| Narrative | Four shepherds employed by the VDL Co, Charles Chamberlain, John Weavis, William Gunshannon and Richard Nicholson, crept up on a group of Aborigines hunting and shot 30 dead and then threw their bodies to the rocks below. The incident was reported by a VDL Company officer, Alexander Goldie to Lieutenant-governor Arthur in Hobart in November 1829 (TAHO CSO 1/333, p 116-117). Arthur then ordered his agent, G.A. Robinson, to investigate the incident during his visit to the area between June and September 1830. Robinson interviewed two of the four perpetrators who confirmed the number killed and the location of the incident but said that only one woman had been shot (Plomley, 2008, p 206-207). Robinson then interviewed an Aboriginal woman witness, who confirmed the number killed but insisted that many of the victims were women (Plomley, 2008, pp 212-214). However, Edward Curr, the superintendent of the VDL Company, in a dispatch to the Board of Governors in London on October 7 1830, reported that only six Aborigines were killed and several wounded and then revised down the number killed to three (TAHO VDL 5/1, pp 104-105). Historian Ian McFarlane provides the most comprehensive account of the massacre (McFarlane, 2003, pp 277-298). |
