Site NameSlaughterhouse Creek
This massacre is part of a group of massacres
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name
Language Group, Nation or PeopleGamilaraay
Present State/TerritoryNSW
Colony/State/Territory at the timeNSW
Police DistrictScone
Latitude-29.708
Longitude150.333
DateBetween 1 May 1838 and 7 Jun 1838
Attack TimeDawn
VictimsAboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
Victim DescriptionsAboriginal
Victims Killed200
Victims Killed Notes
AttackersColonists
Attacker DescriptionsStockmen/Drover(s)
Attackers Killed0
Attackers Killed Notes
TransportHorse
MotiveOpportunity
Weapons UsedMusket(s), Pistol(s), Sword(s), Cutlass/Cutlasses
NarrativeOn the 10th of September, 1838, Edward Denny Day sent a letter from the Muswellbrook Police Office to the Colonial Secretary in relation to the Myall Creek massacre. This letter described a 'war of extermination' in the area around the time of the Slaughterhouse creek massacre: 'It will be my duty in my next letter to offer with the permission of his Excellency some observation on the present lawless state of the neighbourhood of the Big River [Gwydir River]. Indeed I am almost justified in stating that a war of extermination has been carrying on there against the blacks who neglect no opportunity of retaliating by destroying the cattle of the settlers' (Day, Letter to Colonial Secretary, 10 September 1838). 'Big River' was the early colonial name for the Gwydir River.
On the 5th of September, 1839, Day as Police Magistrate of Muswellbrook gave evidence to the Committee on Police and Gaols. He spoke of the country being in a state of warfare and mentioned three massacre sites prior to the massacre at Myall Creek: Vinegar Hill, Slaughterhouse Creek and Gravesend, committed by groups of mounted and armed stockmen:
'I was engaged during part of the last year in inquiring into the circumstances of the murder of a number of blacks, at the Big River, between two hundred and three hundred miles from the settled districts. I was engaged in the investigation and journey forty-seven days. That part of the country appeared to me to be in a most unsettled state; the whites seemed to feel that they were in an enemy's country, and were afraid to move out of their huts without fire arms, and the huts were provided with loop-holes, to fire through, in the event of their being attacked. The blacks had at that time committed many outrages; I think four stockmen or shepherds had been murdered, and cattle speared in great numbers on many of the runs; and sheep had also been driven away; but I have reason to know that these outrages had been fully and fearfully avenged. It was represented to me, and I believe truly, that the blacks had been repeatedly pursued by parties of mounted and armed stockmen, assembled for the purpose, and that great numbers of them had been killed at various spots, particularly at Vinegar Hill, Slaughter-house Creek, and Gravesend, places so called by the stockmen, in commemoration of the deeds enacted there. The murder I was sent to investigate took place at Myall Creek, Mr. Henry Danger's cattle station, where twenty-eight blacks—men, women, and children—were killed. The whole party of stockmen, twelve in number, who were engaged in this dreadful deed, were apprehended, except one; and seven of them were executed. At the time of my visit, the blacks and whites were alike exasperated against each other; in fact, the country was, I may say, in a state of warfare. It had been then occupied not much more than two years, and as the blacks were decidedly friendly at first, as was shown by their assisting in forming many of the stations, by stripping bark and in other ways, I can only account for the hostility that existed subsequently, by attributing it to the interference on the part of some of the stockmen with their women, which the blacks revenged on the first unprotected white persons who fell in their way' (Day, Evidence to Committee on Police and Gaols 5.9.1839, V&P 1839, p 224).
According to the author of the Wallabadah manuscript, most likely William Telfer, an early colonist in the area, 'the stations on the Mcintyre were not long occupied when the aboriginals began to be very hostile and to be agresive to the whites the cause was the Masacre of the blacks at slaughter house creek on the Big River where they ran the blacks into the Stockyard and destroyed them without mercy' (Telfer, 1980, p 37).
According to historian RHW Reece, (Reece, 1974, p.34), the Slaughterhouse Creek massacre was part of 'The Bushwhack or The Drive' that took place in the months following Major Nunn's expedition and the Waterloo Creek massacre on 26 January 1838.
A massacre at Slaughterhouse Creek is widely recorded in local oral history and folklore. Roger Milliss summarises the various accounts in his book Waterloo Creek (Milliss, 1992, pp 198-203) noting that some involve a detailed chronology. These accounts suggest that 'The Bushwhack... continued without let-up for four to five weeks, with men in the saddle day after day pursuing the hunt. But towards the end of May or early in June, as they swept across the east past Terry Hie Hie, they suddenly realised the blacks had slipped through the net.' Hearing of a hidden ravine, 'A party of fifteen heavily armed stockmen, so the story goes, made their way through the bush in the dead of night and quietly surrounded the gorge, in much the same way as Nunn and Cobban had set up their nocturnal ambush on the Namoi five months earlier. A large number of Aborigines, several hundred apparently, were asleep in the bed of the creek below. When daylight came the fifteen whites positioned on the steep slopes on either side opened up on them with muskets, carbines and shotguns, then clambered down and completed their murderous work with pistols, swords and cutlasses. Up to 300 people are said to have perished' (Milliss, 1992, p 202). As it was a long expedition, it is possible that killing occurred at both the stockyard mentioned in Telfer's account and the ravine mentioned in local oral history, or that the story has changed over time. While the number 300 may be an exaggeration, considering that there was a sustained period of killing, or that in both versions the victims were trapped in a small space and killed by a well-armed and coordinated group of colonists, the death toll would be high.
According to Milliss there are various versions of the folk tradition of a long campaign covering a large area of Gomeroi country (Milliss, 1992, pp 200-201). One of these is by C.F. Boughton in his serialisation of Moree history in the North West Champion in 1949 and 1951. Broughton wrote, 'I have mentioned the foregoing facts because they give a better understanding of what led up to the Slaughterhouse Creek massacre, that, like the Umbercollie attempt to settle differences, was a reprisal on a larger scale than any other that we have any knowledge of in this district. It was undertaken by district squatters and their stockmen. By the use of slashing whips, and with guns in reserve, the natives were driven into a yard and then shot. From my father, who got the story from those who came to the district before him, I understand that a large number of natives were slaughtered, and in my early boyhood heard men say that bones were still to be seen strewn around the scene of the massacre. My father told us that those guilty were brought to trial, and on some fault in the indictment were acquitted, but on a second trial were found guilty and condemned to death. The creek and the run on which these things occurred now bear the name of Slaughterhouse Creek. The Gwydir Highway crosses this creek about a mile eastward from Biniguy, but the tragedy took place several miles upstream from where the highway crosses the creek' (North West Champion, 20 Oct 1949, p 10).
There are two main locations mentioned in relation to Slaughterhouse Creek where a large amount of people were killed. One is at a stockyard near the junction of Slaughterhouse Creek and the Gwydir River, and the other is at the headwaters of Slaughterhouse Creek in a ravine. The narratives in local 'folk' history (Millis, 1992, pp 198-203) say that there was killing at multiple locations, which accords with the official evidence of a 'war of extermination' and roving bands of armed mounted colonists who would shoot on sight, so it's reasonable to think killing occurred at both these distinct sites, and possibly more. Police Magistrate Day's evidence mentions 'Vinegar Hill'. There is no information available indicating a place of that name in the area. In his notes on p 811, Milliss suggests 'Vinegar Hill' may be Biniguy or 'Binegar'. The word is phonetically similar, so colonists may have, after the massacre, euphemistically corrupted the name to associate it with the Vinegar Hill uprising in the early colony of Sydney, named in turn after a battle in the Irish uprising, or Denny Day or the committee scribe may simply have misheard it as 'Vinegar'.
Edward Mayne estimated the population of Gomeroi people in the area to be 2,000 and 3,000 persons and had seen 700 gathered at a time (Mayne, Evidence to Committee on Police and Gaols 5.9.1839, pp 22-24). These high populations and concentrations indicate a high death toll is reasonable, particularly considering the confined space with little avenue of escape and that the colonists had assembled a large, mounted and well armed force for the purpose of finding and killing Aboriginal people.
SourcesReece 1974, p.34; Telfer, 1980; Day, Letter to Colonial Secretary, 31 July 1838, SRNSW CSO CSR 38/9458 Telfer, 1980; Milliss 1992, pp 200-3; Day, Letter to Colonial Secretary, 10 September 1838, SRNSW CSO CSR 38/9458; Mayne, Evidence to Committee on Police and Gaols 5.9.1839, pp 22-4, NSWLC V&P 1839; Day, Evidence to Committee on Police and Gaols 5.9.1839, p 224, NSWLC V&P 1839; North West Champion, 20 Oct 1949, p 10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/184173250 (Sources PDF)
Corroboration Rating**