Myall Creek

​In May of this year (2021) we visited the site of the Myall Creek massacre.
Myall Creek is a place, where, in 1838, a group of twenty-eight Indigenous people, sitting peacefully around a campfire chatting and working, were brutally killed.
The group consisted mainly of women and children, with a couple of old men, no longer able to go hunting.
The young men of the tribe had gone after food for their families.
A group of colonists who came upon the group, simply massacred them.
Now, a warning here: These peaceful people were not shot, they were savagely massacred; their bodies chopped and slashed into unrecognisable pieces, heads were severed -  by white men who objected to ‘Natives’ being on ‘their’ land.
This was not an isolated case of murder, committed by white men. The victims were First Nations people, going about the activities they had been involved in for thousands of years. Similar atrocities happened elsewhere. 
The reason that the Mile Creek Massacre is often mentioned is that it was the first time the colonial administration created laws making Aboriginal people equal in the law.
As a consequence, the murderous Colonists were arrested and seven of them executed.
 
The site today is a peaceful place. There is a gentle path winding around the hilltop, over which some bodies were thrown in 1838. Information plaques offer some of the story and people have built small memorial rock cairns along the way.
To walk along the path, on a peaceful, blue-sky day, surrounded by eucalypt trees and bird song is very moving, as visitors take in the meaning of the site.
It is hard not to feel emotion and even blink back a tear, while also being horrified at the details of such a happening.
Despite its horrendous history, it is somehow a beautiful place; and very peaceful.
Up until NOW.
We have just seen in the News, that someone has desecrated this peaceful site, with racist words and wreckage.
I cannot fathom the ignorance and mindless action that would make someone do this.
Myall Creek is not a ‘handy’ place to visit. These fools must have planned such an action. Surely not, but why else would they have visited?
It is unimaginable that this could happen. It seems that 183 years later, there are bigoted and racist individuals still to learn the meaning of equality.
Or respect.