Ангус Макмиллан: Австралиялық отаршыл және қаны төгілген халықтар тарихы

Australian colonialist leader
the Prince Edward Island politician

Angus McMillan (14 August 1810 – 18 May 1865) was a Scottish born explorer, pioneer pastoralist, and perpetrator of several of the Gippsland massacres of Gunai people. Arriving first in New South Wales in 1838, The massacre had no impact on McMillan's relations with other colonists and he went on to become a successful Gippsland pastoralist himself, with more than of property. However a series of poor financial decisions brought him to near bankruptcy in the 1860s. Forced to return to exploration and surveying, he was badly injured in an accident near Dargo, Victoria, and died on 18 May 1865. McMillan is commemorated in public art and place names in Gippsland, including, until 2018, the Division of McMillan in Australia's Federal Parliament. In 2018, the Australian Electoral Commission announced the Division would be renamed, following a community campaign against honouring a man involved in massacring Gunai people.

Angus McMillan was born in Glen Brittle, Isle of Skye, Scotland, the fourth son of Ewan McMillan, a sheep farmer. After an early life of hardship and deprivation, both in Glen Brittle and subsequently at Kilbride Farm, South Uist, he migrated to Australia in 1838.

By the late 1830s, wealthy landholders in New South Wales had become interested in the Gippsland region of Victoria and funded exploration of the region. Macalister knew the early settlers in the high country of Gippsland around Benambra and Omeo as they too were from the Monaro. He put forward McMillan as a candidate to further explore the plains of Gippsland proper nearer to the coast. A second interest sent Polish scientist explorer Count Paul Strzelecki to also explore Gippsland.

On 28 May 1839 McMillan travelled south on his first exploration of the Gippsland plains, accompanied by Jimmy Gabber, an elder of the Monaro people. The expedition was unsuccessful; in a letter to colonial administrator Charles La Trobe, McMillan reported that six days after leaving Currawong, Gabber declined to go further for fear of encountering the Gunai people, Gippsland's indigenous inhabitants. McMillan refused to turn back, whereupon Gabber waited for a quiet moment and attempted to kill McMillan with a club. Gabber retreated when McMillan raised his pistol, but still refused to go on. McMillan therefore continued alone, heading west towards Buchan and Omeo. No significant agricultural lands or watercourses were discovered along McMillan's path, and neither did he encounter the region's indigenous inhabitants, the Gunai people.