List of Massacres of Indigenous Australians - 1800s

1800s

The first known massacre of Aboriginal people by the British occurred in 1816, along the Cataract River, a tributary of the Nepean River, south of Sydney. Governor Macquarie sent parties against the Gundungurra and Dharawal people, allegedly in reprisal over their encroachments against white farms in the "Nepean" and "Cowpastures" Districts. The British raiding parting split in two at Bent's Basin, with one group moving south-west against the Gundungurra, and the other moving south-east against the Dharawal. This latter group came upon Cataract Gorge,where the soldiers used their horses to force men, women and children to fall from the cliffs of the Gorge, to their deaths below. The occurrence of the Cataract Gorge (or Appin) Massacre is confirmed by Heritage NSW and the University of Western Sydney.

• The Black War refers to a period of intermittent conflict between the British colonists, whalers and sealers including those of the American sealing fleet and Aborigines in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) in the early years of the 19th century. The conflict has been described as a genocide resulting in the elimination of the full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal population. There are currently some 20,000 individuals who claim Tasmanian Aboriginal descent.

The culmination of this period was the transfer of some 200 survivors, in the 1830s, to Flinders Island in Bass Strait by George Augustus Robinson. Some historians such as Henry Reynolds have described the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island, as ‘by far the best equipped, most heavily funded and lavishly staffed of all colonial institutions for Aborigines ’. Josephine Flood notes that they were provided with housing, clothing, rations of food, the services of a doctor and educational facilities. Convicts were assigned to build housing (Henry Reynolds notes that the cottages for Aboriginal people were extremely well built) and do most of the work at the settlement including the growing of food in the vegetable gardens. However, in 1839, Governor Franklin had appointed a board to inquire into the conditions at Wybalenna that had rejected Robinson's claims regarding living conditions and found the settlement to be a failure. Camp conditions had deteriorated and many of the residents had died of ill health and homesickness. The report was never released and the government continued to promote Wybalenna as a success in the treatment of Aboriginal Australians. Of the 220 who arrived, most died in the following 14 years from introduced disease with the 47 survivors moved to a settlement at Oyster Cove south of Hobart in 1847. Some historians have described the Wybalenna settlement as not suitable: the food and living conditions as poor, and allege that many died of malnutrition as well as disease. Some of the descendants of the Aboriginal Tasmanians still live on Flinders Island and nearby Cape Barren Island.