Site Name | Quamby Bluff (3) This massacre is part of a group of massacres |
Aboriginal Place Name | |
Language Group | Pallittore |
Present State/Territory | TAS |
Colony/State/Territory at the time | VDL |
Police District | Launceston |
Latitude | -41.653 |
Longitude | 146.624 |
Date | 5 Jul 1827 |
Attack Time | Night |
Victims | Aboriginal People |
Victim Descriptions | Aboriginal |
Victims Killed | 9 |
Victims Killed Notes | men, women and children |
Attackers | Colonists |
Attacker Descriptions | Field Police, Foot Soldier(s), Stockmen/Drover(s) |
Attackers Killed | 0 |
Attackers Killed Notes | |
Transport | Foot, Horse |
Motive | Reprisal |
Weapons Used | Musket(s), Bayonet(s) |
Narrative | On 3 July 1827 the Pallittorre killed two shepherds assigned to settlers William Widowson and Abraham Walker at Dairy Plains, sixty kilometers west of Launceston. Corporals John Shiners and James Lingan, field constable Thomas Williams and stockmen Thomas Baker, James Cubit, Henry Smith and William White, set off in reprisal. Three years later, stock-keeper George Johnson told government agent GA Robinson that on this occasion 'the soldiers killed nine or ten' Pallittore. (Plomley, 1966, p 219 ; 2008, p 254 ) This is the third reprisal massacre carried out by Shiners and his party in an 18 day killing spree in which at least 78 Pallittore were killed. and known as the Quamby Bluff killings. |
Sources | Colonial Times, 6 July 1827; Plomley, 1966, p 219; 2008, p 254. (Sources PDF) |
Corroboration Rating | ** |