TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2003/s1002087.htm
Broadcast: 02/12/2003
Logic on the Australian fontier
The latest winner in our Lateline History Challenge is a remarkable story: it concerns an Aborigine named Logic who won the hearts of many in South Australia even though he killed a white man and escaped from jail. It is a frontier story with a difference and watch out for the bitter twist at the end.
Compere: Tony Jones Reporter: Margot O'Neill
TONY JONES: Well now to our last winner for this year in the Lateline history challenge -- although we'll be running the final four winners early next year.
Tonight, another remarkable story, this time from the Australian outback -- it concerns an Aborigine named Logic who won the hearts of many in South Australia even though he killed a white man and escaped from jail.
It's a frontier story with a difference and watch out for the bitter twist at the end.
Here's Lateline's Margot O'Neill who begins with the historian who entered the story.
DR ROB FOSTER, AUTHOR 'FATAL CURIOSITY': Well, I was doing research on newspapers and in the course of looking at the newspapers day after day I came across Logic's story, and it just unfolded like a serial.
MARGOT O'NEILL: From deep in outback South Australia, a young Aboriginal man re-enters the white man's frontier named Pinba but known by everyone as Logic.
The 23-year-old probably could guess what awaited him.
It's 1880 and he'd evaded police for two years.
But now Logic is promptly arrested for murder, and not just any murder.
Logic is accused of killing a white stockman named Cornelius Mulhall in 1878.
Mulhall's gruesome death had created quite a sensation at the time.
There were claims that a wild gang of Aboriginals had killed him.
Amid rising public fear, the police commissioner was forced to defend policing on the frontier.
GEORGE HAMILTON, SOUTH AUSTRALIAN POLICE COMMISSIONER OF THE PERIOD: There is little to fear from natives in the north provided travellers in the bush are cautious and carry weapons.
MARGOT O'NEILL: But the brutal story of what really happened that day is finally told when Logic is brought to trial in Adelaide in February 1881.
Logic and the stockman Mulhall had been sent out to find stray cattle, but Mulhall believes Logic is lazy and, according to Logic, stockwhips him.
Mulhall believes Logic continues to defy him so he shoots Logic in the thigh.
Logic tries to flee, Mulhall drags him off his horse and continues to stockwhip him.
Logic fights back.
He stabs Mulhall and finally smashes his skull with a stick.
Logic's version is supported by strong character references from white station workers.
TESTIMONY OF STATION WORKER AT THE TIME: He never showed any temper or malice.
He was a very good lad indeed.
MARGOT O'NEILL: But Logic's plea of self-defence is rejected.
He's found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years hard labour.
DR ROB FOSTER: Life in prison at that time was very difficult.
It was overcrowded, disease went through the place, people had to work in the quarries from morning until night.
MARGOT O'NEILL: Logic endures jail for four years, then escapes.
In 1885, Logic heads north back towards the frontier.
This time, it's not just the police in pursuit.
The newspapers are hot on his trail as well.
And that's when a surprising thing happens.
Letters start pouring in supporting the runaway prisoner.
EXCERPT FROM LETTER TO THE 'ADELAIDE ADVERTISER': What right have the whites to force the blacks to work for them?
By what power do they chain them up and flog them until they drop if they wish to strive for liberty?
MARGOT O'NEILL: Some whites even support Logic's killing of the stockman Mulhall.
EXCERPT FROM LETTER TO THE 'ADELAIDE ADVERTISER': I would have shot him down like a dog.
MARGOT O'NEILL: At a time of recession and drought, many South Australians are ready to support an underdog.
DR ROB FOSTER: They're portraying him as someone seeking his freedom against a sort of unfeeling government and a lot of the population, at his time when there was a recession and drought probably felt pretty the same about the Government.
MARGOT O'NEILL: White sympathy spreads, particularly in the area where Logic is on the run.
Newspapers report that Logic is being freely provisioned by farmers.
He's given meals and water sometimes twice a day.
EXCERPT FROM THE 'ADVERTISER': All gave bread, meat and tea cheerfully and tobacco was not grudged either.
He is said to have made himself a clay pipe.
MARGOT O'NEILL: There's no fear.
In fact, settlers give Logic a tomahawk and a butcher's knife, even a brown tweed suit.
EXCERPT FROM THE 'ADVERTISER': The usual formula was, "Hi, you, Logic?"
to which he would reply, "Me, Logic".
The next query, "You want him tucker?"
and he was promptly provisioned and sent on his way with a friendly farewell.
MARGOT O'NEILL: By now, Logic's movements are an open secret to everyone except the police.
DR ROB FOSTER: Even the press are slowly showing sympathy for Logic, they're suggesting maybe he should be let go, that maybe the chase should be given up.
MARGOT O'NEILL: But then Logic is spotted by an Aboriginal police tracker who raises the alarm.
After more than 50 days on the run, Logic surrenders peacefully.
Once again, he finds himself in chains on his way to Adelaide.
But this is a very different journey.
Along the way, crowds gather to greet him, giving him fruit and tobacco.
Letters again pour into the newspapers, this time calling for Logic to be pardoned.
EXCERPT FROM LETTER TO THE 'ADVERTISER': This poor uneducated black gets trashed and shot at and after being hunted down, drags out a weary life in prison for want of a few influential friends.
MARGOT O'NEILL: More than 2000 white people sign petitions calling for governor, William Robinson, to pardon Logic.
Just one month later, Logic, now about 30 years old, is freed.
But there's a final twist to his story.
As a young Australian nation forges its own mythology, the idea of an Aboriginal folk hero doesn't fit in any more.
By 1928, there's no mention of the white petitioners.
In a story in the 'Adelaide Observer', Logic is no longer described as a victim but a n-word who sneaked up on Mulhall.
By 1937, it's almost totally reversed.
The brutal stockman is now portrayed as virtually a saint.
EXCERPT FROM THE ADELAIDE CHRONICLE: Mulhall, an inoffensive man who went outback after having trained for the priesthood, Logic, the murderer, a sullen treacherous native.
DR ROB FOSTER: It's pretty typical of how frontier stories are remembered.
This is the era of assimilation, Aboriginal people expected to merge with white population and disappear so their stories, while telling them among themselves, are not being told by the white population.
They're telling stories about pioneers and bushmen and expansion and so as Logic's story occasionally gets retold, it gets slowly twisted.
MARGOT O'NEILL: He'd gone from folk hero to murderer, but Pinba had gone back to his own country where he died 18 years later.
He didn't live to hear how the legend of Logic was lost on the Australian frontier.
MULTIMEDIA
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http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2003/12/20031202ll_history.ram