Twenty-eight Wirrayaraay people are murdered at Myall Creek, and the killers are hanged, 1838
The only frontier massacre in colonial Australia to end in conviction and execution
Quick facts
- Date
- 10 June 1838
- Victims
- 28 Wirrayaraay people of the Gamilaraay nation
- Outcome
- seven perpetrators hanged, December 1838
- Investigator
- magistrate Edward Denny Day
What happened
On 10 June 1838, a group of armed stockmen rode onto Myall Creek Station near Bingara in northern New South Wales and killed 28 Wirrayaraay women, children, and old men of the Gamilaraay nation. Unlike most frontier killings, this one was reported and investigated, with magistrate Edward Denny Day leading the inquiry and Attorney General John Hubert Plunkett prosecuting. A first trial in November 1838 ended in acquittals; a second trial, focused on the murder of a child, produced a guilty verdict, and in December 1838 seven of the men were hanged at Sydney Gaol. The party's leader, free settler John Henry Fleming, evaded arrest and was never tried.
Why it matters
It remains the only occasion in Australian colonial history when non-Aboriginal perpetrators of a massacre of Aboriginal people were convicted and executed, an exception that highlights how routinely frontier killings elsewhere went unreported, uninvestigated, and unpunished. The convictions provoked backlash among some settlers who felt the executions set an unwelcome precedent, and prosecutions of this kind did not recur.
How we know
Court records from both 1838 trials survive, along with Day's original investigation report; the site is now a National Heritage-listed memorial administered with input from Gamilaraay descendants and the descendants of the perpetrators.
Sources
- Friends of Myall Creek. The Massacre Story · Reputable sourcemyallcreek.org · The domain "myallcreek.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Friends of Myall Creek. The Massacre Story · Reputable sourcemyallcreek.org · The domain "myallcreek.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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