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http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/letters-henry-howard-meyrick
The letters of Henry Howard Meyrick
Background image: ‘Dispersing’ in the Rainforest, in Black Police: A Story of Modern Australia by AJ Vogan 1889
“… The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. No wild beast of the forest was ever hunted down with such unsparing perseverance as they are. Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with …
I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging.
… For myself, if I caught a black actually killing my sheep, I would shoot him with as little remorse as I would a wild dog, but no consideration on earth would induce me to ride into a camp and fire on them indiscriminately, as is the custom whenever the smoke is seen. They [the Aborigines] will very shortly be extinct. It is impossible to say how many have been shot, but I am convinced that not less than *450 have been murdered altogether…”
Gippsland squatter Henry Meyrick
wrote in a letter home to his relatives in England in 30th April, 1846.
From the publication:
‘Gippsland Settlers and the Kurnai Dead’ by Patrick Morgan
Sent from Westernport and Gippsland in Victoria to his mother, brother and sister in England detailing his life as an aspiring squatter.
Transcribed and introduced by Jeremy Hales and Marion Le Cheminant
Bib ID 1569454
Description [Maffra, Vic.]: JJB Publishing, [1997].
Book 46 pages, maps and facsims. (30 cm)Details: National Library of Australia
A memoir of Henry Howard Meyrick / by F.J. Meyrick; with a foreword by Sir William Campion
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Bib ID 153769 Format: Book
Author: Meyrick, F. J. (Frederick James)
Description London; Melbourne: Nelson, 1939.
xvi, 268 p. : ill., maps, ports. (21 cm)
Details: National Library of Australia
List of Gippsland massacres
Compiled from letters and diaries:
| Year | Location | Documented details |
|---|---|---|
| 1840 | Nuntin | unknown number killed by Angus McMillan’s men |
| 1840 | Boney Point | “Angus McMillan and his men took a heavy toll of Aboriginal lives” |
| 1841 | Butchers Creek | 30-35 shot by Angus McMillan’s men |
| 1841 | Maffra | unknown number shot by Angus McMillan’s men |
| 1842 | Skull Creek | unknown number killed |
| 1842 | Bruthen Creek | “hundreds killed” |
| 1843 | Warrigal Creek | between 80 and 200 shot by Angus McMillan and his men |
| 1844 | Maffra | unknown number killed |
| 1846 | South Gippsland | 14 killed |
| 1846 | Snowy River | 8 killed by Captain Dana and the Aboriginal Police |
| 1846-47 | Central Gippsland | 50 or more shot by armed party hunting for a white woman supposedly held by Aborigines; no such woman was ever found. |
| 1850 | East Gippsland | 15-20 killed |
| 1850 | Murrindal | 16 poisoned |
| 1850 | Brodribb River | 15-20 killed |
| MOST COMPREHENSIVE MASSACRE LIST – THE VICTORIA PAGE Australian Frontier Conflics | ||
