Merriman and his people would have been outraged by the reprisal killing on the King River. It was an ambush with no honour. There had been no warning given and men, women and children had been killed. (1)
Forty-two mounted policemen and military men under command of Stewart and Waddy were sent to find those responsible for the Faithful massacre, (2)
There was no Government acknowledgment of interference with Indigenous women (3) nor of the indiscriminate slaughter of up to one hundred Indigenous people at the King River in the weeks following the Faithful massacre. (4)
The reprisal Killing on the King River was covered up and the Governor was not aware of it, “…you are not aware of any aggression on the part of her Majesty’s white subjects, whereby these atrocities could have been provoked, but ascribe them to the natural cupidity of the aborigines, their want of moral principle.” (5)
(1) See the profile on Lt Col Henry White on this website for more information on the reprisal killing on the King River.
(2) Letter to Deas Thomson to P. P. King, Esq. Sydney, 22d June 1838.
(3) In 1883, Historian George Rusden wrote, ‘The men with the sheep quarrelled with the natives at the Broken River. The cause was the usual one. The convict men had trafficked with the women.’ History of Australia, vol. 2 page 228. 1883.
(4) See Profile on this site of Lt Col Henry White.
(5) The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Sat 30 Jun 1838, Page 2. ‘The Route to Port Phillip.’
