June 21.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Another notable massacre
Australia's second-last large-scale massacre of Aborigines
In 1926 on the Mandoc Reserve, Australia's second-last large-scale massacre of Aborigines took place. [Ernest] Gribble described them as 'awful atrocities'. [1] From Gribble's own description, court evidence and Aboriginal oral history, the best that can be pieced together is that about May 1926, large numbers of Aborigines began moving towards Overheu and Hay's Nulla Nulla Station, probably for ceremonial reasons. Gribble sensed they were in real danger and tried to convince them to turn back. [2] Hay and Overheu began boundary riding to keep the Aborigines out. This culminated in a confrontation with Lumbulumbia, a tribal elder. In one version of events, Hay tried to abduct an Aboriginal woman. In any case, in a confrontation with Lumbulumbia, Hay flogged him with a stockwhip and broke his spears. The old man killed Hay with a broken spear. [3] Gribble wrote in the mission journal, ‘Hay has paid for his harsh sadistic treatment of the natives’. [4]
The Wyndham police immediately organised a punitive expedition led by Constables Regan and St Jack. The mounted party of thirteen men rode through the Forrest River area, capturing, chaining and finally killing every Aborigine they could find. [5]
...Gribble...despatched James Noble, an expert tracker, to backtrack the police and see what he could find. The Forrest River Mission journal of 21 June 1926 has the sentence that led finally to a Royal Commission:
Noble returned this evening, having found the spot on the Upper Forest where the police shot and burned their native prisoners. He brought back a barrel of charred remains. The natives were shot on the stones in the bed of the river. Blood is still all around. [6]
Gribble's publicising of the police massacres made headlines around Australia. Police Inspector Douglas visited the reserve and Gribble, Noble and mission Aborigines took him around the four massacre sites. Many Aborigines had been shot, women and children being usually clubbed to death. The number will never be known. Gribble personally knew thirty of the victims. Aboriginal people still speak of hundreds. [7]
During his investigation, Police Inspector Douglas was visibly moved. One day they followed the tracks of three women who had been led away by mounted police from the site of one massacre and burning to the site of their own death. Gribble later recalled the effect on Douglas:
[We] followed this trail up the Forrest River for about six miles, to the foot of a large gum-tree, which had been scorched for a considerable height above the ground by a large fire near the base. All were visibly affected by the awful sight. The official with the party said: 'I am not a praying man, but I will now pray to God to bring the fiends that did this, to justice'. This he did, kneeling there on the ground. In the fire were found a number of teeth. The tracks of the women led to that spot, but did not leave it, although the horse tracks and the mule track went away to the north-west. [8]
Afraid that even yet the whole episode might be ignored, Gribble pressed the government, the [Anglican] church, politicians and officials for an enquiry. He alienated the whole town of Wyndham where people refused to deal with him or his mission.
Finally, in 1927, a Royal Commission, under Commissioner Wood, investigated all allegations. Although most of the evidence was destroyed by the 1926 wet season, the Royal Commission was able to name twelve Aborigines specifically killed by police. [9] The Commission was frustrated by the solidarity of Wyndham with the police and with the 'disappearance' of principal witnesses during the hearing. Subsequent to the Commission, Constables Regan and St Jack were tried. It was found that they had acted in self-defence. They were then promoted out of the district. [10]
E. Gribble, 1933: 124.
Royal Commission of Enquiry into Alleged Killing and Burning of Bodies of Aborigines in East Kimberley and into Police Methods when Affecting Arrests (Commissioner: G.T. Wood), Government Printer, Perth, 1927, p.4, item 142.
Fitzgerald, 1984: 21
Green, 1988: 166
Fitzgerald, 1984: 21
Forest River Mission Journal, 21 June 1926, cited in Green, 1988: 166-167.
Shaw and Ngabidj, 1981: 161.
E. Gribble, 1932: 107.
See full report: Royal Commission of Enquiry into Alleged Killing... see E. Gribble, 1933: 35-37.
E. Gribble, 1932: 108.
Acknowledgment: John Harris, One Blood, pp.514-516, 529 n.240, n.241, n.242, n.243, n.244, n.249, n.250, n.251, n.252, n.253.
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Current article: ‘‘They thought they could hide’: the Aboriginal tracker who brought massacre perpetrators to trial’, via The Guardian, March 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/20/they-thought-they-could-hide-the-aboriginal-tracker-who-brought-massacre-perpetrators-to-trial