Hornet Bank massacre

[1][page needed] The massacre occurred at about one or two o'clock in the morning of 27 October 1857 at Hornet Bank station on the upper Dawson River near Eurombah in central Queensland, Australia.

[2] It has been moderately estimated that 150 Aboriginal people succumbed in subsequent punitive expeditions conducted by Native Police, private settler militias, and by William Fraser in or around Eurombah district.

Indiscriminate shootings of "over 300" Aboriginal men, women, and children, however, were reportedly conducted by private punitive expedition some 400 kilometres eastward at various stations in the Wide Bay district alone.

[1][page needed][4] British colonists had begun to settle on Yiman land from 1847 following Ludwig Leichhardt's 1844–45 journey through the area on his expedition to find an overland route to Port Essington on the north coast of Australia.

In 1854, he leased the station to Scottish-born John Fraser, who took his wife, Martha, and a large family ranging in age from young children to the early twenties, to live in this area, isolated from other European settlements.

Two years later, John Fraser died of dysentery while on a droving trip to Ipswich and his eldest son, William, then aged 23, took over management of the station in collaboration with the lessee, Andrew Scott.

[5] The stations on the Dawson River were on the land of the Yiman people who bitterly resented the invasion of these European squatters, who were attempting permanent residency without permission or negotiation.

It was also common knowledge in the region that the older Fraser boys would regularly abduct and rape young Yiman women and girls, to the point where their own mother wrote letters to others complaining about the sexual behaviour of her sons.

Firstly, a man named Beilba, who was possibly a Kongabula and who had a reputation for successful raids on the colonists to the south, became regarded as a leading figure in the Hornet Bank attack.

Station hands immediately formed a posse and located a large mob of Aboriginals sleeping some 10 miles (16 km) from the Fraser property; they "showed them no mercy".

[8] The victims of the Hornet Bank attack, who were later buried on the property, included:[9][1][page needed] During the European colonisation of Australia, the main force eliminating Indigenous resistance to the settler acquisition of land was the Native Police.

The method used by the Native Police to suppress resistance to European colonisation was known as "dispersal", which involved indiscriminate shooting and killing of Indigenous men, women, and children that were found in the associated frontier area.

By December 1857, Powell had increased the number of troopers in his division to seventeen, which he put to use by conducting raids on peaceful "station blacks" at Taroom, killing five, including three native women, as they tried to flee.

[1][page needed] In June 1858, the New South Wales Legislative Assembly appointed a select committee to inquire into the killings of Whites and Blacks that had taken place around the Dawson River region.

The squad was called "The Browns" and consisted of Serocold, his property manager at Cockatoo station, Murray-Prior, Horton, Alfred Thomas, McArthur, Piggott, Ernest Davies, and three Aboriginal servants including Billy Hayes and Freddy.

[1][page needed] Despite, or perhaps because of, the sustained and severe punishment meted out by the government's Native Police,[12] Aboriginal resistance in the immediate region continued with the killing of six station-hands in April 1858.

It was reported that after Fraser shot an Aboriginal woman in the main street of Toowoomba because he claimed she was wearing his mother's dress, two policemen spoke with him briefly before saluting and walking away.

[7] It was reported that in 1867, ten years after the massacre, sub-Inspector William Fraser and his troopers were tracking a small group of Iman women and children who had taken refuge at Mackenzie Station on the Fitzroy River.

Although the Yiman people survived, not many actually live within the tribe's borders; they are most commonly found throughout the surrounding areas such as Rockhampton, Mount Morgan, Gladstone, Blackwater, and many more towns near and far.