Site NameSnowy River
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name
Language Group, Nation or PeopleTatungalung or Krauatungalang
Present State/TerritoryVIC
Colony/State/Territory at the timePPD
Police DistrictGippsland
Latitude-37.74
Longitude148.549
Date20 Dec 1846
Attack TimeDawn
VictimsAboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
Victim DescriptionsAboriginal
Victims Killed50
Victims Killed Notes
AttackersColonists
Attacker DescriptionsNative Police
Attackers Killed0
Attackers Killed Notes
TransportHorse
MotiveReprisal
Weapons UsedFirearm(s)
NarrativeIn 1846, rumours reached Melbourne that a white woman, the possible survivor of a shipwreck on the Gippsland coast, had been kidnapped by Kurnai people and become the trophy of a headman, Bungalene. After the failure of an expedition led by Crown Lands Commissioner Charles Tyers, to find the white woman, two other expeditions were organised. One, a private expedition, led by Christian de Villiers and James Warman, along with six Aboriginal warriors from Westernport, and three from Gippsland and three colonists, Mr Brodie, Mr Peters and Thomas Hill, set off from Melbourne on foot in early December 1846. The other, a division of Native Police led by William Dana left headquarters at Narre Warren east of Melbourne on November 21, 1846. Historian of the Native Police, Marie Hansen Fels who provides the most detailed account of the events at the Snowy River, says that what Dana and his division did in the weeks between leaving Narre Warren and prior to the incident on 20 December is unknown (Fels 1988, p 188). The two parties met up on 15 December at Eagle Point on Lake King, where de Villiers suggested to Dana that they join forces and make the sixty miles journey to the Snowy River by water where it was believed the white woman and Bungalene were camped. But Dana refused and de Villiers and his party left that evening at 6pm (Fels 1988, p.188). Foul weather led de Villiers to split his party in two: Warman and the three colonists would wait until the weather improved and 'proceed then to the Snowy River by boat... while he pressed on overland' with the Westernport and Gippsland Aborigines (Fels 1988, p 188). On 21 December, de Villiers' party came upon Dana and his detachment of Native Police at the Snowy River at the reed beds in Lake Curlip country between Marlo and Orbost. Dana told de Villiers 'that he had surrounded several camps of natives, and taken five prisoners, an old man, and an old woman, and three children.' (Fels 1988, p 189).
Later the Aboriginal guides with de Villiers told him that Dana and his police had shot some of the Snowy River natives (Fels 1988, p 189). The next day the two parties separated, with Dana retracing his steps to the border police station, while de Villiers proceeded up the Snowy River, where his suspicions were alerted by the unusual sight of a large area of 'trampled reed-beds' and finding 'the dead and decomposing body of a very stout Aboriginal male, about thirty years of age,' with severe wounds to the head, leg and breast, 'which his blacks told him were gunshot wounds', inflicted by the Native Police. 'Upon his return to the Tambo River three days later, de Villiers heard from a Richard Hartnett that local Aborigines had said that Mr Dana's party had shot some blacks on the Snowy River.' (Fels 1988, p 189). James Warman, added further details regarding a carbine that he found, belonging to the Native Police, which was 'bloodied and broken, with tufts of black hair clinging to it' (Fels 1988, p 189).
Corporal Owen Cowan, a border policeman who accompanied Dana and the Native Police, said that on 19 December, he had 'a hand to hand struggle' with the Aborigines, and that 'he was speared in the hand, knocked to the ground and that he had lost his carbine, fired his pistol, then regained his carbine, hit his assailant over the head with it and barely escaped with his life.' (Fels 1988, p 189). He also said that 'At the time, the police force was split three ways around the islands and the lake at the mouth of the Snowy River, and he had only one trooper with him' (Cowan in Fels 1988, p 190). Even so, they 'rushed' an Aboriginal camp but retreated under 'a shower of spears' (Cowan in Fels 1988, p 190). The following night, December 20, Cowan surrounded another Aboriginal camp, 'coming upon' it at sunrise (Cowan in Fels 1988, p 190). But he did not say what happened next. Nor did he say whether the entire group of Native Police were involved, although Dana did say that he considered that this was the only way he could determine whether the white woman from Gippsland was with them (Fels 1988, p 190). Warman's account indicates that at least five Aboriginal people were shot ('Port Phillip Herald', February 25, 1847). Fels is not persuaded that the attack on 20 December constitutes a massacre because only one Aboriginal person was recorded killed and that the number 'became some as the story was transmitted orally, and a slaughter when it appeared in the newspapers' (Fels 1988, p 193). However, she does admit, 'It is not satisfactory now that William Dana's original report (if it existed) is missing' (Fels 1988, p 191). That the missing report did exist is demonstrated by a cover letter from Dana to Police Magistrate Lonsdale, reading, '...a copy of a report of Mr William Dana Commanding 2nd Division Native Police Gippsland respecting a collision with the natives of that District while in search of the white woman...'(Dana to Latrobe, 1847). Commissioner Tyers considered that Dana did not act with prudence and Governor Gipps questioned both Dana's authority for acting as he did and his explanation – which was 'Not satisfactory'; he acted 'with great want of discretion, to say the least of it.' (quoted in Fels 1988, p 191).
According to Gippsland historian Peter D. Gardner, the number killed by the native police overall was between 15 and 23 (Gardner 1983, p.72). The event was much debated in the media at the time. Sergeant R. McLelland of the native police argued that one person was killed, and that the eight bodies in a camp that he and the native police and then de Villier came across were not murdered but were being carried around in accordance with Aboriginal funeral customs (McLelland, 16 February 1847). Warman responded that he had never seen more than one deceased person in a camp at one time and suggested Sergeant McLelland explain why there might be eight (Warman, 23 February 1847). A close reading of Warman's published reports indicates that nine Aboriginal people were killed in the period 20-21 December 1846 (Warman, 1847). Twelve years after the expeditions, Crown Lands Commissioner C.J. Tyers, to whom the police involved reported, while answering questions under oath for a Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines, stated, "At least fifty were killed by the native police and other aborigines attached to the parties in search of a white woman supposed to have been detained by the blacks, and a few by collision with the white people, from ten to fifteen years ago." (Tyers 1859, p 77)
SourcesDana to Lonsdale (letter), 18 January 1847, correspondence 47/105 in file 47/1394, VPRS19/P0000/Box 94; Editor, Port Phillip Herald, 18 February, 1847, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=EVKlETVVbN8C&dat=18470218&printsec=frontpage&hl=en; McLelland, Port Philip Patriot, 16 February 1847 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/22217009; Tyers, 1859 in Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on The Aborigines 1858-9, https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/docs/digitised_collections/remove/92768.pdf; de Villiers letters, Port Phillip Patriot 22 January 1847 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226351370; de Villiers, 13 February 1847, 'Gipps Land Expedition', Port Phillip Patriot http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article226350982; de Villiers, 16 February 1847, 'Gipps Land Expedition', Port Phillip Herald, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=EVKlETVVbN8C&dat=18470216&printsec=frontpage&hl=en Warman, 21 January, 1847, 'To the Editor of the Port Phillip Herald', Port Phillip Herald, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=EVKlETVVbN8C&dat=18470121&printsec=frontpage&hl=en; Warman, 22 January, 1847, 'Gipps Land Expedition', Port Phillip Patriot, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article226351382; Warman, 23 February, 1847, 'To the Editor of the Port Phillip Herald', Port Phillip Herald, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=EVKlETVVbN8C&dat=18470223&printsec=frontpage&hl=en; Warman, 25 February, 1847, 'Gipps Land Expedition', Port Phillip Herald, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=EVKlETVVbN8C&dat=18470225&printsec=frontpage&hl=en; Warman, 2 March, 1847, 'Gipps Land Expedition', Port Phillip Herald, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=EVKlETVVbN8C&dat=18470302&printsec=frontpage&hl=en; Christie, 1979; Fels 1988, pp 170-192; Fels, 1986; Gardner 1993, p 133; Meyrick, 1939; A.G.L. Shaw, 1996; Shaw, 1989; (Sources PDF)
Corroboration Rating***