| Narrative | When a mob of Oyster Bay people led by Black Tom (Kickerterpoller) the most feared Aboriginal warrior in Van Diemen's Land were seen in the Pittwater area on 9 December 1826, the District Constable, Alexander Laing, four soldiers of the 40th regiment and some stock-keepers, killed 14 of them and captured ten others, including their leader, Kickerterpoller. The capture was reported by magistrate at Sorell, James Gordon, to the Colonial Secretary in Hobart later that day and reported in the two Hobart newspapers a week later (Gordon to Col Sec, 10 December 1826, TAHO CSO 1/331, pp 194-195; CTTA, December 15, 1826; HTG, December 16, 1826). However neither Gordon nor the newspapers acknowledged the massacre. Yet Kickerterpoller who was wanted for murder, was released on 9 January 1827, along with his nine compatriots. A coverup had taken place. In March 1830, Chief District Constable Gilbert Robertson was the first to mention the massacre in evidence to the Aborigines Committee and stated that: 'The Richmond Police in 1827, killed fourteen of the natives, who had got upon a hill, and threw stones upon them. The police expended all their ammunition, and then charged with a bayonet.' (BPP, 1831, p 221) In 1948, local historian Roy Bridges (1948, p 69) provided more information: 'Black Tom and his force of natives, after a succession of outrages through the Richmond Police District and beyond, were chased by Chief District Constable Lang [sic] and his men up the Sorell Valley, overtaken and destroyed near the head-waters of the rivulet.' Lyndall Ryan and Robert Cox have each reconstructed the events leading to the massacre (Ryan, 2012, pp 87-89; Cox, 2021, pp 90-101). |
