The Hospital Creek Massacre refers to a retaliatory mass-slaughter of

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

in 1859 in rural

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. There are differing accounts of this event, but one alleges that a white stockman at Walcha Hut (now called Brewarrina), abducted an Aboriginal woman. The stockman was warned by the woman's fellow tribe members to release her. When the stockman refused to release the woman, they were both killed. White settlers retaliated by shooting a large number of Aboriginal men, women and children. Another version claims that the Hospital Creek Massacre refers to the death of 300 Aboriginals in retaliation for having "annoyed" white settlers. Both of these versions are attempts at justification. In 1928,

The Sydney Mail ''The Sydney Mail'' was an Australian magazine published weekly in Sydney. It was the weekly edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' newspaper and ran from 1860 to 1938. History ''The Sydney Mail'' was first published on 17 July 1860 by J ...

published an article titled Pioneers of the West: The Massacre at Hospital Creek, written by G. M. Smith. This article is cited in the references (2), however the true account contained in that article is not. Smith claimed to have met a cattleman named Con Bride near

Brewarrina Brewarrina (pronounced 'bree-warren-ah'; locally known as "Bre") is a town in north-west New South Wales, Australia on the banks of the Barwon River in Brewarrina Shire. The name Brewarrina is derived from 'burru waranha', a Weilwan name for a s ...

in the 1880s. Con Bride was managing the Quantambone

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stat ...

in 1859. He found that many of his cattle were being speared near the waterholes, and attempted to persuade the Aboriginals to move on. They refused, so he sent to an adjoining cattle station for assistance. They sent men and ammunition, and Con Bride led a force of 20 armed men to disperse the Aboriginals. He claims to have only shot a "dozen or so", however it is likely that it was many more, as many as 400. He was quoted as saying

"Some went so far as to say that I should have been put on trial for what I did, but the Government was well aware of the fact that the work we were doing outback could not be done with white-gloves on, and, therefore, were not too ready to take action in such cases, but depended on the humanity of the white settlers to spare the natives as much as possible."

He described how the Aboriginals were hiding in the trees at the waterholes and spearing the cattle when they came to drink.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=September 2016 Brewarrina, New South Wales Far West (New South Wales) 1859 in Australia Massacres in 1859 Massacres of Indigenous Australians Murder in New South Wales