Alternate Names: The Bathurst War, Windradyne’s War

Aboriginal people: Wiradjuri (alt. Wiradyuri), Burra Burra, Gundungurra

Named Aboriginal people: Windradyne (Saturday), Aaron (Ering), Blucher, Jingler (Gingler), Simon, Joe, Sunday (Murundah), Diana ‘Mudgee’ Collins, Jackey, Taylor, Charley, Congo-gal, Jimmy Lambert, Peggy Lambert, Scrammy, Cookoogong, Friday, Penneegrah

Colonial Forces: 40th Regiment of Foot, colonial militia, armed settlers.

Notable Colonists: Major James Morisset, William Lawson, William Cox

Listen: 

The War on Wiradjuri has never ended | The Blak Lens | NITV, Dec 17, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asq-RPvPyWo

Push for Bathurst to grapple with its brutal past in Wiradyuri-led truth-telling project, 14 Aug 1824
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s94k3VHAouM

When the War is Over | Ep 5 | ABC Iview | November 2025 | https://iview.abc.net.au/video/AC2415H005S00

Narrative:

The fightback against the colonists and their tens of thousands of sheep and cattle that were entering Wiradjuri Country was announced by warriors in 1823. They told colonists in no uncertain terms that the Wiradyuri were going to ‘tumble down white man’ – to kill all the white men (Alsop and Booth, 1823: 340). 
In early 1824, the colonists at Bathurst noted that all the Wiradyuri who had been coming into the settlements and outstations – who had assisted the colonists in guiding and tracking and worked with them since 1815 – had suddenly ceased doing so. Communications between Wiradyuri and the colonists completely stopped (Morisset to Goulburn, 1824: 73; Lawson to Lawson, 1824: 37). In late May 1824, Wiradyuri tactics shifted to a new level. Threats to “tumble down white fellows” were carried out in a series of bloody raids that sent shock waves throughout the entire colony. Full-scale attacks on outstations began right across the region, from the Turon River in the north to O’Connell Plains in the south, as Wiradyuri warbands mobilised. They were under the leadership of men ­- only some of whose traditional names we know today - such as Blucher, Jingler, Simon, Joe, Sunday and Saturday - more famously known as Windradyne (Gapps, 2021: 125-157).
The resistance in 1824 was total and widespread across the Central West region of New South Wales, with conflict stretching from near Merriwa in the upper Hunter Valley region, to present day Mudgee and Rylestone, and to the south of Bathurst near Blayney (Gapps, Gudyarra, 2021: 125-157).
In early June 1824, people in the township of Bathurst witnessed a cart trundling through the streets with 7 dead convict stockworkers’ bodies heaped in it (Sydney Gazette, 12 August 1824: 2). Stockworkers across the Bathurst and Kings Plains were reported to be ‘"obliged to stay in the Huts and save their own lives" (Dunn to Palmer, November 1823: 329). Hundreds of cattle and sheep had either been killed or dispersed, or had been gathered up into herds and claimed by Wiradjuri people (Gapps 2021: 171-2). 
By July 1824, the number of dead colonists had risen to 20, with numerous others wounded  (‘Honestus’, 12 August 1824: 4). The pastoralists and stockholders of Sydney were in an uproar, clamouring for military intervention. A man writing under the name of Fidelis (very likely William Cox, an ex-army officer, first commandant of Bathurst, and with thousands of his own sheep and cattle in the district) wrote to the Sydney Gazette that the Wiradyuri were about 'to crush the flourishing prospects of our little Colony'. ('Fidelis', 12 August 1824: 4) It also seems to have been William Cox who suggested in a meeting with Governor Brisbane that the colonists should form 'one extended line' of soldiers and armed settlers to sweep the Bathurst Plains – a plan later and infamously conducted in Tasmania, called the Black Line. By early August, several colonists in Bathurst described the situation as 'war'.. (Bannister 1830: 124; Gapps 2021: 125-157)
Instead of a Black Line, martial law was declared west of the Blue Mountains and the military garrison reinforced. Commandant Morisset responded with a sweep of three "divisions" of soldiers and armed colonists across the region. The coordinated movements of these units of around 15 to 20 soldiers and armed settlers led by Magistrates was designed to capture or kill the resistance leaders, and to "repress future violences" (Sydney Gazette, 16 September 1824: 2). 
But it was not the military that ended the Bathurst War. Despite traversing a vast area of terrain (one division travelling to the Hunter River to the north), Morisset's forces failed to contact any warriors or, as magistrate Ranken disappointedly wrote, failed "seeing the enemy". Ranken was, clear that the colonists at Bathurst were in a state of war (Ranken Letters, 1824-30: 1244). 
In fact it was the well mounted and well armed parties of settlers and convicts who killed indiscriminately, such as that led by ex-Sergeant Thomas Miller who set out with 20 armed men (quote) "to hunt down the blacks". Miller later admitted in his memoirs they (quote) "shot and killed any they came across little and big young and old shared the same fate" ('Thomas Miller' 1895).
The northeast Wiradyuri campaign of warfare against the colonists at Bathurst forced Governor Brisbane to declare martial law west of the Blue Mountains in August 1824 ('Martial Law', Sydney Gazette 19 August 1824: 1). The Bathurst War, or the First Wiradyuri War, was ended not by the soldiers that were sent to the area, but by the heavily armed parties of stockmen and farmers who conducted massacres. From August 1824 there were no more attacks on colonists, and by December Windradyne famously led his people across the Blue Mountains to Parramatta to meet Governor Brisbane (Gapps 2021: 158-194) and for a peace celebration (The Sydney Gazette, 30 Dec 1824: 2). Perhaps Wyndradyne expected some form of negotiated settlement or agreement. Instead, the Wiradyuri received a feast and blankets and the colonising juggernaut rolled on across their Country.

Contributor: Stephen Gapps, 2025

Sources

Alsop and Booth, 1823. 'Re cattle killed by Natives', September 1823, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, Main Series of Letters Received, 1788–1826, State Records NSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, , pp. 340-342

Bannister, S., 1830. Humane Policy: or Justice to the Aborigines of New Settlements etc., Underwood, London

Dunn, 1824. 'Inquest into the death of Peter Bray', 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, p. 312

Dunn to Palmer, November 1823. SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, p. 329

'Fidelis', 1824. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 12 August 1824, p. 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183114/494904

Gapps, S., 2021. Gudyarra. The first Wiradjuri War of Resistance - The Bathurst War, 1822–1824, NewSouth Press, Sydney

'Honestus', 1824. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 12 August 1824, p. 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183111/494904

'Martial Law', 1824. Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 19 August 1824, p. 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183147

Morisset to Goulburn, 25 June 1824, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, p. 73

Ranken Family Letters, 1824-30, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, ML MSS, Doc 1244

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 30 December 1824, p. 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2183548

Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 16 September 1824, p. 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/494925

'Thomas Miller' 1895-1902, Bathurst and District Historical Society Museum Archives, Folio 10

William Lawson Junior to Nelson Lawson, 14 June 1824, in Beard (ed.) Old Ironbark: Some unpublished correspondence from and to William Lawson etc., The Wentworth Press, Sydney, 1967

Timeline Map >

The following lists references to some people involved in this conflict. More may be added in future.

This information has been collected from various sources, including the Colonial Frontier Massacres, 1788-1930 project (Ryan et al, 2025) and the South Australian Frontier and it's Legacies project (Foster et al), as well as ongoing research in primary sources. Finding and gathering this much information in millions of pages of colonial texts and other sources would not be possible without the use of computer automation. All information is checked but human and computer error can persist. Please let us know any corrections. Where possible, links are provided to sources to read the full text.

Country/Nation/People/Language indicates which Indigenous group people belonged to. Different people in different places prefer different terminology, and sometimes the 'belonging' relates to one of these not another. In many cases, due to colonists' limited knowledge, the archival record only uses generalised and sometimes racist terms (eg: 'blacks' or 'Murrimbidgee blacks'). In the absence of any other detail, although people travelled and visisted, we may infer the people involved were the people of the region the event occurred.

Listed are:

• Named Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander people. This includes people involved in violent action, or in some other way involved, such as messengers. In many cases only the colonists' name (alias or aka - 'also known as') for the person is available.
• Colonists involved in the conflict. This includes people who were involved in violent actions such as massacres and shooting, or whose stock, runs or huts were raided, or similar. It may include people who played a significant role in the conflict in other ways, such as the Governor or regional administrators who ordered actions or established policies in relation to the conflict.
• Unnamed individuals or groups of people. This is as specific as possible. If a group is mentioned that is indicated and if an individual is mentioned, we also list that individual. It may be difficult to disentangle which individuals and groups in source texts are the same, and which different. Indigenous people go unnamed in colonial records of conflict encounters more commonly than colonists, but sometimes reporting also did not refer to low status workers and convicts by name, and referred to them by role, such as 'a stockman', 'a shepherd', or by their employer's name, such as, 'Mr Smith's men'.
• Auxilliaries. This is a general category for people aiding or working for one side or another, who might not be regarded as 'from' that side. Usually this means Indigenous people working for, or acting on behalf of colonists such as trackers, workers and Native Police. This can also apply to colonists working within and on behalf of Indigenous culture (such as William Buckley). The distinction is not always clear cut and some individuals acted on both sides of the conflict or changed sides. This may be voluntarily or by coercion.

Unnamed Aboriginal People

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Unnamed Colonists

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Unnamed Auxilliaries

This data has not yet been gathered. Research work is ongoing. To help, please consider donating or contact us to volunteer or about setting up research projects in your area.