Punishment as pacification: The role of indigenous executions on the South Australian frontier, 1836-1862

Abstract

When Major Thomas O'Halloran articulated the government's position to the Milmenrura in front of a makeshift gallows at the Coorong in August 1840, he may as well have repeated it at every one of South Australia's 23 Indigenous executions. The gibbetting of the bodies was unique on this occasion but the idea that Indigenous hangings were to serve both a punitive and an elevated didactic function in the colony was not. Unlike public executions for European offenders which always took place in or around the Adelaide Gaol, public Indigenous hangings occurred at the scene of the crime with settlers and fellow tribesmen encouraged, sometimes forced, to watch. Recognising that race was a determining factor in the treatment of a capital offender, this paper shows how pioneering South Australians placed great value on the violent theatre of the gallows, as it was thought to pacify a troublesome Indigenous population who did not share British culture or language. It was a belief that culminated in the successful passage of an 1861 amendment through the South Australian Parliament that made provisions for the reintroduction of public executions for Indigenous offenders. This was after public executions for all capital offenders, regardless of race, had been abolished three years prior in 1858.