"[2] The Convincing Ground, site of the massacre, which lies in Portland Bay close to the town in the Shire of Glenelg has been listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.
[1] While reports are varied on casualties, it is clear that Gunditjmara people were determined to assert their right to the whale as traditional food and when challenged by the whalers, were aggressive in return.
According to Edward Henty and Police Magistrate James Blair in conversation with George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines in 1841, the whalers withdrew to the head station only to return with their firearms.
[4] The reason for this uncertainty over casualties and the actual date of the massacre appears to stem from the fact that the incident was reported and documented only several years after its occurrence.
[citation needed] Historian Professor Ian D. Clark wrote that the account by Henty and Blair as told to Robinson is the most likely source of origin.
[4] A fourth account – the oral tradition and reports by the Gunditjmara people – was that a massacre took place almost wiping out an entire clan to "convince them" of white rights to the land.
[1] Kilcarer clan traditional owner Walter Saunders, a descendant of one of the two massacre survivors, explained the cultural importance of the site on ABC Local Radio: It stands on the same level as the Eureka Stockade and Gallipoli from our perspective.