Captain Edward Denny Day--the only law "from the Big River to the
sea"--was Australia's greatest lawman, yet few have heard of him. This
is his story.
Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and
unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed
as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of
justice changed history and shocked the world.
Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish
ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British Army before
resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the
most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the
frontier.
Denny Day's abiding legacy is the capture of the perpetrators of the
Myall Creek Massacre--the most infamous mass-murder in Australian
history, and the first time white men were convicted of the murder of
Aborigines. Yet Day won no praise for bringing to justice the killers of
28 innocent men, women, and children at Myall Creek. Rather, he was
scorned and shunned, fiercely attacked by the press, by powerful
landowners who hired the colony's top lawyers to defend the killers, and
by the general public.
The 11 men tracked down and arrested by Day faced two sensational
trials, and seven of them were eventually found guilty of murder and
hanged. The case sparked an international outcry, resulting in stricter
government policies protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.
There are many colourful characters, heroes and villains, in Denny Day's
story: inspirational frontier women; outlaws captured in a desperate
firefight; brave and wily Aboriginal resistance leaders; gormless
colonial officials; privileged English nobles and persecuted Irish
immigrants; convicts and freemen; and, for good measure, an American
pirate.
Denny Day was commended for bravery during his lifetime, but only in
regards to taming the frontier settlements. Even in his obituary, Myall
Creek is not mentioned.
