A punitive expedition, setting out from Adelaide and acting under instructions from Governor Gawler, detained the men believed to be responsible and summarily hanged two presumed culprits.

Maria left Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, on 24 May 1840 and arrived at Port Adelaide harbour on Sunday 7 June 1840, under Captain W. Smith, carrying three passengers and a large amount of cargo, mostly food.

[5] Maria left Port Adelaide on 26 June 1840 for Hobart Town,[6] with 25 persons on board, including the captain, William Ettrick Smith, and his wife.

[2][8] On 28 June 1840, Maria foundered on the Margaret Brock Reef,[b] which lies west of Cape Jaffa on the south-east coast of South Australia.

[9] It was reported a few years after the wreck that Dr Penny had found 11 gold sovereigns on the beach, and a whaler named Tom Clarke obtained more from the local Aboriginal people.

There were no survivors to tell the tale,[8] but accounts suggest that the passengers commenced trekking on the land side of the Coorong coast towards the lakes (Alexandrina and Albert), with the sailors heading inland at some point.

Around this time they were attacked and killed by a group of the Milmenrura (or "Big Murray Tribe", now known as Tanganekald, also known as Tenkinyra),[c] stripped of their possessions,[19] clubbed to death, decapitated[2] and buried in the sand[19] or in wombat holes.

[21] The group reported finding "legs, arms and parts of bodies partially covered with sand and strewn in all directions", and a trail of footprints leading from the area.

[9] On 1 August, they encountered a group of Aboriginal people in possession of blankets and clothing,[20] with one wearing a sailor's jacket,[9] and were told about the deaths of two further survivors.

[22][8] Aboriginal people reported that the survivors of the shipwreck were guided down the Coorong as far as a point opposite Lake Albert, where they were persuaded to separate before all being murdered.

Reinforcements were called for and on 22 August, O'Halloran left Goolwa (then known as "the Elbow"[21]) with a mounted troop, including Alexander Tolmer, Captain Henry Nixon, Charles Bonney, and Pullen.

Gawler's instructions were "...when to your conviction you have identified any number, not exceeding three, of the actual murderers...you will there explain to the blacks the nature of your conduct... and you will deliberately and formally cause sentence of death to be executed by shooting or hanging".

[21] In his report, O'Halloran stated that his captives yielded up the man who had killed a whaler named Roach some two years previously, and also pointed out the location where one of the Maria murderers could be found.

On 12 August, Gawler had consulted Judge Charles Cooper of the Supreme Court as to whether the Aboriginal people were subject to British law, to which he replied that British law could not apply to "people of a wild and savage tribe whose country, although within the limits of the Province of South Australia, has never been occupied by Settlers, who have never submitted themselves to our dominion, and between whom and the Colonists, there has been no social intercourse".

It is founded on the opinion that such only of the native population as have of some degree acquiesced in our dominion can be considered subject of our laws, and that with regard to all others, we must be considered as much strangers as Governor Hindmarsh and the first settlers were to the whole native population when they raised the British standard, on their landing at Glenelg.Watson (2019) points out, in her discussion on the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal peoples, "the lack of acknowledgement that there had never been a dialogue between us and the British on the question of our legal and political status.

[21] In a sketchbook by the then Surveyor General of South Australia, Edward Charles Frome, there is a sketch of a Milmenrura village in the south-east consisting of a cluster of about twelve established homes.

[30] In Australia, little blame was apportioned to O'Halloran for his part in this affair; not so for Governor Gawler, who was severely criticised by sections of the press, notably the Register.

[31] The Society also questioned the legality of the actions; the Chief Justice, though, was of the opinion that South Australian law could not be applied, because the tribe had not pledged allegiance to the Crown.

She also quotes other experts who noted that this incident, along with others, formed a turning point in their interactions with white people, or kringkari: "violation of sacred places and of women incurred serious punishment".

Erected by the National Trust of South Australia In memory of the survivors who landed near this spot and set out to walk to the nearest settlement at Encounter Bay.

On 10 April 1841, members of the Tenkinyra tribe guided Richard Penny to a spot where they promised the remains of a drowned white man were buried.

The Aboriginal people told Penny that the attack had followed the shipwrecked party's refusal to hand over clothing that they had considered their just entitlement for guiding and sustaining the group and carrying the children across their land.

The difficulties were seemingly compounded by some individual crewmen attempting to entice sexual favours from some aboriginal women without realising that this placed certain traditional obligations on them".

The project, supported by Kingston District Council, is an attempt to provide information that tells the story of the Maria massacre from an Indigenous perspective, involving provision of new interpretative signs and a sculpture alongside the present monument.

Watson says that the story is more complex and multifaceted than that recorded in colonial sources "as fierce natives spearing and murdering white people surviving a shipwreck".

Historian Amanda Nettelbeck devoted a chapter in Fatal Collisions[40] (2001) entitled "Reconstructing the Maria Massacre" to the event, which includes several early accounts.