Baulie

Baulie ( – 7 March 1860), also known as Bally, Boney or Bahlee, was an Indigenous Australian resistance fighter. He is best known for being a leader in the 1857 Hornet Bank massacre of British settlers near Taroom, in what is now rural Queensland.

Early contact with British colonists Around the late 1840s or early 1850s, Baulie became associated with the British colonist Andrew Scott. Scott employed Baulie as a labourer and stockman on his pastoral properties in northern New South Wales and the Darling Downs. It is unclear if Baulie was from one of these areas or the other, but it is probable that when he started working for Scott he was an adolescent.

Relocation to Hornet Bank In 1853, Scott was looking to take up more land in the uncolonised regions north of the Darling Downs. With Baulie and several other of his men, he formed the Hornet Bank pastoral run in the upper Dawson River region of what is now Queensland. He forced the Indigenous Yiman people out from this area and established a homestead on one of their favourite camping sites near a lagoon. In 1854, Scott leased the property to the Fraser family.

The Aboriginal men, fighting only with spears and nulla-nullas, managed to wound Carr and several of his troopers. Carr heard Baulie during the battle encouraging his warriors to keep up the fight as the troopers were running out of cartridges. However, the Native Police were victorious in the end, leaving 15 Aboriginal warriors, including Baulie, dead.