Today in Labor History June 10, 1838: A group of twelve colonists slaughtered at least twenty-eight Aboriginal Australians in the Myall Creek massacre. Seven of the twelve colonists were convicted of murder and hanged. Eleven of the colonists where white former or current convicts. One was African. During the savage attack, they beheaded children. Many Australians celebrated the massacre. The Sydney Herald wrote, "the whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly documents on which we have already wasted too much time." However, Irish-Australian poet, Eliza Hamilton Dunlop, wrote her famous poem, “The Aboriginal Mother,” to express her sympathy with the Aboriginal people.

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