Site NameMt Augusta, Ross
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name
Language Group, Nation or PeopleOyster Bay
Present State/TerritoryTAS
Colony/State/Territory at the timeVDL
Police DistrictCampbell Town
Latitude-41.979
Longitude147.49
Date12 Apr 1827
Attack TimeDawn
VictimsAboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
Victim DescriptionsAboriginal
Victims Killed40
Victims Killed Notes
AttackersColonists
Attacker DescriptionsField Police, Settler(s), Convict(s), Soldier(s)
Attackers Killed0
Attackers Killed Notes
TransportFoot
MotiveReprisal
Weapons UsedMusket(s), Bayonet(s), Blade(s)
NarrativeOn May 4 1827 on page 3, the Colonial Times reported that three weeks earlier, Thomas Rawling [Rawlins] and Edward Green, servants of settler Walter Davidson on the Elizabeth River, had been killed by a party of Aborigines led by Black Tom (Kickerterpoller) and "Several persons assisted by a small party of soldiers made immediate pursuit." The incident was also reported in the Hobart Town Gazette. While both newspapers reported the finding of the bodies of Green and Rawlins, accounts of fatalities in the reprisal varied from a tally of 'not less than thirty' (Colonial Times, 11 May 1827, p 2) to the claim that 'not a single Native was killed' (Colonial Times, 25 May 1827, p 4). . Further information appeared in 2002, p 13 in a published memoir of settler James George, who recorded the aftermath: "Having seen their fires in a gully near the River Macquarie, some score of armed men, Constables, Soldiers and Civilians, and Prisoners (convicts) or assigned Servants, who fell in with the Natives when they was going to their Breakfast. They fired volley after volley in among the Blackfellows, they reported killing some two score".
SourcesHTG May 5,1827 - https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/679817; CTTA May 4, 1827 - https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/679292, CTTA May 11, 1827 - https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/679295, CTTAMay 25, 1827 - https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/679305; BPP 1831, pp 48-49; George, 2002, p 13; Ryan, 2012, p 90. (Sources PDF)
Corroboration Rating**