Hornet Bank massacre

The Hornet Bank massacre of eleven Europeans (including seven members of the Fraser family) was one of direct retaliation to the deaths of twelve Iman people by member(s) of the Fraser clan. It took place about one or two o'clock on the morning of the 27 October 1857 at a station on the upper Dawson River (now Eurombah) in central Queensland, Australia. It unfortunately spurred a much greater third massacre (led by William Fraser). It is believed that as many as 300 Aborigines may have been murdered in counter-retaliation, by both police and European squatters of the area. Indiscriminate attack against all and any Aborigines found within a wide radius of the station followed, including women, children and the elderly. The result was the believed extermination of the entire Iman tribe and language group by 1858, but this is however not true and in fact have recently been recognized by The High Court of Australia to the original custodian of the land surrounding the town of Taroom. one year later.

Squatters had begun to occupy Iman land from 1847 following Ludwig Leichhardt's 1844-45 journey through the area on his expedition to find an overland route to Port Essington on the north coast of Australia.

The westernmost European "land grab" of the area was named Hornet Bank station, seized by Andrew Scott, who arrived in the early 1850s. In 1854 he leased the station to Scottish-born John Fraser who took his wife, Martha, and a large family ranging in age from young children to the early twenties, to live in this area, isolated from other European settlement. Two years later John Fraser died of dysentery while on a droving trip to Ipswich and his eldest son, William, then aged 23, took over management of the station in collaboration with the lessee, Andrew Scott. (1)

The stations on the Dawson River were on the land of the Iman people who bitterly resented the invasion of these European squatters, who were attempting permanent residency without permission or negotiation. With their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, to the Europeans the Iman were an impediment to the expansion of their pastoral empires. Disrespect and then regular cruelty towards the Iman people inflamed their already overwhelming sense of injustice, being barred access to their area. They made the surrounding country dangerous for the European migrants. Shepherds in boundary huts were attacked and killed and settlers feared leaving their wives and children unprotected. Although contemporary reports of the events stressed the bloodthirsty nature of the Yeeman, contrasted with only kindness shown to them by the Fraser family, it has been claimed that the killing of the Frasers was in retaliation for the recent deaths of 12 Iman shot for spearing some cattle and for the deaths nine months earlier of an unknown number of Iman who had been given a strychnine laced Christmas pudding, allegedly by the Fraser family.

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