Remember the butcher

In about 1974 I was working at Nowa Nowa and I ran into an Aboriginal from Drouin by the name of Buddy Mullett and over the course of the conversation he mentioned Butchers Creek and the ensuing massacre.

He told me that a group of about 50 Aborigines were camped on an unnamed creek and Angus McMillan and his men came over a ridge and slaughtered all the old people, men and children and kept all the women for their personal use and this creek then became known as Butchers Creek.

Then last week I saw an article condemning Angus McMillan (Gaz 5/7), so then I looked up Google and this is a record of his deeds according to Google under Gippsland massacres.

1. 1840 - Nuntin- unknown number killed by Angus McMillan’s men.

2. 1840 - Boney Point - “Angus McMillan and his men took a heavy toll on Aboriginal lives.”

3. 1841 - Butchers Creek - 30-35 shot by Angus McMillan’s men.

4. 1841 - Maffra - unknown number shot by Angus McMillan’s men.

This is only a small percentage of the entries on this Google page that is attributed to this murderer and yet in the town of Warragul we celebrate his name with McMillan campus, McMillan Drive and we have all voted in the McMillan electorate. I think it should be all renamed and called after the creek that was unnamed until he came along - Butchers campus, Butchers Drive and Butchers electorate.

That way he would be still remembered but for all the right reasons. P. Walsh Warragul