{"id":121625,"date":"2025-08-05T19:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/121625\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T19:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:09:12","slug":"the-massacre-of-sleeping-settlers-that-unleashed-a-savage-war-in-central-queensland-frontier-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/121625\/","title":{"rendered":"The massacre of sleeping settlers that unleashed a savage war in central Queensland | Frontier wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning: <\/strong>This article contains historical records that use racist and offensive language, and descriptions of events that will be distressing to some readers<\/p>\n

John McPherson catches his breath, his boots caked with mud after trudging 700 metres through a soggy paddock to reach the gravesite.<\/p>\n

Light rain falls as he stands before the headstone of his ancestor, whose life ended abruptly on this grassy plain in central Queensland<\/a> more than a century ago.<\/p>\n

McPherson, a former journalist from northern New South Wales, has spent years investigating what unfolded here; a massacre on a lazy afternoon that unleashed a bloody war involving a founder of Australian rules football<\/a>, the head of Australia\u2019s oldest company and an ancient people whose way of life would be forever altered.<\/p>\n

It is almost four years since research emerged suggesting that the sporting legend Tom Wills may have taken part in massacring Indigenous people, sparking internal investigations by both the AFL and Cricket Australia<\/a>. But this is the first time McPherson, a descendant of the Wills family, has seen the site where the grim saga began.<\/p>\n

When the 66-year-old reaches the spot on a damp winter morning, the yellowed grass and sparse trees are shrouded in mist. \u201cIt\u2019s got sort of a slightly eerie feel about it,\u201d he says. \u201cSort of struggling land, and graves.\u201d<\/p>\n

John McPherson, a descendant of the Wills family, after visiting the grave of Horatio Wills at the massacre site. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Near his ancestor\u2019s headstone is a tree stump with an oval hollow in its trunk. It is a reminder that this was not always a place of death. Once it was a campsite; a gathering place for a vibrant people. The tree, too, signifies a great loss \u2013 less spoken about but no less profound \u2013 and one that McPherson has travelled 1,000km to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

The town of Springsure, about 300km west of Rockhampton, is a gateway to the tourist magnet of Carnarvon Gorge. It is home to 1,000 people and four motels, packed with fluoro-clad workers flown in to service the two nearby coalmines.<\/p>\n

Nods to the town\u2019s colonial history are everywhere: a stone monument at the council chambers celebrates the district\u2019s \u201cearly pioneers\u201d; sepia photos outside shopfronts show what each looked like in the 1860s; there are even track marks etched into sandstone rocks next to the highway, showing the paths of bullock drays carrying the settlers\u2019 supplies.<\/p>\n

Less evident is the history of the Aboriginal people who lived in the region for millennia before colonisation. But their spirit looms in the craggy mountains that tower over the town \u2013 in the caves where bones were laid to rest, the sacred ceremony sites and the haunted places that make the hairs of your arms stand on end.<\/p>\n

Darryl Black in Springsure: \u2018They shot them off the end of the hills here.\u2019 Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

At a bustling lookout to one such mountain, Darryl Black sidles up to an unsuspecting tourist couple from Sydney. \u201cYou want me to tell you about the rock?\u201d he asks. They nod politely.<\/p>\n

Black, a Bidjara and Ghungalu man, is here most afternoons, enthusiastically telling tourists about the area\u2019s Aboriginal history. He shows them artefacts he\u2019s found in the mountains: axe heads, grinding stones, crude but effective knives chipped from stone \u2013 all rattling around in a Coles shopping basket on the back seat of his LandCruiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you the real story \u2013 the one that\u2019s not in the history books,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u2018An uncontrolled desire for revenge\u2019<\/p>\n

There is plenty in the history books about Springsure \u2013 or specifically, about a property a 20-minute drive out of town called Cullin-la-ringo: the site of Queensland\u2019s largest massacre of white settlers by Aboriginal people.<\/p>\n

Horatio Wills, a sheep farmer and politician from Victoria, arrived in October 1861 after a gruelling eight-month journey with about two dozen people and 10,000 sheep.<\/p>\n

Accompanying him was his son, Tom Wills \u2013 a talented cricketer widely considered Australia\u2019s first sporting hero, who co-founded Aussie rules after suggesting the cricketers needed a new game to keep them fit in the off season.<\/p>\n

Horatio, who had developed positive relationships with the Djab Wurrung people in Victoria, arrived in central Queensland as long-simmering tensions between the local Aboriginal people and the colonists were about to boil over.<\/p>\n

Queensland had been established as a self-governing colony just two years earlier. The frontier was moving north, assisted by the notorious native police \u2013 contingents of Aboriginal troopers led by white officers tasked with protecting the livelihoods of settlers and punishing Aboriginal resistance.<\/p>\n

The native police had carried out a \u201cstring of massacres\u201d and \u201cterrorised\u201d peaceful camps of Aboriginal people in the region in the years before 1861. About the same time there were reports of two Aboriginal boys being kidnapped<\/a> from the area by white men.<\/p>\n

In one notable encounter, just three months before the Wills party arrived, a detachment of native police accompanied Jesse Gregson, the manager of the station neighbouring Cullin-la-ringo, to track down some lost sheep. They found them on the side of a ridge with a local Gayiri tribe.<\/p>\n

The town sign on the outskirts of Springsure. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

At least four Gayiri people were shot, according to native police records.<\/p>\n

Months later Horatio \u2013 who bore some resemblance to Gregson and rode a similar horse \u2013 set up camp at what would become his final resting place. Barely a week after the group\u2019s arrival, on 17 October, they were enjoying an afternoon siesta when the onslaught began.<\/p>\n

The newspapers listed the names of the 19 dead men, women and children alongside graphic accounts of how they were killed. Horatio was found lying on his back near his tent door, \u201ca deep tomahawk wound in his right cheek \u2013 the neck being nearly severed just below the same spot by a large wound, probably inflicted with an axe\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Tom survived. He had been sent to collect supplies from a nearby town days earlier. So did two shepherds, one of whom rode to alert the nearest neighbour \u2013 Gregson \u2013 of the massacre.<\/p>\n

Gregson quickly assembled a group of settlers to bury the bodies. A dispatch from Queensland\u2019s first governor, George Ferguson Bowen, would later describe how \u201can uncontrolled desire for revenge took possession of each heart\u201d.<\/p>\n

The group set out to track the killers.<\/p>\n

Virgin Rock and Mount Zamia overlooking the central Queensland town. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

They found them within days. As dawn approached, they surrounded the sleeping tribe. Official records show at least 30 Gayiri people were killed that day. Then the native police arrived.<\/p>\n

\u2018Many were killed from falling over the cliffs\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is where the native police caught up?\u201d McPherson asks.<\/p>\n

He and Black are standing on a quiet road off the highway, looking across a paddock to a small mountain with a sheer cliff face at its peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were vigilantes and troopers, [they] chased them all the way through this range,\u201d Black says. \u201cThey shot them off the end of the hills here. They were in view of their range \u2013 that\u2019s what gets me every time. They were nearly home.\u201d<\/p>\n

An article published in the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> two months later said the native police had shot 60 or 70 people, only stopping when they ran out of ammunition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the blacks who was shot, cried out, \u201cMe no kill white fellow!\u201d showing plainly they well comprehended the proceeding,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n

Other letters boasted that 300 Aboriginal people had been killed. The exact number of casualties will never be known.<\/p>\n

A map showing the approximate location of the Cullin-la-ringo massacre and reprisal killings of Gayiri people<\/a>The killings happened near Springsure, about 300km west of Rockhampton.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the Wills massacre, the details of the Gayiri\u2019s slaughter are scarce. The commanding officer of the native police wrote only<\/a>: \u201cTheir loss was heavy; and I consider that many were killed from falling over the cliffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia and the University of Newcastle\u2019s massacre map<\/a> shows there were at least six mass killings of Aboriginal people in the months that followed.<\/p>\n

The eminent historian Henry Reynolds says Cullin-la-ringo was a turning point in Queensland\u2019s history, paving the way for \u201cwarfare\u201d<\/a> between First Nations peoples and the settlers over control of the state\u2019s north. It would claim the lives of tens of thousands<\/a> of Indigenous people over the decades that followed. Some groups, including the Gayiri, never recovered.<\/p>\n

Yamba Konrad Ross holds a hook boomerang. \u2018The legacy is just a tribe that\u2019s wiped out and forgotten about,\u2019 he says. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

A Gayiri man, Yamba Konrad Ross, learnt his family had been involved in a massacre during an urgent conversation with his great-uncle on his deathbed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a lot of old stories and even spoke some of the Gayiri language,\u201d he recalls. \u201cHe was emotional because it felt like he needed to teach me as much as he could before he actually passed.\u201d<\/p>\n

His uncle spoke of slaughter. Of people hiding in fear.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere was talk about a cow,\u201d Ross says. \u201cLike dead cows or horses \u2013 open them up, pull out the insides and actually hide inside so you couldn\u2019t get found.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ross has spent much of his life trying to find out who he is and where his people came from.<\/p>\n

His mother grew up on a mission at Woorabinda, away from her country, where she was discouraged from speaking her native language or acknowledging her culture. Her own mother had died young and she didn\u2019t know who her people were.<\/p>\n

Ross was raised between Melbourne and Katherine in the Northern Territory. After decades of research, he obtained documents from the Queensland State Archives confirming his ties to the Gayiri people.<\/p>\n

In 2008 he went to his country for the first time, spending an unsettling two days in Springsure. \u201cI\u2019m a spiritual person,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep. I was having nightmares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from his great-uncle, Ross has been unable to track down many other kin. \u201cThe legacy is just a tribe that\u2019s wiped out and forgotten about,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt affects me directly because now my family is tiny. People are responsible for decimating a tribe \u2013 a tribe of beautiful people \u2013 and there\u2019s no repercussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018They didn\u2019t talk about anything like that\u2019<\/p>\n

The memorial site for the Wills massacre is a popular, if grim, tourist attraction. A mowed pathway leads to three graves: one for Horatio; another for the brother of Tom\u2019s former teammate, farmhand George Elliott, and a fellow worker, Thomas; and a mass grave for the rest of the workers and their children.<\/p>\n

Horatio\u2019s headstone says the group was \u201cbarbarously murdered by the blacks\u201d.<\/p>\n

The headstone for farm workers George Elliott and Thomas. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The bones of the Gayiri killed in retribution were left where they fell. There is no memorial for them. The body of one of the dead men, shot while hiding in a tree, was displayed in the Australian and South Sea Islander Museum<\/a> in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

From the early 1900s most of the Aboriginal people who remained in the region were taken to missions or reserves under new laws, ostensibly designed to \u201cprotect\u201d Indigenous people \u2013 but which placed strict controls over every aspect of their lives and kept them working in conditions tantamount to slavery.<\/p>\n

Cullin-la-ringo was taken over by Tom\u2019s younger brothers, Cedric and Horace, who came to blame Gregson for their father\u2019s death. The property was eventually sold but Cedric\u2019s great-grandson, also called Tom Wills, still owns a cattle station adjoining it.<\/p>\n

The younger Tom, now in his late 60s, inherited tomes of family letters, journals and memorabilia, which are carefully catalogued and stored in a shed. His grandparents didn\u2019t speak of massacres \u2013 \u201cthey didn\u2019t talk about anything like that\u201d \u2013 but his father had a keen interest in the family history that he passed on to his son.<\/p>\n

Tom says the family went on to build good relationships with Aboriginal people, despite what happened at Cullin-la-ringo, later employing them to work on the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey talk about reconciliation \u2013 I think reconciliation started in the 1860s,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Truth-telling shelved<\/p>\n

Gregson \u2013 who helped slaughter dozens of Aboriginal people in the region \u2013 went on to become the longest-serving superintendent of the Australian Agricultural Company, better known today as AACo, a publicly listed $830-million company that controls the country\u2019s largest cattle herd.<\/p>\n

Cricketer and Australian rules pioneer Tom Wills<\/p>\n

Tom Wills the elder, unsuited to farming life, returned to Melbourne. He went on to coach the first Aboriginal cricket team. Alcoholism ended his sporting career and, ultimately, his life. He killed himself in a state of delirium in 1880, aged 44. He was buried in an unmarked grave and disowned by his family.<\/p>\n

But the sportsman\u2019s image has undergone a transformation<\/a> since the release of his biography and a fictionalised account of his life in Martin Flanagan\u2019s 1998 novel, The Call. He is now celebrated as an early pioneer for reconciliation and listed in the Australian Sporting Hall of Fame<\/a>. There is a statue of him outside the MCG.<\/p>\n

There has been much debate over whether he was involved in killing Gayiri people after his father\u2019s death. A researcher sparked a furore in 2021 when he told the ABC<\/a> he\u2019d found a US newspaper article from 1895 in which an author, known only as \u201cG\u201d, claimed to give an account of Tom\u2019s involvement in a massacre. The Chicago Tribune article, which contained several inaccuracies, quoted him as saying: \u201cI cannot tell all that happened, but know we killed all in sight:\u201d<\/p>\n

Several contemporaneous letters appear to support the theory, or at least show Tom\u2019s animosity towards Aboriginal people in the region after the massacre. Four days after returning to its scene, he asks his cousin to send him workers who \u201cwill shoot every black they see\u201d. A month later his mother writes to her children that \u201cTom and the settlers around have well revenged [Horatio\u2019s] death\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the younger Tom Wills, and Terry Wills Cooke, another family historian based in Victoria, are adamant that he did not take part in any killings, claiming that family records show Tom was elsewhere \u2013 at least during the first retaliation raid.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia understands that the AFL<\/a>, Cricket Australia and the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) commissioned a report by the Indigenous historians John Maynard and Barry Judd. The report, never released but seen by this masthead, was unable to find conclusive evidence to confirm or deny Tom\u2019s involvement in the direct massacre of Aboriginal people \u2013 but says \u201cwhere there is smoke, there is generally fire\u201d. Its authors recommended that the three sporting bodies \u201clend support\u201d for a \u201ctruth-telling process to be undertaken nationally\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tom Wills with Aboriginal cricketers outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground pavilion. Photograph: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia approached the AFL, Cricket Australia and the MCC for comment, but did not receive a response before publication.<\/p>\n

Yamba Konrad Ross accuses the organisations of \u201ctrying to shovel the dirt under the carpet and just cover it up with their nice fancy rug\u201d. To move forward, he wants to see further investigation and recognition of the Gayiri people alongside the tributes to Wills.<\/p>\n

The younger Tom Wills reckons the characterisation of his ancestor as a trailblazer for reconciliation is an accurate one. Wills Cooke says he was a \u201cvery flawed character\u201d and the broader context should be considered when evaluating words and actions from that time. \u201cWe tend to judge what happened then as if it was today, but it wasn\u2019t,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

John McPherson, descended from Horatio\u2019s sister, is perhaps the only member of the family to believe that Tom Wills probably did kill Aboriginal people.<\/p>\n

He inadvertently stumbled on to the horror of Cullin-la-ringo while writing a thesis about the origins of AFL. His subsequent deep dive into Queensland\u2019s violent past caused him to face significant mental challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just read so much material, way more than just the Cullin-la-ringo stuff, about people boasting about their killings,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A sign pointing to the Cullin-la-ringo graves. Photograph: Ellen Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cLike this is in the 1890s in Brisbane, people are around having high tea and it\u2019s like, \u2018Yes, let\u2019s go out on an Aboriginal hunt this weekend.\u2019 I was just horrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the experience \u2013 and his interactions with Black in Springsure \u2013 have strengthened his resolve that these truths should be exposed. \u201cWe need to acknowledge our history, because this isn\u2019t all that far in the past and generational trauma is a very real thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Black continues to tell anyone who will listen about the people who were largely eradicated from the land. \u201cI see some of these people, when I\u2019m trying to get them to come along, I see the ones who are a bit standoffish and don\u2019t really want to do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then, I love it when these types of people come along, because if you can make change with them, then you know you\u2019re doing all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indigenous Australians<\/a> can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636<\/p>\n

Lorena Allam is a professor at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous research at the University of Technology Sydney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: This article contains historical records that use racist and offensive language, and descriptions of events that will…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":121626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-121625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114977738748740371","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}