The White Woman of Gippsland

For the past 180 years a legend have persisted in Gippsland, in southeastern Victoria, Australia, about a shipwrecked white woman who was allegedly abducted by the Aborigines and held against her will. The story first appeared on 28 December 1840 in Sydney Herald , and it recounted the account of pioneering land squatter Angus McMillan, who described seeing the woman being escorted away at spear point by some Aborigines, after his party disturbed their encampment. After the Aborigines had fled, McMillan and his party searched the camp and found numerous items of European clothing smeared with blood and other household goods. They also found the dead body of a fair-skinned child enclosed in kangaroo skin bags. McMillan deduced that a “dreadful massacre” of Europeans by Aborigines had occurred in the vicinity, and the woman so hurriedly driven away by the natives was white and “a captive of these ruthless savages.” Massacre of Aborigines by Europeans. Photo: Wikimedia Two years after this publication, more details emerged—the vessel that was wrecked on the Ninety Mile Beach was called Britannia and she was on a voyage from England to Sydney. There were two women onboard—the wife of the Captain and a young woman sailing to Sydney to join her fiancé, a certain Mr Frazer. Yet, another account said the woman was a mother who sought protection with the local Aboriginal people with her baby girl after leaving her callous and brutal husband. She was the sole survivor of the disaster and was supposedly the woman Angus McMillan saw with the Aborigines. Another version of the story maintains that she was the daughter of Commissary Howard. She was about 16 years of age, a tall woman with very long black hair in ringlets, and she was going to Melbourne.