As pointed out by Dale Kerwin in his article , there is now a plaque to Aboriginal resistance leader, Dundalli, in Post Office Square (Meanjin/Brisbane).
There were a number of public executions at Boggo Road Jail after Dundalli was hung, right up till the 1920s. There was a very high proportion of Pacific Islanders hung at Boggo Road. These were Kanakers brought to cut the cane by slave traders like Robert Towns. Queensland’s second largest city, Townsville, is named after a slave trader and is now an army town.
Also more Aboriginal people were hung publicly after Dundalli.
The reason the hangings were public was to deter Islanders and First Nations people from fighting for their rights as part of the Aboriginal Wars of Resistance.
There was an early settler in Van Dieman’s Land who had a statue erected in his honor. It was a statue of William Crowther who committed ‘racist and barbaric’ acts on the body of an aboriginal person, William Lanne. At the time some senior settlers like the manager of the VDL company, Edward Curr (an ancestor of mine), were offering rewards for the beheading of aboriginal people. Crowther’s statue has been taken down.
Someone suggested it better if the statue was to remain, that it should be with the bronze head sliced off.
Ian Curr
15 Sep 2022