In 2022, I published FRASER ISLAND MASSACRE Vrai ou Faux, Connor Court Publishing Pty Ltd, Brisbane. In Chapter 4, The Massacre, I referred to the website, Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930.[1] The website, at Site List, identified a massacre on Fraser Island listing 100 Aboriginal people killed between 24 Dec 1851 and 3 Jan 1852. The sources quoted for the incident were:

Lauer, P 1977, ‘Report of a Preliminary Ethnohistorical and Archaeological Survey of Fraser Island’, in Lauer, P. (ed.), Fraser Island, Occasional Papers in Anthropology, no. 8, Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland, St Lucia; and Sydney Morning Herald, January 22, 1852 – https://trove.nla.gov.au/ newspaper/page/1509723.

The particulars of the incident were:

To ‘break up’ Aboriginal clans that had sought sanctuary on the island a punitive expedition of eleven days duration was lead (sic) by Commandant Frederick Walker with 24 troopers of native police along with Lt Marshall and Sgt Major Dolan and captain and crew of the schooner, Maragaret (sic) and Mary, all armed and sworn in as special constables… Aboriginal people were ‘driven into the sea, and kept there as long as daylight and life lasted’. Lauer estimates that 100 Aboriginal people were killed.

The website was updated in 2024.[2] The number of Aboriginal killed was reduced from 100 to 50; no explanation was given for this reduction. The sources quoted for the incident now included, Vic Collins, Handwritten Account of an Aboriginal Massacre at Teewah, 2000.[3]

The 2024 particulars of this incident relating to Collins were:

Some comparable details, such as the deputisation of colonists, the killings on the beach and victims driven into the water, suggest this may be the same, or related to a massacre written from oral history by Vic Collins. According to Vic Collins a massacre took place just to the south of K’Gari on the mainland at Teewah Beach, north of Noosa: ‘The convicts were given their freedom provided they donned a red uniform (Red Coats) to keep the blacks in order. Stationed at Maryborough word came of a tribe of blacks stealing sheep from Mannumbar Station (on their way bay from Bunya Mts) Noosa blacks were blamed. The Red Coats track them to Teewah Beach. They were ordered to ride out on the beach and shoot the men (single shot muzzle loaders) then use swords on the remainder which they did. But children took to the water, so the officer in charge ordered the red coats to ride their horeses into the surf and trample the children till they drowned.’ (Collins, 2000)

Anybody with a smidgeon of nous would recognise that adding Vic Collins’ fairy tale does not enhance the probity of the supporting material for the alleged Fraser Island massacre but suggests that the authors of the website are clutching at straws to shore up their ludicrous piece of drivel on the so-called Fraser Island massacre.

Please refer to FRASER ISLAND MASSACRE Vrai ou Faux available from sales@connorcourt.com

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[1] Ryan, Lyndall; Richards, Jonathan; Pascoe, William; Debenham, Jennifer; Stephanie Gilbert; Anders, Robert J; Brown, Mark; Smith, Robyn; Price, Daniel; Newley, Jack Colonial Frontier Massacres in Eastern Australia 1788 to 1930, v3.0, 2019. Newcastle: University of Newcastle, 2018, http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1340762 (accessed 11/9/2021). Funded by ARC: DP 140100399.

[2] Stage 5.0, Ryan, Lyndall; Debenham, Jennifer; Pascoe, Bill; Smith, Robyn; Owen, Chris; Richards, Jonathan; Gilbert, Stephanie; Anders, Robert J; Usher, Kaine; Price, Daniel; Newley, Jack; Brown, Mark; Craig, Hugh Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia 1788-1930 Newcastle: University of Newcastle, 2017-2024, https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres (accessed 16/03/2024).

[3] Handwritten, single page account of a massacre of Aboriginal people in the late 1800s on Teewah Beach on the Cooloola Coast. The account is written by Vic Collins and relays information that was told to him by his father, William Collins, who had arrived in the area in 1896. State Library of Queensland