The Killing Times

Fig. 1: William Murray attacks a fleeing Warlpiri warrior

In August of 1928, Japanangka, accompanied by his two wives and his children, had made
the long, arduous trek Westward, across the barren lands of Central Australia. He was in
search of water and tobacco, commodities made scarce by the drought which had plagued
The Centre since 1924. He, like numerous other Warlpiri and settlers, had come to Yurrkuru
which, as one of the permanent soaks of Central Australia’s river systems, was a rare
reliable water source.i Camped at Yurrkuru, alongside his two young Aboriginal assistants,
was Frederick Brooks. Brooks, described in newspaper reports as a kindly older man, was
formerly an employed at Coniston Station.ii However, he had lost his job due to the drought,
and decided to make a go of it by scalping dingoes out in the bush. A few days later, Brooks’
mutilated remains would be found in a rabbit warren, having been killed at his camp by
Japanangka.iii The murder of Frederick Brooks, and the later assault on pastoralist William
’Nugget’ Morton, would trigger a series of punitive expeditions led by Mounted Constable
William George Murray, in which up to 150 Warlpiri and Anmatyerre were massacred.iv
Despite the widespread national and international attention the Coniston Massacre
received, there is considerable conjecture between the settler and Indigenous accounts.
This essay will discuss these areas of disparity and explore how they affect both Indigenous
and Settler reckoning of the events.

Who Killed Fred Brooks?

 Fig 2. Brooks with a Warlpiri woman

Indigenous and settler accounts differ markedly about who killed Fred Brooks, and what
motivated the murder. According to settler accounts, Brooks was killed to get his tobacco
and other rations.v The Adelaide Advertiser reported that Brooks had discovered a group of
Indigenous people who had killed one of Stafford’s cattle. The Aboriginal group then
murdered Brooks to prevent him reporting the theft.vi Indigenous accounts are more
complex. Japanangka had sent one of his wives, Murungarli, to Brooks’ camp in order to get
some tobacco, to which many of the Aboriginal people in Central Australia were addicted.
Brooks agreed to give Murungarli tobacco if she’d work do some work for him; cleaning the
camp and washing his clothes. When Murungarli failed to return, Japanangka went in search
of his wife and caught Brooks taking advantage of her.vii. According to Warlpiri man Francis
Jurpururla Kelly, Japanangka and Pakatiwarra (his father-in-law) “killed that white fella cos
they caught him red handed, no good, playing around.”viii Tim Japangardi goes further,
claiming that “the white man [Brooks] used to go into the camp and drag off women in front
of the men whom he threatened with his rifle.”ix

William George Murray

Mounted Constable William George Murray, having already been dispatched to the Alice
Springs area to investigate Indigenous raids on pastoral stations, was redirected to Coniston
Station. Lionised by the Northern Standard as the “Scourge of the Myalls”,x Murray was a
veteran of WWI, having enlisted in the 4th Light Horse in 1914. Murray was present at the
landing at Gallipoli on 24 May, and subsequently fought on the Western Front before being
wounded at Messines Ridge on in 1917. The Warlpiri believe that Murray’s war experience
was significant, Francis Jurpururla Kelly accuses Murray of being “a little bit sick in his head,
you know from war, gone crazy.”xi In May 1919, having been discharged from the army,
Murray joined the Northern Territory police force.xii While Murray eventually developed a
reputation as a “tough and effective constable”, it is notable that he received no police
training upon enlistment and was expected to learn on the job. xiii Historians Wilson and
O’Brien posit that, when confronted by the Warlpiri, he may have acted “as if he was in a
war, a state with which he had much experience.” xiv

First punitive expedition

Fig 3: Mounted police firing on Indigenous warriors

Upon arrival at Coniston on 12 August, Murray ordered the arrest of every Aboriginal person
in the area. On August 15, Padyagar and Woolingar, two Warlpiri men, arrived at Coniston
Station and were detained by Murray and his Indigenous trackers Paddy and Major. During
the arrest, Murray was assaulted by Woolingar, whom he shot in the head. The prisoners
were then chained to a tree overnight. At Coniston, Murray established a list with the
names of 20 Aboriginal people supposedly connected to the murder of Brooks and formed a
party to hunt for the suspects. Murray assembled a party, which included part-Aboriginal
man Alex Wilson, Coniston Station owner Randall Stafford, prospector John Saxby, Billy
Briscoe, Paddy and Major, which left Coniston on 16 August. That day they came across a
group of 23 Indigenous people, whom Murray ordered them to surrender. When the
Indigenous party refused, and a fight ensued in which four Indigenous people were killed
outright. One woman was wounded and later died, bringing the official death count to five,
all of whom were identified by Murray’s party as Brooks’ killers. However, later testimony
by Stafford, who left the party after the first encounter, suggests that there were more
victims than the five officially reported, and some of those killed were running away. xv On
19 August, Murray’s party of vigilantes (none were officially sworn in as police officers)
encountered 6 Indigenous people, in the resulting conflict, three Warlpiri were killed and
three wounded. The wounded, who later succumbed to their injuries to bring the total
number of victims to eleven, were also identified as Brooks’ killers. Murray and his party
made their way back to Coniston, where they parted with Stafford and three prisoners,
including Padyagar, who were arrested on the evening after the first encounter on 12
August. On August 22, West of Coniston, another five Indigenous people were killed two of
whom were shot from behind as they attempted to escape from Murray and Paddy. During
this encounter, Murray arrested Akirkra, whom he accused of being involved in the murder
of Brooks. On 30 August, Murray returned to Alice Springs, with prisoners Padyagar and
Akirkra, who were charged with Brooks’ murder.xvi

The attack on William Morton

On 28 August, William ‘Nugget’ Morton, co-owner of Broadmeadows Station was attacked.
The similarities to the Brooks murder are stark. Morton claimed that he was approached by
three Aboriginal people asking him for food and tobacco, when he went to pass them some
meat, he was attacked by a gang of fifteen Warlpiri men. Settler accounts hold Morton was
attacked because the Warlpiri, suffering from the effects of the drought, wanted his rations.
However, Indigenous accounts, corroborated by some settlers, point again to the sexual
exploitation of Indigenous women. One Department of Aboriginal Affairs Patrol Officer
wrote in his diary that “[Morton] was keeping a Western Australian lubra there for his
stockwork: she had tried to run away…but Morton had got her back each time and inflicted
a severe hiding”. He continued, “[he] also employed one or two other little native girls, 9 or
10 years of age, whom he had raped.”xvii The control and exploitation of Aboriginal women
was a source of conflict throughout the history of the Australian frontier. Naturally, this
inflamed tensions between settlers and Indigenous people, often leading to outbreaks of
violence.xviii

Second punitive expedition

Fig. 4: A Warlpiri person hiding from Murray and his party

Dispatched upon receiving word of the attack, Murray reached Broadmeadow Station on 24
September. Here, he formed another party of vigilantes, comprised of himself, Morton, Alec
Wilson, and a young Indigenous boy.xix Soon after, the party captured three Aboriginal
youths, who were coerced into leading them to an Aboriginal camp at Tomahawk
Waterhole on the Lander River. Here, another four Indigenous people were killed. Morton
identified the four victims as his attackers. The next day, two more Warlpiri were shot and
killed by Murray’s party at Circle Well. A few days later, Murray and company came across a
group of approximately 40 Indigenous people. Again, there was a firefight in which eight
were killed, according to official accounts. On 18 October, Murray returned to Alice Springs,
bringing an end to almost two months of violence, resulting in the massacre of thirty-one
official victims.xx

How many victims were there?

The death toll on the Australian frontier has long been a point of contention in Australian
historiography. Keith Windschuttle generated considerable controversy in his book The
Fabrication of Aboriginal History, in which he downplayed the significance of frontier
conflict and criticises historians such as Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan of exaggerating
the violence of colonisation. Windschuttle argued that “historians should only accept
evidence of violent deaths, Aboriginal or otherwise, where there is a minimum amount of
direct evidence.”xxi The reality is that the perpetrators often disguised the extent of frontier
violence, if they reported it at all. Neither Murray, nor any member of his party attempted
to deny they were involved in the slaughter of Indigenous people. However, the officially
reported total of thirty-one victims is most likely a gross underrepresentation. Henry
Reynolds contends that it is likely that more than 100 died at the hands of Murray and his
accomplices. Missionary Annie Lock interviewed Warlpiri survivors, who stated that were
“shot like dogs”, and that Murray killed small children by hitting them on the back of the
neck.xxii She wrote, “They rounded the natives up like mustering cattle and cleared or shot
them out as they came to them… [they] told them to run away and as they were running
they shot them.”xxiii Randall Stafford, who was a part of the first party assembled by Murray,
stated that he believed the number to have at least twice as many as the official total of
thirty-one.xxiv The misrepresentation of the death toll of the Coniston Massacre is indicative
of a wider phenomenon of underreporting the numbers of Indigenous people killed at the
hands of marauding settlers.

The Federal Government Inquiry

The Coniston Massacre received extensive local and international media attention.
Australian newspapers reported the murder of Brooks, a quiet inoffensive man, as a
tragedy.xxv The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story saying that the settlers in the area had
appealed to the police for help against “marauding natives”.xxvi However, the media reaction
and public opinion changed when Murray admitted to murdering 17 Warlpiri, including two
women, during the trial of Padyagar and Akirkra.xxvii Methodist Minister Athol McGregor
expedited the change in public opinion, and put pressure on the Government to open an
inquiry into the killings, stating that “[McGregor’s] objection is not to constitutional justice,
but to the shooting of 17 men and women by the police.”xxviii International newspapers such
as the Times of London also put pressure on the government by carrying several stories
about the Coniston Massacre throughout September 1928. Similarly, the British Anti-Slavery
Society wrote to Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce to compel him to look into the
killings.xxix Eventually, the government acquiesced, and Bruce announced an inquiry would
be held. Unfortunately, as Reynolds notes, the board’s refusal to include representatives of
humanitarian and missionary organisations affected its credibility.xxxThe inquiry declared
that all thirty-one killings had been justified as self-defence, even those in which the victim
had been shot from behind as they tried to escape.xxxi Furthermore, the board concluded
that no provocation had been given by either Brooks or Morton to explain Aboriginal
attacks. Despite the farcical nature of the federal inquiry, the Coniston Massacre had a
significant effect on Australian public opinion and the nation’s international reputation.
Henry Reynolds contends that this was one of the reasons it was the last officially
sanctioned punitive expedition against Aboriginal people. xxxii

Remembrance
In 2003, at a ceremony conducted by Warlpiri elders, a memorial was erected at Yurrkuru.
The memorial serves as a monument to the memory of the unknown number of Warlpiri
and Anmatyerre men, women and children who were slaughtered by Murray and his
companions. Some of the survivors never returned to their country, such was the emotional
trauma of the event. At the ceremony, ancestors of Murray “spoke sorrowfully of profound
regret and they apologised wholeheartedly.” This apology was accepted by the Warlpiri
elders on behalf of their people. No matter how much they are denied, the wrongs of
Australia’s past are still very real. For the Warlpiri, the murders of their grandparents,
parents, uncles, brothers and friends will never be forgotten.
i Bill Wilson & Justin O’Brien, ‘’To Infuse Universal Terror’: A Reappraisal of the Coniston Killings’, Aboriginal
History, 27 (2003), 60-62.
ii ‘Bush Murder: Attacked by Blacks’, Register (Adelaide), 14/8/1928, p. 9 in Trove [online database], accessed

16/10/2019
iii Henry Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2018), 164.
iv Ibid., 167.
v Wilson & O’Brien, 63.
vi ‘Prospector Killed: Murdered by Blacks’, Advertiser (Adelaide), 3/9/1928, p. 13 in Trove [online database],

accessed 16/10/2019; ‘Murder by Natives’, Argus (Melbourne), 3/9/1928, p. 21 in Trove [online database],
accessed 16/10/2019,
vii Wilson & O’Brien, 62-64.
viii Francis Jurpururla Kelly, ‘Coniston’, Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, 6/3 (2014), 2.
ix Tim Japangardi, ‘Coniston Killings’ tr. George Jampijinpa, Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages, (1978), <

http://laal.cdu.edu.au/record/cdu:42252/info/>, accessed 10/10/2019, p. 17.

x ‘Murray – Scourge of the Myalls’ Northern Standard (Darwin), 3/3/1933, p. 6 in Trove [online database],

accessed 16/10/2019,
xi Francis Jurpururla Kelly, ‘Coniston’, 2.
xii Wilson & O’Brien, 66.
xiii Ibid.
xiv Ibid.
xv Ibid., 68.
xvi Ibid., 68-69.
xvii Ibid., 70.
xviii Ibid., 70.
xix Wilson & O’Brien, 70.
xx Ibid., 71
xxi Michael Rowland ‘Myths and Non-Myths: Frontier ‘Massacres’ in Australian history – the Woppaburra of the

Keppel Islands’, Journal of Australian Studies, 28/81 (2004), 1-2.

xxii Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited, 165.
xxiii Ibid.
xxiv Wilson & O’Brien, 75.
xxv ‘Bush Murder: Attacked by Blacks’, Register (Adelaide), 14/8/1928, p. 9 in Trove [online database], accessed

16/10/2019; ‘Murder by Natives’, Argus (Melbourne), 3/9/1928, p. 21 in Trove [online database], accessed
16/10/2019,
xxvi ‘Appeals for Help’, Sydney Morning Herald’, 5/9/1928, p. 16 in Trove [online database], accessed

16/10/2019,
xxvii ‘Eight Natives Shot Dead by Police’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8/11/1928, p. 13 in Trove [online database],

accessed 16/10/2019; ‘Alice Springs Murder: Natives Acquitted’, West Australian, 9/11/1928, p. 21 in Trove
[online database], accessed 16/10/2019,
xxviii ‘Not Guilty of Murder: Blacks Acquitted’, Argus (Melbourne), 10/11/1928, p. 17 in Trove [online database],

accessed 16/10/2019,
xxix Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited, 170.
xxx Ibid., 167.
xxxi Ibid., 168; Wilson & Obrien, 72-73.
xxxii Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited, 171.
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Images
Fig. 1: ‘William Murray attacks a fleeing Warlpiri warrior’: Jampijinpa, George in
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Fig. 2: ‘Brooks with a Warlpiri woman’: Jampijinpa, George in Japangardi, Tim, ‘Coniston
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