The War of Southern Queensland (August–September 1843 – 5 January 1855) was a prolonged and widespread series of conflicts between the Indigenous peoples of South East Queensland and the southern parts of Wide Bay–Burnett, and British colonial settlers, militias, and police. The war began in the spring of 1843, following intertribal meetings held the previous year near to Baroon Pocket in the wake of the Kilcoy massacre. Leaders from the Jagera, Wakka Wakka, Kabi Kabi, and Jinibara nations formed a loose alliance sometimes described as the United Tribes. From this gathering came what historians later called the Bunya Declaration—a coordinated call for resistance and a stated intent to drive the British from their lands.Schmidt, K.W.E. (1843). Report of an Expedition to the Bunya Mountains in Search of a Suitable Site for a Mission Station, p. 5. John Oxley Library, Brisbane.Kerkhove, Ray (2014). A Different Mode of War? Aboriginal Guerrilla Tactics in Defining the "Black War" of Southern Queensland, 1843–1855. Paper presented at the Australian Historical Association Conference, University of Queensland.Connors, Lyndall (2015). Warrior: A Legendary Leader’s Dramatic Life and Violent Death on the Colonial Frontier. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Historians regard the conflict as the largest and most sustained campaign of the Australian frontier wars, both in its geographic scope and duration, and had among the highest death tolls. The war led to the dispossession of Indigenous nations and consolidated colonial pastoral control across southern Queensland, continuing until the mid-1850s and culminating in the capture and public hanging of the resistance leader Dundalli in Brisbane in 1855, which largely ended organised Aboriginal resistance in the region.Evans, Raymond (2010). A History of Queensland. Cambridge University Press. .Ørsted-Jensen, Robert (2011). Frontier History Revisited. Lux Mundi Academic. .Richards, Jonathan (2008). The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police. University of Queensland Press. .
Background European colonisation of the Brisbane region began with the establishment of the Moreton Bay penal settlement in 1824. The settlement disrupted Indigenous land use, blocked access to water and food, and introduced new diseases and social pressures. The Jagera and Quandamooka had already faced years of tension and conflict with the settlement, including raids on the maize fields and the Moreton Bay conflict between 1832 and 1833, in which Ngugi and Nunukul groups attacked penal outstations on the islands and mainland. These early clashes marked one of the first sustained episodes of Aboriginal resistance in Queensland and set the stage for later hostilities inland.
By the late 1830s, the opening of the Darling Downs to pastoralists triggered rapid expansion north from New South Wales. The combination of dispossession, sexual violence, and epidemic disease caused severe population decline among the Moreton Bay clans. Missionary reports by Christopher Eipper and J.C.S. Handt in 1841 described the collapse of traditional life through venereal disease, malnutrition, and infanticide resulting from social breakdown.Replies to a Circular Letter Addressed to the Clergy of all Denominations on the Condition of the Aborigines (1846). New South Wales Votes and Proceedings.
Prelude to war Kilcoy massacre In early 1842, conflict intensified after the poisoning of Indigenous people at Kilcoy Station, where between 50 and 60 members of the Gubbi Gubbi and neighbouring groups died after consuming flour laced with strychnine. News of the killings spread quickly across south-east Queensland, carried by Aboriginal messengers and later confirmed by station records and missionary reports. The event produced widespread anger through the region and became one of the principal catalysts for intertribal discussions on retaliation and coordinated resistance.Lergessner, James (2007). Death Pudding: The Kilcoy Massacre. Kippa-Ring: James Lergessner.Evans, Raymond (2008). "On the Utmost Verge: Race and Ethnic Relations at Moreton Bay, 1799–1842". Queensland Review 15(1): 1–31.
In the months following the Kilcoy massacre, reports of unrest spread across the Moreton Bay district. Commissioner for Crown Lands Stephen Simpson warned Governor Sir George Gipps in May 1842 that the killings had "excited much agitation among the native tribes," enclosing statements from long-term Indigenous-language intermediaries James Davis ("Duramboi") and David Bracewell ("Wandi"), who reported that many groups were discussing retaliation and resisting further encroachment.Simpson, Stephen (May 1842). Correspondence to Governor Sir George Gipps, in *Letterbook and Journals of the Commissioner for Crown Lands, Moreton Bay District*. Queensland State Archives.
Great Toor of 1842 During late 1842, a large intertribal gathering—later remembered as a toor—was held at Baroon Pocket in the bunya country of the Blackall Range.Schmidt, K.W.E. (1843). Report of an Expedition to the Bunya Mountains in Search of a Suitable Site for a Mission Station, pp. 4–7. John Oxley Library, Brisbane.Kerkhove, Ray; Spinks, Amanda (2018). "Old Moppy (1790s–1841)". Harry Gentle Resource Centre, Griffith University. Missionary observers, including Karl Wilhelm Schmidt and Christopher Eipper, recorded that news of the Kilcoy poisonings had "spread through all the neighbouring tribes" and that the gathering was marked by unusual political discussion and agitation.Eipper, Christopher (1841). Statement of the Origin, Condition and Prospects of the German Mission to the Aborigines at Moreton Bay. Moreton Bay Archives. Leaders exchanged accounts of settler violence, expressed anger over the deaths at Kilcoy, and discussed the possibility of coordinated retaliation and the defence of their lands.
A central figure in these deliberations was Old Moppy (Ugarapul), whose authority extended across the Upper Brisbane and Lockyer districts. Contemporary settler sources described him as a major organiser capable of rallying several hundred warriors and as a headman actively working to build broader alliances among neighbouring groups.Campbell, John (1875). The Early Settlement of Queensland and Other Articles, p. 10. Ipswich Observer.
Rising unrest (late-1842 to mid-1843) In late 1842 or early 1843, conflict in the Upper Brisbane and Lockyer districts intensified following a major settler raid on Old Moppy's camp. Contemporary retrospective accounts describe a party of 35–50 settlers attacking the camp, killing several people including Old Moppy's eldest son, Wooinambi. Soon afterwards, Old Moppy himself was killed in a separate surprise attack while fishing at Blackfellows Creek (Tent Hill), an event dated by historians to c. 1842–43 and widely understood as a reprisal by local colonists.
With Old Moppy's death, tensions across the region escalated further. By early to mid-1843, stations along the Upper Brisbane, Stanley River, Lockyer, and parts of the D’Aguilar Range were reporting increasing hostility, including the driving off of stock, burning of grass around outstations, and threats to shepherds and hut-keepers. Several contemporary settler accounts indicate that isolated huts and small homesteads were temporarily abandoned, reflecting a growing fear that a coordinated attack was imminent.
Warnings and mobilisation During the winter of 1843, further large gatherings occurred in the bunya region as anger over Kilcoy continued to spread. Contemporary settler observers, including Tom Petrie and Henry Stuart Russell, later recalled encountering a large and organised Indigenous force assembled in the region. A prominent figure in this mobilisation was Dundalli, a Dalla–Gubbi Gubbi lawman whose authority increased in the early 1840s; Petrie identified him as one of the principal organisers among the groups of the Pine Rivers, Caboolture, and Bunya districts.Petrie, Constance Campbell (1904). Tom Petrie's Reminiscences of Early Queensland, pp. 113–115. Both men stated that they were instructed to warn Brisbane that reprisals would follow for the Kilcoy poisonings, and that a unified resistance was being organised.Petrie, Constance Campbell (1904). Tom Petrie's Reminiscences of Early Queensland. Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson & Co., pp. 111–115.Russell, Henry Stuart (1882). The Genesis of Queensland. London: J.W. Buxton, pp. 140–145. Missionary reports from the same period, including that of Carl Wilhelm Schmidt, noted that the poisonings had "agitated" neighbouring groups and that many were preparing for renewed hostilities.Schmidt, K.W.E. (1843). Report of an Expedition to the Bunya Mountains, pp. 4–7. Later historians have referred to this coordinated warning as the "Bunya Declaration", not a contemporary term but a historiographical label used to describe the moment when several groups appear to have agreed upon a common strategy of resistance.Kerkhove, Ray (2014). A Different Mode of War? Aboriginal Guerrilla Tactics in Defining the "Black War" of Southern Queensland. AHA Conference.
By August 1843—the point at which Tom Petrie and Henry Stuart Russell encountered the large intertribal alliance in the Bunya country—colonial officials and settlers were reporting signs of a coordinated Aboriginal campaign across the Brisbane Valley, Lockyer, and Darling Downs.
Pugh's Almanac (1869) recalled 1843 as "when the blacks were now beginning to be very troublesome", and travel writer Nehemiah Bartley later summarised:
War fronts
Upper Brisbane–Lockyer campaign (1843–1846)
The first major theatre opened in 1843 when Multuggerah, the son of Old Moppy, led coordinated ambushes along dray routes crossing the Great Dividing Range. On 12 September 1843, their forces attacked supply convoys in the Battle of One Tree Hill near Toowoomba, halting traffic between the Darling Downs and the coast and forcing settlers to abandon the range route.
After the battle, Multuggerah's forces withdrew to the Rosewood Scrub, from which they continued to raid and besiege outlying stations for three years. Settlers constructed a small redoubt at Rosewood Homestead, reportedly manned in shifts by local volunteers. In 1846 a large colonial force of settlers and police attacked the stronghold in what was called the Storming of the Rosewood, killing Multuggerah and many of his followers.
To secure the range route, in late 1843 Stephen Simpson ordered the 99th Regiment to establish Fort Helidon; it was a military barracks and stone redoubt on the road linking Ipswich and the Darling Downs. It became the first permanent inland military post in Queensland and remained active until the end of the war.
By the mid-1840s, many of the United Tribes in the Brisbane and Lockyer valleys had acquired small numbers of working muskets or fowling pieces, though ammunition was limited. Aboriginal people in the Brisbane and Lockyer districts obtained these firearms mainly through trade and theft: drays and stockmen's huts were raided for old muskets, and some convicts or sawyers illegally bartered powder and shot for food or labour.
From 1843 to 1848 the upper Brisbane Valley was a stronghold of Aboriginal resistance. Raids at Wivenhoe, Rosewood, and along the Stanley River targeted isolated huts and supply lines. Following Multuggerah's death, leadership passed to figures such as Dundalli and Jackey, who continued coordinated operations from the Blackall Ranges and Bunya country.
York's Hollow campaign (1846–1848)
York's Hollow was a series of lagoons north of early Brisbane, between today's Spring Hill and Herston. It served as the primary Indigenous settlement of the Turrbal and Jagera tribes and a regional meeting ground for visitors from the Logan–Albert, D’Aguilar, and Darling Downs districts.