Massacres

Pemulwuy Pimbloy: Native of New Holland in a canoe of that country State Library note: Pimbloy is better known by the name Pemulwuy.

(Picture: State Library of Victoria)

news.com.au 12 September 2-15 [node:read-more:link]

Kokenarup massacre: In 1880, a family group of approximately 36 First Nations people were massacred about 15 kilometres from the Ravensthorpe in Western Australia's south west region. One account states that John Dunn, a farm worker, attacked and raped a young Nyoongar girl and in accordance with the Nyoongar lore of that region he was subsequently killed by Yandawulla Dibbs and a group of local Nyoongar men. Dunn's overseer sent out word of the killing, and returned with a large group of armed settlers who rounded up and slaughtered around 36 Nyoongar men, women and children. [node:read-more:link]

A book by Bruce Elder which has become widely used in teaching Aboriginal history at both secondary and tertiary levels. Bruce's account of the atrocities committed as white settlers pushed into the rich grazing lands is handled with a journalistic objectivity. One gruesome event at Myall Creek, Elder skillfully juxtaposes the harmonious relationships between the Aboriginal people and the farmhands, with a renegade gang determined to seek retribution on any Aboriginal people that happen to cross their path. [node:read-more:link]

Educating for Democracy - A letter by Ray Jackson, President, Indigenous Social Justice Association.

Ray reminds us of the hypocrisy in relation to the 'Recognition Campaign' after 227 years of silence, and at the same time in our education system, choosing not to recognise that the First Nations and peoples even existed or that each nation fought a bloody battle for the land and their rights. [node:read-more:link]

The Woolwonga were said to have been exterminated in 1884 at Burrundie about 200 kilometres south of Darwin in reprisal for spearing non-Aboriginal miners.

But about four years ago an 1899 census document was found showing at least one had survived. Exactly how the girl known as Jennie survived the massacre of her people - the Woolwonga of the Alligator River near Katherine - is not known. [node:read-more:link]

Around 80 people attended a rally in Alice Springs calling for the removal of a four metre high statue of explorer John McDouall Stuart, the first European to traverse the continent from south to north in 1862.
A letter was also distributed, written by the elders directly to John McDouall Stuart, accusing him of not asking permission to enter the land and of killing Arrernte people. "You came to Mount Hay and you killed our mob," it stated. [node:read-more:link]