Australia's gulf country, like much of northern Australia, has a history of violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Some of the worst perpetrators of frontier violence have been honoured with place names, according to historian Tony Roberts.
Roberts, author of Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900, documented massacres such as one at Dunganminnie in 1886, where a reprisal party led by pastoralist Tom Lynott killed a large group of Aboriginal people. Lynott named the site Massacre Waterfalls, though the name no longer appears on official registers.
Jack Watson, known as the 'Gulf Hero', was manager of Lawn Hill Station in Queensland. According to explorer Frank Hann's biographical entry, Watson had '40 prs of blacks' ears nailed round the [homestead] walls collected during raiding parties'. Watson later worked on Florida Station in the Northern Territory, a site notorious for massacres. He died after being taken by a crocodile in the Katherine River.
Joseph Bradshaw, who selected land for a London-based company, oversaw what anthropologist Francesca Merlan called 'the most systematic extermination of Indigenous Australians' in the Roper and Arnhem Land regions. Bradshaw and his brother Fred are commemorated in place names and Northern Territory folklore.
The Northern Territory place names register lists sites like Massacre Hill and Dunganminnie Creek without historical context. Critics argue that Australia should confront this history and stop memorialising those responsible for atrocities.
