Attempted Aboriginal massacres took place as recently as 1981, historian says

Alice Springs mass poisoning claimed two lives and left many in hospital but remains unsolved, showing challenges of verifying frontier killings

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Attempts at the mass killing of Aboriginal people were still being made as recently as 1981, according to a historian who has spent the past four years researching colonial violence in the Northern Territory.

Dr Robyn Smith, who has worked on the University of Newcastle's colonial frontier massacres map project, says she has also found attempts at massacres in the 1930s and 40s.