The Gippsland Plains Massacres
The Gippsland Plain Massacres were a series of Massacres in the 1840s which saw the killing of Aboriginal people of the Gunai/Kurnai area by the British settlers in Gippsland, Victoria.
With the British settlers already establishing themselves in the N.S.W after they found a way over the impenetrable Blue Mountains, it was a similar story for when Angus McMillan, an explorer, climbed Mount McLeod, and saw the fertile land of Gippsland. However, not all was good for McMillan. The Aboriginal Guide with him, Jimmy Gabber, attempted to murder him in his sleep. This attempt unsuccessful, but it had forced McMillan to return to his home after a 9 days on a 6 week long planned exploration.
Once they had the knowledge that this land was available, wealthy people, along with the help of Governor Macalister who was Governor at the time, started funding further exploration of the land which had been discovered by McMillan. He spent a year in which he went on many explorations to the land, and in 1841, McMillan located a place which the British could build a Port, which is current-day Port Albert. As the British started to build on the land of the Aborigines, violence, which had already started from when the British first started exploring the land, increased in terms of deaths and destruction.
Unlike in the settling of New South Wales, where the relationship had started off as peaceful, the relationship in Gippsland was violent. The British people would kill the Aboriginal people for no reason, and with their advanced weaponry over the Aboriginals, they did not stand a chance. Between the years 1840-1850, a staggering 14 massacres occurred in and around the Gunai/Kurani area, with McMillan seen as the leader for many of these attacks. The brutal leader and his men were said to have executed a confirmed number of 300 people, but it is said that they could have easily murdered up to thousands of Aboriginal people.
With the British settlers already establishing themselves in the N.S.W after they found a way over the impenetrable Blue Mountains, it was a similar story for when Angus McMillan, an explorer, climbed Mount McLeod, and saw the fertile land of Gippsland. However, not all was good for McMillan. The Aboriginal Guide with him, Jimmy Gabber, attempted to murder him in his sleep. This attempt unsuccessful, but it had forced McMillan to return to his home after a 9 days on a 6 week long planned exploration.
Once they had the knowledge that this land was available, wealthy people, along with the help of Governor Macalister who was Governor at the time, started funding further exploration of the land which had been discovered by McMillan. He spent a year in which he went on many explorations to the land, and in 1841, McMillan located a place which the British could build a Port, which is current-day Port Albert. As the British started to build on the land of the Aborigines, violence, which had already started from when the British first started exploring the land, increased in terms of deaths and destruction.
Unlike in the settling of New South Wales, where the relationship had started off as peaceful, the relationship in Gippsland was violent. The British people would kill the Aboriginal people for no reason, and with their advanced weaponry over the Aboriginals, they did not stand a chance. Between the years 1840-1850, a staggering 14 massacres occurred in and around the Gunai/Kurani area, with McMillan seen as the leader for many of these attacks. The brutal leader and his men were said to have executed a confirmed number of 300 people, but it is said that they could have easily murdered up to thousands of Aboriginal people.
The White woman of Gippsland Incident
With relationships already tense enough, it was said that the Aboriginals were keeping a white woman captive in there group. This story had the whole British settlement talking, however, no one had any information on who it was or how she got captured. With no information being handed to police, this resulted in both British police and Native police to search around the land for her.
The British felt threatened by this, and this sparked attacks on the Aboriginal people by the British, which saw 50 Aboriginals lose their lives in the Massacre of Central Gippsland.
The British then revoked by capturing and taking in an Aboriginal boy, who they taught English so that he could be used as an interpreter between the Settlers and the Aboriginals. When the two groups met up together, they had arranged a meeting for the Aboriginals to give the missing girl back to the settlers.
The Aboriginals had left many of the British settlers shocked when instead of the supposed missing white woman, they showed up with the figurehead of the ship of Britannia, and it ended up that there was no wrong-doing from the Aboriginals part.
The British felt threatened by this, and this sparked attacks on the Aboriginal people by the British, which saw 50 Aboriginals lose their lives in the Massacre of Central Gippsland.
The British then revoked by capturing and taking in an Aboriginal boy, who they taught English so that he could be used as an interpreter between the Settlers and the Aboriginals. When the two groups met up together, they had arranged a meeting for the Aboriginals to give the missing girl back to the settlers.
The Aboriginals had left many of the British settlers shocked when instead of the supposed missing white woman, they showed up with the figurehead of the ship of Britannia, and it ended up that there was no wrong-doing from the Aboriginals part.