US bestows honour on African American co-leader of Eureka Stockade

An African American man who was the first person tried and acquitted for the Eureka Rebellion and who was buried in an unmarked grave was memorialised in central Victoria on Monday.

The US ambassador to Australia,Caroline Kennedy,unveiled a plaque at White Hills Cemetery in Bendigo to honour John Joseph’s life.

Joseph was the first of the 13 Eureka Stockade leaders put on trial,facing a charge of high treason after he was accused of firing the first shot which killed Captain Henry Wise,according toThe Herald in 1889.

After miners in Ballarat became disgruntled by exorbitant licence fees imposed by the colonial government,protests erupted on the diggings in 1854,culminating in the Eureka Rebellion. Twenty-two diggers and six soldiers were killed.

According to the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House in Canberra,once all 13 men on trial for the rebellion were acquitted by the jury,Joseph wascarried at shoulder height through the 10,000-strong crowd gathering outside the Melbourne court.

There is little known about Joseph’s life following the rebellion,and when he died four years after the stockade,he was buried in an unmarked grave in Bendigo.

Raffaello Carboni,an Italian writer on the goldfields who chronicled the Eureka Stockade,described Joseph as a “kind cheerful heart” who possessed a “sober,plain,matter of fact,contented mind”.

Filmmaker and historian Santilla Chingaipe,who featured Joseph in herdocumentary series,Our African Roots,said the real tragedy was that so little was known about him.

She said the creation of a lasting memorial to him was bittersweet because it was driven by a foreign government rather than Australia.

“It’s pretty special that he’s being honoured in this permanent way ... but the fact that we haven’t acknowledged him or acknowledged others like him here that have contributed so much is a bit of a shame,” Chingaipe said.

“So many people have contributed to modern Australia as we know it,and people came from pretty much all over the world and played a role in building this country,and it’s worth acknowledging that.”

Chingaipe said Joseph’s experiences on the goldfields and his eventual court case were shaped by racism,as newspaper reports of his hearing made for “confronting reading”.

“The prosecution thought that if they put up this black guy first,in front of an all-white jury,of course they were going to convict him,but that wasn’t the case,” she said.

“The defence was able to argue that the goldfields were pretty multicultural and a lot of people of African descent were there,so how could you prove that it was John Joseph?”

Kennedy said recognising Joseph’s contribution to Australia was vital because “his story is one for our time too,as we face this history”.

“We can ask ourselves who is missing from today’s narrative and what is our responsibility to make sure they are included,” she said.

Kennedy was joined at the commemoration in Bendigo by the US Melbourne consul general,Kathleen Lively.

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