More than 170 years after a brutal massacre at Bootenal Springs in Western Australia, the descendants of the victims are calling for the full story to be told. The site, about 30 minutes south of Geraldton on Naaguja country, was where European settlers attacked Naaguja families camped on the banks of the Greenough River in the winter of 1854.
Naaguja elder Derek Councillor says the spirits of the dead still haunt the area. 'It’s scary at night-time,' he says, describing reports of ghostly fires, singing and dancing. His cousin Theona Councillor adds, 'This is our story, and we will tell it.' The stories have been passed down through generations, with Derek’s father warning him as a teenager that Bootenal was a 'bad place'.
The massacre was led by John Nicol Drummond, a self-appointed inspector of police, who gathered landowners and station hands to attack at dawn. The settlers recorded a death toll of 30 men, women and children, but the Councillors believe the true number was much higher. 'Someone dropped a zero – it was at least 100,' Derek says.
The attack came after years of conflict as European settlers took tens of thousands of hectares of land, bringing livestock and fences that disrupted Naaguja life. The Naaguja responded by taking sheep, and settlers retaliated with violence. Now, the descendants want the diaries of Drummond to be released in full, hoping for a reckoning with the past.
