Alexander Buchanan was part of the second wave of overlanders that followed in the tracks of Hawdon and Bonney, Eyre and Sturt. It was this second wave that began to experience serious difficulties with the Aboriginal communities along the river, particularly those adjacent to the Rufus River as they responded to what appeared to be wholesale invasion of their lands. Buchanan was the only overlander who admitted that he deliberately attacked the Aborigines in retaliation for their acts against his party.

With a number of companions he drove a large flock of sheep which included another 5000 for Frederick Dutton of Anlaby. The men with their huge flock travelled down the Murrumbidgee River and after crossing the Lachlan River travelled across country to pick up the River Murray about 20 miles east of the junction with the Darling. At the North West Bend (Morgan) they left the river travelling across country again to Anlaby where Dutton's sheep were left, before taking the remainder on down to Adelaide.

Buchanan would later become the manager of Anlaby station for Dutton.

Glenie, Pat and Brian. The Rufus River "massacre" (or was it?)  [Renmark, S. Aust.: P. and B. Glenie, 1993]

The first overlanders, Hawdon and Bonney: their accounts of the first cattle drive from New South Wales to Adelaide 1838 edited by Kevin K. Kain. Ridgehaven, S. Aust.: K. Kain in association with Gould Books, c1991

Cockburn, Rodney, Pastoral pioneers of South Australia, vol. 1, p. 188 [Alexander Buchanan]

State Library of South Australia: Treasures of the State Library: Overlanders crossing the Murray

University of Adelaide Library Electronic Texts Collection: Eyre, Edward John. 'An account of the manners and customs of the Aborigines and the state of their relations with Europeans' Originally published with Journals of expeditions of discovery into Central Australia, and overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound, in the years 1840-1. http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/e/e98m/index.html