Dear ttbn,

Reading is indeed crucial I totally agree.
That is why it is important to read more
than one version of events as I've
stated previously.

Dear Joe,

There are so many links available on the web on
Aboriginal massacres. The following link is only
one such example:

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/myall-creek-massacre-1838#toc3

Dearest Foxy,

Myall Creek, 1838, that's right, and nine white blokes were hanged for it. Any others ? Actual sites, where some investigation had been done? Not just bar-fly yarns, and third- and fourth-hand stories, handed down and magnified with each re-telling ?

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

Some others are also listed in the link I
gave on the Myall Creek Massacre. You can
also find them separately on the web.

Hi Foxy,

Are any of those others anything but rumours, maybes, hearsay, family legends, with not one actual investigation amongst them ? I can't be bothered looking up such sites. Give me some reason to.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

So now you want me to teach you how to
tie your shoe laces after all.

Seriously, why don't you start with the
list given in my earlier link on the Myall
Massacre and decide for yourself.

Dearest Foxy,

A list of places with the word 'massacre' attached is not exactly evidence of massacres. Have each of those places been examined ? I don't know. Do you want me to go searching or would that be the obligation of those who assert that something happened ?

There are aspects of that Myall Creek account which don't quite ring true: I doubt that people would still travel about in a single coherent group, rather than scattering into ones and twos into the dense bush, which they would probably know well, even better than the native Police who usually came from some other region. Whites were usually useless in pursuing anybody in the bush, and tended to leave it to the Native Police. If thirty people were killed at Myall Creek, then surely there would have been thirty sets of remains to examine. Similarly at Coniston in the NT. Or anywhere else.

I'll say it again, I'm reasonably sure that many massacres occurred, but in order to be more specific, thorough investigation of supposed sites should - and still could - be carried out. Without evidence, why believe any particular story ? I'd be convinced if just one bone was discovered at any particular site with some marks of killing by whites, by gun or sabre. Not necessarily thirty different individuals with such marks at a site, but enough to give some reasonable certainty that, of, say, thirty sets of remains found, if the only evidence of cause of death on any of them were the marks of bullets of sabres, and not spearing or clubbing, etc., as might have been the case in Black on Black killings. i.e. just something to tie the deaths of individuals to the actions of whites, or Native Police under white direction.

He/she who asserts must prove, i.e. provide evidence sufficient to make a judgment about the assertion. A list of places doesn't cut it.

Love,

Joe