January 20.
“Australia Day” by Glenn Loughrey
A public execution
Thousands of persons had gathered...
[The public execution by the colonial authorities of two Aboriginal men occurred in Melbourne on 20 January, 1842.]
At 7 o'clock, the Sheriff and the Chaplain arrived and a service was held in the prison yard. At 8 o'clock, the prisoners were removed in a vehicle. Thousands of persons had gathered, and such was the jostling and confusion that a party of mounted police in attendance had difficulty in clearing the way for the death cart which moved slowly ahead, surrounded by the shouting, laughing multitude. The scaffold was erected on a green hill near the end of what was afterwards the old Melbourne goal above Swanston Street.
As the procession "which could not be termed a melancholy one" slowly advanced, it was swelled every few yards by groups of open-mouthed sight-seers, breathless for fear they should be too late. On the gallows hill more than 6,000 people had assembled. Early as was the hour, the town had not only turned out its inhabitants en masse, but the residents for a circuit of several miles in the country poured in as if to a carnival. "Cut it short!" they cried as the Chaplain read the prayers. Bob was crying but Jack, the stoic, said nothing… [1]
[What follows is an extract from the diary of James Dredge] a witness of these proceedings.
This day has been rendered awfully notorious in the history of this Settlement by the execution – at 8 o'clock in the morning – of two Van Diemen's Land Aboriginals named Bob and Jack for the murder of two sealers by shooting and beating in the neighbourhood of Western Port. There is a degree of interest shown around the history of these misguided men by the fact of their having been attached to Mr Robinson [2] for about 13 years, and, indeed, accompanied him on the various excursions which he undertook with a view to the conciliation of their sable kinsmen at a time when misunderstandings and murderous retaliations existed between them and the white colonists. It is said that Bob, especially, was several times instrumental in Mr Robinson's preservation when his safety was jeopardised by those uncivilized people.
When the remnants of these original Nations were removed to Flinders Island, they were placed under the superintendence of Mr Robinson, to whom they seemed much attached....
This morning amidst hundreds – perhaps thousands – of spectators these poor unfortunate beings were forced into the presence of their eternal judge. Such an affecting, appalling, disgusting, execrable scene my eyes never saw – God forbid they should e'er behold the like again. [3]
Clive Turnbull, Black war, p.216
George Robinson was a key figure in the attempt to round up Tasmanian Aborigines and to confine them to limited territory on several Tasmanian islands.
MS. Diary of the late James Dredge, 20 Jan. 1842.
Acknowledgment: Clive Turnbull, Black War, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1974, pp.216-218, n.11.
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Eighteen years earlier:
On 1 December 1824, Musquito and Black Jack were tried in Hobart’s Supreme Court by a jury comprised if not of their enemies then certainly not of their peers.. Presumably neither man understood much of the proceedings. Neither was offered legal counsel or permitted to speak in his own defence. At the conclusion of the show trial, Musquito was sentenced to hang for ‘aiding and abetting’ the killers at Grindstone Bay.*….[Black Jack] was acquitted. His luck gave out, though, when he was found guilty the following month of murdering a hut keeper at Sorell Plains...Later that dat [25 February 1825] to the great pleasure of the bustling crowd, Musquito, Black Jack and six white felons were executed in the name of justice. [2]
* Two white men (John Radford, William Hollyoak) and a Tahitian man (Mammoa) were attacked. Only Radgford survived.
Bonwick, Last of the Tasmanians, p. 103.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements, Tongerlongeter, pp. 83, 238 n.64.