Coniston massacre

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The Coniston massacre was the last known massacre of Indigenous Australians; people of the families from the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye groups were killed. The massacre occurred in revenge for the death of dingo hunter, Frederick Brooks, killed by Aborigines in August 1928 at a place now known as Yukurru, (also Brooks Soak).

Official records at the time stated that thirty-one people were killed. A member of the punitive party for the first few days and the then owner of Coniston station (Mr Randall Stafford) estimated that at least twice that number were killed. Some historians estimate that at least sixty Aboriginal men, women and children were killed; others estimate as many as 110 were killed[1].

Contents

[edit] The massacre

Brooks was killed on or about 7 August 1928, and his body was partly buried in a rabbit hole. No reliable witnesses to the murder were ever identified, and there are conflicting accounts of the discovery of the body and subsequent events. However, Constable William Murray, officer in charge at Barrow Creek, was on the scene on August 12th. Four days later, according to his own report, having obtained the names of 20 perpetrators (he never recorded the names, or explained how his informants, who were not eye-witnesses, knew them; nor were these inconsistencies ever questioned at later proceedings) he set out with Stafford and three other white men and five aborigines.

In the fortnight until August 30th, by his account, he met four separate groups of Walbiri, and in each case was obliged to shoot in self-defense – a total of 17 casualties. He testified under oath later that each one of the dead was a murderer of Brooks, and the guilt of the group could be inferred from their possession of some of the dead man’s effects.

Murray returned to Alice Springs with one prisoner, and then set off again for Pine Hill station, in the same area. Nothing has been recorded about this patrol, but he returned on September 13th with two prisoners. On the 19th, he again departed, this time under orders to investigate a non-fatal attack on the person of a settler, Nugget Morton, at Broadmeadows Station, who was also in the same area, by what Morton described as a group of 15 Myall Walbiri. From the station, on September 24th, a party consisting of Murray, Morton, one other white man, and an aboriginal boy, embarked on a series of encounters (three were described in Murray’s brief report, but it is likely there were more) in which 14 more aborigines were shot. Morton identified all of them as his attackers. Murray was back in Alice Springs on October 18th.

[edit] The trial of two apprehended Aborigines

The trial of two apprehended Aborigines took place in Darwin on November 7th & 8th. Both were acquitted due to lack of credible evidence. During the hearing, Murray made a revealing remark: “We shot to kill” he said, “What was the use of a wounded blackfellow hundreds of miles from civilization?”[2] In the courtroom to hear this and other evidence of massacre was Athol McGregor, a Central Australian missionary. He passed on his concern to church leaders, and eventually to William Morley, outspoken and influential advocate of the Association for the Protection of Native Races, who did the most to secure a judicial enquiry.

[edit] Board of Inquiry

The Board of Inquiry was deeply compromised from the start – its three members hand-picked to maximise damage control; JC Cawood, Government Resident in Central Australia, and Murray’s immediate superior, being one of them. Cawood revealed his own disposition in a letter to his departmental secretary shortly after the massacre: “… trouble has been brewing for some time, and the safety of the white man could only be assured by drastic action on the part of the authorities … I am firmly of the opinion that the result of the recent action by the police will have the right effect upon the natives.”[3]

The Board sat for 18 days in January 1929, and in one more day, finished its report. Among the more obvious shortcomings of this much criticized document:

  • Neither police party was duly sworn to act under the law; they were, in effect, vigilantes.
  • Glaring inconsistencies in Murray’s evidence were ignored.
  • No survivors were called as witnesses.
  • No corroboration was sought for any of the implausible claims of witnesses with an interest in fabrication.
  • The hearing decided, in the face of indubitable evidence to the contrary, that there had been no drought in Central Australia, and thus no mitigation for cattle spearing.
  • Unsubstantiated claims about the guilt of the victims were accepted at face value.
  • Imputed motives for aboriginal violence were taken to be self-evident.
  • Gross deficiencies in Murray’s police recording were overlooked.

Cawood expressed his satisfaction with the outcome in his annual report for 1929, writing: “The evidence of all the witnesses was conclusive … the Board found that the shooting was justified, and that the natives killed were all members of the Walmulla (sic) tribe from Western Australia, who were on a marauding expedition, with the avowed object of wiping out the white settlers…”[4]

[edit] Studies

Two scholarly studies (Hartwig; O’Brien) have examined the story in some detail. Two books by journalists (Cribbin; Elder) have given it a significant presence in public awareness; and there has been some attempt to preserve an aboriginal perspective (Read & Read; Kimber). As a result, it is easier now to see Coniston for what it is – the final scene in a dark drama played over and over in colonial Australia – a kind of shadow of the triumphal story that is our national myth. In the way it reveals police behaviour, prevailing attitudes, and the compliance of officials; in the ready corruption of judicial processes following the massacre; and in the reactionary stance of administrators and politicians subsequently, Coniston is like a window onto the poorly recorded frontier societies which preceded settled ones all over the continent. Its full significance emerges when it is seen to be, not what is often claimed – an aberration – but a faithful enactment of established practices.

[edit] Significance of the massacre

The events around Coniston station in August and September 1928 are deeply significant in several ways:

  • The massacre was the last occasion when Australia’s state institutions were used in a quasi-military fashion against it own indigenous population.
  • In sequence, it follows the so-called Forrest River massacre, of 1926 in Western Australia; and precedes the aborted punitive expedition to Blue Mud Bay in Arnhemland, in 1933. In the first instance, intervention of the law was so scanty that today it is possible, for students so disposed, to deny that it even took place. In the second, public outrage and political will were sufficient to stay the hand of the Northern Territory Administration.
  • Although many salient facts are missing or confused, enough is on record to show unmistakably the disposition of government and officials in the Northern Territory in 1928 – a kind of portrait of race relations, institutionally and on the ground, at the very close of the ‘colonial’ period of our history.

[edit] Seventy-fifth anniversary

Member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, John Ah Kit in an adjournment debate on 9 October 2003 stated:

It must be remembered that the late 1920s was a time of major drought and therefore, in the context of what was still very much the frontier of black/white relations in Australia, the conflict over resources was intense. It was a conflict between the land and its people; and the cattle, and those who had brought with them the guns and diseases that followed. What is often misunderstood is that the Coniston Massacre was no single event, but a series of punitive raids that occurred over a number of weeks as police parties killed indiscriminately. Even Keith Windschuttle, one of the great deniers of frontier violence, acknowledges the savagery and disproportionate nature of the Coniston reprisals. Even he, albeit based only on the unsubstantiated writings of a journalist, agrees that many more died than the official record will admit.[citation needed]

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the massacre was commemorated on 24 September 2003 near Yuendumu organised by the Central Land Council.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Strehlow, TGH. Land of Altjira, 319
  2. ^ NT Times, November 9, 1928
  3. ^ Cawood to Secretary Home & Territories Dept October 25th, 1928. NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 1
  4. ^ Report of Government Resident Central Australia, 1929, p6

[edit] References

  • Wilson, B & O’Brien, J 2003, ‘To infuse an universal terror: a reappraisal of the Coniston killings’, Aboriginal History, 27:59-78
  • Hartwig, MC 1960, ‘The Coniston Killings’, BA (Hons) thesis, University of Adelaide
  • Markus, A 1990, Governing Savages, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
  • Read, P & J 1991, Long Time, Olden Time: Aboriginal accounts of Northern Territory history, IAD Press, Alice Springs.
  • Kimber, RG 1986, Man from Arltunga, Hesperian Press.
  • Cribbin, J 1984, The Killing Times, Fontana.
  • Elder, B 2003, Blood on the Wattle, New Holland Publishers, Sydney
  • Attwood, B & Foster, S 2003 (eds) Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, National Museum of Australia

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Crime in Australia
Regional crime: Timeline | Melbourne | Northern Territory | Western Australia | Sydney
Australian law: Courts | Criminal law | Law enforcement
Australian people: Bushrangers | Convicts | Criminals | Murderers | Prisoners
Australian prisons: ACT | NSW | NT | QLD | SA | TAS | VIC | WA
International: Crime by country
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