| Narrative | In November 1910, Aboriginal people reported that other Aboriginal people had murdered four European prospectors as well as a 'native and his lubra' in their employ. A party of 10 headed by Mounted Constables Kelly and Johns departed Roper River Police Station on 22 November to investigate. On 11 December, two Aboriginal men in custody were shot while escaping.
Dewar (1992, p 8) noted: ‘As late as 1910, the Love expedition resulted in a massacre where Police Constable Jim Kelly “had to shoot a couple of niggers” at Caledon Bay ‘(Love cited in Dewar 1992, p 8).
George Conway, a participant in this massacre, told Keith Willey that "There were two policemen, two other white men, thirteen natives and myself in the team.... We were armed with rifles and revolvers and rode three hundred miles from the Roper across Arnhemland to Caledon Bay and back. The blacks attacked us every night. We had to shoot hundreds of them. Some of their camps contained two or three thousand people. We didn't shoot for the love of it, but because we had to kill or be killed.... They were rugged times all right" (van der Heide, 1985, p 85). |
