Skirmish and massacre
After the abduction of the Wiradjuri woman and the retaliatory killing of the two hut keepers, according to Jimmy Lambert’s grand-daughter, ‘a detachment of “Redcoats” were sent to punish the tribe’. The Dabee were taken by surprise. The men ‘hastily instructed the women and children to climb into the trees on the flat, while they themselves ran for cover behind the tree trunks on the opposite mountainside’. The ‘soldiers’ (they were almost certainly not soldiers but an armed party) followed the men and wounded ‘quite a few’, including young Jimmy, as the Dabee warriors skirmished with them from the steep sides of Clandulla. They may have had a prepared position, possibly with a stockpile of weapons, as their attackers found it too difficult to pursue them. The ‘Redcoats’ then went ‘back to the flat and fiendishly shot every woman, girl and piccaninny who had taken shelter in the trees there. Among them was the young lubra who had been the unwilling cause of it all’.
People involved
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Sources
- ‘POEM RECALLS TROOPS’ CRUEL MASSACRE Contributed by M. Lambert’, Tribune, 26 April 1961, p. 7.
Event mentions
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Skirmish and massacre1 Sep 1824 – 31 Dec 1824 — Brymair ValleyAfter the abduction of the Wiradjuri woman and the retaliatory killing of the two hut keepers, according to Jimmy Lambert’s grand-daughter, ‘a detachment of “Redcoats” were sent to punish the tribe’. The Dabee were taken by surprise. The men ‘hastily instructed the women and children to climb into the trees on the flat, while they themselves ran for cover behind the tree trunks on the opposite mountainside’. The ‘soldiers’ (they were almost certainly not soldiers but an armed party) followed the men and wounded ‘quite a few’, including young Jimmy, as the Dabee warriors skirmished with them from the steep sides of Clandulla. They may have had a prepared position, possibly with a stockpile of weapons, as their attackers found it too difficult to pursue them. The ‘Redcoats’ then went ‘back to the flat and fiendishly shot every woman, girl and piccaninny who had taken shelter in the trees there. Among them was the young lubra who had been the unwilling cause of it all’.Source: ‘POEM RECALLS TROOPS’ CRUEL MASSACRE Contributed by M. Lambert’, Tribune, 26 April 1961, p. 7.