| Narrative | Following the killing of two Pegg brothers, squatting partners Gregory Blaxland and William Forster led over 50 station hands and squatters including the Thompson Brothers of Walla Station, downstream and located a large Aboriginal camp in dense scrub, in an area that has since become known as ‘The Cedars’. Clem Lack reports: 'The white man attacked at piccaninny dawn. More than 100 myalls [wild blacks] were asleep, gorged with roast mutton, in groups around the ashes of burnt out fires, half a mile away from the waters of the Burnett. The affray was one of the bloodiest in Queensland frontier history, although no white man was killed. Many of the Aboriginals escaped by plunging into the Burnett and swimming to the other side. Some were picked off by marksmen and sank beneath the surface. More than half a century later, ploughmen at The Cedars … brought to light grim relics. Skulls, bones, some tomahawks, boomerangs, and other weapons...' |
