| Site Name | Behn River near Rosewood station - East Kimberley This massacre is part of a group of massacres |
| Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Place Name | |
| Language Group, Nation or People | Mirriwong, Kitja, Jaru |
| Present State/Territory | WA |
| Colony/State/Territory at the time | WA |
| Police District | Halls Creek - East Kimberley |
| Latitude | -16.457 |
| Longitude | 129.003 |
| Date | 18 Sep 1893 |
| Attack Time | Day |
| Victims | Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People |
| Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
| Victims Killed | 23 |
| Victims Killed Notes | Mirriwong people |
| Attackers | Colonists |
| Attacker Descriptions | Police, Aboriginal Assistant(s) |
| Attackers Killed | 1 |
| Attackers Killed Notes | PC Joe Collins |
| Transport | Horse |
| Motive | Reprisal |
| Weapons Used | Revolver(s), Winchester(s) |
| Narrative | In a police raid on September 18, 1893 on an Aboriginal camp for those suspected of 'cattle killing' along the Behn River near Rosewood Station Trooper Joe Collins was speared. In retaliation police recorded shooting twenty-three Mirriwong people in this ambush although the actual figure may have been higher (The Daily News, September 27, 1893, p 2). The publicised killing of this many Aboriginal people sparked an outcry in Perth in which the Catholic Bishop of Perth [Bishop Mathew Gibney] publicly denounced the killing of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley: 'In the affair on the Behm [sic] River, therefore, the troopers had the game in their own hands. And on their own showing, brutally did they use their advantage. It is not credible for a moment that the natives obstinately stood their ground and threw futile spears until the whole twenty-three had fallen... it is perfectly clear that in this case the choice was not given them. Some were slain fighting; but some, at least certainly ran, and were not these followed up and deliberately shot down as they ran? This was hardly so much a fight as a battue a massacre.…The story of their accusers we have heard but their defence we shall never hear' (The Western Australian Record, October 5, 1893, p 7-8). Lewis (2021, p 528) wrote: 'There was another slaughter of Aborigines on or near Waterloo after the spearing of Constable Collins in 1893. When Collins and Constable Lucanus were on patrol from Wyndham they visited P.B. Durack's station on the Behn River. Durack showed them where the blacks had killed fourteen bullocks and used the tails as fly whisks. The constables got onto the trail of "half a hundred bucks, and no gins". As they followed the tracks they discovered more dead cattle and two dead horses. They came upon the camp in the morning and Collins was speared in the stomach. One account says he died within half an hour and was buried on the spot (Lucanus, Daily News [Perth], 5-9-1929: 6), but another says he died the following day (Northern Territory Times, 20-10-1893). Twenty-three Aboriginal men are said to have been shot in the minutes after Collins was speared (Northern Territory Times, 10-11-1893).' |
| Sources | The Daily News, September 27, 1893, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/77380675/7823132; The Western Australian Record, October 5, 1893, p 7, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/211985512/22978455; NTTG, October 20, 1893, p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3325314; CSO, 'Encounter with native offenders in East Kimberley District H. Collins killed in. Reporting, - Sub Inspector Drewry, 'Journal of a trip by Sergt Brophy and party in pursuit of natives who are killing cattle on the Ord Osmand and other rivers, Correspondence from Commissioner Phillips, J, 28 September 1893, SROWA, AN 24, 527, File 90/1894; Lewis 2012; Owen and Choo, 2003, pp 135-145; Owen, 2016, pp 347-350; Lewis, 2021, p 528. (Sources PDF) |
| Corroboration Rating | *** |
Colonial Frontier Massacres
in Australia, 1788-1930
