Mowla Bluff massacre
The Mowla Bluff massacre was an incident involving the murder of a number of Indigenous Australians at Geegully Creek, near Mowla Bluff, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1916.
Mowla Bluff is a cattle station 140 kilometres (87 mi) south of Derby and 75 kilometres (47 mi) southwest of Jarlmadangah. Responding to the brutality of the white station manager, some local men gave him a beating. In reprisal, an armed mob which included officials and residents rounded up a large number of Aboriginal men, women and children who were then shot. The bodies were burned.
A belated police investigation into the events took place in 1918, after two survivors were found with the bullets still within their bodies.[1]
One account states that three or four hundred people were killed and only three survived.[2]
In 2000 a memorial plaque was erected in Geegully Creek, Mowla Bluff, to commemorate the victims of the massacre.[3]
A documentary film about the massacre, Whispering in our Hearts: The Mowla Bluff Massacre, was released in 2001.[1]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Davis, Therese; Moreton, Romaine (2013). "Indigenous Performance of History, Loss and Remembrance Inwhispering in Our Hearts". Interventions. 15 (2): 211–223. doi:10.1080/1369801x.2013.798472. ISSN 1369-801X. S2CID 161599168.
- ^ "Australian Web Archive". Archived from the original on 2 September 2011.
- ^ "Mowla Bluff Massacre". Monument Australia. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
External links
[edit]- Mowla Bluff memorial signals new beginning
- Whispering in Our Hearts
- Closing the circle on a bloody chapter, Sydney Morning Herald
Further reading
[edit]- Mason, Flur-Elise. Story must be told. about Whispering in our hearts (Motion picture) Broome Advertiser, 22 Aug. 2001, p. 11
- 1916 in Australia
- 20th-century mass murder in Australia
- Massacres in 1916
- History of Australia (1901–1945)
- Kimberley (Western Australia)
- Death in Western Australia
- Massacres of Indigenous Australians
- Police misconduct in Australia
- 1910s in Western Australia
- 1910s mass shootings in Australia
- Murder in Western Australia
- 1916 murders in Australia
- Australian history stubs
- Massacre stubs