Avenue Range Station massacre
Avenue Range Station massacre.
The Avenue Range Station massacre was the murder of at least nine Aboriginal Tanganekald people, who were shot by white settlers on the Avenue Range pastoral station in the colony of South Australia around September 1848, during the Australian frontier wars. Those confirmed to have been killed were an old blind man, three women, two teenage girls, and three female children, including a baby. The sheep farmer James Brown (pictured) and his overseer, Eastwood, were suspected, and Brown was charged with the murder of "unknown aboriginal natives" in March 1849. The magistrate who committed him for trial said that there was "little question of the butchery or the butcher". Further investigation was ordered, but by the November 1849 sittings of the Supreme Court in the colonial capital of Adelaide, the case had been dropped. At the time there were significant restrictions on the use of evidence given by Aboriginal witnesses, especially where a verdict could involve capital punishment.
The Avenue Range Station massacre was the murder of at least nine Aboriginal Tanganekald people, who were shot by white settlers on the Avenue Range pastoral station in the colony of South Australia around September 1848, during the Australian frontier wars. Those confirmed to have been killed were an old blind man, three women, two teenage girls, and three female children, including a baby. The sheep farmer James Brown (pictured) and his overseer, Eastwood, were suspected, and Brown was charged with the murder of "unknown aboriginal natives" in March 1849. The magistrate who committed him for trial said that there was "little question of the butchery or the butcher". Further investigation was ordered, but by the November 1849 sittings of the Supreme Court in the colonial capital of Adelaide, the case had been dropped. At the time there were significant restrictions on the use of evidence given by Aboriginal witnesses, especially where a verdict could involve capital punishment.
