Indigenous Australia

Benjamin (c. 1860s–1893), shepherd and prisoner, was a Wonunda Mirning (Mirniny) man from Eyre’s Sand Patch, a telegraph repeater station approximately 150 miles (240 km) west of Eucla, Western Australia. He was most likely born in the 1860s. It is not known how he acquired the name Benjamin. During his youth he went through initiation and had one of his front teeth removed and his back scarred with cicatrices. Nothing is known of his parents and family.

Mirning Country spanned the Great Australian Bight from Point Culver in Western Australia to Venus Bay in South Australia, comprising smaller groups, such as the Wonunda, whose names were often derived from significant local places. The Wonunda Mirning had little contact with colonists until 1877, when the telegraph station was established at Eyre. The Mirning were described by colonists as being small of stature, attributable to their desert environs. This characteristic was apparently recognised by the Wonunda, who distinguished themselves from their mooroon/murun (stout) and kooraradee (tall) neighbours. Benjamin was said to have small, tapered fingers and fine wrist bones.

In 1883 Benjamin was arrested after he and two other Wonunda Mirning, Charley and Paddy, killed two sheep belonging to the telegraph station manager, William Graham. Perhaps hoping for leniency, Benjamin testified that ‘another blackfellow “coax’em” me’ (WA Commission 1884, 13), but all three were sent on a gruelling march along with five others to Albany Police Court, on the lands of the Menang/Minang/Mineng Noongar people, for their trial. Constable George Truslove, the police officer stationed at Esperance whose jurisdiction ranged from Bremer Bay to Eucla, forced them to walk over 800 miles (1,287 km) naked with chains around their necks. Benjamin’s neck ached and when he was too tired to walk Truslove hit him. Truslove later reported that Benjamin had twice broken his chains with a piece of limestone to try to escape, encouraging the others to join him. On 24 August 1883 Benjamin and Charley were convicted and sentenced to eight months imprisonment at Rottnest Island (Wadjemup); Paddy was given a two-month sentence because of his more advanced age.

After being given trousers, a shirt, and a blanket at Albany, Benjamin was probably transported by sea to Fremantle, part of the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where, suffering from illness, he was seen by a doctor. Upon arrival at Rottnest Island in October, he exchanged clothes with other prisoners, a common practice at the prison that facilitated the forging of relationships and reciprocal responsibilities. Unfortunately, it also helped to spread disease. Benjamin arrived during a measles outbreak that had infected almost all prisoners. This was not the first epidemic to affect the island. In September Governor Frederick Broome had established a commission of inquiry into the treatment of Aboriginal prisoners, particularly at Rottnest Island, due to recent deaths arising from an influenza outbreak and allegations of cruel mistreatment.

Benjamin was one of a small number of prisoners selected to testify at the inquiry on 29 October 1883. Perhaps due to his recent arrival at the prison and relief at finally reaching his destination after the long journey, he was the only attestant to report that he ‘little bit like Rottnest’ because he ‘get plenty to eat’ and was warm, even if he only had ‘a rotten blanket’ (WA Commission 1884, 13). He reported being forced to wear a bullock chain around his neck on the arduous march to Albany and Truslove’s abuse—allegations that Broome instructed the colonial secretary to investigate. Truslove denied the abuse and claimed to have used the ‘usual sized native chains’ (SROWA AU WA S675). The police superintendent and colonial secretary accepted Truslove’s account, ending the matter in the government’s eyes.

On his release from prison in early April 1884, Benjamin was employed as a shepherd by Laurence Sinclair, a telegraph linesman and the son of a warder at Fremantle gaol. He subsequently returned to Eyre’s Sand Patch where he married and had two children. On 1 October 1893 he was washed off the rocks while fishing at West Beach near Esperance and was presumed to have drowned. Further misfortune struck the family six weeks later: on 13 December his wife and two children, along with four other Aboriginal women, were burnt to death in a bushfire at Eyre’s Sand Patch. Benjamin’s body was recovered on 16 April 1894.

Almost four thousand Aboriginal prisoners were incarcerated at Rottnest Island from 1838 to 1931, and nearly four hundred died and were buried there. The memory of Benjamin’s life is overshadowed by the time he spent at Wadjemup; however, without the record of his time there, it is possible that the story of his life would be lost to history.

Shino Konishi is a Yawuru woman. Ann Curthoys is of British descent, was born on Gadigal Country, and worked on Benjamin’s story while living in Whadjuk Noongar and then Gadigal Country. Alexandra Ludewig is of German descent and lives on Whadjuk Noongar boodjar.