| Site Name | Umbercollie Station, MacIntyre River |
| Aboriginal Place Name | |
| Language Group | Bigambul |
| Present State/Territory | QLD |
| Colony/State/Territory at the time | NSW |
| Police District | Warialda |
| Latitude | -28.551 |
| Longitude | 150.314 |
| Date | Between 1 Jun 1849 and 30 Jun 1849 |
| Attack Time | Day |
| Victims | Aboriginal People |
| Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
| Victims Killed | 12 |
| Victims Killed Notes | M, W, C |
| Attackers | Colonists |
| Attacker Descriptions | Native Police |
| Attackers Killed | 0 |
| Attackers Killed Notes | |
| Transport | Horse |
| Motive | Reprisal |
| Weapons Used | Carbine(s), Pistol(s), Stockwhip(s) |
| Narrative | A detachment of Native police, possibly led by Frederick Walker, attacked Umbercollie Station (leased by Jonathan and Margaret Young) during the day in June 1849 and slaughtered 12 of their Bigumbal workers. It appears to have been a follow up of the attack on Umbercollie station by settler James Mark and seven stockmen a year earlier in June 1848 where two Bigumbal women were killed. The reason for the second attack appears to have been in reprisal for Jonathan Young's report of the earlier attack to Police Magistrate Richard Bligh (Tonge, nd). Bligh, however, was unable to get Jonathan and Margaret Young to openly identify four of the killers that he arrested following their identification by one of the Young's Aboriginal workers. Bligh charged the four men with murder and sent them to Maitland for trial at the District Court on 12 February 1849. When Bligh sent the papers for the case to the Attorney General in Sydney, he was told that unless the Youngs were prepared to openly identify the killers, a conviction was unlikely. So the case did not proceed and the four stockmen held in custody at Maitland were released. Copland (1990) suggests that the June 1849 attack was designed to further intimidate the Youngs for daring to break the code of silence that prevailed on the frontier about the unrestrained killing of Aboriginal people. |
| Sources | Tonge, (ML); Copland, 1990, pp 52-77; Goodall, 1999, pp 260-279. (Sources PDF) |
| Corroboration Rating | *** |
