Arabic version: هوبارت تحيي ذكرى ديك وجاك بعد 200 عام

According to ABC News, a Hobart commemoration has marked 200 years since two Aboriginal men, known to colonists as Dick and Jack, were hanged at the old Hobart Town Gaol. The men had been arrested on Tasmania’s east coast after a stockkeeper was speared to death in the 1820s.

Historian Naomi Parry Duncan said records from the period were unclear about what happened and whether the men carried out the killing or were with a group involved. Documents showed they were tried in the Supreme Court in 1826 and found guilty by an all-white jury of military and ex-military officers.

Dr Duncan described the trial as “very unfair”, saying the men spoke little English, were not provided an interpreter and could not have defended themselves. She said eyewitness accounts and newspaper reports recorded their fear before the execution. Jack was crying and protesting, while Dick, the older man, was tied to a chair because a skin condition meant he could not walk.

The 200th anniversary event took place on Thursday outside Hobart’s Treasury, across the road from where the hangings occurred and at the site connected to the former Supreme Court. Flowers were placed beside a black coffin on the steps while Aboriginal flags were held aloft. Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre representative Nala Mansell said the gathering acknowledged not only Dick and Jack but also Aboriginal people who died during the British invasion of their lands.

Ms Mansell criticised the lack of acknowledgement of Aboriginal connections to the area, contrasting it with a plaque for Mary McLaughlan, executed in 1830. Former Tasmanian Greens leader Bob Brown called the hangings a “shameful episode” and said the Treasury site should remain in Palawa and Aboriginal hands. Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said Hobart could do more to present its Aboriginal history, including through a proposed “walking map”.