Previously on this day

The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was the only successful armed takeover of government in Australia’s recorded history. The Governor of New South Wales was deposed by the New South Wales Corps on January 26, 1808, 20 years to the day after Arthur Phillip founded the European settlement in Australia.

William Bligh, well-known for his overthrow in the Mutiny on the Bounty, was a naval officer and headed for Sydney but his style of governance led to problems with his subordinates. Bligh had the captain of the fleet demoted, canceled his land grant and shipped him back to England. Once in Australia, he used the colony’s stores and herds to provide relief to farmers affected by flooding.

This earned Bligh enmity of traders who were profiting greatly from the situation. Over time, he made enemies of some of the most influential people in the colony, including Lieutenant John Macarthur, who, along with Major Johnston, drafted a petition calling for Bligh’s arrest. He was arrested and Lt.-Col. Joseph Foveaux took over the colony in July 1808. Bligh was put on trial in England and found not guilty of any wrong-doing.

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The McDonald Islands are a volcanic group of barren islands located in the Southern Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. They have been territories of Australia since 1947 and contain the only two active volcanoes in Australian territory.

The islands did not have visitors until the mid-1850s. Peter Kemp, a British settler, is the first person thought to have seen the island. On November 27, 1833, he spotted it from the brig Magnet during a voyage from Kerguelen to the Antarctic and was believed to have entered the island on his 1833 chart. An American sealer, Captain John Heard on the ship Oriental, sighted the island on November 25, 1853, en route from Boston to Melbourne. He reported the discovery one month later and had an island named after him.

Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang discovered the McDonald Islands close to Heard Island six weeks later, on January 4, 1854. No landing was made on the islands until March 1855, when sealers from the Corinthian, led by Captain Erasmus Darwin Rogers, went ashore, at a place called Oil Barrel Point. In the sealing period from 1855-1880, a number of American sealers spent a year or more on the island.

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The Myall Creek Massacre involved the killing of 28 Aboriginal Australian people by 12 people on June 10, 1838 at the Myall Creek sheep station near Inverell, in northern New South Wales. Seven of the men were eventually found guilty of murder, the first time that white people had been punished under British law for crimes against Aboriginal people.

A party of 12 men, consisting of 11 convict settlers and 1 free man arrived at a hut on Myall Creek. They told the station hand that they intended to round up any Aboriginal people they could find. They claimed to be acting in retaliation for the theft of cattle. The men gathered up 28 people, mostly women and children, out of a group of 40 or 50 Aboriginal people. They were taken behind a hill and shot. All 28 were killed. Several days later, the manager of the station discovered the remains.

Mounted police were ordered to investigate and after 47 days, the 11 convicts were arrested but the free man was not captured. The trial began on November 15, 1838 and the case was heard before the Chief Justice of New South Wales. After deliberating for just 20 minutes, the jury found all 11 men not guilty. Before the men could be released from custody, the Attorney-General ordered seven of the men be charged with the murder of one of the children. A second trial was held on November 29 and they were all found guilty and sentenced to execution by hanging.

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