Cullin-la-ringo massacre

Cullin-la-ringo massacre is located in Australia
Cullin-la-ringo massacre
Cullin-la-ringo massacre
Cullin-la-ringo massacre (Australia)
T. G. Moyle, The Wills Tragedy, 1861, held at the State Library of Queensland. The caption reads: "The arrival of the neighbouring squatters and Mon collecting and burying the dead, after the attack by the blacks on H.R. Wills ESQ. Stationed Leichhardt district, Queensland."
Tom Wills, cricketer and founder of Australian rules football, one of six settlers who survived the massacre
Horatio Wills' gravestone, ca. 1950

The Cullin-la-ringo massacre, also known as the Wills tragedy, was a massacre of white colonists by Indigenous Australians that occurred on 17 October 1861, north of modern-day Springsure in Central Queensland, Australia. Nineteen men, women and children were killed in the attack, including Horatio Wills, the owner of Cullin-la-ringo station. It is the single largest massacre of colonists by Aboriginal people in Australian history. In the weeks afterwards, police, native police and civilian posses carried out "one of the most lethal punitive expeditions in frontier history", hunting down and killing up to 370 members of the Gayiri Aboriginal tribe implicated in the massacre.[1]

  1. ^ Jackson, Russell (18 September 2021). "Research discovery suggests AFL pioneer Tom Wills participated in massacres of Indigenous people". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021.