Hanged

Ten men were legally executed in Australia's Northern Territory. Some were hanged on their own Country, their deaths intended as warnings. Others were buried behind the walls of Darwin's Fannie Bay Gaol in unmarked graves and forgotten. They were Indigenous tribesmen, Chinese gold miners, and European refugees. Their crimes, trials, and punishments unfolded in a frontier society shaped by race, fear, and power - yet their stories have largely vanished from the national memory. Derek Pugh brings to light the lives and deaths of these ten men, from the earliest case in 1893 to the final hangings in 1952. Drawing these stories together for the first time, he explores not only the condemned, but also their victims and the Territorians who gaoled them, and witnessed their deaths. A part of the unique history of the Top End, it is a story of justice, silence, and lives erased. Dr Pugh is a field historian in the old tradition who travels to the sites about which he is writing wherever possible. He brings his historical knowledge directly to the location of an event, and that location in turn informs and enriches his description. - Hon Michael Grant AO