Professor maps Darling Downs indigenous massacre sites

QUEENSLAND'S colonial history is stained in bloodshed but the worst atrocities are long forgotten, until now.

University of Newcastle historian Professor Lyndall Ryan is mapping the site and details of every colonial massacre involving indigenous Australians.

FROM 1840 to 1850 there were 30 indigenous massacres along the Queensland and New South Wales border.

They include 15 Gawambaraay people killed at Crampton's Corner in 1844 and about 100 Wiriyaraay people killed at Carbucky Station in 1849, both west of Goondiwindi.

University of Newcastle professor Lyndall Ryan spent the past decade mapping each event. She will be in Toowoomba on September 12, to give a public lecture at the University of Southern Queensland.

"Most massacres took place in secret and were designed to not be discovered, so finding evidence of them is a major challenge," Prof Ryan said.

Prof Ryan's digital map details victims numbers, both white settlers and indigenous, dates and nearest location.

"The map shows there were very intense periods of violence," she said

"In Australia very few perpetrators were brought to justice. I'm a historian so it is not my intention to bring people to justice with this map. However, we do know the impact of massacre reverberates across the generations."

Click here for the Australian Colonial Massacre Map.

For details about the talk, phone [phone] or email [e-mail].

Originally published as Professor maps Darling Downs indigenous massacre sites