Qualla: Cullin-la-ringo Massacre

Cullin-la-ringo Massacre: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eight months on the road, more than ten thousand sheep, bullock wagons groaning across half a continent. By October 1861, Horatio Wills had brought one of the largest overlanding parties Queensland had ever seen north from Brisbane to a stretch of grassland he had named Cullin-la-ringo, north of present-day Springsure. He pitched his tents in open country and did not bother to mount a guard. He believed, by the account of those who knew him, that goodwill would be answered with goodwill. He was wrong about the moment, though perhaps not about the men. What happened here on 17 October was not the beginning of a war. It was the middle of one.

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Cullin-la-ringo Massacre: A Country Already at War

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

To understand the killing, you have to understand what came before it. The Gayiri people had lived in this part of central Queensland for thousands of years, and by 1861 they were watching it taken from them paddock by paddock. Shortly before the Wills party arrived, a neighbouri...

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Cullin-la-ringo Massacre: The Seventeenth of October

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By the survivor John Moore's account, Gayiri people moved through the camp all that day, unremarkable at first, their numbers slowly building until perhaps fifty were present. Then, without warning, they attacked with nulla nullas. The settlers fought back with pistols and tent p...

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Cullin-la-ringo Massacre: The Reprisal

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The dead at Cullin-la-ringo were soon outnumbered by the dead who answered for them. Settlers reacted with shock and fury, and police, native police and civilian posses launched what one historian called one of the most lethal punitive expeditions in frontier history. The Gayiri ...

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Cullin-la-ringo Massacre: The Son Who Survived

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Horatio Wills had a son who was not in camp that day. Tom Wills was two days' ride away, gathering stores at Albinia. He would become one of Australia's first great cricketers and, a few years later, a founder and coach of the game that became Australian rules football, even coac...

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