Colonial Frontier Massacres

In 2017, the University of Newcastle in Australia released an interactive map of Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788-1930. The map is part of the university's efforts to record and document the massacre of over 10,000 Native Australians between 1788 and 1930.

The eight-year-long project to document the massacres of First Nations people in Australia has now ended. The university's research into colonial frontier massacres actually concluded in 2022. Since then, every site on the map has been fact-checked and peer-reviewed to ensure its accuracy.

The map makes for harrowing reading. In just one example, it records how, on May 1, 1838, at Slaughterhouse Creek, fifteen heavily armed stockmen attacked and killed 300 Kamilaroi Aboriginal people. The massacre occurred just four months after 50 Kamilaroi people were killed by police at nearby Waterloo Creek.

The Guardian has now updated its The Killing Times interactive map. The Guardian map  incorporates data from the University of Newcastle alongside The Guardian's own research, which was conducted using the university’s methodology. The Guardian's map now includes the final peer-reviewed data from the Colonial Frontier Massacres project.

Like the university’s map, The Guardian's map features a timeline that allows users to filter massacres by date range. It also enables filtering by the number of victims and by perpetrator groups. Clicking on a marker on the map reveals additional details about the selected mass killing beneath the map.

Also See

Map of White Supremacy’s mob violence, 1848 - 2021 - an interactive map of lynchings against Black Americans