June 10th this year marks the 180th anniversary of the Myall Creek massacre, where at least 28 Aboriginal men, women and children were slaughtered and their bodies mutilated, then burnt.
The incident was just one of countless other massacres on Gomeroi-Gamillaraay country during the 19th Century.
The Myall Creek Massacre in 1838 is significant, not just because of the lives lost and the brutality of the events, but also because it was the first instance that white Europeans were prosecuted and found guilty of violence against Aboriginal people. While some people have cited the trial as an example of British justice at work, the flow on effect was that the violence against Aboriginal peoples across Australia went 'underground' and undeterred - massacres were covered up in secret rather than openly committed, waterholes were poisoned, and the steady dispossession of land and culture continued and continues, right up until today.
The photos below were taken earlier this year, at the site of the memorial for the Myall Creek massacre in northern NSW.
*click on images for full screen view.
