Daniel Moowattin

Daniel Moowattin
Born c. 1791
Parramatta, Australia
Died 1 November 1816 (aged 24–25)
Sydney, Australia
Other names Mow-watty, Mowwatting, Moowatting and Moowattye

Daniel Moowattin (c1791-1816) was an Aboriginal Australian Darug man from the Parramatta area in New South Wales. He is noted for his work as a guide and assistant to the botanical collector George Caley and as the third Aboriginal person known to have visited England.[1][2] There are a number of other spellings of his name, including Mow-watty, Mowwatting, Moowatting and Moowattye.

Early life

Born in the Parramatta area around 1791, Moowattin was a member of the Darug tribe.[3] His name, Moowattin (Mow-watty, Moowattye or Mowwatting), means "bush path".[4] He was adopted as an infant by Richard Partridge, the government flogger and executioner.[3]

Career

By 1805 he became a guide and helper for the botanical collector George Caley who collected plant specimens for Joseph Banks in the Colony of New South Wales from 1800 to 1810.[4][5] Many of those specimens have the annotation in Caley's hand "got by Dan".[4]

The placenames, ‘Moowattin Creek’ and ‘Cataract of Carrunggurring’, appear on colonial maps.[6] Caley records that while searching for a koala in 1807, Daniel ‘heard a noise like the surf’ and found a cataract (waterfall) flowing into the river.

London

When it was time for Caley to return home in 1810 he wrote to Joseph Banks seeking permission to bring Moowattin with him.[4] They sailed to England on HMS Hindostan in 1810.[4][7]

Moowattin was the third Australian Aboriginal person to visit England.[1] Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne had visited England 18 years earlier in 1792. He enjoyed his time there but longed to come back home, saying "I am anxious to return to my own country, I find more pleasure under a gum tree sitting with my tribe than I do here."[8] In his homesickness he seemed to have picked up a liking for alcohol.

His pronunciation of the English language was generally admired ; his apparel, which was also provided by the benevolent Baronet ... was directed to be of good quality, to which the taylor did not forget to add the very pink of fashion, so that Mr Moowattye was to all intents and purposes a black beau.

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 23 May 1812

In 1811 Moowattin attended a London party where an English woman sang "No, my love, no". He responded by singing an Aboriginal song. An eyewitness reported: "He sat with strongly marked expressions of attention and delight, and, when asked to sing, consented with a smile. His articulation seemed indistinct, the sounds having great similarity to each other, as, rah-rah tah, wha-rah rah, bahhah tab-rah hah. The tune was occasionally changed; the ditty was divided into three parts or verses: the latter was particularly hurried and exulting. On being requested to put the song into English, he replied, ‘not well to do; but first we take fish, next take kangaroo, then take wife.’"[9]

Moowattin returned to the Colony of New South Wales on the Mary of London in May 1812.[4][7][10] He spent his time in the bush with his tribe and working as a farm labourer around Parramatta.

Death

In 1816 Moowattin was charged with the rape of a 15-year-old girl, Hannah Russell, the daughter of a settler in the Parramatta area.[11][12] The court found him guilty although he protested his innocence and he was sentenced to death. He was executed by hanging on 1 November 1816.[11]

Keith Vincent Smith writes "It was 10 years since he had climbed an ironbark tree at North Rocks to gather gum leaves and five years since he last walked through the streets of London and visited Kew Gardens with George Caley. He had been convicted and sentenced largely on the opinion of Gregory Blaxland and the Reverend Samuel Marsden, who testified that he knew the difference between good and evil. He was the first Aboriginal person to be officially hanged in Australia."[3]

Daniel Moowattin was the first Aboriginal person in the colony of New South Wales to be convicted and executed of a crime in the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction.[12] He was also the first to be tried by a superior court in New South Wales.[12][13]

References

  1. 1 2 "MOOWATTIN, Daniel [also 'Mow-watty', 'Moowatting' or 'Dan'] (c.1791-1816)". Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie Archive. Macquarie University. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  2. ↑ 1942-, Attenbrow, Val, (2010-01-01). Sydney's Aboriginal past : investigating the archaeological and historical records. UNSW Press. ISBN 9781742231167. OCLC 659579866.
  3. 1 2 3 Smith, Keith (2010), Mari nawi : Aboriginal odysseys (1st ed.), Rosenberg, ISBN 978-1-921719-00-4
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Smith, Keith Vincent (2005). Moowattin, Daniel (1791–1816), Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  5. ↑ Clarke, Philip A (2008), Aboriginal plant collectors : botanists and Australian Aboriginal people in the nineteenth century (1st ed.), Rosenberg, ISBN 978-1-877058-68-4
  6. ↑ "Moowattin Creek and the Cataract of Carrung-gurring, 1814. Detail from Chart of Terra Australis, East Coast, 1 January 1814. From Matthew Flinders, A voyage to Terra Australis, London, 1814". Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  7. 1 2 "Sydney". The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. National Library of Australia. 23 May 1812. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  8. ↑ "Moowattin". Beecroft Cheltenham History Group. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Smith, Keith Vincent. "1793: A Song of the Natives of New South Wales" (PDF). British Library. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "A RETROSPECT". The Sydney Morning Herald. National Library of Australia. 17 February 1912. p. 5. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  11. 1 2 "The Trial of Daniel Moowattin: September 1816". The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser: Supplement. 28 September 1816. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  12. 1 2 3 Salter, Brent (2008). "For Want of Evidence': Initial Impressions of Indigenous Exchanges With the First Colonial Superior Courts of Australia". University of Tasmania Law Review. 27 (2): 145–160. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
  13. ↑ Ford, Lisa; Salter, Brent (2008). "From Pluralism to Territorial Sovereignty: The 1816 Trial of Mow-watty in the Superior Court of New South Wales" (PDF). Indigenous Law Journal. 7 (1): 67–86. Retrieved 5 February 2015.

Further reading

  • Banks, Joseph Sir; National Library of Australia; Australian Joint Copying Project; State Library of New South Wales (1981), Sir Joseph Banks papers 1768-1820, National Library of Australia ; [Sydney] : State Library of New South Wales, retrieved 8 January 2015
  • Caley, George; Currey, John, 1940- (1966), Reflections on the colony of New South Wales, Lansdowne, retrieved 8 January 2015
  • Chambers, William (1832), Chambers' Edinburgh journal, London William Orr p 199
  • Dumont d'Urville, Jules-Sébastien-César; Rosenman, Helen, 1921- (1987), An account in two volumes of two voyages to the south seas by Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Jules S-C Dumont D'Urville of the French Navy to Australia, New Zealand, Oceania 1826-1829 in the corvette Astrolabe and to the Straits of Magellan, Chile, Oceania, South East Asia, Australia, Antarctica, New Zealand and Torres Strait 1837-1840 in the corvettes Astrolabe and Zelee, Carlton, Victoria Melbourne University Press, ISBN 978-0-522-84348-4
  • Else-Mitchell, R. (Rae), 1914–2006; Caley, George, 1770–1829 (1801), George Caley collection, retrieved 8 January 2015
  • Kercher, Bruce; Salter, Brent; Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History (2009), The Kercher reports : decisions of the New South Wales superior courts, 1788 to 1827, Sydney Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History, ISBN 978-0-9751103-5-5
  • Macquarie, Lachlan. Volume 11: `The Governor's Diary & Memorandum Book Commencing on and from Wednesday the 10th Day of April 1816 At Sydney in N.S.Wales' 1 November 1816. p. 295. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  • Suttor, George; Mackaness, George, 1882–1968 (1977), Memoirs of George Suttor, F. L. S. : Banksian collector (1774-1859) (Reprint ed.), Review Publications, ISBN 978-0-909895-33-4
  • Threlkeld, L. E. (Lancelot Edward); Gunson, Walter Neil (1974), Australian reminiscences and papers of L. E. Threlkeld : missionary to the Aborigines, 1824-1859, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, retrieved 8 January 2015
  • Turbet, Peter (2011), First frontier : the occupation of the Sydney region 1788-1816, Dural, N.S.W. Rosenberg Publishing, ISBN 978-1-921719-07-3
  • Webb, Joan B. (Joan Betty) (1995), George Caley : nineteenth century naturalist : a biography, Surrey Beattey, ISBN 978-0-949324-62-7
  • Historical Records of New South Wales, vol 5, p 299
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