Convincing Ground Massacre - Massacre

Massacre

While reports are varied on casualties, it is clear that Gunditjmara people were determined to assert their right to the whale as traditional food and when challenged by the whalers, were aggressive in return.

According to Edward Henty and Police Magistrate James Blair in conversation with George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines in 1841, the whalers withdrew to the head station only to return with their firearms. Robinson's journal entry says "And the whalers then let fly, to use his expression, right and left upon the natives. He said the natives did not go away but got behind trees and threw spears and stones. They, however, did not much molest them after that." No mention was made in the conversation as to casualties. Later reports arising from a meeting in 1842 that Robinson had with Gunditjmara people stated only two members survived the massacre.

"Accounts vary, but the number of Aborigines killed is believed to be between 60 and 200."

The reason for this uncertainty over casualties and the actual date of the massacre appears to stem from the fact that the incident was only reported and documented several years after its occurrence. The earliest documented mention of the Convincing Ground locality is in an entry of Edward Henty's diary dated 18 October 1835.

George Augustus Robinson visited the site of the massacre in 1841 and talked with local squatters and made the following official report (although he made more extensive notes in his journal):

"Among the remarkable places on the coast, is the 'Convincing Ground', originating in a severe conflict which took place in a few years previous between the Aborigines and the Whalers on which occasion a large number of the former were slain. The circumstances are that a whale had come on shore and the Natives who fed on the carcass claimed it was their own. The whalers said they would 'convince them' and had recourse to firearms. On this spot a fishery is now established."

Robinson was only briefed by Aborigines on the massacre when 30 men and women from various clans of the Gunditjmara people met with him on 23 March 1842 at Campbell's station on the Merri River and told him that all but two men of the Kilcarer gundidj clan were slain in the massacre. The two survivors were called Pollikeunnuc and Yarereryarerer and were adopted by the Cart Gundidj clan of Mount Clay. The Cart Gundidj would not allow any member of the clan to go near the settlement of Portland following the massacre, although in May 1842 Cart Gundidj resistance leader Partpoaermin was captured at the Convincing Ground after a violent struggle.

Historian Richard Broome estimated that about 60 were killed at the Convincing Ground massacre. Bruce Pascoe, in his book published in 2007 titled Convincing Ground - Learning to Fall in love with your country, said:

"The battle site became known as the Convincing Ground, the place where the Gundidjmara were ‘convinced’ of white rights to the land. The Gundidjmara were beaten in that battle but never convinced of its legitimacy."