September 16.
Treaty by Glenn Loughrey
Brutality but evidence disallowed.
“Indigenous women treated with 'indescribable brutality'”...and British law system at work.
The North Midlands clans decamped and 'were wantonly fired on by the whites' as they crossed Patersons Plains; some of their women were treated with 'indescribable brutality'. In Hobart, Kickerterpoller's tame mob was sent back to its encampment at Kangaroo Point, on the river bank opposite the town, and provisioned with food and clothing. For the next two years the mob came and went 'as often as their convenience dictated'. Another attempt by [Governor] Arthur to promote a native institution in 1825 also failed, for the colony, which had recently gained independence from New South Wales, was in economic recession and neither the settlers nor the local clergy were interested in assisting the Aborigines they had dispossessed. Rather, they considered the bushrangers a more dangerous threat to the colony's survival. Arthur's ruthless campaign against the bushrangers between 1824 and 1826 obscured the seriousness of Aboriginal resistance. [1]
When three more colonists were speared to death in the autumn of 1826, Arthur was still convinced that individual Aborigines from the tame mob at Kangaroo Point were responsible. The capture of two of them, Jack and Black Dick, a month later, appeared to reinforce this view. So convinced was he that the two men were the last of the 'depredators' that he arranged for the chief justice, John Lewis Pedder, to appoint counsel and an interpreter on their behalf at their trial. But once again the two men were prevented from giving evidence in their own defence.* Once again a military jury found them guilty and the chief justice solemnly announced that they would hang. On 16 September [1826], the day of execution, Arthur issued a government notice which explained that hanging the two men would 'not only prevent further atrocities...but lead to a conciliatory line of conduct'. While some colonists thought the executions were a strange method of conciliation, others believed that they would teach the Aborigines a lesson. The tame mob got the point. They decamped from Kangaroo Point and never returned. [2]
HTG, 5 Nov., 15 April, 4 Nov. 1824, 12, 19 Jan. 1825; West, The History of Tasmania 269; Mansfield to Arthur, 3 Nov. 1824, TAHO GO 55/2; 'Resolutions at public meeting', 15 Nov. 1824; TAHO GO 52/2; Richardson to Arthur, 25 April 1825, TAHO GO 52/2; Plomley, Friendly Mission, 49; BPP, 'Van Diemen's Land', 39; Shelton, The Parramore Letters, 61.
BPP, 'Van Diemen's Land', 20-1; Melville, The History of Van Diemen's Land, 56- HTG, 20 Sept. 1826. Lyndall Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines, pp. 79-80, 368 n. 11, n.12.
* Aboriginal people were not permitted to give evidence as regards killings and massacres that they witnessed because it was considered that they could not swear an oath on the Bible to tell the truth because they were not Christian in their beliefs.
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No recourse for Aborigines to the law.courts
[Governor Gipps] following a suggestion from Normanby, in 1839 (partly on the prompting of the Aboriginal Protection Society), prepared legislation securing the admissibility of Aboriginal evidence in courts of law. "’This act was passed by the NSW parliament, accepting Aborigines as competent witnesses in criminal cases, 'notwithstanding that they have not at present any distinct idea of Religion or any fixed belief in a future state of Rewards and Punishments'.' But back in England it was decided that this was 'contrary to the principles of British jurisprudence' after all, and was disallowed.18 In 1843 the home authorities thought again and adopted an Imperial Act (6 Vic. Ch.XXII) allowing for Aboriginal evidence. However, when in 1844 a bill to this effect was put to the N.S.W. Legislative Council, it was thrown out. [1] This rejection maintained the situation where settlers did what they wanted, with no recourse for Aborigines to the courts. Violent black-white relations continued on the margins of white settlement.
See Foster 1988; H.R.A.XIX, pp. 678, 698.
Acknowledgment: Jane Lydon, ‘No moral doubt...': Aboriginal evidence and the Kangaroo Creek poisoning, 1847- 1849’, Aboriginal History, Vol. 20 (1996) pp. 152-153 n.14.