| Narrative | According to missionary L.E. Threlkeld, in 1837, 'two shepherds of Mr Cobb's' station, Anambah,'at the Gwydir River, 'who were unfortunately murdered by the Blacks, suffered it is said, in consequence of the atrocities being committed against the Blacks by the stockmen in another part of the country, which drove them towards Mr Cobb's station, where they met the two shepherds and wreaked their vengeance, in retaliation, on the unhappy sufferers.: so I am informed by one who was there at the time of the catastrophe. Their fellow servants armed themselves, overtook or came upon the tribe, found some with clothes of the murdered shepherds on their backs, whom they hewed to pieces with their hatchets, and killed others.' (Threlkeld in Gunson 1974, vol.II, p.145) In February 1839 Crown Lands Commissioner Edward Mayne 'heard a similar story about the circumstances leading up to the Gomeroi attack' on the two shepherds'. A "dreadful massacre" was said to have been committed by the stockmen in which as many as 200 Aborigines had been slain. He had personally seen the place where they were buried, on what he called a "high mountain" not far from Cobb's station "known by the name of Gravesend, from the number of appearances of the graves". (Mayne cited in Milliss 1992, p.159) According to Milliss, Commissioner Mayne 'gave no date for this massacre, except to say that it had taken place "previous to the murder of the two shepherds at Mr Cobb's station", which was itself, reputedly "done in revenge for another outrage of a similar kind upon the blacks"'. (Mayne cited in Milliss 1992, p.159) According to Milliss, 'the carnage would seem to have been as terrible as at Gravesend.' (Milliss 1992, p.159) It would appear there were two massacres of Gomeroi along the Gwydir in late 1837. The first took place over several days at Gravesend Mountain and took the lives of more than 200 Gomeroi. The second was an attack on a Gomeroi camp in reprisal for the killing of the two shepherds at Cobb's station, resulting in the killing of a least six Gomeroi. |
