At 3 am the following morning the Native Mounted Police patrol rode out to where between 200 and 300 tribes-people lay asleep in camp. The Nyangbal East Ballina clan of the Bundjalung Nation had a camping ground on the slope of the hill facing the valley near Black Head. The troopers and trackers surrounded the camp and opened fire at close range. After the carnage, the Native Mounted Police patrol then headed north towards the Tweed River. The matter was reported to the NSW Government but no action against the perpetrators was taken. When the Aboriginal survivors eventually returned to the camp, they sought no reprisals and took no revenge against the Native Police trackers and European troopers involved in the massacre. There is an Aboriginal oral tradition that tells stories of escape, of people who were shot and were laid to rest in the forests north of the camp, and of those who were driven off the cliff at Black Head. There is a belief that some victims of the massacre were never buried, their bodies being either dumped off the cliff at Black Head or abandoned on Angels Beach. The Nyangbal South Ballina clan of the Bundjalung Nation, numbered about 200 people during the early development of Ballina Township. During the early 1860s a mass poison attempt was made against the clan using poisoned flour given to make damper. After taking the flour to their camp, the old people and children of the Nyangbal tribe refused to eat the damper as it was a new food. Upon waking the next morning, survivors found nearly 150 adults dead.