| Narrative | Mounted Constable Erwein Wurmbrand and trackers Dick, Jemmy, Tommy, Charley and two settlers, William Craigie and James Norman, went to Glen Helen station in response to complaints about the attempted murder of three Glen Helen employees, Messrs McDonald, Schleicher and Miller. At Hermannsberg mission station, three suspects were taken into custody, chained by the neck. En route back to Glen Helen they allegedly tried to escape, Wurmbrand reporting that the ‘prisoners are dead’. The party continued on to Mount Sonder where four Aboriginal men were shot dead. No arrests were made. Camps were destroyed.
Wilson (2000, p 273) wrote that 'The party then returned to Alice Springs where Wurmbrand made much of the shortage of rations that caused him to abandon the patrol rather than the deaths of his suspects.
Another interpretation has been put on these deaths. H.J. Schmiechen tells how a missionary from Hermannsburg, Schwarz, hearing that the men had been shot, searched for and located the bodies still in their chains. Schwarz argued that "this made the troopers excuse that they [the Aborigines] were attempting an escape seem highly inadequate for the severe action he had taken."' Roberts (2005, p 113) wrote: 'On another occasion, Wurmbrand claimed that he shot one man and wounded others at the foot of Mount Sonder, but a station hand who was with him told the missionaries that seventeen Aboriginals had been shot dead.' Traynor (2016, p 122) wrote, 'So his [Willshire’s] newly arrived replacement Erwein Wurmbrand rode out to Glen Helen on 12 November with two white men, William Craig and James Norman, and four black trackers. James McDonald and Theodor Schleicher from the station joined them. Wurmbrand seized four Aboriginal men at Hermannsburg on 1 December but released one when the missionaries vouched for him. He chained the other three by the neck and took them up the Finke where he and his men shot them. He went on to pursue other suspects and reported shooting four more near Mount Sonder.' And Kimber (1990, p 15) made this observation, 'When one considers all of the official reports, independent accounts and strongly circumstantial evidence of punitive expeditions which occurred in 1884-1885 in Anmatjera territory, the early Aboriginal success in their attack on Anna's Reservoir was certainly but a pyrrhic victory. I find no reason to disbelieve Spencer and Gillen's observation that as a result of this initially successful attack the Anmatjera were "nearly wiped out."' Traynor (2016, p 123-24) noted that William 'Bill' Benstead of the Willowrie Pastoral Company and a stockman named Lennon joined Wumbrand, each corroborating the figure of 17. |
| Sources | Nettelbeck, 2004, pp 190-206; Nettelbeck & Foster, 2007, pp 34-35; Wilson, 2000, p 273; Roberts, 2005, p 113; Traynor, 2016, p 122, 123-24; Kimber, 1990, p 15. (Sources PDF) |
