20 August – The Dunbar is wrecked at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, killing 121 passengers.
27 October – 12 people (11 settlers and 1 Aboriginal station-hand) are killed by ImanAboriginals as they slept in the Hornet Bank massacre. It has been moderately estimated that 150 Aboriginal people succumbed in subsequent punitive missions conducted by Native Police, private settler militias, and by William Fraser in or around Eurombah district. Indiscriminate shootings of "over 300" Aboriginal men, women, and children, however, were reportedly conducted by private punitive expedition some 400 kilometres eastward at various stations in the Wide Bay district alone.