Chilling Details About Australia's Last Officially Sanctioned Massacre

For almost 150 years, violence in Australia against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples was entirely sanctioned by the state (via the Australian Museum). Police officers would even eagerly join forces with civilians to enact vigilante violence, resulting in hundreds of massacres and the deaths of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The last of these massacres, known as the Coniston massacre, occurred in the 1920s, after which point it became relatively more difficult for civilians to murder Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with impunity. This power was limited to the police force by the second half of the 20th century.

But the horror of the state-sanctioned massacres isn't easily forgotten by many. Still, it took until 2018 — 90 years since the Coniston massacre — for the Northern Territory Police commissioner to issue an apology on behalf of the officers who participated in the last state-sanctioned massacre of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

During the 90th anniversary memorial for those killed in the Coniston massacre, Central Land Council chairman Francis Jupurrurla Kelly stated that "until all Australians know about the crimes committed against our families and many others during hundreds of documented colonial massacres we can't move forward as one mob, one country" (via the National Indigenous Times). Here are some chilling details about Australia's last officially sanctioned massacre.

In the years preceding the Coniston massacre, the region known as the Northern Territory of Australia experienced a severe drought that started in 1924. According to Aboriginal History, this drought was the worst drought ever recorded in Central Australia. By 1928, the severe drought led the traditional water sources of the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre, and Kaytetye nations to dry up. In addition, overgrazing contributed to the decimation of vegetation. And Australian Frontier Conflicts writes that because most of the permanent waterholes and soaks were on colonized lands, the Aboriginal peoples were forced to confront white Australians more and more for water and food.

After the massacre at Coniston was made known to the public, the Commonwealth Government "sought to establish that [the] drought was either non-existent or negligible in its impact — certainly in no way responsible for Aboriginal violence."

In response to the food shortages, the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre, and Kaytetye often speared the cattle of pastoralists. Common Ground also writes that many waterholes used by Aboriginal people were frequently destroyed by the pastoralists' cattle. And while killing cattle was an offense punishable by death, the punishment for killing an Aboriginal person was "non-existent," according to ON LINE opinion.

Although Brooks' murder by Warlpiri people is largely accepted as fact, the reason behind his murder remains up for speculation up to a century after his death. Before setting out for dingo scalping, Brooks was reportedly told by his friend Stafford that he shouldn't venture more than 14 miles west of Coniston station because there had already been threats made towards Stafford and Alice, the Warlpiri woman he lived with, from the Warlpiri people (via Aboriginal History).

Another account states that Brooks never honored his agreement with Japanangka. According to "Racial Folly," Brooks reportedly refused to allow Marungardi to return and tried to keep her at the station. And when she finally managed to return, she returned with neither the tobacco nor the food that Brooks owed her. Common Ground notes that some secondary accounts also claim that Brooks may have sexually assulted one or two of Japanangka's wives. In 1975, Japanangka's granddaughter stated that "At Yurrkuru my grandfather killed a whitefella. He hit the whitefella because the whitefella stole his wife." Our Song Lines writes that breaking Aborginial marriage law was considered a crime punishable by death.

Other accounts, mainly from European sources, claim that Brooks was killed "so as to get possession of his flour and tobacco."

Between August 14 and October 18, 1928, Murray's lynch mob rode through Central Australia, slaughtering any and all Aboriginal people they encountered. According to NACCHO, the Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye nations were the people largely affected by the massacres. Although the Board of Enquiry reported that the official death toll was 31, it's believed that at least 100 people, if not more, were murdered during the months-long killing-spree. No one was spared during the massacres, not even children. And whenever Aboriginal people tried to defend themselves, Murray would claim that he was simply attacking in self-defense.

Our Song Lines writes that the massacres occurred in dozens of places, including Rabbit Bore, Mt Theo, Tipinpa, Mission Creek, Dingo Waterhole, Boomerang Waterhole, Circle Well, and Baxter's Well. And although Murray and his men sometimes captured prisoners, "almost all of them succumbed to fatal gunshot wounds."

Two Warlpiri men named Akirkra and Padygar survived the killing spree and were taken back to Darwin and tried for Brooks' murder. Although neither men spoke English, they each allegedly made separate confessions. On October 19, Murray wrote a one-page report on the patrol without noting the exact number of Warlpiri, Anmatyerre, and Kaytetye people that were murdered by the lynch mob. Murray reportedly put little effort into his report because "I did it in a very great hurry as I had to go out about some other matters," referring to the upcoming trial of Akirkra and Padygar (per Aboriginal History).

Because Akirkra and Padygar had pleaded guilty before the Magistrate Allchurch in Alice Springs, many assumed that the trial against them was going to be a formality. As written in "Coniston" by Michael Bradley, "the police and prosecutors had not bothered with such things as forensic evidence or witnesses." The only witness brought to the stand was a young Aboriginal boy named Lala, and it's unclear if Lala was even present at the time of the murder.

One man in the jury composed of all-white men reportedly stated that he could not sit on the jury "as he knew nothing of Aboriginal customs or language, was therefore not a peer of the accused and that to include him would offend Magna Carta." He was excused from jury duty, although the judge claimed that he had no idea what the man was referring to.

Aboriginal History writes that because of inconsistencies in Lala's testimonies as well as the fact that the two confessions of guilt were determined to be inadmissible, both Akirkra and Padygar were ultimately acquitted. The trial also ended up "attracting the attention of the missionary community to the killing of at least 17 Warlpiri."

Between 1794 and 1926, there were at least 270 massacres against Aboriginal people, which were intended by white Europeans to exterminate the Aboriginal people. This part of Australian history is known as "the killing times," used to describe the officially state-sanctioned massacres, and Our Song Lines writes that the Coniston massacre is considered to be the last one. According to "Remembering the Myall Ck Massacre," evidence that the killings were state-sanctioned lies in "the fact that vast numbers of genocidal murders in colonial Australia went unpunished[.]"

The Guardian reports that initially, the massacres were perpetrated by British soldiers, then police, later settlers, with police and settlers often working together. Native police under the colonial government were also involved in the mass killings.

These attacks reportedly became more and more lethal over time. Although the average number of deaths among Aboriginal people increased, "from the early 1900s casualties among the settlers ended entirely – with the exception of one death in 1928." Most often, the massacres were motivated as revenge for the killing of a white settler, but over 50 attacks were in response to the killing or theft of livestock or property.