The short Rufus River connects Lake Victoria, New South Wales with the Murray River, very close to both the current borders with Victoria to the south and South Australia to the west.^[2][3]

The local Maraura people probably had their first encounter with the British when Charles Sturt travelled down the river in 1830. There is no record of other colonists in the region until overlanders Joseph Hawdon and Charles Bonney drove 335 cattle from Sydney to Adelaide along the Murray River in 1838. Edward Eyre and Sturt followed this stock route, and by April 1841 at least 36 overlanding parties had travelled the track, bringing with them about 480 people, 90,000 sheep and 15,000 cattle, as well as horses, bullocks, drays and goods through the territory of the Maraura.^[4]

Serious skirmishes between the overlanders and the Maraura appear to have begun in 1839. In October of that year, overlander George McLeod (an associate of Charles Sturt), had a significant battle with the Maraura. The Aboriginal warriors had forced McLeod's group to retreat to their drays, but after half an hour of sharp shooting, the overlanders drove the Maraura away and into the river. A stockman from another group passing through the region around the same time was killed in a separate conflict.^[5]

A month later, an overlanding group led by pastoralist Alexander Buchanan and conveying a herd of 18,000 sheep, battled with Maraura warriors near the Murray-Darling junction resulting in around six Aborigines being killed.^[6]

After the violence of late 1839, overlanding through Maraura country became relatively uneventful until 1841. In the early months of that year, pastoralist James Chisholm organised a droving party to take 5,000 of his sheep from his property near Goulburn, New South Wales to the markets of Adelaide. Chisholm placed Henry Inman and Henry Field in charge of the party. Inman had previously been appointed as the first chief of the South Australian Police, but was suspended and then sacked in 1840.^[7][8]

Conflict between Inman's overlanding group and Aboriginal people occurred early on in the journey with Inman being speared multiple times along the Murrumbidgee River. A spear-head remained lodged in his abdomen for several weeks. Upon reaching the Murray-Darling junction, the Maraura started to spear the sheep and harass the shepherds.^[7][9]

On 16 April 1841, Inman's group was confronted by around 300-400 Maraura warriors near the Rufus River. The overlanding party were defeated and fled, allowing the Maraura to take possession of all the 5,000 sheep. One of Inman's shepherds was badly wounded but later recovered.^[9]

Upon news of the Inman's defeat reaching Adelaide, a strong party of South Australian mounted police led by Major Thomas Shuldham O'Halloran was sent to recover the sheep from the Maraura. However, fearing a possible scandal if large numbers of Aboriginal people were shot, Governor George Gawler recalled O'Halloran's party before they reached the Rufus River.^[7][10]

Displeased with the government's lack of action, a vigilante group of 14 armed and mounted volunteers led by a member of the original party, Henry Field, set out to recover the sheep on 7 May. Waiting for them at the Rufus River were around 500 Aboriginal warriors, who inflicted another defeat on the colonists. Field was wounded and two horses were killed. None of the sheep were recovered and Field's group returned to Adelaide.^[10]

The newly appointed Governor of South Australia, George Grey, then ordered the formation of a large group of police, volunteers and special constables under the leadership of Major O’Halloran. This group of 68 armed and mounted men was to proceed from Adelaide to the Rufus River to capture some Maraura and protect the overlanding party of Charles Langhorne which was known to be travelling through the region. The expedition included high profile South Australian colonists such as James Rigby Beevor, James Collins Hawker, Henry Inman, Matthew Moorhouse and Alexander Tolmer.^[11][12][13]

The group left Adelaide on 31 May 1841 and reached Maraura country on 20 June. They were too late to protect Langhorne's droving party who were defeated in a battle with 500 Maraura warriors at the Rufus River. Most of Langhorne's cattle and provisions had been plundered and four of his stockmen killed. Five Aboriginal people were shot dead in the skirmish. O'Halloran's group were able to save the remainder of Langhorne's party and recover some of his cattle. They scoured the region finding around a thousand carcasses of Inman's sheep, but were unable to engage with or capture any Maraura and soon after returned to Adelaide. ^[4][12][14]

By this stage the Maraura had inflicted three significant defeats upon the colonists in three months, and had also concurrently avoided two large police patrols sent to their country to punish them.

In August 1841, another official police expedition, including 16 troopers, 12 volunteers, 3 Aboriginal guides and the Protector of Aborigines Matthew Moorhouse, was sent out to the Rufus River to protect another group of overlanders led by William Robinson and Philip Levi. This detachment of police was under the command of Sub-Inspector Bernard Shaw.^[15]

The police patrol reached the Rufus River region on 27 August where they found that Robinson's droving party had already come into conflict with the Maraura on the previous day. In that skirmish, the overlanders had attacked the Aboriginal people blocking their path, killing five men and wounding another ten after shooting at them for around 45 minutes.^[16][1]

After the police patrol had met up with Robinson's group on 27 August, they came across a group of around 150 Maraura warriors near the junction of the Rufus River and Lake Victoria. This group of Maraura were not preventing the passage of the colonists, nor did they motion to attack either the police or the overlanders. Moorhouse, however, after negotiating with them through his Aboriginal interpreter Pungke Pungke, came to the conclusion that the Maraura were threatening and handed command of the situation over to Sub-Inspector Shaw.^[4][1]

Robinson's men then began firing at the Aborigines, driving them into the Rufus River, where Shaw's group of police and volunteers proceeded to join in the killing. According to Moorhouse's later report, nearly 30 Aboriginal people were killed, about 10 wounded.^[17] According to the report by Robinson, 30-40 were killed with around the same number wounded.^[16] A large majority of the wounded would be expected to die from their wounds, because Aboriginal medicine was ill-equipped to deal with gunshot wounds.^[18] Only one colonist was wounded, which was Robinson who was speared in the left arm as he shot an Aboriginal man in the river.^[4]

To conciliate the police and overlanders, Maraura women were brought to the colonists after the massacre. Shaw and Robinson permitted their men to have sex with these women despite the disapproval of Moorhouse.^[1]

Four Maraura were taken prisoner, including a wounded boy, two women and a man named Pul Kanta. The wounded boy and one of the woman were soon released, but the other woman (whose husband had been killed in the slaughter) was given to the interpreter Pungke Pungke as a wife. Pul Kanta remained in custody to be taken to Adelaide. He audaciously attempted to escape the following day by diving off a high cliff into the Murray River but was later re-captured after being shot and wounded three times.^{[17][19][20][21]}

Concerns in the colony and in England about the large number of Aboriginal people killed in the massacre, forced Governor Grey to organise an magisterial inquiry into the shootings. Chaired by Sturt, the participants were questioned, including the Aboriginal captive Pul Kanta. The magistrates eventually concluded that the actions of the British parties had been justifiable and praiseworthy.^[4] It determined that the overall conflict in the region was partially due to the overlanders engaging in sexual relations with the Aboriginal women without giving the food and clothing promised first.^[11] That initiated an escalating cycle of conflicts, which eventually included the Aboriginal groups stealing thousands of sheep.^[20][22] Magistrate Edward John Eyre thought the punishment meted out at the Rufus River to the Maraura by Shaw and Robinson was not sufficiently harsh enough.^[1]

Moorhouse's account of casualties was disputed by Robinson, who stated that "thirty to forty were killed, and as many wounded",^[17] and later by James Collins Hawker, who wrote in his book Early Experiences in South Australia (1899: p. 79): "The firing lasted about fifteen minutes, 30 natives were killed, 10 wounded and 4 taken prisoner...this was the Protector's report but in after years when I was residing on the Murray and had learnt the language of the natives, I ascertained that a much larger number had been killed". In his travels through the region several years later, Charles Sturt documented that thirty of the killed were interred in a mass grave on the banks of Lake Victoria, the mound of which was clearly visible.^[21]

• Australian frontier wars
• List of massacres of Indigenous Australians
• Maria (brigantine)

• "Papers Relative To The Affairs Of South Australia—Aborigines", Accounts and Papers 1843, Volume 3 (London: William Clowes and Sons), p. 267-310.
• "Fatal recontre with the Murray natives", South Australian Register, p. 2, 11 September 1841. [This report is also available via Trove.[1] ]
• "The late fatal affray on the Murray", South Australian Register, p. 2, 18 September 1841 – via Trove.
• "The Bench of Magistrates and the Late Fatal Affray with the Natives", Southern Australian, p. 3, 21 September 1841 – via Trove.
• Blaikie G. (29 March 1952), "Rumpus at Rufus River", The Mail, pp. 4–5 of Sunday Magazine – via Trove.
• Clyne R. (1981), "At war with the natives: From the Coorong to the Rufus, 1841", Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 9: 91-110.
• Eyre E.J. (1845), Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, and overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound, in the years 1840-41, sent by the Colonists of Australia, with the sanction and support of the Government; including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines, and the state of their relations with Europeans, Volume I and Volume II (London: T. and W. Boone). Republished by Cambridge University Press (2011).
• Mattingley C., Hampton K. (1988), Survival in Our Own Land, p. 38-40.
• Nettlebeck A. (1999), "Mythologising frontier: Narrative versions of the Rufus River conflict, 1841‐1899", Journal of Australian Studies, 23: 75-82; doi:10.1080/14443059909387476.
• O'Halloran T. (1903–1904), "From Adelaide along the River Murray to the Rufus and Lake Victoria", Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia: South Australian Branch, 7: 70–91.
• Sturt C. (1849), Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia, p. 92 (London: T. and W. Boone).
• Summers J. (1986), "Colonial race relations", The Flinders History of South Australia: social history (editor – E. Richards), p. 283-311 (Wakefield Press).
• Watson F. (1924), Historical Records of Australia—Series I, Volume XXI (October 1840 – March 1842), p. 695-701 (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament). [Letter from Lord Stanley to Sir George Gipps, 21 February 1842.]
• Watson F. (1924), Historical Records of Australia—Series I, Volume XXII (April 1842 – June 1843), p. 39-40 (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament). [Letters from Lord Stanley, 13 May 1842.]
• Wigley M. (2006), Ready Money: The life of William Robinson of Hill River, South Australia and Cheviot Hills, North Canterbury (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press).
• Razik, Naveen (11 July 2020). "Victoria to introduce Australia's first truth-telling process to address Indigenous injustices". SBS News, Special Broadcasting Service. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
• Thorne, Leonie (11 July 2020). "Victoria to establish truth and justice process as part of Aboriginal treaty process". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 11 July 2020.

• SA Protector of Aborigines: Out Letter Book I (May 21, 1840 to Jan 6, 1857)  —First Sources
• Some Known Conflicts in New South Wales  —Australian Frontier Conflicts
• Sign Sites - Palmer Gardens / Pangki Pangki  —City of Adelaide
• Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788-1930  —University of Newcastle (Australia)