Eumeralla Wars

Eumeralla Wars
Date1830s - 1860s
Location
Southwestern Victoria
Result British occupation of the district
Belligerents
British colonists
Border Police
Native Police		 Gunditjmara people
Commanders and leaders
Cpt Foster Fyans
Cpt Henry EP Dana
James Blair		 Tarrarer (Jupiter)
Cocknose
Partpoaermin (Cold Morning)
Koort Kirrup
Alkapurata (Rodger)
Strength
Unknown Unknown
Casualties and losses
~80 settlers dead up to 6,500 dead

The Eumeralla Wars were the violent encounters over the possession of land between British colonists and Gunditjmara Aboriginal people in what is now called the Western District area of south west Victoria.[1]

The wars are named after the region around the Eumeralla River between Port Fairy and Portland where some of the worst conflict was located. They were part of the wider Australian frontier wars.

The conflict lasted from the mid 1830s up until the 1860s with the most intense period being between 1834 and 1844. The Aboriginal people mostly employed guerrilla tactics and economic warfare against the livestock and property of the British colonists, occasionally killing a shepherd or settler. The colonists utilised a wider range of strategies, such as killings of individuals and massacres of larger groups of Indigenous people, including women and children, by armed groups of whalers, settlers, station workers, and members of the Border Police and the Native Police Corps.[2] They also used more lawful means such as judicial executions and the rounding up of the local Aboriginal people and placement of them on temporary reserves.[3]

Casualties from the conflict are estimated to be in the thousands with up to 6,500 Aboriginal deaths (based on an estimated pre-contact population of 7,000 declining to just 442), and an approximate 80 deaths of settlers.[4]

The remains of some of the people involved in the conflict are at the Deen Maar Indigenous Protected Area.[5]

  1. ^ "A forgotten war, a haunted land", Sydney Morning Herald 10 August 2013 accessed 30 March 2014
  2. ^ Clark, Ian D. Scars in the Landscape: A register of massacre sites in Western Victoria, 1803–1859. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1995.
  3. ^ Robinson, George Augustus; Clark, Ian D. (1998), The journals of George Augustus Robinson, chief protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate, Heritage Matters, ISBN 978-1-876404-03-1
  4. ^ "Indigenous beginnings". glenelglibraries.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  5. ^ "Deen Maar Indigenous Protected Area", Department of the Environment accessed 30 March 2014