Cannibalism in Colonial Australia: A Mini-Essay

     In January of 1823, the Reverend Robert Knopwood transcribed the confession of escaped convict Alexander Pearce. Sent to the penal colony of Australia in 1819 for stealing six pairs of shoes, Pearce had become the only prisoner to escape from Macquarie Harbor twice.[1] In his account to the reverend, the felon wove a bewildering tale of treachery, desperation, and cannibalism.
     On September 20, 1822, Pearce and seven other convicts stole a boat from Kelly’s Basin, where they had been working in a sawpit gang, and rowed across the harbor. After smashing the craft’s bottom with a confiscated axe, they set out on foot into the untamed Australian bush.[2] In their efforts to reach Derwent River and steal a schooner, the eight men unknowingly entered the mountains between Macquarie Harbor and the inland plains (considered, even today, one of the harshest terrains in Australia). Over the course of a week, the men, lost in the bush, depleted their rations and store of tinder as the weather turned to gales and sleet.[3] Cold, tired, and desperate, the men committed the unthinkable: as one of their fellow escapees – William Dalton – slept, they bludgeoned him with the axe, slit his throat, and cooked his heart and liver.[4] The act horrified two of the men – William Brown and William Kennelly – and they fled the group. Realizing the two would alert the authorities, the other five convicts pursued Brown and Kennelly further into the wilderness, only to lose them in the brush (Brown and Kennelly would later be discovered half-dead from exposure along the shore of Macquarie Harbor and would pass away shortly afterward in a prison hospital).[5] Determined to reach Derwent River, the five abandoned their attempts to catch Brown and Kennelly and trekked further into the mountains. A month passed, two more men – Thomas Bodenham and John Mather – were slaughtered, and Matthew Travers was bitten in the foot by a snake.[6] Over the proceeding days, Travers overheard the whispered plans of Pearce and Robert Greenhill and, whether it was from hopelessness or pain from the snake’s venom, he welcomed the axe’s blows with little protest.[7] With only Greenhill and Pearce remaining, the two men entered into an exhausting game of cat and mouse, each one waiting for the other to let down his guard. It came after several days when Greenhill, overcome by fatigue, fell asleep.[8] Days later, Pearce finally reached Derwent River, where he was discovered by a shepherd and transferred to Hobart in chains.[9]
     The authorities, and even Reverend Knopwood who penned Pearce’s confession, thought the tales was far-fetched and believed the convict had fabricated the entire account just to cover the tracks of this fellow felons, whom they believed were still alive and on the run.[10] In February of 1823, Pearce was transferred back to Macquarie Harbor, where his second escape and subsequent capture resulted in his hanging.[11] His body was shipped to Hobart Colonial Hospital, where his head was removed, skinned, and gifted to the American phrenologist Dr. Samuel Morton for his collection of skulls (it can be found today at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia).[12] So, was Pearce’s account truly fabricated? In 1832, the first official explorer to the Loddon Plains discovered human bones in the valley while surveying the land and records from the prison hospital which attempted to treat Brown and Kennelly reported that the men had been found with pieces of human flesh stuffed inside their pockets.[13]

Works Referenced

Hughes, Robert. The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
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[1] Hughes, 219.
[2] Hughes, 219.
[3] Hughes, 220.
[4] Hughes, 220-221.
[5] Hughes, 221.
[6] Hughes, 221-223.
[7] Hughes, 223.
[8] Hughes, 223-224.
[9] Hughes, 224.
[10] Hughes, 224-225.
[11] Hughes, 225.
[12] Hughes, 226.
[13] Hughes, 221.