Trial of Natives in Supreme Court

The Protector of Aborigines on his return to Adelaide, reporting to the Colonial Secretary, under date July 26. 1849, and to which reference has been made previously, said that " the detachment of police under Mr. Tol mer's direction has been particularly active, and, I may say, has been the means of restoring the district to a state of peace and confidence. The settlers all feel satisfied that an effectual check has been put upon the aggressions of the natives and the innocent natives themselves express their satisfaction of the proceedings of the Europeans."

The Government Resident under date July 1, said that the perpetrators of all these crimes are of the same tribe, and that the same individual appeared to have taken a leading part upon more than one occasion, from which to infer that the first murder having been effected with little risk or apparent chance of detection and having resulted in a large amount of plunder, the violent passions of the savage were roused by success and appeared to have emboldened the tribe to persevere in their attacks which had terminated thus fatally for both parties.

Whether Driver was right or wrong, who can say ? But H.J.C., whose article will be dealt with later on, has the same idea of leadership, by one native.

TOLMER PROMOTED

The sites for the two outstations having been fixed and arrangements made for their erection. Tolmer was ready to return to Adelaide, but before leaving he received a letter from the Commissioner of Police commending him for the work done in the Port Lincoln district, and by the same mail received a letter from the Colonial Secretary, notifying him of his appointment as Commissioner of Police, in succession to Dashwood, appointed stipendiary magistrate at Port Adelaide. The appointment was to take effect from August 9, 1849.

So Tolmer immediately embarked for Port Adelaide with his wife and family and the following prisoners who had been committed to stand their trial at Adelaide : — Malgalta and Maingulta (male adults) charged with the murder of John Hamp; Pulurunyu, Neentulta and Yabmanna, charged with the murder of J. R. Beevor ; Ngalta (old man), Bakilti (male), Korlo (female) and Puntarpintye, charged with the murder of Mrs. Easton. Yarngalta (male), Yabmanna, Wirao (females), Yalluma and Winnula (boys), charged with robbery with violence and who were captured by Horne's party at the time.

At the Supreme Court trial the charges were altered. The spelling of these native names varies, who can say which is right? The Commissioner of Police in a report expressed the "hope that sufficient evidence would be forthcoming to procure convictions, so that it would not be necessary as in some cases, to turn the natives adrift on society, permitting them to repeat their barbarous acts with like impunity."

It is not proposed to follow the trials of all the minor raids, thefts, and so on, but only to consider those of the murderers of Hamp, Beevor and Mrs. Easton and the raid on Horne's station. And even in those cases, notice will only be taken of evidence, that will either substantiate or disprove the subsequent myth surrounding the happenings of these two eventful years.

RECORDS OF TRIAL

As will be seen later on, a petition was presented to His Excellency the Governor for a reprieve of the prisoners sentenced to death, in consequence of which we have recorded Acting Judge Mann's report of the trial of Hamp's and Beevor's murderers respectively. For the trial of Mrs. Easton's murderers we have to rely on the newspaper report, and for the raid on Horne's station, we have the original depositions taken by Messrs. Driver and Peter on July 2, 1849.

Hamp's and Beevor's papers are filed in the Archives Department of the Public Library, and through the courtesy of the board I am permitted to give the official details of the trial; as to Horne's case, we have the newspaper account, but, very much more satisfactory, the original depositions. These are filed in the Supreme Court, Adelaide, and by the kind permission of the Master I was able to peruse the papers and take extracts to show what actually happened at the time of the raid and immediately after. It is doubtful whether any of these papers have been read for the last 80 years.

On Wednesday, September 26, 1849, Mingalta and Malgalta were charged at the Supreme Court, Adelaide, with the wilful murder of John Hamp on June 23. 1848. For some reason unexplained the shepherd Dewig Hammond was not called as a witness. The Advocate-General (W. Smillie) appeared for the Crown and Mr. Bartley defended the prisoners. Acting Judge Mann was on the bench in the absence of Chief Justice Cooper. I understand Mr. Mann was at the time Master of the Supreme Court.

The first witness to be called was George Stewart, overseer of Pinkerton's station, and among other things said, was that he last saw Hamp alive on June 14 or 15, in a hut at Stony Point, Lake Newland. On June 23, 1848, in company with two constables, he saw the dead body. "The body was laying with face partly down. The head was cut all over as if struck by sticks. There was a very deep wound over the left eye. The wound appeared to have been done with a sharp instrument. There was a mark like a spear mark. There was a hole in the ' trowsers.' I did not examine the body. It was much mutilated. He was covered over with blood. His head and hands were multilated." He then related the robbery, and that he "found a spear in the yard between the body and the hut with blood on it." The witness then related how he followed the tracks of the natives — one which he recognised as those of Mingalta — to the lake side, where the natives went through. The next day the tracks were picked up by searchers on the sea side of the lake, and the recognisable track was among them.

Then he said : " We tracked it to the sea beach. We saw the track in and out of the sea. We followed the track for nearly 20 miles. There were other tracks besides the prisoner's. There were about a dozen tracks to the sea beach." And then "we lost the tracks altogether and I returned home." He stated that Pinkerton had three stations. Mingalta had been about for approximately three weeks. Stewart said he had been much among the natives of the interior, but not among the sea coast tribe.

QUESTION ABOUT SAW

After the native witness Winnulu had given his evidence, Stewart was recalled and said, "I know the saw produced. It belonged to Mr. Pinkerton I saw it at Hamp's hut. It was found inside the hut. There were marks of blood and hair on it — grey hairs. Hamp had grey hairs."

An effort was made to establish the re-lationship between "Tommy " and Hamp, but Stewart could not help. He said, "Hamp's son was one who lived there (presumably at Hamp's hut) and another shepherd named Hammond. Hamp's son is still at Mr. Pinkerton's, and the other shepherd is alive."

Police Constable John Dann, among other things, stated that Stewart and P.C. Keat (Keech ?) and himself went to the wreck at Seal Bay (Trial Bay?) (' Arachne.') Mingalta, was to show them the way on the 18th, but he deserted the party. Returning to the head station on June 23, he heard of the murder, and then proceeded to Stony Point station, when, he said, 'I and Mr. Stewart and P.C. Keech and others found the body. There was blood on the head and hands. On the head there was a deep cut through the skull. The brain was partly out, his head and face and hands were battered about, under the waistcoat there was a hole.'"He then related how the tracks were picked up and followed, but it is significant that they had to go 100 to 200 yards from the hut before any could be found, and "we followed the tracks about twenty miles in and out till they were lost in stony ground."

GEHARTY'S EVIDENCE

Corporal James Geharty related the pursuit of the natives and that Minga]ta was arrested at Port Lincoln on July 3, 1849, and Malgalta the following day three miles out from Port Lincoln. According to Geharty, these two admitted spearing Hamp and implicated others. Under cross examination Geharty came in for some rough handling from Mr. Bartley, owing to his various translations of what the natives said, and during cross examination it was ascertained that the prisoner Mingalta said that it was a man called ' Williamy' that was speared. A native Winnulu was then called, and he gave his version of the murder of one " Tommy " at "Korti Warri" quoting names of natives present at the time of the murder. But one of the chief points of his evidence was about the saw. He said, "I know the saw produced. The man sawed the head with the saw. . . . The saw was put inside the hut." Mr. Bartley addressed the jury, pointing out that the native's evidence might as well have applied to the murders of Biddle or of Darke as that of Hamp.

There was no means of co-relating Winnulu's evidence, with that of the murder of Hamp, and also Geharty's evidence had to be excluded as so unsatisfactory. The acting judge summed up impartially, agreeing that Geharty's evidence should be excluded from consideration, and going exhaustively in to probability and improbability of Winnulu's evidence being concerned with the murder of Hamp.

There is one pregnant point in his address : "It was notorious that cases forwarded from border districts were generally defective both in form and substance and in cases such as the present the want of the requisite evidence was attributable to the ab-sence of that professional knowledge of the law of evidence and that habit of tracing out and connecting facts."

Is this a case of one law for the whites and another for the blacks? The jury found the prisoners guilty and sentence of death was passed. On October. 24, 1849, the papers were laid before the Council of Government, and it was resolved that the Lieutenant Governor should not be recommended to pardon or reprieve the prisoners. But as will be seen, the case was again considered favorably for the natives.