Site Name | Coniston (1) This massacre is part of a group of massacres |
Aboriginal Place Name | Unclear |
Language Group | Warlpiri, Anmatyere, Kaytetye |
Present State/Territory | NT |
Colony/State/Territory at the time | NT |
Police District | Barrow Creek |
Latitude | -22.084 |
Longitude | 132.506 |
Date | Between 16 Aug 1928 and 31 Aug 1928 |
Attack Time | Day |
Victims | Aboriginal People |
Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
Victims Killed | 50 |
Victims Killed Notes | More than 50. |
Attackers | Colonists |
Attacker Descriptions | Mounted Police, Settler(s), Stockmen/Drover(s) |
Attackers Killed | 0 |
Attackers Killed Notes | Dingo trapper, Fred Brooks, who was killed on 7 August, 1928. |
Transport | Horse, Camel |
Motive | |
Weapons Used | Firearm(s), Spear(s) |
Narrative | On 7 August 1928 a group of Warlpiri, Anmatyere and Kaytetye men led by Kamalyarrpa Japananglea, also known as 'Bullfrog', killed dingo trapper Fred Brooks at Yurrkuru, a Warlpiri, Anmatyere and Kaytetye camp about 14 miles (22 km) from the Coniston Station homestead. The killing took place in reprisal for Brooks' kidnapping one of Bullfrog's wives. After his body was found in a rabbit hole, from 16 August, Mounted Constable George Murray, who was a veteran of the Boer War and World War I, led a punitive expedition of eight heavily armed men around the Lander River and to the west of Coniston Station. The expedition included Coniston Station owner, Randal Stafford, stockmen Alex Wilson, John Saxby, Billy Briscoe, and Aboriginal men, Dodger, Paddy and Major. The expedition returned on 31 August. The official death toll for this expedition was 17. However an estimate of 69 deaths is more likely. |
Sources | Woodward, 1973, p 82; Read & Read, 1991, pp 33-37; Bell 1993, pp 67-68; Toohey 1979; Edmond, 2013, p 104 http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/534259; Morrison www.australianfrontierconflicts.com.au; Alice Springs News Online August 15 2018 https://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/2018/08/15/the-coniston-massacre-remembered; Schubert, NT News, August 25, 2018, pp 24-25 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-24/nt-police-apologise-for-state-sanctioned-coniston-massacre/10162850; Wilson & O'Brien, 2003, pp 59-78; Bradley, 2019, p 4. (Sources PDF) |
Corroboration Rating | *** |