Blood Hole massacre

Blood Hole massacre
Part of Australian frontier wars
LocationMiddle Creek, 6 or 7 miles from Glengower Station between Clunes and Newstead, Colony of Victoria
Coordinates37°12′36″S 143°52′30″E / 37.21°S 143.875°E / -37.21; 143.875
Date1839 or 1840
TargetDja Dja Wurrung people
Attack type
Mass murder, hate crime
DeathsUnknown
VictimsUnknown clan of Dja Dja Wurrung people
PerpetratorsCaptain Dugald McLachlan and employees

The Blood Hole massacre occurred in what is now the Australian state of Victoria at Middle Creek, 10–11 kilometres (6–7 mi) from Glengower Station between Clunes and Newstead at the end of 1839 or early 1840, killing an unknown number of Aboriginal people from the Grampians district who were on their way home after trading goods for green stone axe blanks that they obtained near what is now Lancefield.

Captain Dugald McLachlan established Glengower station, sometimes employing local Aboriginal people from the Dja Dja Wurrung (Jaara people). His employees also gave out flour and sugar rations to them on occasion.

After the cook distributed flour laced with plaster of Paris the party speared the cook in retribution, and ate the meat hanging in the kitchen.[1] Later the Aboriginal people who had passed through on their way home were found at Middle Creek, a camping place on their trading route from the Grampians to the Greenstone quarry at Mount William near Lancefield.

The Aboriginal people were found at the waterhole on Middle Creek west of Glengower Station. They sought to hide by diving into the waterhole, where they were shot one at a time as they came up for air.[2][3][4][5]

  1. ^ "Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930". The University of Newcastle, Australia. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  2. ^ Aldo Massola, p88, Journey to Aboriginal Victoria, Rigby, 1969 as quoted by Ian D. Clark, pp97, Scars on the Landscape. A Register of Massacre sites in Western Victoria 1803-1859, Aboriginal Studies Press, 1995 ISBN 0-85575-281-5
  3. ^ Geoffrey Blainey, pp30, A History of Victoria, Cambridge University Press, 2006 ISBN 0-521-86977-3
  4. ^ Edgar Morrison, Frontier life in the Loddon Protectorate : episodes from early days, 1837-1842, Daylesford [Vic.], The Advocate, 1967?. No ISBN
  5. ^ Evershed, Nick; Ball, Andy; Allam, Lorena; O'Mahony, Ciaran; Nadel, Jeremy; Earl, Carly. "The killing times: a massacre map of Australia's frontier wars". the Guardian. Retrieved 2 September 2021.