Maria massacre

Background Maria was launched from Grand Canal Docks, Dublin, in 1823. Maria left Port Adelaide on 26 June 1840 for Hobart Town, with 25 persons on board, including the captain, William Ettrick Smith, and his wife. Passengers included Samuel Denham and Mrs Denham (née Muller) and their five children (Thomas, Andrew, Walter, Fanny, and Anna); the recently widowed Mrs York (sister of Samuel Denham), and her infant; James Strutt (previously with Lonsdale's Livery Stables, hired as Mrs Denham's servant); George Young Green and Mrs Green - possibly James Greenshields; Thomas Daniel and Mrs Daniel; and Mr. Murray. The ship's mate and crew were John Tegg, John Griffiths, John Deggan/Durgan/Dengan, James Biggins, John Cowley, Thomas Rea, George Leigh/Lee, and James Parsons. The wreck ''Maria's hull was never found, though pieces of wreckage washed ashore at Lacepede Bay. In 1972 a diver recovered a rubber gudgeon which may have come from either the Maria or the Margaret Brock''. There have been rumours of gold sovereigns aboard the ship, but records have not confirmed this. There were stories of coins being passed around the Ngarrandjeri people, which may have been traded by survivors before the massacre. It is hoped that the wreck may one day be located, using advanced remote sensing technology. This would be of great historical value. Senior maritime heritage officer Amer Khan of the Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources State Heritage Unit, said that such a discovery could help to reveal the chain of events which led up to the tragedy. Khan suspects the wreck lies somewhere near Cape Jaffa, where the treacherous Margaret Brock reef is located. A cannon reported to have belonged to the Maria and which "was probably carried for the look of the thing or for signalling" was purchased from the Lee family of Middleton by D. H. Cudmore around 1914 as a garden feature for his home "Adare" in Victor Harbor, South Australia, then as a family tradition fired to welcome each New Year. A bell, claimed to have belonged to the ship, was acquired by Nuriootpa High School in 1942. == Massacre ==

The passengers and crew safely reached land. There were no survivors to tell the tale, or stuffed into wombat burrows. Pullen questioned the group who had led him to the bodies; many remained silent, but Pullen described two of the men as "the most villainous (sic) looking characters I ever saw", and assumed their guilt. Such detail of how the Maria survivors came to be widely separated into three groups can only be supposition, as none lived to tell the tale. The body of the captain was found far removed from the others, and no trace of the crew members was ever found, so it is not known whether they suffered the same fate as the passengers. One contemporary noted that survivors of the schooner Fanny (Capt. James Gill), wrecked in the same area two years earlier (21 June 1838), were given every assistance by, presumably, men from the same tribe. == Retribution==

After reading Pullen's report, Governor Gawler commissioned Major O'Halloran to investigate further and his party left Adelaide on 15 August 1840. Reinforcements were called for and on 22 August, O'Halloran left Goolwa (then known as "the Elbow" In the course of rounding them up, three Aboriginal men were killed, while an unrecorded number were wounded when attempting to flee. It was judged by the party that there was sufficient evidence of guilt, and the men unanimously pronounced a guilty verdict against them. Later, it was reported that there had been a legend among the Lower Murray tribes about "a white woman with red hair living her life with the blacks". ==Aftermath==

Bodies were recovered over the following six months, as follows, found at four sites (a total of 18): On 12 August, Gawler had consulted Judge Charles Cooper of the Supreme Court as to whether the Aboriginal people were subject to British law, to which he replied that British law could not apply to "people of a wild and savage tribe whose country, although within the limits of the Province of South Australia, has never been occupied by Settlers, who have never submitted themselves to our dominion, and between whom and the Colonists, there has been no social intercourse". He also wrote: The Council preferred to treat the Milmenrura people as "an openly hostile tribe and foreign enemy". ==Response to the executions==

In Australia, little blame was apportioned to O'Halloran for his part in this affair; not so for Governor Gawler, who was severely criticised by sections of the press, notably the Register. The controversy may have played a part in Gawler's recall some months later. In October 1841, the Secretary of State for the Colonies replied to Gawler's report, in which he attempted to justify his policy in the matter. The opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was that the accused could have been brought to trial in the usual way, so their summary execution was an act of murder. The Commissioner of Police and all present were guilty as principals, and the Governor an accessory before the fact. The only way they could be indemnified was by an Act of Parliament or by a pardon under the Great Seal. They later opined that no action should be taken until a prosecution or similar might warrant it. No further action was taken, and the inquiry lapsed. ==Commemoration and legacy==

Maria Creek in Kingston was named as a reminder of the wreck. with the inscription: In December 2024 it was announced that the Electorate of Frome, a state electoral constituency, would be renamed Ngadjuri before the 2026 SA election, owing to Frome's involvement in burning the village. The name was chosen to honour the Ngadjuri people, the First Nations people of Mid North. ==Differing accounts==

Since nobody from the Maria survived it is difficult to ascertain what exactly happened. On 10 April 1841, members of the Tenkinyra tribe guided Richard Penny to a spot where they promised the remains of a drowned white man were buried. He believed it would be Captain Collet Barker, who was speared to death in the same area on 30 April 1831. They found instead the bodies of four of the five from Maria still unaccounted for; one drowned and four bashed to death. The Aboriginal people told Penny that the attack had followed the shipwrecked party's refusal to hand over clothing that they had considered their just entitlement for guiding and sustaining the group and carrying the children across their land. The Maria party had promised plenty of blankets and clothing from Adelaide after they returned, but the Aboriginal people started to help themselves to the goods and a fight ensued, ending in the killing of the shipwrecked party. One researcher, Graham Jaunay, reported: "The passengers and crew managed to launch a boat and it would seem that all arrived safely on shore. They were befriended by members of the local tribe, the Milmenrura, who apparently negotiated to take them east along the coast towards Encounter Bay - the nearest settlement. While accounts vary, when the party reached the territorial boundary at Little Dick Point, the aborigines would go no further. The wreck survivors argued that they had negotiated to be taken all the way to Adelaide. Despite the protestations, an exchange took place and the so-called Needles Tribe took over escort duties. It would seem that the refugees' clothes were coveted by some men of the clan although contemporary reports have never made it clear which clan. The difficulties were seemingly compounded by some individual crewmen attempting to entice sexual favours from some aboriginal women without realising that this placed certain traditional obligations on them". She reports Dr Kenny's suggestion that the survivors were killed after being helped to safety and not receiving an expected reward, and anthropologist Norman Tindale's recording of Ngarrindjeri oral history given in 1934, which reported that some sailors "took a favourable opportunity of interfering with some native women". Another story passed down the generations said that after responsibility for the shipwreck survivors had been passed to a third clan (the Milmenrura) from the original one, some young men had got into an argument and killed them. These men had paid for their crime with their lives, punished by tribal elders; the men hanged by O'Halloran were therefore not guilty of the massacre. ==See also==