KEY POINTS
- Dundalli will be honoured in Queensland on Thursday as part of the "truth-telling" process in Indigenous history.
- He was known as an Aboriginal resistance hero who was the last person to be publicly hanged in Queensland.
- His legacy will be commemorated on 5 January as Dundalli Remembrance Day in the state.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains a depiction of a person who has died.
The commemoration of First Nations hero Dundalli, the last person publicly executed in Queensland, has been marked as a "truth-telling story of state significance" by the government for the first time.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships Minister Craig Crawford says he will mark Dundalli Remembrance Day for the Turrwan, or "great leader" in the Yuggara language, on Thursday.
The Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance group have commemorated Dundalli at Brisbane's Post Office Square, the site of the former Queen Street Gaol where he was hanged in 1855.
"Everyone in Queensland should know the history of Dundalli; it is a truth-telling story of state significance," Mr Crawford said on Wednesday.
Dundalli was a Dalla man from the Blackall Ranges who was chosen to lead the resistance against European colonists, who were encroaching on their lands and shooting and poisoning them.
For a decade, he led attacks on settlers and violent robberies of homesteads as a form of payback, or restorative justice, in Indigenous law.
After he was caught, a sheriff ordered Dundalli to be hung on 5 January 1855, and he was executed the following day.
Dundalli, remembered as a significant Aboriginal resistance hero, was the last person to be publicly hanged in Queensland in 1855. Credit: Silvester Diggles / State Library of Queensland
With the federal government also planning a referendum on amending the constitution to establish an Indigenous advisory body to parliament, he said the time had come to "embrace the spirit" of First Nations' heroes like Dundalli.
"He was the Aboriginal Turrwan, a lawman and great leader in Yuggara language, chosen to unite all the different tribes to seek restorative justice against shootings and poisonings of Aboriginal people by settlers in colonial Brisbane," Mr Crawford said.
"To colonialists, he was a murderer and a criminal. But to his people, he was a warrior, a freedom fighter, ordained by customary law to protect his people and his lands and waters.
"Now 168 years on, I think most Australians can embrace the spirit of Dundalli, as we welcome a new era of reconciliation through Voice, Treaty and Truth."
