Exiles
In July 1805 Judge Advocate Richard Atkins gave a legal ‘Opinion on the Treatment to be Adopted towards the Natives’. Finding that Aboriginal people could not present evidence in a criminal court, he suggested the only course was to ‘pursue them and inflict such punishment as they merit’.
On this basis Governor Philip Gidley King used his power to exile resistance leaders like Bulldog and Musquito, who were sent to Norfolk Island in 1805 and again transported, in 1813, to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). Governor Lachlan Macquarie sent Dual, who was captured at Appin in 1816, to Van Diemen’s Land, but reprieved him two years later.
Tristan Maamby, on the other hand, chose self-imposed exile when he jumped ship and ran away in Rio de Janeiro in 1807 to avoid being taken to London by his guardian, Samuel Marsden. Tristan returned to Sydney seven years later with Captain John Piper, but died soon after landing.
