'A Solemn Judicial Farce, the Mere Mockery of a Trial': The Acquittal of Lieutenant Lowe, 1827

Abstract

This article explores the political, colonial and social environment in the period leading up to the Supreme Court trial of Lieutenant Nathaniel Lowe for the murder of Jacky Jacky in 1827. Whites had been tried for the murder of Aborigines prior to Lowe, but, unlike other cases, Lowe and possibly the magistrates at Wallis' Plains tried in vain to cover up the murder of the Aboriginal man. Chief Justice Francis Forbes, along with Governor Ralph Darling and the Executive Council, continued to investigate the matter until Lowe's indictment for the murder. This demand for justice for the dead indigene marked the disparity between the legal ideals of British officials and the actual treatment of Aborigines by settlers. While the legal powers in the colony began to view Aborigines as provisional British subjects, colonists viewed the indigenes as a hapless race subject to no legal protection. R v. Lowe helped to define the legal status of the Aborigines and raised questions about the extent of British sovereignty over the territory of New South Wales.