |
| May 1891 | Near Albury, NSW, Dora Dora murder |
| 20 July 1900 | Breelong, near Gilgandra, NSW, Mawbey and Kerz murders |
| 23 July 1900 | Near Ulan, NSW, Alexander McKay murder |
| 24 July 1900 | Poggie, near Merriwa, NSW, O’Brien murders |
| 26 July 1900 | Near Wollar, NSW, Fitzpatrick murder |
| 31 October 1900 | North of Singleton, NSW, Joe Governor shot dead. |
| 14 January 1901 | Dubbo Gaol, NSW, Jacky Underwood hanged for his part in Mawbey and Kerz murders. |
| 18 January 1901 | Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney, NSW, Jimmy Governor hanged for murders in 1900. |
| Dates Unknown | |
| Blakney Creek, NSW, rises west by south of Dalton, flows north-east to Lachlan River. Aboriginal oral history of a massacre on this creek. | |
| Kiacatoo Station, NSW, the Kiacatoo massacre is immortalised in Kevin Gilbert's poem Kiacatoo published in Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry, Penguin Books, 1988, pp. 189–90 | |
| Lake Cowal, central-western NSW, at least one other massacre is known to have occurred here. | |
| Red Bend, near Forbes, NSW | |
| Tinderrys, Southern Tablelands, NSW | |
| Wattamondara, near Koorawatha, NSW, Aboriginal people killed then thrown down a well, according to oral history. |
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.
© Jane Morrison 2015–2025