Massacre at Ivanhoe Station, East Kimberley
Official records are missing. Owen summarises as follows, quoting Wheatley's description of the massacre, 'The occurrence book for Wyndham Station states that in November 1895 a large police party had been ordered to undertake a bush patrol [to locate alleged cattle killers] . . . The police party consisted of Rhatigan, Sergeant Wheatley, four native assistants (Mickey, Willy, Joe and Bubby) and thirteen horses. Sergeant Wheatley's private notebook, curiously the only surviving record of this event, describes how the police party left Wyndham on 6 November [1895], arrived at Ivanhoe Stud Station on 9 November [1895] and, after tracking until 11 November, found a group [of Aboriginal people] deemed responsible for cattle killing. Sergeant Wheatley described the scene: "Left camp at 6.30am and followed the tracks and came upon the natives in a large lagoon, the assistants told them to come out of the water and reeds, two of them came which we arrested[. T]he rest of them tried to escape but in doing so we fired on them killing twenty men[,] the women and children making good their escape. The two we arrested shewed [sic] us where they killed the cattle and told us they had killed plenty[;] the following are the names of the two we arrested[:] Ginnare, Cunbiliger" (Owen, pp. 361-362).
Notes:
CorroborationRating: ***
LanguageGroup: Kitja, Mirrawong
Victims: Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
VictimsDead: 20
CorroborationRating: ***
LanguageGroup: Kitja, Mirrawong
Victims: Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People
VictimsDead: 20
People involved
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Sources
Event mentions
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Massacre at Ivanhoe Station, East Kimberley11 Nov 1895 — Ivanhoe Station, East Kimberley — massacreOfficial records are missing. Owen summarises as follows, quoting Wheatley's description of the massacre, 'The occurrence book for Wyndham Station states that in November 1895 a large police party had been ordered to undertake a bush patrol [to locate alleged cattle killers] . . . The police party consisted of Rhatigan, Sergeant Wheatley, four native assistants (Mickey, Willy, Joe and Bubby) and thirteen horses. Sergeant Wheatley's private notebook, curiously the only surviving record of this event, describes how the police party left Wyndham on 6 November [1895], arrived at Ivanhoe Stud Station on 9 November [1895] and, after tracking until 11 November, found a group [of Aboriginal people] deemed responsible for cattle killing. Sergeant Wheatley described the scene: "Left camp at 6.30am and followed the tracks and came upon the natives in a large lagoon, the assistants told them to come out of the water and reeds, two of them came which we arrested[. T]he rest of them tried to escape but in doing so we fired on them killing twenty men[,] the women and children making good their escape. The two we arrested shewed [sic] us where they killed the cattle and told us they had killed plenty[;] the following are the names of the two we arrested[:] Ginnare, Cunbiliger" (Owen, pp. 361-362).