Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Video and Images

Commemorating the Freedom Fighters
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener

Indigenous resistance freedom fighters

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Robbie Thorpe, Gunnai Elder, gives Welcome to Country speech at the 2009 commemoration for indigenous freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner.

Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, spoke at the 2009 commemoration for indigenous freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner and stressed the importance of commemorating the shameful episodes in the history of Melbourne, as well as the positive stories.

Gunnai elder, Robbie Thorpe spoke at the 2009 commemoration for indigenous freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, giving the welcome to country address and smoking ceremony to show respect to the spirits. His address highlighted in a very personal fashion that aboriginal people have never ceeded sovereignity over their land and even today a treaty is needed to advance the reconciliation process and resolve the many injustices of the invasion and dispossession of the aboriginal people from their land, culture and life.

60 people attended the commemoration on the anniversary of the execution on January 20, 1842. They were the first judicial executions in Victoria, which were public and attended by 5000 people, a quarter of the population of Melbourne at the time.

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were part of a group of five Tasmanian aborigines brought to the mainland by Chief Protector George Robinson to 'civilise' the mainland indigenous people. After a brief time, they were left to fend for themselves. And so the five launched a guerilla style campaign of harassing settlers around Western Port and South Gippsland to leave their stations. Their capture took a number of months and three military expeditions.

Upon capture, they were brought back to Melbourne where the two men were put on trial for murder and sentenced to be executed. They were not allowed to present statements or evidence in court on their own behalf as they were seen as heathens and prohibited from giving evidence in their own defence.

Smoking Ceremony

Dr Jo Toscano watches as Robbie Thorpe ignites the leaves for the smoking ceremony

Images captured by 'Takver' www.flickr.com
A Melbourne photographer, independent journalist, and historian

The event was broadcast on 3CR 855AM Victoria and streaming online at www.3cr.org.a.
3CR actively supports indigenous issues.

WARNING - Includes images & voices of people who have died

ABV TV - Lateline

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener 2012 commemoration

Freedom fighters
Tunnerminnerwait & Maulboyheener

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner conducted a campaign of resistance to European settlement in 1841 around Western Port and South Gippsland near Melbourne. After three military expeditions they were finally captured and brought back to Melbourne for trial. They were not allowed to give evidence themselves. The two men were found guilty of murder, with the jury saying due to the circumstances mercy should be granted.

No mercy was given and Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were the first judicial executions to take place in Melbourne on January 20, 1842 before a crowd of 5000, a quarter of the population of Melbourne at the time.

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were amoung 5 Tasmanian Aborigines who conducted a campaign of resistance to European settlement in 1841. The other three were Pyterruner, Truganini and Planobeena. They had been brought to Melbourne by the officially appointed Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson.

They raided station after station from Dandenong to Cape Paterson. They stole firearms and burnt down stations, trying to avoid unnecessary deaths and gunfights. They killed 2 whalers, Cook and Yankee, wounded 5 settlers, burnt down numerous farmhouses and evaded capture for 8 weeks. Three military expeditions were launched against them. Although they set out to drive the settlers from the bush, they didn't harm women or children and only fired at those that fired at them. Considering the outrages that had been perpetrated on them and their families in Tasmania, it's extraordinary that they didn't kill many more settlers when they had the opportunity to even up the score.

Their capture was effected by an overwhelming party of soldiers, police, settlers and black trackers near Anderson's Inlet, not far from Cape Patterson. During the 8 weeks of their roaming, reports of their feats sent a shiver down the spine of the Europeans who were living in Melbourne and its surrounds.

They arrived in chains under military escort in Melbourne on 21st November 1841. All 5 were charged with murder and appeared in court before Judge Willis on the 20th December 1841. The jury delivered a verdict after half an hour finding the men guilty of murder, and the women not guilty. The jury made a very strong plea for clemency for the men 'on account of general good character and the peculiar circumstances under which they are placed'.

The next day Judge Willis sentenced the 2 men to death and the 3 women were discharged into Robinson's care. The jury's plea for mercy was rejected by the Executive Council of New South Wales. On the 20th January 1842 Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were led to the scaffold, where the current RMIT building is located. Here they were hanged watched by a crowd of about 5,000. The first public judicial execution in Melbourne.

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were buried outside the Melbourne cemetery (under the current Victoria Market, Melbourne).

Dr Joseph Toscano writes on the commemoration of indigenous resistance and early Melbourne history and the need for a monument to the indigenous freedom fighters, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, who were the first judicial executions in Melbourne on January 20, 1842.

Any visit to Canberra isn't complete without a visit to the National War Memorial. The massive driveway that leads to the Memorial is dotted with monuments to the Australian men and women who fought and died in wars Australia has been involved in. Around the country nearly every suburb, every town and every rural hamlet in Australia has an avenue of honour or monument to commemorate those who fought, those who were wounded and those Australians who paid the ultimate price, fighting wars stretching from the Boxer Rebellion in China, 1898, to Afghanistan in 2010.

Nowhere in the National War Memorial, nowhere among the thousands of monuments erected to Australians, who in the majority of cases died fighting other people's wars for the glory of God, Queen and Country, is a mention made of those original Australians who paid the ultimate price for protecting their families, their people, their way of life and their lands.

Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Video and Images

Commemorating the Freedom Fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener

Freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait & Maulboyheener

Commemorating the Freedom Fighters
Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener

Freedom fighters
Tunnerminnerwait & Maulboyheener