Indigenous Resistance in the Hidden Frontier War in Victoria : Melbourne Indymedia

When Major Mitchell travelled across Victoria in 1835, he was impressed by the never ending grasslands that had grown as a direct consequence of Aborigines using fire to manage the landscape to provide food for the animals they hunted and that helped to promote the growth of tubers that formed a large part of their diet. When the squatters arrived with their sheep, the scene was set for a life and death struggle for the land.

Squatters in Victoria were not 'ticket of leave men' (ex convicts) who ran a few sheep on a few acres. They were normally the sons and agents of the landed gentry from England, New South Wales and Tasmania, who provided the capital to buy sheep, transport them to the pastures in Victoria and hire shepherds to look after their sheep. A small number of people occupied vast tracts of Crown Land in order to graze sheep on
what they considered to be their sheep runs. They had legal title to the land via leases for which they paid a peppercorn rent to the Crown. The only thing that stood between them and their desire to acquire the land they had leases for, was the indigenous population.

The ferocity and intensity of the frontier war which occurred between Victoria's indigenous population and the squatters between 1836 to 1846 over who owned the land, occasionally bubbled over in the Colonies courts in Melbourne. Judge Willis, man described by the NS.W. Governor Gipps as an "apologist of the cruellest practices by some of the least respectable of the settlers on the Aborigines" told the Tasmanian Aborigines Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay - who were sentenced to hang on the 21st of January 1842 for taking up arms against the colonisers on the Mornington Peninsula and the Dandenongs - "the punishment that awaits you is not one of vengeance but of terror to deter similar transgressions".

In February 1842 when six white men, who stood trial in Melbourne for murdering four Aboriginal women and a child, were acquitted by an all white jury, Judge Willis criticised Governor La Trobe "for allowing an action against those responsible for the deaths of 'lubras'".

In May 1842, an Aboriginal man called 'Roger' was executed for the murder of Patrick Codd, a shepherd employed by John Cox, who murdered black men and raped black women. Governor La Trobe stated that by the murder of Patrick Codd by Aborigines "the sly murder of many of that race (Aboriginals) was avenged". The favourable judicial outcome in Melbourne accelerated the murder and expulsion of Victoria's Aborigines from lands they had continuously occupied for over 40,000 years. To the squatters, the Aborigines were vermin who stood in the way of their ambitions to convert their leasehold titles over the land, to freehold title.

NEXT WEEK: The Beginning of the Campaign for Squatters Property Rights.

====================================================

JOIN US!!

MIDDAY - SUNDAY 21st JANUARY 2007

at the corner of Franklin and Bowen Street, Melbourne (opposite the City Baths)

to COMMEMORATE the public execution on this spot 165 Years ago on 21st January 1842 of the freedom fighters:- TUNNERMINNERWAIT (Jack of Cape Grim) - PEEVAY (Robert of Ben Lomond)

The first two people to be executed in Victoria.

On the 21st January 1842, over 5,000 people, a quarter of Victoria’s white population, gathered at the outskirts of Melbourne crowding round the gallows erected on a small rise
east of Swanston Street and north of LaTrobe Street. LaTrobe Street was the northern border of the settlement and the land where the execution took place was only partly cleared. The crowd, in a carnival mood, had come to see the public hanging of
Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay – the first two people executed in Victoria.

Early in October 1841, Tunnerminnerwait, Peevay, Pyterunner, Trugannini and Planobeena – 5 of 17 Tasmanian Aborigines who had been brought to Melbourne by Robinson to ‘civilise’ the Victorian ‘blacks’, stole 2 guns and some ammunition from a settler’s hut at Bass River. They robbed 7 stations in the Dandenong and Mornington area, wounded four whites and killed 2 sealers called Yankee and Cook. All 5 were captured by a party of police, settlers and soldiers. All were charged with murder. They appeared before Judge Willis on the 20th December 1841. They were defended by Redmond Barry – the standing Defence Council for Aborigines (as Chief Justice he sentenced Ned Kelly to hang 39 years later in 1880). He argued that as they were not naturalised citizens, half the jury should have been made up of people not subjects of the Queen.

The only evidence to link the party of Aborigines with the murders was the confessions of the Aborigines themselves. Barry, the Defence Council, continued to question the legal
basis of British authority over Aborigines. He claimed the evidence was dubious and circumstantial. Trugannini turned Queen’s evidence and claimed the men killed the sealers.

Unlike Trugannini, Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay refused to shift the blame and remained silent during the trial. Late on Monday night the 20th December 1841, the jury took just 30 minutes to find the 2 men guilty of murder, acquitting the women totally. They added to their judgement a very strong plea for clemency “on account of general good character and the peculiar circumstances under which they were placed” acknowledging that
they believed Trugannini’s story that one of the sealers had killed her husband.

Judge Willis ignored the plea for clemency. On the 21st January 1842, the men were dressed in white, paraded through the streets in an open cart drawn by two grey horses. The executioner John Davies, a convict who had been sentenced to life for sheep
stealing, was promised his freedom and ten pounds if he acted as executioner. 18 convicts had competed for the post of public executioner; some wanted the heads of the Aborigines as payment.

A carnival atmosphere surrounded the execution until the trapdoor was opened. The men only fell a short distance, not enough to jerk them and break their necks. “There was a dead pause and a cry of shame from the crowd. The two…..twisted and writhed convulsively in a manner that horrified even the most hardened”. A spectator kicked away a piece of timber holding up the trap and they fell to the full length of the rope.
Tunnerminnerwait died instantly. Peevay continued to struggle wildly as his noose had dislodged. The bodies hung for the regulation hour; they were stripped of their clothes (a regular perk for executioners), their naked bodies were put in wooden coffins and buried in the Aboriginal cemetery (the site of the current Queen Victoria Market).

COMMEMORATE the execution of the freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Peevay. They were publicly executed 165 years ago on the 21st of January 1842. – LEST WE FORGET!

JOIN US - MIDDAY SUNDAY 21ST JANUARY 2007
- Cnr FRANKLIN & BOWEN ST, MELBOURNE.

===============================================

See also from 2006:
* Culture Wars Counter Attack: Remembering Aboriginal Resistance to the Invasion
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/01/104827.php

* Jack of Cape Grim and other books on the Aboriginal struggle
by Jan Roberts Friday July 14, 2006 at 01:49 AM
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/01/104827_comment.php#116754

This above has NOTHING to do with Australian history and NOTHING at all to do with Aboriginals

It is a white-made fantasy by sad and sorry white self-haters. It is written and posted by 100% white anglosaxon self-haters.

It is total fraud and blue murder on the genoine Australian history.

as if white people only hung some aborigines.

reckon that 1000's of poor whites and blacks were hung by lynch mobs in usa.

joe focuses so much on one point he burns a hole in his writing paper.

This assumes that prior to white settlement Aboriginal people themselves never used execution as a form of punishment.