Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island readers are advised this article contains the name of Indigenous people who are deceased.
FIFTEEN Aboriginal people killed in the Pinjarra Massacre are named in a contemporary newspaper account uncovered during Herald research — bringing their names back into view 191 years after they were published.
The list, printed in the Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal on April 25, 1835, identifies Binjareb warriors, women and a child, as well as warriors from a neighbouring group.
• A large boulder marks the site of the Pinjarra Massacre. Photo: Shire of Murray
It offers a rare glimpse into the identities of those killed when Western Australia’s first governor, Captain James Stirling, led an armed expedition against Bindjareb Noongar people near Pinjarra on October 28, 1834.
The newspaper’s list says the names were supplied by the “Murray tribe” and records the victims as:
Binjareb warriors: Ny-atch, Doong-gol, Yoon-ya, Merja, Bungar, Melgar and Kinjar.
Binjareb women: Quirtupp, Dearing and Un-goo-gool.
Binjareb child: Un-goo-loop.
Neighbouring warriors: Kinjar, Kunjan, Yag-agn and Ballung.
The account also records the wounding of a woman: “Yurup, a woman, was shot in the leg, which part has been cut off and buried, and the woman is recovering.”
The newspaper item was written by an unknown author, but appeared after an excerpt from the journal of George Fletcher Moore, a prominent early colonist who had close relationships with Aboriginal people and documented aspects of their lives and language.
The same article contained a striking note about an investigation being undertaken into the origins of attacks on colonists. The investigation was led by Francis Armstrong, the Swan River Colony’s Aboriginal interpreter.
“Mr Armstrong is now pursuing a most interesting inquiry, relative to the origin of the attacks made upon the white people; as far as he has proceeded, an opinion we have long entertained has been confirmed—that the whites were the first aggressors.”
The massacre followed escalating tensions in the Murray district over land, access to food and resources, and the killing of livestock. The killing of young settler Hugh Nesbitt in July 1834 was used by colonial authorities as a justification for the expedition.
Stirling’s party, comprising soldiers, police and settlers, surrounded a Bindjareb camp near Pinjarra. The attack resulted in the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children.
Stirling’s official account recorded 15 deaths, while Aboriginal oral histories and some historians’ estimates put the toll considerably higher, with figures ranging up to 80.
The massacre’s legacy remains central to the history of the region.
In October 2025, WA governor Chris Dawson formally apologised to the Bindjareb Noongar.
by STEVE GRANT