ABSTRACT
As eastern Australia was claimed through reliance on the concept of terra nullius, meaning that there was no pre-existing government or legal system, Indigenous people were officially British subjects from the time of colonisation and as such under the colonial justice system. Taking or damaging property, setting fires and injuring or killing colonists were understood legally as crimes rather than resistance to the occupation of their Country and disruption of their lives. The punishment of these “crimes” began as crude-raiding parties and developed into organised operations by mounted police. Some Aboriginal people were brought to trial, although they understood little of the process and were not permitted to give sworn testimony in their own defence or against others. Similarly, when they were the victims of crimes, Aboriginal people were not accorded the same protections as were settler colonists. This chapter examines two key episodes from the 1830s: the 1834/35 Brisbane Water Trials in which 21 Aboriginal men were tried for crimes including robbery and rape, and the prosecution of the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre of Aboriginal people in 1838.
