Site NameBradshaw Station (1)
This massacre is part of a group of massacres
Aboriginal Place NameUnclear
Language GroupNgarinman
Present State/TerritoryNT
Colony/State/Territory at the timeSA
Police DistrictGordon Creek/Timber Creek
Latitude-15.352
Longitude130.284
DateBetween 11 Dec 1895 and 31 Dec 1895
Attack TimeDay
VictimsAboriginal People
Victim DescriptionsAboriginal
Victims Killed15
Victims Killed Notes'Big mob' poisoned by flour. No names recorded. Could have been 20+.
AttackersColonists
Attacker DescriptionsPastoralist(s)
Attackers Killed0
Attackers Killed Notes
TransportFoot
MotiveReprisal
Weapons UsedPoison
NarrativeHistorian of the Victoria River District, Darrell Lewis (2018, pp 65-66) noted: ‘An account of the mass killing of Aborigines on Bradshaw survives as oral history. According to Pauline Rayner (pers. comm.) her father, Peter Murray, who owned Coolibah and Bradshaw from 1958 to 1963 and remained on the station for a further five years, was told the following story by an old Aborigine named Johnson: '"Bradshaw station had continual trouble with bush blacks breaking into the station store and stealing bags of flour, tobacco and so on. Eventually the station whites decided to leave a bag of flour laced with poison in the store. The bag was stolen and a big mob of Aborigines were poisoned"'. The mass poisoning took place in late 1895.
SourcesLewis, 2018, pp 65-66. See also Lewis, 2004, p 229. (Sources PDF)
Corroboration Rating**