Waterloo Creek massacre

[1] The Waterloo Creek Massacre site is listed on the New South Wales Heritage Register as a place of significance in frontier violence leading to the murder of Gamilaraay people.

[2] The events have been subject to much dispute, due to wildly conflicting accounts by various participants and in subsequent reports and historical analyses, about the nature and number of fatalities and the lawfulness of the actions.

[3] After two months the mounted police, consisting of two sergeants and twenty troopers led by Major James Nunn, arrested 15 Aboriginals along the Namoi River.

[5] On the morning of 26 January, in a surprise attack on Nunn's party, Corporal Hannan was wounded in the calf with a spear, where subsequently members of the Kamilaroi were killed.

[7] As there had been no declaration of martial law or other authorising legislation, the police lacked authority to use more than reasonable force proportionate to any risk to the safety of persons or property.

On 14 August 1838 the Legislative Council appointed a Committee of Inquiry into "the present state of Aborigines", to be presided over by the Anglican Bishop, William Broughton.

[8] Attorney General Plunkett was reluctant to prosecute any of Nunn's expeditionary force, due to the time delays, the unavailability of reliable evidence and popular opposition.

Located along the Waterloo/Millie Creek waterway the site has been largely degraded with only remnant vegetation including leopardwood, weeping myall, brigalow and silver-leaved ironbark.