Pinjarra Massacre was an 1834 incident in which the forces of Western Australia Governor Sir James Stirling killed a number of Aboriginal people. The incident is sometimes called the Battle of Pinjarra. The massacre took place along the Murray river in the British colony of Western Australia (now the state of Western Australia). The Murray River in Western Australia is not connected to the much longer Murray River in southeastern Australia.
Background.
In 1788, British settlers began arriving in Australia. European settlements soon took over much land that had been home to Aboriginal peoples. Limited land and resources often led to violence between Europeans and Aboriginal people.
In 1829, James Stirling and other British settlers founded the Swan River settlement in Western Australia. Thomas Peel, a British colonist, came to the settlement that year. Peel wanted to gain fertile land near Pinjarra, an area south of the Swan River settlement. However, Pinjarra was inhabited by Aboriginal people called Bindjareb Noongar. Other spellings of these names include Binjarub or Pinjarup and Nyoongar or Nyungar.
In July 1834, a group of Bindjareb people killed a British soldier, Hugh Nesbitt, who was stationed in the area. Peel urged Stirling to come to the Pinjarra area and provide military protection from the region’s Aboriginal people.
The massacre.
In October 1834, Governor Stirling led 24 soldiers, police, and civilians into the Pinjarra area. Their goals were to survey the area, leave behind military protection, and possibly find Nesbitt’s killers.
On October 28, Stirling’s men heard shouting as they crossed the Murray River, which winds through Pinjarra. Stirling sent five men, led by police Captain Theophilus Ellis, back across the river to investigate. Stirling and his remaining men continued north along the river.
Ellis and his group found a camp with about 80 Bindjareb men, women, and children. Ellis believed some of them to be Nesbitt’s killers. A battle erupted, and Ellis and one of his men were wounded in the fighting. Several Aboriginal people were killed, and others tried to escape across the Murray River.
When Stirling heard the battle, he led most of his group back toward the fighting. Stirling came to the bank of the Murray River across from the Bindjareb camp. The Aboriginal people who were trying to escape became trapped in a crossfire between Ellis’s and Stirling’s men. Many tried to protect themselves by hiding in the river.
Stirling and his men withdrew after about an hour of fighting. Many historians believe that from 15 to 35 Aboriginal people were killed at the massacre. However, Bindjareb oral histories claim that many more were killed.
About two weeks after the battle, Ellis died of his wounds. Ellis was the only European to die as a result of the massacre.
