The Forrest River massacre, or Oombulgurri massacre, was a massacre of Indigenous Australian people by a law enforcement party in the wake of the killing of pastoralist Fred Hay, which took place in the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 1926. The massacre was investigated by the Woods Royal Commission in 1927 which subsequently determined that 11 people had been killed. Charges were brought against two officers but dismissed for lack of evidence. The Commissions findings have been disputed by journalist Rod Moran, whose analysis has received some academic support while most academic historians accept that a massacre did take place but disagree over the number of victims.
Background
In 1921 two returned servicemen, Leonard Overheu and Frederick Hay, applied for a grant under the War Service Land Settlement Scheme. Nulla Nulla station was excised from the Marndoc Aboriginal reserve with the traditional owners, the King River Aborigines, removed and forced to live on the outskirts of Wyndham. By late 1925 the Kimberleys had suffered two years of severe drought. Heavy rains in early 1926 filled the waterholes, which resulted in large groups of Aborigines entering the Marndoc reserve, killing cattle for food. Hay and Overheu had been complaining about the spearing of their cattle, claiming it was "part of a conspiracy" against Nulla Nulla by the Rev. Ernest Gribble of the nearby Forrest River Mission (later renamed Oombulgurri).Overheu claimed the value of the speared cattle to be £10,000 ($680,000 in 2009 dollars) despite having only a small herd and needing to work and live in Wyndham to supplement the stations cotton crop. In response, Sergeant Buckland from Wyndham had the station declared a prohibited area under the 1905 Aborigines Act preventing Aborigines from entering or crossing it to reach other areas. On 18 May, Overheu made a formal complaint that a large mob of Aborigines were spearing cattle on the station and along with Aboriginal employee Tommy Doort, his wife Lyddie and two stock boys camped on the lower Pentecost River to await the arrival of police.
Constable James St Jack along with Aboriginal trackers Jacob and Windie Joe arrived on 20 May and the group moved to Durragee Hill where they dispersed a mob of 250-300 Aborigines. After the dispersal of the Aborigines, the patrol continued to the Nulla Nulla Homestead arriving after dark to find Hay missing and a search the following morning found Hay's body. Rev Gribble entered a note into the mission log dated 27 May, reporting the "news" that Tommy and Windie Joe had killed Blui-Nua at Durragee Hill and that an old man named Umbillie had been killed by blows to the head by unknown persons.
Death of Hay On 23 May 1926, while riding the boundary of Nulla Nulla station, Fred Hay attacked an Aboriginal man by the name of Lumbia. Hay flogged Lumbia 20-30 times with his stockwhip and as he rode off was stabbed in the back with a spear and killed by Lumbia. The reasons for the assaults remain unclear. Several native accounts exist as reported by interpreters. All the various accounts given before Lumbia's trial share a common thread, the rape of one or both of Lumbia's child wives.Green, 1995, p. 157. On hearing of Hay's death Rev Gribble rushed to Wyndham where he swore in Richard Jolly and Bernard O'Leary as special constables under the supervision of Constable Denis Regan and tasked them with finding Hay's killer.Green, 1995, p. 144.
Massacre Rumours Regan's patrol left Wyndham on 1 June, to hunt for Hay's unknown killer, meeting up with St Jack's patrol at Jowa. The police patrol now consisted of four whites, one of them Fred Hay's partner Leopold Overheu, two settlers specially sworn in by Gribble as policemen, seven Aboriginal trackers, 42 pack horses/mules and led by Constables James St Jack and Denis Regan. On 4 July, the patrol returned to the Forrest River mission with some 30 Aboriginal men in chains, among them Lumbia, who, when questioned through an interpreter, confessed to having killed Hay. Over the following weeks several Aboriginal women attended the mission to have bullet wounds treated and it was claimed that the sister of another woman had been shot dead by the patrol and her baby bashed to death. In the months that followed, rumours circulated of a massacre by the police party. Attempts by the sergeant of police at Wyndham to investigate the rumours were met by refusals by those implicated to cooperate or answer claims they were involved. Rev. Gribble alleged that 30 men and women were missing who he suspected had been killed by the police party. Local Aborigines claimed up to 100 men women and children had been killed. Two years later Professor A. P. Elkin visited the area and estimated 20 had been killed.Elder, 1998, pp 168-76
Leopold Overheu's house boy Tommy, who accompanied him on the police patrol, was the first to talk about the massacres after speaking to some bush Aborigines who passed on the story to Rev Gribble. On 16 July, Gribble sent two Aborigines to secretly meet with Tommy to find out more details. Overheu found out and according to Tommy's wife Lyddie, rushed in with a drawn pistol and Tommy fled to hide in the bush. On 23 September, Overheu had Tommy's wife Lyddie brought to the Six Mile camp and Tommy came out of hiding to join her. Overheu gave him new clothes and asked Tommy to meet him the following morning to help find some horses that had strayed. Overheu and Tommy left together with Overheu returning a few hours later alone, leading Tommy's horse. Tommy was never seen again. Overheu later testified he had no knowledge of the rumours about the police killings or that Tommy had spoken to anyone about his involvement in the killings until after he had disappeared. However Inspector Douglas had interviewed Overheu extensively on this very subject in early September.Green, 1995, p. 203
Investigations On 12 August Rev. Gribble, accompanied by Inspector E. C. Mitchell of the Western Australian Aborigines Department in Wyndham, visited two of the alleged massacre sites identified by Tommy Doort, Mowerie and Gotegotemerrie. Mitchell reported that he found considerable evidence of attempts to clean up the site, which included the chipping away of stone to remove dark stains from a rock ledge, and that he had recovered a quantity of intact human teeth and skull fragments from the ashes of a large fire nearby. Mitchell sent a telegram to the Chief Protector, A.O. Neville: "Shocking revelations, saw place Forrest River, rocky higher bed where natives chained small tree killed there then bodies burnt improvised oven". Two weeks later Chief Inspector Douglas visited both sites and noted finding dark stains that had human hairs attached on a rock slab behind a tree near where the fire had been. In September Douglas returned with Sulieman, a tracker who had ridden with the patrol. Following tracks from Mowerie and Gotegotemerrie to police camp 3 Sulieman pointed out the remains of a fire. He claimed that the Aboriginal trackers had been sent to destroy another police camp while St Jack and O'Leary remained with six chained prisoners, and that, on returning the next morning, they found Constable St Jack and O'Leary at a large fire. He did not see any of the prisoners killed, but "knew that the bodies were in the fire". Arriving at camp 3 Sulieman stated that Regan, O'Leary and Murnane led nine prisoners in chains into a ravine, returning the next morning alone. Douglas followed tracks from camp 3 into the ravine where he "found the remains of a large fire and some thousands of fragments of bone in the ashes".At most of the sites much of the ash had been scooped from the fires and thrown into nearby billabongs where charcoal and bone fragments were still visible on the bottom until rains in 1927 washed them away. Douglas' report to the police commissioner stated: "sixteen natives were burned in three lots; one, six and nine; only fragments (of) bone not larger than one inch remain".
Wood Royal Commission On the recommendation of the police commissioner a Royal Commission, conducted by G. T. Wood, sent an evidence-gathering party and heard evidence regarding Gribble's allegations.
The 1927 Wood Royal Commission was tasked with investigating the disappearance of Tommy, one of the patrols trackers and a key witness, who had vanished after meeting with Leopold Overheu and the investigation of three particular sites (Gotegotemerrie, Mowerie and Dala) in the vicinity of the Forrest River Mission (now Oombulgurii) where it was alleged the massacres had taken place. It did not include Camp 3 where Police Inspector Douglas had discovered thousands of fragments of bone that he believed to be human, nor any other locations where police camped.The evidence for The Forrest River Massacre Quadrant Magazine 1 July 2003 Leopold Overheu hired Walter Nairn to represent the parties under investigation and requested members of the police patrol donate to the defence in proportion to their involvement. The Crown declined to provide any legal representation for the Aborigines Department and Gribble was obliged to act in the capacity of a bush lawyer and handle the entire case on their behalf.Green, 1995, p. 189.
Sergeant Buckland had given evidence on 3 March that he had investigated Dala and his evidence was so disparaging to Gribble's claims for the site that Commissioner Wood visited Dala on the 14th to see for himself. From what he found, Wood had no hesitation in declaring Buckland unreliable and less than candid with the commission and confirmed Gribble's account. The rainy season was late and the ash and footprints were still present and clearly visible (the first rain of the season fell the day after the Commission left). Sergeant Buckland had claimed that when he visited the site he found no evidence of a police camp, Wood found the site strewn with empty food cans and tobacco tins which he regarded as evidence of a police camp. A partially burnt tree surrounded by ash was peppered with what Gribble claimed were bullet scars but which Buckland had testified were marks made by stones or other blunt objects. Recalled by Wood, Buckland admitted that one of the marks had been a bullet scar and that Quartpot, a police tracker, had later dug a bullet from it which Wood asked to be produced. Constable Donegan, who had taken possession of the bullet, had said that he was not certain if he could find it, however it was found and given to Wood. Later, Inspector Douglas said that the bullet looked like a .44, the same caliber as the police issue Winchester although lighter in weight, but stated that it would be impossible for a bullet to pass through a human body and lodge in a tree behind it. Green noted that the Winchester rifle was a popular model carried by travelers in the area and that bullets extracted from trees in the Kimberley did not necessarily come from police rifles.Wood Royal Commission report pg 11Green, 1995, p. 197-198. At the subsequent trial of Regan and St Jack, Buckland repeated his testimony that there was no police camp at Dala, the tree scars had been made by a stone and the recovery of the bullet was never brought up.Green, 1995, p. 213.