What actually happened?
- Late in the afternoon on the 10th June 1838, a group of 11 convict, brutally killed a group of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children who were camping next to the place huts on the Myall Creek cattle station. But in fact that the Myall Creek Massacre was just one of the uncountable massacres that took place right across the country from the earliest days of British settlement in 1788 through to 1928, it stands alone in its historical significance.
Why the men were found innocent?
- On the day of the sentence, in spite of the evidence brought forward to them, the judges took 20 minutes of discussed to declaring them not guilty, the men greeted this by cheering, because there were no actual witnesses who came forward and the public where desperate and started paying for the 11 men to be declared innocent.
Why were they later found guilty?
But One of the judges later said “I knew the men were guilty of murder but I would never see a white man hanged for killing a black”. The Seven of the non-guilty men we re-trailed later after these words but with different chargers lied against them and where found guilty and later hanged.
This was the first time the white men were brought forward to justice and court for killing the indigenous people.
What did this mean for the Australian Society at the time?
- This trial was important because it is the only time in Australia’s history that white men were arrested and hanged for the massacre of the indigenous. Due to the fact that it was so thoroughly investigated at the time, it provides certain evidence of not just this massacre but also of how everyday such massacres were at the time.
Why has Murdering Creek Road such a gruesome name?
- The name Murdering Creek Road, came across because after all of the Massacres that where around that area, around 1,862 murders that where committed there, that is how the name Murdering Creek Road came in.