| Site Name | Mirki / Florida Station (2) |
| Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name | Mirki |
| Language Group, Nation or People | Yolngu, Djinang |
| Present State/Territory | NT |
| Colony/State/Territory at the time | SA |
| Police District | Port Darwin |
| Latitude | -12.104 |
| Longitude | 134.911 |
| Date | Between 1 Jan 1889 and 31 Dec 1896 |
| Attack Time | Day |
| Victims | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People |
| Victim Descriptions | |
| Victims Killed | 40 |
| Victims Killed Notes | Certainly dozens of Aboriginal people from a camp named Mirki. |
| Attackers | Colonists |
| Attacker Descriptions | Pastoralist(s) |
| Attackers Killed | 0 |
| Attackers Killed Notes | |
| Transport | Horse |
| Motive | Reprisal |
| Weapons Used | Firearm(s) |
| Narrative | Read and Read (1991, p 24) printed a story of a massacre at Mirki as told by an anonymous person at Milingimbi, trancribed from Gupapuyngu:
Aboriginal people from a camp at Mirki were killing cattle on Florida Station, near Milingimbi. After confessing to cattle killing, an Aboriginal person was murdered. Attempting a surprise night attack on people singing and dancing at a ceremony, the colonists left their horses and surrounded them. But Aboriginal lookouts saw the horses and, thinking they couldn't escape without being seen, hid in the trees. 'Into a tree they climbed, all of them. They sat there, they didn't say anything, nothing. They were very careful for each other' (Read & Read, 1991, p 22). The colonists saw them in the trees and opened fire. 'Think about the noise that those guns made, shooting up into the trees. Shooting, shooting, shooting, up in to the trees. They all fell down into the ground, and just lay there all over the ground, every one of them, until they were all dead. But one of them was still alive. The horses had passed him on the way there. He saw them, and he hid in the cycad palms, underneath them' (Read & Read, 1991, p 22). The following day the 'boss' of the colonists took a repeating rifle, found the children, formed them into two lines and shot them. 'Every one of them, just lying there, and not only a few, lots of them' (Read & Read, 1991, p 24). Gaunt said that Jack Waston was in that area at that time, along with Joe Bradshaw and others, 'Before closing this article I wish to say soon after Jack Watson left Florida Station he was at the Katherine' and indicated that shooting Aboriginal people was common, 'The shooting of blacks in the early days was necessary to the men who opened up the country. Self-preservation is the first law of nature and with very little police protection we had to take the law in our own hands, or be massacred in cold blood by the abos' (Northern Standard July 10, 1934, p 6). |
| Sources | Read and Read, 1991, p 24; Gaunt 1934, 'Old Time Memories, The Lepers of Arnheim [sic] Land and Sketches' Northern Standard July 10, 1934, p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48064622; van der Heide, 1985, p 16. (Sources PDF) |
| Corroboration Rating | ** |
Colonial Frontier Massacres
in Australia, 1788-1930
