| Site Name | Waterloo Creek, Jews Lagoon |
| Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name | |
| Language Group, Nation or People | Gamilaraay |
| Present State/Territory | NSW |
| Colony/State/Territory at the time | NSW |
| Police District | Wallis Plains (Maitland) |
| Latitude | -29.792 |
| Longitude | 149.451 |
| Date | 26 Jan 1838 |
| Attack Time | Day |
| Victims | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People |
| Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
| Victims Killed | 40 |
| Victims Killed Notes | |
| Attackers | Colonists |
| Attacker Descriptions | Mounted Police |
| Attackers Killed | 0 |
| Attackers Killed Notes | |
| Transport | Horse |
| Motive | Reprisal |
| Weapons Used | Musket(s), Pistol(s), Sword(s) |
| Narrative | On 26 January 1838, twenty six mounted police under the command of Lt Cobban and accompanied by several stockmen and settlers drove a party of Gamilaraay warriors into Snodgrass Lagoon, now known as Jews Lagoon, and shot and killed at least forty of them. The massacre was allegedly in reprisal for the spear wound of a mounted police trooper two hours earlier. The massacre took place at the end of a month-long operation by mounted police in search of Aboriginal warriors led by Major J W Nunn (Milliss 1992, pp 183-96). In the ensuing inquiry into the massacre, Sergeant John Lee said that 'from forty to fifty blacks were killed.' (HRA, I, XX, p 251). A party of local squatters who visited the site later reported that 'sixty or seventy' Aborigines were killed, 'some of them ... shot like crows in the trees.' (SMH, 2 July 1849, p 2) The Rev. L. E. Threlkeld, (Gunson 1974, vol 1, p 145) in his annual report for 1838 to the NSW Colonial Secretary, said that 'two or three hundred' were killed. This number could be the tally of Nunn's month long operation against Gamilaraay people in the region. |
| Sources | Gunson 1974, vol. I, p. 145; BPP 1839, vol. 34, Paper 526; HRA, I, XX, 244-57; https://doi.org/10.26181/22300285.v1; SMH, July 2, 1849, p 2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28646745; Milliss 1992, pp 175-77, 183-96; Ryan 2003, pp 33-43; Town and Country Journal, 28 February, 1874. (Sources PDF) |
| Corroboration Rating | *** |
