Mass poisonings of Aboriginal Australians

During the British colonisation of Australia, land ownership was forcefully transferred from the various Indigenous populations to the colonists. Several military and paramilitary organisations such as the British Army, Native Police, Border Police and New South Wales Mounted Police were utilised by the British to eliminate any Aboriginal resistance to this acquisition of land. However, it was often the responsibility of the pioneering colonists themselves to take the initiative in enforcing land ownership transferral. Usually this was done violently through the use of firearms to intimidate or kill the native people. Some colonists though, chose an alternative approach, using poison concealed in consumables as a method of extirpating the original custodians of the land. The tainted consumables were either knowingly given out to groups of native people, or purposely left in accessible places where they were taken away and eaten collectively by the local clans. As a result, incidents of mass deaths of Aboriginal Australians due to these deliberate mass poisonings occurred throughout the continent.[1][2]

The mass poisonings were generally done in a secretive manner but there are many documented cases with some involving police and government investigations. They appear to have begun as a colonial method in Australia during the 1820s when toxic substances utilised in the sheep farming industry became readily available. Chemicals such as arsenic, strychnine, corrosive sublimate, aconitum and prussic acid were all used. There are no cases of convictions being reported against any of the perpetrators of these mass poisonings.

Some examples of mass poisonings
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.
  • 1824, Bathurst - members of the Wiradjuri people poisoned with arsenic infused damper.[1]
  • 1827, Hunter Valley - colonists along the Hunter River poisoning Aboriginal people with corrosive sublimate.[3]
  • ~1833, Gangat - large number of Aboriginal people killed on the Australian Agricultural Company's million acre land grant near Gloucester by being given poisoned flour in up to three separate incidents.[4][5]
  • 1840, Glen Innes - reports of deaths of Aboriginal people by prussic acid poisoning investigated by government authorities but denied by pastoralists.[6]
  • 1841, Wannon River - at least seven Aboriginal people poisoned to death on one of the Henty brothers' leaseholds.[7]
  • 1842, Tarrone - at least nine Aboriginal people poisoned to death near Port Fairy by being given poisoned flour on the squatting run of James Kilgour.[7]
  • 1842, Mount Kilcoy - a large number of Aboriginal people were poisoned to death at an outpost of Evan Mackenzie's Kilcoy property.[8][9]
  • 1846, Tyntynder - between 8 and 20 Aboriginal people killed by eating poisoned flour given to them by Scottish colonist Andrew Beveridge near Swan Hill.[10]
  • 1847, Whiteside - at least three Aboriginal people killed by arsenic-laced flour being placed out for them to take. This occurred on the Whiteside squatting run of Captain George Griffin.[11]
  • 1847, Kangaroo Creek - close to 30 Aboriginal people killed by poison given to them in flour by Thomas Coutts near Grafton. Coutts was arrested and sent to Sydney but the case was dropped.[12]
  • 1849, Port Lincoln - five Aboriginal people including an infant were killed after being given flour mixed with arsenic by hutkeeper Patrick Dwyer near Port Lincoln. Despite being arrested with strong evidence against him, Dwyer was released from custody by Charles Driver, the Government Resident at Port Lincoln.[13]
  • 1856, Hornet Bank - a number of Aboriginal people killed by being given strychnine-laced Christmas pudding in the lead-up to the Hornet Bank massacre.[14]
  • 1860s, Warginburra Peninsula - Edward Hampton "Cranky" Baker added arsenic to his food stores knowing they would be stolen by the local Aboriginal people living on his "Peninsula" land-holding adjoining Shoalwater Bay. The shooting and poisoning of these people greatly diminished their number.[15] Baker also had land near the town of Rockhampton in which supplies of arsenic-laced flour were placed. In 1870 several South Sea Islanders ate this flour and one died. Baker faced a magisterial inquiry but the matter was dropped.[16][17]
  • 1885, Florida cattle station - a large number of Yolngu people became ill and died after being given poisoned horse-meat on John Arthur Macartney's newly established Florida cattle station in north-eastern Arnhem Land.[18]
  • ~1890, Dungog - "young blacks" begging near to town "were easily disposed of" by being given poison in their food.[19]
  • 1895, Fernmount - six Aboriginal people poisoned to death near Bellingen by being given aconite to drink by John Kelly. Kelly was suspected of manslaughter and committed for trial but was found not guilty and discharged.[20][21]
  • 1896, Lakeland Downs - Arsenic deliberately placed in baking powder killed a significant number of Aboriginal people near Lakeland as "just retribution" for the spearing of a Scottish colonist.[22]
  • 1908, Mt Ida - eight Aboriginal people killed by poison near Leonora. Explorer William Carr-Boyd described them as "eight niggers..who got something more to eat than they bargained for". It appears that the Western Australian police, the coroner and health authorities actively downplayed the incident.[23]
  • 1936, Timber Creek - five Aboriginal people killed by arsenic being put in their food near Timber Creek.[24]
  • 1981, Alice Springs - two Aboriginal people were killed and fourteen others were made ill by drinking from a bottle of sherry which had strychnine deliberately added to it. The poisoned bottle was intentionally left by persons unknown in a place of easy access to this group of Aboriginal people.[25]
  • 2015, Collarenebri - three Aboriginal people, Norman Boney, Sandra Boney and Roger Adams, were poisoned to death after buying methanol-laced moonshine from Mary Miller in the town of Collarenebri. Miller was not charged in relation to the deaths and only received a $5,000 fine for selling liquor without a licence from magistrate Clare Girotti.[26][27]

The Secret River, a 2005 novel by Kate Grenville, graphically depicts a quasi-fictional account of a deliberate mass poisoning of Indigenous Australians camped along the Hawkesbury River.[28] The novel was later adapted into a stage play[29] and also a television mini-series.[30]

Twelve Canoes, a 2008 documentary of the culture and history of the Yolngu people directed by Rolf de Heer, relates details of the Florida Station poisoning that occurred in Arnhem Land in 1885.[31]

See also

References
  1. Elder, Bruce (2003). Blood on the Wattle (3rd ed.). London: New Holland. ISBN 9781741100082.
  2. Kiernan, Ben (2007), Blood and soil : a world history of genocide and extermination from Sparta to Darfur, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-10098-3
  3. "THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES". The Australian. 20 June 1827. p. 3. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. Blomfield, Geoffrey (1992), Baal Belbora : the end of the dancing (Rev. ed. [ie. 3rd ed.] ed.), Colonial Research Society, ISBN 978-0-909188-90-0
  5. "The Story of the Blacks". The Kiama Reporter And Illawarra Journal. 26 (2788). New South Wales, Australia. 3 December 1904. p. 3. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. Threlkeld, L. E. (Lancelot Edward); Gunson, Niel (1974), Australian reminiscences & papers of L.E. Threlkeld, missionary to the Aborigines, 1824-1859, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, ISBN 978-0-85575-031-2
  7. Clark, Ian (1995). Scars in the Landscape. Canberra: AIATSIS. ISBN 0855752815.
  8. Petrie, C.C. (1904). Tom Petrie's reminiscences of early Queensland. Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson and Co.
  9. "GERMAN MISSION TO THE ABORIGINES AT MORETON BAY". The Colonial Observer. II (82). New South Wales, Australia. 3 December 1842. p. 3. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. Cannon, Michael (1993). Black Land, White Land. Melbourne: Minerva. pp. 230–231.
  11. Bottoms, Timothy (2013). Conspiracy of Silence. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781743313824.
  12. Lydon, Jane. "'no moral doubt' : Aboriginal evidence and the Kangaroo Creek poisoning, 1847–1849" (PDF). Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  13. Tolmer, Alexander (1882). Reminiscences of an adventurous and chequered career at home and at the Antipodes Vol.2. London: Sampson Low. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
  14. Reid, Gordon (1982), A nest of hornets : the massacre of the Fraser family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and related events, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-554358-2
  15. ""CRANKY" BAKER". The Capricornian. XLVII (40). Queensland, Australia. 7 October 1922. p. 49. Retrieved 29 October 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  16. "THE POISONING OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS". Rockhampton Bulletin And Central Queensland Advertiser (1319). Queensland, Australia. 7 January 1871. p. 2. Retrieved 29 October 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  17. "LOCAL ITEMS". Rockhampton Bulletin And Central Queensland Advertiser (1335). Queensland, Australia. 11 February 1871. p. 4. Retrieved 29 October 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  18. "Florida Station poisoning". Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia. The Centre for 21st Century Humanities. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  19. "THE BLACKS". Dungog Chronicle : Durham And Gloucester Advertiser. New South Wales, Australia. 2 November 1945. p. 1. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  20. "The Poisoning of Blacks". Goulburn Evening Penny Post. New South Wales, Australia. 4 July 1895. p. 1. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  21. "The Poisoned Blacks". National Advocate. 6 (228). New South Wales, Australia. 5 August 1895. p. 3. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  22. "Murder and Poison". Darling Downs Gazette. XXXVIII (9, 033). Queensland, Australia. 6 June 1896. p. 5. Retrieved 5 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  23. "THE MOUNT IDA BLACKS". The West Australian. XXIV (7, 090). Western Australia. 14 December 1908. p. 5. Retrieved 5 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  24. "PUT POISON IN FOOD AFTER BEING SPEARED". The Chronicle. LXXVIII (4, 152). South Australia. 11 June 1936. p. 41. Retrieved 4 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  25. "Poison-wine murder". The Canberra Times. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 17 October 1981. p. 8. Retrieved 23 December 2019 – via Trove.
  26. Whyte, Sarah (7 December 2016). "Collarenebri in shock over toxic moonshine that claimed three lives". ABC News. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  27. Ferguson, Kathleen (12 December 2017). "Woman who sold toxic moonshine in Collarenebri escapes jail term". ABC News. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  28. Grenville, Kate (2006), The secret river, Text Pub, ISBN 978-1-921145-25-4
  29. Bovell, Andrew; Grenville, Kate, 1950-. Secret river; Currency Press (2013), The secret river by Kate Grenville : an adaptation for the stage, Currency Press, ISBN 978-1-925005-00-4CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  30. "The Secret River". abc.net.au. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
  31. "Twelve Canoes". vimeo.com. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
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