Murdering Gully massacre

Date	mid-1839
Location	Gully on Mount Emu Creek, Strathdownie station later Glenormiston Station, where a small stream adjoins from Merida Station, near Camperdown
Result	European victory, a massacre

Belligerents

Frederick Taylor, James Hamilton, Broomfield and employees

Tarnbeere Gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrung

Commanders and leaders

Frederick Taylor

Unknown

Strength

about 10

Casualties and losses

None

35 to 40 killed

Murdering Gully, formerly known as Puuroyup to the Djargurd Wurrung people, is the site of an 1839 massacre of 35-40 people of the Tarnbeere Gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrung in the Camperdown district of Victoria, Australia. It is a gully on Mount Emu Creek, where a small stream adjoins from Merida Station.

Of particular note for this massacre is the extent of oral history and first hand accounts of the incident and detail in settler diaries, records of Weslayan missionaries, and Aboriginal Protectorate records. Following the massacre there was popular disapproval and censure of the leading perpetrator, Frederick Taylor, so that Taylor's River was renamed to Mount Emu Creek. The massacre effectively destroyed the Tarnbeere Gundidj clan.

The massacre was undertaken by Frederick Taylor and others in retaliation for some sheep being killed by two unidentified Aborigines, as reported by one of Taylor's shepherds. As Aboriginal clans were pushed from their lands, their traditional foods of kangaroo and emu became much more scarce forcing Aborigines to kill sheep to fend off starvation. A common resistance tactic against the European invasion and dispossession was an economic war to drive sheep off and to kill sheep for food. However, George Robinson, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, in a letter to Assistant Protector Charles Sievwright on 11 July 1839, questions Taylor's allegation saying

Frederick Taylor, the manager at Glenormiston station, with associates James Hamilton and Bloomfield led a group of several shepherds in their employ and attacked a sleeping aboriginal camp, firing upon and killing men, women and children. Several aborigines were able to escape and later told their accounts to Assistant Protector Sievwright, and Weslayan missionaries Benjamin Hurst and Francis Tuckfield. The bodies were dumped in the waterhole and later burnt by some accounts.

Taylor had formerly been implicated in the killing of Woolmudgin from the Wathaurong people on 17 October 1836, and had fled to Van Diemen's Land to avoid interview and possible prosecution in that case.

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