Aboriginal People: Yidinydji, Buluwanydji, Djabuganydji, Yirrganydji and Barbaram, Ngadanydji and Djiru.

Colonial Forces: Queensland Native Mounted Police, some cattlemen and settlers, Constable Hansen; Sub Inspector Ernest Carr

Notable Colonists: GE Dalrymple; Sub-Inspector Johnstone; Prof. Rentoul; Sen Constable Whelan (NMP); Inspector John Isley; Sub-Inspector Douglas; Patrick Molloy; John Atherton

Audio/visual

Massacre Recollection by the Elders, in the Tully Region (south of Cairns)

A Conspiracy of Silence, Qld's frontier killing times - Timothy Bottoms

Narrative

Queensland came into existence in 1859, but the land-grab began earlier (from the 1840s).

Some thirteen years later in 1872 in Far North Queensland a Sydney ship, the Maria, packed with would-be gold miners was wrecked off the coast from Tam O’Shanter Point, near Cardwell. After one of the rafts was attacked by Aborigines and a European killed, a party of Native Police led by Sub-Inspector Johnstone, and some settlers, massacred Djiru people, opposite Dunk Island in retribution. They were following precedence that originated from the 1838 Myall Creek Massacre, where seven whites were hanged for their part in those killings. This influenced Queensland squatters to be quiet about any massacres that they were involved with, and led to the conspiracy of silence that pervaded the frontier.

Gold had been found on the Palmer River in 1873 and on the Hodgkinson Goldfields in 1876 and George Elphinstone Dalrymple had been sent to reconnoitre the coastline from Cardwell to Cooktown (1873). From this, miners from the Hodgkinson Goldfield managed to find a shorter route closer to the coast at 80 miles (128 kms) versus Cooktown at 200 miles (320 kms). This heralded the invasion of Indigenous Far North Queensland. Coming on the heels of the miners came settlers who wanted to rear cattle for the goldfields, and others who wanted to farm. The newly created Government of Queensland claimed the land as Crown land.

In 1873 Dalrymple’s exploration party landed in Yirrganydji territory opposite Wangal Djunggay (Double Island) where they shot several Yirrganydji.

Dalrymple ‘helped’ to settle Bowen and had, as historian Bruce Breslin stated: ‘no intention of avoiding bloodshed … What he said and what he did were often two different things …[he]… showed from the beginning he would arm and alarm the frontier.’

On the southern Atherton Tablelands white settlers in conjunction with the Native Mounted Police began what the first historian for Cairns, JW Collinson, identified as ‘The Skull Pocket, Mulgrave River and Skeleton Creek Battue’. This happened in December 1884 and ended in January 1885. We know that at Skeleton Creek there were at least 16 Bama [Rainforest Aboriginal People] killed but the overall total was said to be sizeable, according to the witness, Jack Kane, who retold the tale to Dr Norman Tindale in 1938. Combined with the separate 1886 massacre at Cockatoo Bora ground in the Goldsborough Valley led by Christy Palmerston and his Ngadjanydji carriers, as Collinson stated, it completely broke up the Yidinydji tribe.

This inspired some bully-boy Cairns’ residents to go to Buchans Estate to quell the Yirrganydji, but the melee was short-lived and was over before they arrived.

The Djabuganydji experienced four separate killings, starting with Rifle Creek in the 1880s, when an Irish prospector turned pack-horse carrier, Patrick Molloy, worked the Port Douglas-Herberton Road. At one stage he lost eight of his draught horses to the Djabugay, Molloy and a party of Native Mounted Police and some white settlers tracked the Djabugay group to Bunda Bugal (Black Mountain), at the head of Rifle Creek where blacks who showed fight were dispersed.

Also in the 1880s, cattlemen, on three occasions on Flaggy Creek, (Black Water Lagoon, Mama’s Camp and Balilee) shot Djabugay for rustling their cattle.

Again in the 1880s at Bones Knob (just North of Atherton near Tolga), many Barbaram were forced over cliffs and killed. To the Bama it felt that the Native Mounted Police and settlers were out to exterminate local tribes. Many tribes were reduced to enclaves, refugees in their own country. ‘Depredations’ were sometimes followed by the murder of a white man, which regularly led to a violent European response culminating in a massacre. The massacre at Butcher’s Creek in 1889 seems to have been as a result of one John Clifford being murdered on the Russell River Goldfield. The tribe concerned were the Ngadjanydji,  however, the overall effect on the Bama was to drive terror in any rainforest Aborigines left alive.

Between 1878 and early 1880s, there were reports from the Native Mounted Police of ‘outrages’ and ‘depredations’ that had been committed by the ‘bad Blacks of the north’. One such report was the ‘dispersal’ at Clohesy River in 1881 by Sub Inspector Ernest Carr (stationed at Baan Bero) where a local village of the Buluwanydji was attacked and ‘dispersed’. Nine years later, John Atherton and party were camped at Groves Creek where a pony was commandeered by local Buluwanydji. Atherton’s party followed up and killed the horse thieves at Speewah. Apparently a second massacre occurred not long afterwards.

The dispersal of tribes in the Cairns region was, as it was for the rest of Australia, a disaster for Aboriginal Australians. Any independence or freedom from European dominance was to wait until the late 20th Century.

Contributor: Timothy Bottoms

Sources

T. Bottoms, Bama Bulmba Series, The Tribes of the Wet Tropics; Yidinydji Tribe; Yirrganydji Tribe; Buluwanydji Tribe & Djabuganydji Tribe www.cairnshistory.com.au
T. Bottoms, CAIRNS, City of the South Pacific, A History 1770-1995, Bunu Bunu Press, Cairns, 2016.
T. Bottoms, Conspiracy of Silence, Queensland’s frontier killing times, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2013.
T. Bottoms, The Bama - People of the Rainforest, Gadja Enterprises, Cairns, 1992.
B. Breslin, Exterminate with Pride, Aboriginal-European relations in the Townsville-Bowen region to 1869, Melbourne University Press, 2023. 
B. Breslin, James Morrill, Captive of Empire, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2017.
J.W. Johnston-Need (Complier) of R.A Johnstone, Spinifex and Wattle: Reminisces of Pioneering in North Queensland, from The Queenslander, 1903-1905 (Brisbane), Cairns, 1984.
Cooktown Herald, 7 October 1876.
’Coyyan’, Cairns Post Jubilee Supplement, 1 November 1926, p.19.
’Trinity Bay, Cairns, Nov.9’, 22 Port Denison Times, 25 November 1876.
Figaro, 19 March 1887. 
Paul Savage, Christy Palmerston – Explorer, Department of History & Politics, JCU, Townsville,1989.
QSA, POL, 12M/G1.
‘Tramp’, Cunnins & Campbell’s Monthly Magazine, May 1936, pp.13-15
H & M.E. Tranter, Malanda: In the Shadow of Bartle Frere, Eacham Historical Society, 1995.
E.H. Short, The Nation Builders, Dimbulah, 1988.
W.T. Foster, The Wreck of the ‘Maria’ or Adventures of the New Guinea Prospecting Association, Sydney, 1872.

Timeline Map >

The following lists references to some people involved in this conflict. More may be added in future.

This information has been collected from various sources, including the Colonial Frontier Massacres, 1788-1930 project (Ryan et al, 2025) and the South Australian Frontier and it's Legacies project (Foster et al), as well as ongoing research in primary sources. Finding and gathering this much information in millions of pages of colonial texts and other sources would not be possible without the use of computer automation. All information is checked but human and computer error can persist. Please let us know any corrections. Where possible, links are provided to sources to read the full text.

Country/Nation/People/Language indicates which Indigenous group people belonged to. Different people in different places prefer different terminology, and sometimes the 'belonging' relates to one of these not another. In many cases, due to colonists' limited knowledge, the archival record only uses generalised and sometimes racist terms (eg: 'blacks' or 'Murrimbidgee blacks'). In the absence of any other detail, although people travelled and visisted, we may infer the people involved were the people of the region the event occurred.

Listed are:

• Named Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander people. This includes people involved in violent action, or in some other way involved, such as messengers. In many cases only the colonists' name (alias or aka - 'also known as') for the person is available.
• Colonists involved in the conflict. This includes people who were involved in violent actions such as massacres and shooting, or whose stock, runs or huts were raided, or similar. It may include people who played a significant role in the conflict in other ways, such as the Governor or regional administrators who ordered actions or established policies in relation to the conflict.
• Unnamed individuals or groups of people. This is as specific as possible. If a group is mentioned that is indicated and if an individual is mentioned, we also list that individual. It may be difficult to disentangle which individuals and groups in source texts are the same, and which different. Indigenous people go unnamed in colonial records of conflict encounters more commonly than colonists, but sometimes reporting also did not refer to low status workers and convicts by name, and referred to them by role, such as 'a stockman', 'a shepherd', or by their employer's name, such as, 'Mr Smith's men'.
• Auxilliaries. This is a general category for people aiding or working for one side or another, who might not be regarded as 'from' that side. Usually this means Indigenous people working for, or acting on behalf of colonists such as trackers, workers and Native Police. This can also apply to colonists working within and on behalf of Indigenous culture (such as William Buckley). The distinction is not always clear cut and some individuals acted on both sides of the conflict or changed sides. This may be voluntarily or by coercion.

Unnamed Aboriginal People

This data has not yet been gathered. Research work is ongoing. To help, please consider donating or contact us to volunteer or about setting up research projects in your area.

Unnamed Colonists

This data has not yet been gathered. Research work is ongoing. To help, please consider donating or contact us to volunteer or about setting up research projects in your area.

Unnamed Auxilliaries

This data has not yet been gathered. Research work is ongoing. To help, please consider donating or contact us to volunteer or about setting up research projects in your area.