Qualla: Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tentotwo, CC BY-SA 3.0. A path of crushed white granite curves along a ridge in northern New South Wales, threading past seven boulders that each carry a plaque, toward a single fourteen-tonne stone. The country here is unremarkable to a passing eye — grazing paddocks, a wooded slope, the slow line of Myall Creek below. That ordinariness is the point. On this ground, on 10 June 1838, at least twenty-eight Wirrayaraay men, women and children of the Kamilaroi people were murdered. For more than 160 years the place held its grief in silence. Then, in 2000, descendants of the victims and descendants of the perpetrators walked this ridge together and built a memorial "in an act of reconciliation and in acknowledgement of the truth of our shared history."

Image: Tentotwo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site: Why This Ground Matters

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор В, CC BY-SA 3.0. Myall Creek is not remembered because it was rare in its cruelty — frontier massacres of Aboriginal people were tragically common across colonial Australia. It is remembered because, almost uniquely, it was documented and answered. After two trials, seven of the colonists were co...

Image: Виктор В | CC BY-SA 3.0

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site: The Long Silence

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GIS Cordination Unit, CC BY 4.0. For the Wirrayaraay and Gamilaroi peoples, the loss was generational. A descendant whose great-great-great-grandfather survived the killing remembered the unspoken dread: "We didn't want to talk about it because of how dreadful it was." The wider history was uneven too — prominen...

Image: GIS Cordination Unit | CC BY 4.0

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site: A Memorial Built Together

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GIS Cordination Unit, CC BY 4.0. The turning point came in 1998, when the Uniting Church held a reconciliation conference at Myall Creek. Out of it grew the Myall Creek Memorial Committee — descendants of survivors, local residents, and conference participants working side by side. After several years, on 10 Jun...

Image: GIS Cordination Unit | CC BY 4.0

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site: Where Descendants Meet

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GIS Cordination Unit, CC BY 4.0. Every year, on the June long weekend, people travel from across the country to the annual Friends of Myall Creek Memorial Service. What makes the gathering extraordinary is who attends: descendants of the murdered, and descendants of those who murdered them, standing on the same ...

Image: GIS Cordination Unit | CC BY 4.0

Myall Creek Massacre and Memorial Site: Tested, and Held

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GIS Cordination Unit, CC BY 4.0. Reconciliation is not the same as the absence of conflict, and this site has been wounded more than once. In January 2005, vandals chiselled away the words "murder," "women" and "children" in an attempt to make the plaque unreadable. In September 2021, the memorial was struck aga...

Image: GIS Cordination Unit | CC BY 4.0