Paul,

It's there, in letter after letter, [Volume 1, Nos. 14 - 17], since the entire 'massacre' took several months to bring to a conclusion, from the massacre of whites through the chasing of hundred of warriors up and down the Murray, following the heaps of bones of their hundreds of stolen cattle and sheep, to the final battle between muskets and spears. Moorhouse reported thirty killed and some women raped afterwards: I presume that you have more comprehensive information ?

So you're saying, no matter what Dr. Moorhouse or any other whitefella might have written, it's automatically lies ? That may be so, we don't have any other record, but you know that, how ?

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Dear Paul,

There was an inquiry in to the Rufus River massacre.
The letters are in the State Library in Adelaide for
anyone wanting to do further research. Moorehouse
explained that the natives were "hostile." They
were armed with spears. Against guns.

Anyway, there's quite a bit on the web.

Here's just a few:

http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/silence.htm

http://www.api-network.com/main/pdf/scholars/jas61_nettlebeck.pdf

Foxy,

"They were armed with spears. Against guns."

Let us keep in mind that most of the guns were single-shot muzzleloaders and were slow to reload and on some occasions, Aboriginals had guns although this was later than your examples.

Foxy,

'Hostile' ? 'Hostile' ? They attacked a party of overlanders from Sydney (fair enough) and killed a number of them (how many, you can check by reading the letters, specified above), and took all of their sheep and cattle. Yes, you're right, that sounds pretty hostile.

It seems they drove those animals down (and then back up) the Murray, eating them as they went, and gathering more warriors from other groups on their way. This went on for some months. Then they attacked the party of thirty or so whitefellas coming up from Adelaide (an insignificant town in an insignificant colony) who were armed with with muzzle-loading muskets, which took around a minute to re-load. How long does it take to throw a spear ? In New Zealand, during the Maori Wars, Maori warriors could estimate how long and where a musket shot would go and duck, according to Gilbert Mair (check it out, Paul). So the whole shebang was not as uneven as I thought before. Ned Kelly was still using a muzzle-loader in 1880.

Is Mise is right that later on, Aboriginal people had guns. In South Australia, Aboriginal people were never stopped from having guns. In fact,from around 1870, the Protector used to issue guns - rifles and shotguns - to Aboriginal people who couldn't work full-time any more, and arrange for the free repair of guns. And of boats too. What a total bastard. He must have had an ulterior motive, since all whitefellas (except you and Paul, who are virtuous) do.

Joe

One important fact about single shot muzzle loaders, apart from the fact they were only a one shot at a time gun, They were seriously inaccurate.
So because of this it evened the odds for the blacks, because one would have to wait till the target was very close to get the best chance at hitting them.
Fortunately for the blacks, more often than not the blacks would get a spear away because they were close enough to hit the guy with the gun.
Now if the guy with the gun happened to miss, which was more than likely, the black fellas had a better than average chance to get to the guy with the gun if the spear either missed or just wounded them, because it took so long to reload the guns.
So whilst the guy is trying to reload, he was vulnerable to either another spear attack or being physically assailed by the blacks.
So the whites didn't have it all their way.

Joe,

The Rufus River massacre is well documented.
Yes, the Aborigines did steal animals in
retaliation for their women being raped and
other crimes. They were provoked into action
and Moorhouse's own words were that the Aborigines
did have speaks but they were shot before they could
use them.

I can't believe that we're still arguing about this
and you're still defending the actions of the white man
How many white men died compared to the Aborigines?

Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.
Go back to the State Library and get the facts of the
Rufus River Massacre and Moorehouse or read the links
I've given. I'm not making this stuff up - merely
quoting the available information. Read it for yourself.