British colonisation of the land first occurred in 1840 when pastoral squatters Peter Cunningham Pagan and his brother-in-law William Tucker Evans chose the site for a sheep station. The forced displacement of the local Bundjalung from their lands led to a period of frontier conflict. On 24 April 1841, Pagan was clubbed to death after a failed attempt to shoot some Aboriginals who had taken items from his homestead. The killing of this well-known pastoralist prompted a lengthy series of reprisals against the local Bundjalung clans led by Henry Oakes, the regional crown lands commissioner. With his Border Police troopers and several armed volunteers including local squatters Edward Ogilvie and John Mylne, Oakes set out on a three stage punitive expedition which resulted in the killing of at least 15 Bundjalung people and the destruction of five Aboriginal camp-sites. During these raids Ogilvie and Oakes also kidnapped six children. Conflict in the upper reaches of the Clarence River continued up until at least the late 1860s.