The Faithfull Massacre of 1838

Having read the Australian history textbook The Colonial Experience: The Port Phillip District/Victoria 1834–1860 by Richard Broome (2016), I really must take issue with the account of the Faithfull Massacre in the section on “Violence and Resistance”, pages 76 to 82. The Faithfull Massacre, in which a band of Aborigines killed eight white shepherds, occurred on April 11, 1838, at the Broken River, where the town of Benalla now stands.

There are three main considerations. First, I reject absolutely the statement in The Colonial Experience that I believe that “the attack was in revenge for the illicit use of Aboriginal women by the same party several weeks before”. I have always maintained that the Faithfull Massacre was a punitive attack conducted by twenty Aboriginal avengers in response to some of Faithfull’s men having shot at Aborigines at the Ovens River a week earlier.

Second, I reject the claim “that the Aboriginal attackers numbered 200–300 warriors”. I…