The Myall Creek Massacre: Truth, Justice, and Australia’s Unfinished Reckoning

Brian AJ Newman LLB
Jan 13
4 min read

The Myall Creek Massacre of 10 June 1838 stands as one of the most harrowing and significant events in Australia’s colonial history. It is a story of premeditated violence against Aboriginal people, of rare legal accountability in an era of widespread impunity, and of the profound moral questions that continue to confront this nation as we reflect on our past.

At MYUNION, we acknowledge this history not to assign blame for its own sake, but to confront the truth — and commit to justice, equity, and human dignity in the present.

The Myall Creek Massacre: Truth, Justice, and Australia’s Unfinished Reckoning

Colonial Expansion and Frontier Violence

By the late 1830s, the colony of New South Wales was rapidly expanding inland. Settlers and pastoralists pushed into land that had been occupied by Aboriginal peoples for tens of thousands of years. The Wirrayaraay — a clan of the broader Gamilaraay nation — lived on country along waterways and plains that European graziers viewed solely as pastoral resources.

European colonisation brought dispossession, disruption, and escalating conflict:

Aboriginal sources of food and water were cut off
Sacred sites were desecrated
Violence was often met with little to no legal consequence for settlers

For many settlers, violence against Aboriginal people was seen as a “frontier norm” — a belief that Aboriginal lives were outside the protection of colonial law. That assumption was challenged, temporarily and incompletely, at Myall Creek. (Digital Classroom)

The Atrocity at Myall Creek, 10 June 1838

On the afternoon of Sunday, 10 June 1838, a group of at least 28 unarmed Aboriginal people — women, children, elders, and men of the Wirrayaraay — were camped peacefully near the Myall Creek cattle station in northern New South Wales. They had established peaceful relations with some of the station hands, and their presence had not been met with hostility by the station manager.

That afternoon, a group of twelve armed settlers — mostly convicts and ex-convicts, under the informal leadership of John Henry Fleming — surrounded the Aboriginal camp. They tied the group together, led them away from camp, and deliberately slaughtered them with swords, firearms, and other weapons. The victims’ bodies were subsequently burned in an attempt to conceal evidence.

A Rare Path to Justice: The Trials in the Supreme Court

Unlike most frontier atrocities — which were ignored, covered up, or excused as part of colonisation — the Myall Creek killings were investigated and brought before the colonial legal system.

Several witnesses, including the station manager William Hobbs and stockman George Anderson (who refused to participate in the massacre and later gave evidence), reported the killings to local authorities. These reports prompted Governor Sir George Gipps to instruct police magistrate Edward Denny Day to conduct a formal inquiry.

Eleven of the perpetrators were arrested and transferred to Sydney to face charges in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The trials were unprecedented in several respects:

They were among the first colonial prosecutions for the killing of Aboriginal people
They confronted deep settler opposition to Aboriginal legal protection
They tested whether British law would treat Aboriginal victims equally under the law

The first trial commenced on 15 November 1838 before Chief Justice Sir James Dowling. The eleven accused were charged with the murder of one of the Aboriginal men (a legal strategy necessary under the colonial criminal procedure of the time). However, the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty” after brief deliberation — a reflection of prevailing racial prejudice.

The Attorney General, John Plunkett, then brought a second prosecution against seven of the men for the murder of a different Aboriginal victim. In that trial, the jury found all seven men guilty of murder.

The legal record for this trial is formally cited as:

R v Kilmeister (No. 2) [1838] NSWSupC 105

This decision represents one of the only known instances in colonial Australian legal history where settlers were convicted in the Supreme Court for killing Aboriginal people. The judgment demonstrates that — at least on this occasion — the colonial legal system applied its laws to protect Aboriginal lives.

Execution and Public Backlash

After the guilty verdict in R v Kilmeister (No. 2), the convicted men were sentenced to death. Despite petitions for clemency and widespread settler protest, the sentences were carried out on 18 December 1838, when the seven men were publicly executed at Sydney Gaol.

This outcome was extraordinary — but it did not herald a broader shift toward frontier justice. Instead, many settlers reacted with hostility. Some believed that colonial authorities had overreached in enforcing the law, while others sought to obscure future atrocities through silence or intimidation.

The consequence was not a decline in frontier violence, but rather a hardening of attitudes and a retreat into secrecyabout subsequent massacres.

Legacy, Memory, and Commemoration

For much of Australian history, the Myall Creek Massacre was omitted from mainstream narratives. Aboriginal voices and oral histories preserved the truth while broader society preferred silence.

In recent decades, there has been a sustained movement to publicly acknowledge and commemorate Myall Creek. The Myall Creek Memorial Site near Bingara, NSW — listed on the National Heritage List — now hosts annual memorial services attended by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians who seek to honour the victims and confront the truth of the past.

Why the Myall Creek Massacre Still Matters

The Myall Creek Massacre holds relevance not only as an historical atrocity, but as a mirror to contemporary reckonings with justice, equality, and the rule of law:

It shows that legal accountability was possible even in a deeply unjust era
It reveals how societal prejudice can undermine justice
It underscores the value of truth-telling in national memory
It invites reflection on ongoing disparities in treatment, law, and social recognition

For MYUNION, acknowledging this history is part of a broader commitment to human rights, dignity, and the principle that every life — regardless of heritage — is protected under the law.