In 1842 the fledgling colony of Port Phillip carried out its first public executions, hanging two Aboriginal men who’ve been called everything from bushrangers to freedom fighters. Who were they? Lorena Allam reports.

It’s a story of our colonial past that has everything—war, love, courage, treason, betrayal and the gallows—and it all takes place in the heart of Melbourne.

This is one of the most incredible stories I’ve ever heard about Aboriginal resistance. John Harding, playwright

Playwright John Harding is standing in the forecourt of RMIT on Bowen Street, Melbourne. It’s lunch hour in the CBD and Harding stands where the gallows once stood, where thousands of spectators turned out to watch two men become the first people executed by the colony of Port Phillip.

Those two men were Tasmanian Aborigines, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener. They were convicted of murdering two whale hunters after spending months gathering guns, burning huts and terrifying colonists in country Victoria.

‘I think it would have been the end of their world. No longer did they have any country; no longer could they conduct ceremonies. It was either fight or flee—and they chose to fight. Because what’s there to lose, really? You’ve already lost everything,’ Harding says.

Harding works at RMIT, and his office overlooks this site.

‘Every day I walk past this place. This is one of the most incredible stories I’ve ever heard about Aboriginal resistance,’ he says.

Wesleyan preacher and schoolmaster James Dredge was in the crowd on 20 January 1842.

‘Such an affecting, appalling, disgusting, execrable scene my eyes never saw—God forbid they should ere behold the like again,’ he wrote.

‘The distress of Bob (Maulboyheener) was most acute, his whole frame was dreadfully convulsed, his sobs and moans were audible and affecting, and produced considerable commiseration amongst the feeling of the spectators.’

‘Jack (Tunnerminnerwait) was the first to ascend the ladder, which he did with tolerable firmness, apparently under the influence of a kind of apathetic demeanour induced by an overwhelming and stupefying sense of the awful event approaching him. Poor Bob (Maulboyheener) was so affected that his limbs refused to perform their office, and he was literally dragged to the fatal platform.’

So how did two young Aboriginal Tasmanians make it to the mainland, just seven years after the fledgling colony of Port Phillip was established?

Their early years in Tasmania during the Black War hold the key, according to Professor Lyndall Ryan from the University of Newcastle.

‘Tunnerminnerwait had witnessed the Cape Grim massacre in 1828 as an 11-year-old, when a lot of his own people were killed. His whole family had fallen apart as a result. I think it took him quite some time to work out how he was going to survive,’ she says.

‘Maulboyheener had watched his own people being killed by settlers over in the north-east. So both boys experienced the collapse of their societies at a young age and what they were trying to do was survive at all costs.’

In 1830, the pair met a former bricklayer and storekeeper turned Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson.

Robinson was touring Tasmania on his ‘friendly mission’ to conciliate with the natives. Both boys joined him and played an important role, teaching him their languages and acting as ambassadors.

Also among Robinson’s entourage was another formidable survivor, Truganinni. Robinson promised them food, housing and sanctuary at Wybalenna, on Flinders Island.

However in 1837 and 1838, disease swept through the settlement. Maulboyheener’s young wife died of influenza. The population went from 200 down to just 50 in a few years.

Robinson turned his attention to the mainland, where the new colony of Port Phillip was looking for a Protector of Aborigines.

He took the job and successfully lobbied Governor George Gipps to be allowed to bring a group of 16 ‘peaceable natives’ with him.

‘What Robinson intended was the men would serve him as he travelled in Port Phillip, and the women would serve his wife Maria,’ says Dr Ian Clark, of Federation University in Ballarat.

‘He also had this expectation that when he visited remote tribes, the men would act as mediators and facilitate communication. What he wanted was black people imparting civilisation on other black people—to use his words.’

Dr Lyndall Ryan says Robinson’s main motivation was to take them off Flinders Island.

‘They were all young and fit and able. They had all worked with him on the mission, they all had knowledge of English and they knew how to look after themselves. Robinson was very confident good things would come from taking them to Melbourne, whereas if they stayed on Wybalenna they would have died out. It had become what one of Robinson's sons called a charnel house,’ she says.

For the first few months they lived with Robinson and helped build his house at Prahran. Among other jobs, they worked on pastoral properties in the Dandenongs, and when they weren’t labouring, they were travelling with Robinson.

From March to August 1841, Tunnerminnerwait went with Robinson on a major tour of the western district, where the news was grim.

‘There was certainly a lot of frontier violence in that period and Tunnerminnerwait would have seen and heard quite a lot. There’s no doubt they were seeing in Victoria very much a repetition of what they had seen and experienced in Tasmania,’ Professor Ryan says.

After this tour Tunnerminnerwait and four others—Maulboyheener, Truganini, Planobeena and Ptyerunner—abruptly left Melbourne.

Dr Joe Toscano is the convenor of the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener Commemoration Committee, a small group of activists who’ve been campaigning since 2008 to bring their story to light.

‘Robinson lost interest in the 16 Tasmanians. He had his hands full with what was happening in Victoria, so they were basically left to their own devices,’ he says.

‘I think the fact that they had been abandoned by these people who had brought them to this strange land and no longer had any responsibility for them, was the tipping point which made them go into this armed resistance phase of their existence.’

From August to late December 1841, the five Tasmanians ran amok in the bush. They stockpiled guns and food, burned down huts and set fire to money. Within weeks, hundreds of squatters were flocking back to Melbourne.

‘We know they ended up in a whalers’ camp and that two whalers were shot dead. My view is one of those whalers had assaulted and kidnapped Truganinni’s sister more than a decade earlier and it was a revenge killing,’ Lyndall Ryan says.

‘By the time they were tracked down, there were more than 40 people out there looking for them. They certainly were the big media story of the time.’

The five were brought back to Melbourne and charged with murder. None were permitted to give evidence on their own behalf. It took the jury half an hour to return a verdict. The three women were exonerated and sent back to Tasmania. The two men were convicted and sentenced to death.

In January 1842, the two men were dressed in white and brought on a tumbrel to be hanged. The execution was botched, much to the horror of the thousands gathered to watch.

‘A gentleman came out of the crowd and pushed out a piece of wood that had stopped the trapdoor from opening,’ Joe Toscano says.

‘But Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener were asphyxiated. It took them about half an hour to die.’

The men are buried a few blocks away from the RMIT forecourt, beneath what is now the Queen Victoria Markets.

‘They’re lying just there, underneath our feet. And thousands of people walk over their bodies every day,’ John Harding says. ‘There’s not one marker or acknowledgement that two of the country’s greatest warriors lie right here in front of us.’

A forgotten war Sunday 30 November 2014 Listen to the full story on Hindsight. More This [series episode segment] has extra audio,

Melbourne City Council recently voted to build a memorial to the two men at the execution site outside RMIT. Over the next 12 months to two years there will be a consultation process about what form the memorial should take.

‘This has been an intense political campaign, with a lot of direct political pressure on the Melbourne City Council,’ says Joe Toscano, ‘It’s just an extraordinary, powerful story that belongs to everyone.’

John Harding says the memorial is the start of a process of recognition which should end in repatriation.

‘How many times have I been to this market and walked over their bodies? This need for justice, for them, cannot rest until these bodies are back in Tasmania. These boys have to go home.’

Hindsight presents history in a new light, offering insights and perspectives on the past through stories, some well known and some, till now, unheard.