Site Name | Black Camp Creek (Spring Gully Creek), Williams River |
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name | |
Language Group, Nation or People | Worimi |
Present State/Territory | NSW |
Colony/State/Territory at the time | NSW |
Police District | Raymond Terrace |
Latitude | -32.447 |
Longitude | 151.681 |
Date | Between 1 Jan 1841 and 31 Dec 1841 |
Attack Time | Evening |
Victims | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People |
Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
Victims Killed | 20 |
Victims Killed Notes | Men, women and children. |
Attackers | Colonists |
Attacker Descriptions | Mounted Police |
Attackers Killed | 0 |
Attackers Killed Notes | M |
Transport | Horse |
Motive | Reprisal |
Weapons Used | Firearm(s) |
Narrative | In 1841, two stockmen employed by settler Timothy Nowlan of 'Walleroba' station on the Williams River, were killed by Worimi warriors. In reprisal, a detachment of mounted police proceeded to pursue the culprits. They came up with a group of Worimi at Black Camp Creek and in the encounter killed all but one of the group and according to local historian RL Ford (1995, p 128), Mundiva (Mundiba) was the sole survivor. According to Clarke and Irwin, the biographers of the Gorton brothers who lived nearby, Nolan was also speared (Clarke and Irwin 1977, p.15). Irwin said that her uncle EDF Gorton was shown the massacre site by his father and grandfather, that the reprisal massacre took place in the evening and that as a lad, the grandfather 'chopped musket balls from the trees, in which it is said that the fearful Aborigines had attempted to find a refuge' (Clarke and Irwin 1977, p.16). |
Sources | Ford 1995, p 128; Clarke and Irwin 1975, pp15-16. (Sources PDF) |
Corroboration Rating | ** |