MYALL CREEK MEMORIAL
Photo Gallery

The massacre of aboriginal peoples at Myall Creek Station is a sad reflection on the early white settlers of Australia. In recent times (10th June, 2000) a memorial walk was set up to commemorate those who died in this massacre. Whilst the photographs on these two pages show the memorial as such, nothing can replace the visit and walk along the memorial walk to the main monument, reading this dark page of history in European Australia. The memorial is to be found on the Bingara to Delungra road approximately 15Km south of Delungra.

The event occurred back on the 10th June of 1838, when a group of around 40 Aboriginal people (from the Kamilaroi tribe) camped on land known as the Myall Creek Station. At the same time, revenge was on the mind of a group of Europeans, intent on punishing someone for the loss of some of their cattle.

It appears that these Aboriginal campers actually had no connection to the slaughter of the cattle, yet the Europeans went ahead and massacred, in cold blood, twenty-eight Aboriginal men, women and children. The brutality was horrendous with children even being decapitated and the bodies hacked to pieces and then heaped onto a fire and burnt.

There was a susequent investigation into the murders with 11 stockmen finally being charged, the first time a white person had been charged with the murder of an Aboriginal person after decades of killing. In the original trial, the 11 men were found not guilty, but a subsequent retrial found 7 of the 11 men guilty and and they were subsequently sentenced to be hanged.

To this day, Myall Creek remains the only massacre for which Europeans were charged, found guilty and punished, a sad reflection on the horrors that were perpetrated by European settlers within Australia.

Now, on the same date each year, people return to the memorial for a commemoration ceremony, a reminder of this tragic part of Australian history.

Top centre is the actual plaque on the memorial (there is no larger photograph of the plaque).

The photograph on the top right is the Myall Creek Community Hall

Bottom Section
The next four photographs in this section show views of the commencement area and picnic area at the start of the walk.

The following page takes you along the memorial walk, showing the history stones.

The remaining 5 photographs are views taken around, primarily, the main memorial. Some of these photographs show just how close to the homestead the events actually occured.