Unsolved case · 1838
The short answer
In 1839 in Central Victoria, Australia, a settler-led armed party killed dozens of Aboriginal people in reprisal raids following the killing of two European station workers, part of the violent conflict over occupation of Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung land.
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Suggest coverage for Campaspe Plains massacreThe Campaspe Plains massacre took place in 1839 in Central Victoria, Australia, during the period of violent conflict arising from British colonial occupation of Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung country. Charles Hutton had taken over the Campaspe pastoral run in 1838, an area near the border of Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung lands, following earlier sporadic confrontations between settlers and Aboriginal people.
The immediate chain of events began in April 1839, when five Indigenous people were killed by three white men. In apparent response, Taungurung people killed two European station workers, shepherd Hugh Bryan and hut keeper James Neill, in May 1839. Before killing the two men, the Taungurung had robbed a hut of bedding, clothes, guns and ammunition, and had driven off a flock of 700 sheep from the property — actions that have been described as possible retribution for the earlier deaths of the five Aboriginal people. The Taungurung were noted as enemies of the neighbouring Dja Dja Wurrung people.
In response to the killings of Bryan and Neill, Hutton assembled an armed party of settlers, who tracked the group responsible and caught up with them, along with the flock of sheep, approximately 48 kilometres away near Campaspe Creek. An armed confrontation between the settler party and Aboriginal people lasted up to half an hour. Hutton privately claimed that nearly 40 Aboriginal people were killed in this confrontation.
The following month, Hutton led a party of mounted police to a camp of local Dja Dja Wurrung people near Campaspe Creek — people whom Hutton had previously forced off his run despite their having been friendly toward him since his arrival. The camp was charged by Hutton and the mounted police without warning; six Dja Dja Wurrung people were shot in the back and killed as they attempted to flee, and others were wounded.
Charles Parker, the Assistant Protector of Aborigines for the region, described the episode as a deliberately planned illegal reprisal against Aboriginal people, carried out on the principle — advocated by many in the colony at the time — that when an offence was committed by unidentified individuals, the entire tribe to which they belonged should be made to suffer collective punishment.
Colonial administrator George Robinson, in a journal entry dated 24 January 1840, recorded Hutton's own account of his approach to Aboriginal people: that his method was terror, to keep them in subjection by fear, and to punish "wholesale" by tribes and communities — destroying an entire tribe if a member offended, believing they must be exterminated.
No official action was taken against Hutton in connection with these killings.
Charles Hutton took over the Campaspe pastoral run near the border of Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung lands, following earlier sporadic confrontations.
Five Indigenous people were killed by three white men.
Taungurung people killed shepherd Hugh Bryan and hut keeper James Neill after robbing a hut and driving off a flock of 700 sheep.
Hutton assembled an armed party of settlers, who caught the group with the sheep near Campaspe Creek; an armed confrontation lasting up to half an hour occurred in which Hutton privately claimed nearly 40 Aboriginal people were killed.
The following month, Hutton led a party of mounted police that charged a Dja Dja Wurrung camp near Campaspe Creek without warning; six people were shot in the back and killed while fleeing, others wounded.
George Robinson recorded in his journal Hutton's stated approach of ruling Aboriginal people through terror and collective punishment.
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UNSOLVEDListenCampaspe River, north of Kyneton, Victoria, Australia · 1830s
In June 1838, an armed party of convict station hands and settlers killed between 8 and 23 Djadjawurrung Aboriginal people at Waterloo Plains, Victoria, in a reprisal raid following the killing of two convict shepherds and the theft of sheep.
SOLVEDListenFaraday, Victoria, Australia · 1970s
On 6 October 1972, two men kidnapped a teacher and six young pupils at gunpoint from a one-teacher school in Faraday, Victoria, Australia, demanding a $1,000,000 ransom that was never collected before the hostages escaped.
UNSOLVEDListenMiddle Creek, near Glengower Station, between Clunes and Newstead, Victoria, Australia · 1830s
An unknown number of Aboriginal people from the Grampians district were shot at a waterhole known as Blood Hole on Middle Creek, Victoria, in late 1839 or early 1840, after a dispute involving poisoned rations at nearby Glengower Station.
Credit: CalistemonCC BY-SA 4.0SourceSOLVEDListenPinjarra, Western Australia · 1834
On 28 October 1834, a mounted government party led by Governor James Stirling attacked a Bindjareb Noongar camp near Pinjarra, Western Australia, killing an uncertain but substantial number of men, women and children.
Credit: DamiantorkoCC BY-SA 4.0SourceSOLVEDListenGreat Salsipuedes Creek, Uruguay · 1831
On 11 April 1831, the Uruguayan Army under President Fructuoso Rivera attacked Charrúa people gathered under a false pretext at the Great Salsipuedes Creek, killing dozens and capturing hundreds who were later marched to Montevideo and sold into slavery; the event is remembered as a decisive blow in the destruction of the Charrúa as a people.
UNSOLVEDListenConvincing Ground, Portland Bay, Victoria, Australia · 1833
Around 1833–1834, British whalers based at Portland Bay killed a large number of Kilcarer gundidj clan members of the Gunditjmara people in a dispute over a beached whale, in what historians describe as one of the earliest recorded massacres in Victoria's colonial history.
