Eighteen men, women and children were slaughtered on the evening of September 1, 1826 when their camp was attacked by mounted police.
The massacre of the Wonnarua people was revenge for the killing a few days earlier of two convicted laborers accused of raping their wives.
It was one of the bloodiest episodes in New South Wales’ ‘Frontier Wars’ between the early settlers and the aborigines. And it took place in the Hunter Valley, now better known for its coal mines and full-bodied Shiraz wine.
Sacred ground: Glencore is embroiled in a dispute over plans to expand a coal mine on a site where eighteen Indigenous people were massacred in 1826
Nearly 200 years later, Glencore is embroiled in a long-running dispute with Indigenous leaders and local authorities over plans to expand a coal mine on the site of the massacre, at least according to some.
Planning permission has already been rejected and Glencore is now fighting a proposed heritage listing designed to prevent it from being excavated.
It is the latest salvo in a much larger conflict, which escalated three years ago when Rio Tinto detonated the Juukan Gorge, a sacred 60,000-year-old site in Pilbara, Western Australia.
Mining companies across Australia, accused of paying lip service to the land’s original owners for years, must now proceed with great caution.
The case in the Hunter Valley is less clear-cut than the Juukan Gorge, which sparked worldwide condemnation of Rio Tinto’s actions.
Glencore is looking at 135 million tonnes of coal lying underground, worth more than £10 billion at current prices.
This deposit is key to extending the life of the open-pit Glendell mine, which is currently scheduled to close next year, to 2044.
The war in Ukraine has pushed the price of thermal coal to record highs, giving miners like Glencore extra incentive to dig up more of it.
The problem facing Glencore is that the coal is buried under a remote rural homestead called Ravensworth, consisting of a rickety stone farmhouse and a few outbuildings.
This has been identified as the site of the murders by some oral Indigenous traditions.
“This place is sacred ground to us,” said Scott Franks, a local archaeologist and a Wonnarua man.
He added: ‘But Glencore didn’t show us respect, they’re only after the coal.’
However, the reality is that the precise location of the massacre is unknown.
So while the site is considered sacred by some indigenous residents, others have rejected the significance of the site and believe the killings took place elsewhere.
Secluded: The Ravensworth site consists of a ramshackle stone farmhouse and a few outbuildings
This uncertainty was the basis of Glencore’s case.
It has already gone to extremes. It hired a local historian who concluded that while Ravensworth was the scene of a number of attacks by native warriors and settler retaliations, the massacre likely occurred more than 15 miles away.
Ravensworth, which is about 100 miles north of Sydney, is said to have been built in 1832 for Dr. James Bowman, a few years after the massacre.
Dr. Bowman, from Carlisle in Cumbria, was the chief surgeon on early convict ships to Australia and was later appointed chief surgeon for the colony of New South Wales.
He became a cattle rancher and grazed sheep on 12,000 hectares of land. The former Bowman estate is now owned and maintained by Glencore, who bought the mining contract for the land 26 years ago.
The FTSE 100-listed company has submitted a proposal to move the buildings to a local farm or to a nearby village called Broke, rebuild it brick by brick and open it to the public.
This has received support from a group of residents and business people, as well as neighboring Singleton council.
But the planning application was blocked in October by New South Wales’ independent planning permission.
It accepted the conclusion of both the heritage department and the state’s planning department that the massacre probably did not take place at the Ravensworth estate. But it still ruled that destroying or moving the property, and clearing the land for coal, would desecrate a culturally important colonial-era landscape.
To make matters worse for Glencore, the state’s heritage board is now seeking a heritage listing for Ravenscroft, expanding it to cover an area of more than 1,200 acres. The company fears this would force it to close the Glendell mine and abandon its expansion plans.
Amid global goals to move away from fossil fuels and achieve net zero carbon emissions targets, many might argue that this can only be a good thing.
But it will be a blow to many in the local community as hundreds of local workers risk losing their jobs if the mine closes.
Glencore is now considering its next move, including submitting a new proposal to expand the mine.
A spokesperson for the company said the heritage listing proposal “does not provide a balanced or factual assessment of the significance of the homestead and surrounding landscape.”
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