Waterloo Bay tribute to Aboriginals killed on cliffs near Elliston on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula in 1849

The memorial to the Waterloo Bay incident near Elliston on the Eyre Peninsula.

The Waterloo Bay “massacre” refers to a clash between settlers and Aboriginals in 1849 on cliffs near Elliston on Eyre Peninsula. It followed three white settlers killed by Aboriginals and one Aboriginal killed and five others poisoned by white settlers.

Limited offcial archives indicate three Aboriginal people were killed or died of wounds at Waterloo Bay cliffs, and five captured, although accounts of up to 260 Aboriginal people killed have circulated since 1880.

Whether a major massacre occurred became a dispute between documented and imagined history of white settlement and the Aboriginal oral history. But, in 2018, Elliston district council received a national award for agreeing to an Aboriginal request for a memorial to the Waterloo Bay episode.

In 1839, white settlers arrived at Port Lincoln on Eyre Peninsula’s east coast. Clashes with Aboriginal people started, as settlers spread pastoral runs. In 1842, soldiers arrived to protect settlers but remoteness, vague powers and limited policing for the government resident limited the rule of law. Settlers’ threats to Aboriginals escalated into terrorising them to stop interference with stock and property.

In 1848-49, incidents between settlers and the Nauo, Kokatha and Wiranu peoples in Elliston district started with John Hamp, a hut keeper on Stony Point sheep station, speared and clubbed to death by Aboriginals. At least one Aboriginal person was shot by the station overseer for stealing a shirt.

In 1849, five Aboriginals – two adults, two boys and an infant – died after eating poisoned flour stolen by an Aboriginal man from William Ranson Mortlock’s station near Yeelanna. The flour’s owner was arrested and charged with murder, but went to the United States after being released. The poisoning may have led to two revenge killings. James Rigby Beevor was speared at his hut and, four days later, Annie Easton speared on a nearby lease. Her infant was unharmed and found beside her body.

In 1849, stores were taken from a hut on Thomas Cooper Horn's station and a hut keeper and shepherd were threatened by Aboriginal people. The station owner and station hands pursued the group. Shots were fired and spears thrown. Horn and his men followed those escaping down Waterloo Bay cliffs. They opened fire. Port Lincoln’s government resident and police inspector didn’t mention many casualties in their reports. Officially, two Aboriginals were killed and one fatally wounded.

A group of Aboriginal men was taken to Adelaide for trial. Two were convicted of the Beevor murder, brought back to Elliston district and hanged outside his hut. Three charged with Easton’s murder were acquitted due to lack of evidence.

Two more Aboriginal men were arrested in Port Lincoln and charged with Hamp’s murder. Sentenced to death, they were released after doubts about the police’s Aboriginal witnesses. In 1852, another Aboriginal male was arrested as an accomplice in Hamp's murder but he too was released in Adelaide due to lack of evidence. He tried to walk home to his country but was murdered by four Aboriginal men for trespassing.