| Narrative | After the killing of Stapleton and Franks by Kaititja men (in retaliation for Europeans stealing women from the local Aboriginal people), over the next 6 weeks, Mounted Constable Gason and co. "...with assistance from a constable from The Peak and staff from the Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek Telegraph Stations..." carried out four punitive expeditions against Aboriginal people between Taylor Creek and Central Mount Stuart. The Barrow Creek Massacre cost 100 Aboriginal lives, however this number varies between sources (some say that, although 11 were officially recognised as killed, a higher death toll is likely and others say that ‘the number of Aboriginal lives taken in reprisal for the station attack was between 50 and 90, possibly higher.’) One man put the figure at about 90 at Skull Creek alone. Kimber noted that M.J. O'Reilly, who "got to know a member of this tribe" in c 1919,understood from the Aborigines that the telegraph station had greatly offended them because it had been built "on one of the tribe's most sacred spots." Still later, wrote Kimber, TGH Strehlow, as a result of discussions with the Aborigines,
suggested that "white men of bad character", not of the telegraph station staff, had abducted young Aboriginal women and raped them; in retaliation the Aborigines attacked the white men available to them rather than the actual criminals. |
