thumb|right|"Mounted Police and Blacks", an 1852 lithograph by W. L. Walton, depicting the killing of Aboriginal warriors at Slaughterhouse Creek by colonial police troopers.

The Waterloo Creek massacre (also Slaughterhouse Creek massacre) refers to a series of violent clashes between mounted settlers, civilians and Indigenous Gamilaraay people, which occurred southwest of Moree, New South Wales, Australia, during December 1837 and January 1838.

The Waterloo Creek Massacre site is listed on the New South Wales Heritage Register as a place of significance in frontier violence leading to the murder of Gamilaraay people.

The events have been subject to much dispute, due to wildly conflicting accounts by various participants and in subsequent reports and historical analyses, about the nature and number of fatalities and the lawfulness of the actions. Interpretations were made again during the Australian history wars which began in the 1990s.

Events

A Sydney mounted police detachment was dispatched by acting Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales Colonel Kenneth Snodgrass, to track down the Namoi, Weraerai and Kamilaroi people who had killed five stockmen in separate incidents, on recently established pastoral runs on the upper Gwydir River area of New South Wales. After two months the mounted police, consisting of two sergeants and twenty troopers led by Major James Nunn, arrested 15 Aboriginals along the Namoi River. They released all but two, one of whom was shot whilst attempting to escape. The main body of Kamilaroi eluded the troopers, thus Major Nunn's party, along with two stockmen, pursued the Kamilaroi for three weeks, from present-day Manilla on the Namoi River north to the upper Gwydir River. On the morning of 26 January, in a surprise attack on Nunn's party, Corporal Hannan was wounded in the calf with a spear, where subsequently members of the Kamilaroi were killed. While one source puts the number of Kamilaroi fatalities at 4-5, there are other sources which say this number was closer to 40-50. The Aboriginals fled down the river as the troopers regrouped, rearmed and pursued them, led by the second-in-command, Lieutenant George Cobban. Cobban's party found their quarry about a mile down the river at a point now known as Waterloo Creek, where a second engagement took place.

Possibly disproportionate force

As there had been no declaration of martial law or other authorising legislation, the police lacked authority to use more than reasonable force proportionate to any risk to the safety of persons or property. Nobody at all had a licence to kill.

The troopers may therefore have used disproportionate force on people who posed little or no risk. "There was a suspicion that the troopers might have acted as an ill-disciplined military force rather than as a regular police force."

Some argue that there was a breakdown in law and order, affecting the capacity of the NSW Government to govern.

Later historians' views

More recently, historians and other commentators have offered varying accounts of the site of the conflict and the number of casualties.

  • R. H. W. Reece: The site was at the junction of the Slaughterhouse Creek and the Gwydir River, and 60 or 70 Aboriginals were killed.
  • Lyndall Ryan: Sergeant Lee's estimate of 40 to 50 killed is the most reliable.
  • Roger Milliss: 200-300 Gamilaraay people were killed around the site of Snodgrass Lagoon at the Lower Waters of Waterloo Creek.

<!--Military historian Peter Stanley claimed that at least 50 Aborigines were killed. (Stanley citation is needed. This appears to be a footnoted ref-->

Site

On 25 June 2021, the Waterloo Creek Massacre site at 3837 Millie Road, Jews Lagoon was declared a site of state heritage significance as "a place of frontier conflict" and listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register.