When
Where
Treasury Building
21 Murray St
Nipaluna TAS 7000
Australia
Why
On 24 September 1826, two innocent Aboriginal men, “Dick" and "Jack”, were hanged in Nipaluna / Hobart. Originally from the Oyster Bay tribe, they had arrived in town in 1824 with a group of around 60 Aborigines seeking blankets and provisions, as the colonial invasion increasingly disrupted their lives.
In 1825, following the death of a white colonist near Kangaroo Point, colonists plucked Dick and Jack from their group and accused them of the killing despite there being no evidence linking them to the crime.
Their trial was conducted before an all-white military jury, and they were denied the opportunity to defend themselves. Dick was elderly and disabled. who was forced to crawl through the prison. Jack maintained his innocence from the beginning.
Despite protests from settlers who recognised that they had been unjustly convicted, Governor Arthur ordered their execution. The government justified the hanging as a warning that it would encourage a “conciliatory line of conduct” exposing the brutal reality of colonial rule, where Aboriginal lives were treated as expendable.
A monument now stands not to commemorate the hanging of these two Aboriginal men, but the hanging of the “first woman” — a white woman who was hanged four years later directly opposite the site where Dick and Jack were executed on the corner of Murray St where will we meet on the 24th for this Commemoration.
Despite there being no acknowledgement of Dick and Jack, we honor them by vowing our physical presence on this day in the same location they were hanged and every year afterwards.
On 24 September 2026, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people will come together to remember and honour Dick and Jack, and the many hundreds of innocent Aboriginal men, women and children who were killed during Tasmania’s invasion.
We will stand together in their memory.
We will tell the truth of what happened.
And we will show that Black lives have always mattered.
24 September 2026 — Never forgotten.
For updates check the Facebook event.
Contact
Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre
1800 132 260
[email protected]
tacinc.com.au
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