The Forrest River massacre (or Oombulgurri massacre) was a massacre of Indigenous Australian people by a group of law enforcement personnel and civilians in June 1926, in the wake of the killing of a pastoralist in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
An initial police inquiry concluded that sixteen Aboriginal people were killed and had their remains burnt. Subsequently, a Royal Commission was organised in 1927 to further investigate the matter. This Commission found that eleven Aboriginal people were murdered and burnt at several different locations. Two Western Australian police constables who participated in the punitive expedition that led to the massacre, James St Jack and Denis Regan, were arrested and charged with murder. Despite the findings of the commission and police investigation, the case never went to trial, with a preliminary hearing concluding that a jury would not be able to make a conviction. Lumbia, the Aboriginal man who killed the pastoralist Frederick Hay, was, however, convicted in a separate proceeding. The total number of victims of the punitive expedition led by St Jack and Regan is unclear, the highest being in the hundreds given by the brother of one of the participants in the massacre. The authoritative website Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930, notes that the latter figure 'is highly unlikely and is in dispute'.
Regardless of official police and governmental investigations concluding that a large number of people were killed during the police operation, denials of this massacre continued until at least the early 2000s.
Background In 1926, Leopold Rupert Overheu and Frederick Hay jointly held the Nulla Nulla property near Wyndham in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Their property bordered the Forrest River Aboriginal Mission (later renamed Oombulgurri) run by Reverend Ernest Gribble. Over previous years, Frederick Hay had repeatedly taken and molested Aboriginal women with Gribble making complaints to authorities about his behaviour. In 1924, Hay had also seriously injured an Aboriginal man after hitting him over the head with his rifle butt. Hay and Overheu complained about the spearing of their cattle by local Aboriginal people, Overheu claiming the value of the speared cattle to be £10,000. In response, their property was declared a prohibited area under the 1905 Aborigines Act preventing indigenous people from entering or crossing it to reach other areas.
Initial massacre at Durragee On 18 May 1926, Overheu made a formal complaint that a large group of Aboriginal people were spearing cattle at Nulla Nulla. Constable James St Jack of the Western Australia Police based at Wyndham was directed to investigate this killing of cattle. St Jack with his two Aboriginal assistants, Windie Joe and Jacob, set out from Wyndham and met up with Overheu and his Aboriginal servants Tommy Doort and Lyddie on the lower Pentecost River.
The group then travelled toward the Nulla Nulla property and camped for the night near Durragee Hill, close to where around 300 Aboriginal people were holding a ceremony on an island in the river. At dawn on 24 May 1926, St Jack armed Windie Joe, Jacob, and Tommy with shotguns and the patrol rushed the camp to disperse the indigenous people. Those who survived reported that many were injured and that two older men, Blui-Nua and Umbillie were killed by being beaten over the head with a stirrup iron or a rifle butt. An eyewitness to the Durragee Hill attack, Gladys Birch, many years later stated that several women and children were herded to the top of a cliff and pushed off while nine men were shot and thrown in a bonfire at Durragee. St Jack and Overheu testified later that they had shot no humans but had shot 31 dogs. However, witnesses described people being wounded by both bullets and shotgun pellets.
After the dispersal at Durragee, the patrol continued to the Nulla Nulla Homestead arriving after dark to find Frederick Hay missing. The next morning Windie and Tommy were sent to try and find Hay. Hay's body was found later that same day north-east of the homestead.
The killing of Frederick Hay On 23 May 1926, an Aboriginal man named Lumbia and his child-wives, Anulgoo and Goolool, were resting at Johnson Billabong on the Nulla Nulla property when Hay rode up and demanded sex with Anulgoo. Hay then stripped down to his boots and raped her in front of Lumbia before indicating an intention to take her back to the Nulla Nulla with him. When Lumbia objected Hay attacked him with his stock-whip then broke his spears. Without bothering to dress Hay gathered his clothes, mounted his horse and began to ride off but Lumbia grabbed a broken shovel spear and stabbed him in the back with it, killing him. Anulgoo later stated that, during the argument, Hay had shot at Lumbia, and the bullet grazed his head. Hay's pistol was found to have a spent cartridge in the chamber.
When Hay's body was found by the search party led by Constable St Jack, it had been largely consumed by predators and initially it could not be determined whether the remains were those of a white man or an Aboriginal person. According to the police report, the body still wore boots when found, which revealed white skin when removed. The district medical officer at Wyndham, Dr Arthur Adams, arrived from Wyndham two days later to conduct Hay's autopsy following which, due to the advanced state of decomposition, Hay was buried at the spot. St Jack and Overheu at this time had no knowledge that Lumbia had killed Hay and assumed that a large group of Aboriginal people were instead responsible for Hay's murder. On hearing of Hay's death, another armed group was organised at Wyndham where Richard Jolly and Bernard O'Leary were sworn in as special constables under the supervision of Constable Denis Regan. Overheu expressed that he wanted a strong armed force to go out and "deal drastically" with the local Aboriginal people.
Forrest River punitive expedition Regan's patrol left Wyndham on 1 June meeting up with St Jack's patrol at a place called Jowa in the headwaters of the Forrest River on 5 June 1926. In the days before Regan's group arrived, it appears that St Jack and Overheu had already been conducting extrajudicial killings of local Aboriginal people in the area with Overheu's Aboriginal servant Tommy Doort later admitting to killing a woman and her baby during this time.
Members of the police patrol The combined police patrol that met at Jowa on 5 June now consisted of 13 men and a woman. It was led by two constables of the Western Australia Police. Constable James Graham St Jack, from Wyndham police station. Constable Denis Hastings Regan, from Turkey Creek police station.
They were accompanied by two civilians sworn in as special constables, namely: Bernard Patrick O'Leary. Pastoralist at Galway Valley Station. Richard John Jolly. Unemployed labourer.
Two others, a settler and a veterinary surgeon, accompanied the force: Leopold Rupert Overheu. Hay's partner on the Nulla Nulla station. Daniel Murnane. An Australian government veterinary surgeon from Victoria.
Five Aboriginal trackers, three professional police trackers and a further two hired for the job. Jim McDonald (Mulga Jim) Police tracker born in Northern Territory. Frank. Police tracker from Turkey Creek. Jacob. Police tracker from Wyndham. Windie Joe. Special police tracker. Sulieman. Afghan/Aboriginal tracker.
In addition, there were a further three members of the group. Charlie. Aboriginal servant of O'Leary. Tommy Doort. Aboriginal servant of Overheu. Lyddie Goolara. Wife of Tommy and servant of Overheu.
All members with the exception of Lyddie were armed with .44 Winchester rifles. Additionally all the whites carried sidearms and the Aboriginal people were also given shotguns to replace their rifles when raiding camps. The patrol took 500 rounds of ammunition and were later supplied with a further 350 rounds (seven empty ammunition boxes were later found at one of the police camps). Although Regan was required to supply a written report accounting for every shot fired and to collect and return all used shell casings as proof, he never did so. 42 pack horses and mules carried the supplies for this substantial punitive expedition.
First stage of the Forrest River massacre On 6 June 1926, the police patrol travelled to a place known as Wodgil in the upper reaches of the Forrest River. Here they camped for two days where they managed to round up and take prisoner a number of Aboriginal people. Seven of these, 4 males and 3 females, were forcibly taken to nearby creek beds named Gotegotemerrie and Mowerie. At the former site the four men were killed and their remains burnt in makeshift ground ovens covered in large flat rocks. At the latter site, the three women were likewise disposed of. The remnant ashes, teeth and bone fragments were then dumped in the shallow pools of the creek beds.
On 10 June 1926 the police patrol moved on to another site known as Police Camp No. 3 some kilometres to the north of Wodgil. Here they rounded up another nine local Aboriginal people, 5 males and 4 females. The captives were taken to a nearby ravine where they were killed and their remains burnt in a large contained bonfire. The ashes and the burnt remains, including thousands of fragments of bones, were later discovered dumped next to the killing site in the ravine.
On 14 June 1926 the group raided a large encampment of Aboriginal people and took 34 prisoners. They interrogated their captives about the killing of Hay but apparently later released them with no casualties. By this stage the punitive expedition was running low on supplies and the group's leaders decided to go to the Nulla Nulla homestead and the Forrest River mission to resupply.
After arriving at Nulla Nulla, Daniel Murnane, a visiting veterinary surgeon who had volunteered for the patrol as he was a friend of Hay, decided to leave the expedition and return to Wyndham. On 19 June 1926 Murnane arrived at Wyndham where he gave initial reports about the punitive expedition. It was alleged that he said that "it was worse than the war" and that he "had enough of it", statements that he later denied. Upon hearing these reports, Sergeant Arthur Buckland, who was in charge of the Wyndham police, decided to recall the patrol and he left to rendezvous with them at the Forrest River mission.
Second stage of the Forrest River massacre The Reverend Ernest Gribble at the Forrest River mission had already heard reports that the patrol had killed several Aboriginal people and was worried that other innocent Aboriginal people might be killed. When members of the patrol arrived at the mission for supplies, he informed them that the local Aboriginal people had told him that Lumbia had killed Hay. Gribble advised them that they should be able to find Lumbia near the Lyne River to the north of the mission. The Aboriginal community at the mission supported the arrest of Lumbia, and Gribble supplied two Aboriginal men from the mission, Aldoa and Herbert, to guide the patrol to Lumbia. Sergeant Buckland arrived at the mission on 24 June to recall the punitive expedition but as the police were now searching for a specific suspect, he allowed it to continue, albeit in a reduced form. Buckland took Jolly back to Wyndham with him, while Overheu and O'Leary and their Aboriginal servants returned to Nulla Nulla. The police patrol now consisted of constables Regan and St Jack, accompanied by four Aboriginal trackers Mulga Jim, Frank, Windie Joe and Sulieman. The patrol also now included Aldoa and Herbert, the guides from the mission.