Born in the Parramatta area around 1791, Moowattin was a member of the Darug tribe. His name, Moowattin, means "bush path". He was adopted as an infant by Richard Partridge, the government flogger and executioner.
Career
By 1805 he became a guide and helper for the botanical collector George Caley who collected plant specimens for Joseph Banks in the Colony of New South Wales from 1800 to 1810. Many of those specimens have the annotation in Caley's hand "got by Dan". The placenames, ‘Moowattin Creek’ and ‘Cataract of Carrunggurring’, appear on colonial maps. Caley records that while searching for a koala in 1807, Daniel ‘heard a noise like the surf’ and found a cataract flowing into the river.
London
When it was time for Caley to return home in 1810 he wrote to Joseph Banks seeking permission to bring Moowattin with him. They sailed to England on HMS Hindostan in 1810. Moowattin was the third Australian Aboriginal person to visit England. Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne had visited England 18 years earlier in 1792. He enjoyed his time there but longed to come back home, saying "I am anxious to return to my own country, I find more pleasure under a gum tree sitting with my tribe than I do here." In his homesickness he seemed to have picked up a liking for alcohol. In 1811 Moowattin attended a London party where an English woman sang "No, my love, no". He responded by singing an Aboriginal song. An eyewitness reported: "He sat with strongly marked expressions of attention and delight, and, when asked to sing, consented with a smile. His articulation seemed indistinct, the sounds having great similarity to each other, as, rah-rah tah, wha-rah rah, bahhah tab-rah hah. The tune was occasionally changed; the ditty was divided into three parts or verses: the latter was particularly hurried and exulting. On being requested to put the song into English, he replied, ‘not well to do; but first we take fish, next take kangaroo, then take wife.’" Moowattin returned to the Colony of New South Wales on the Mary of London in May 1812. He spent his time in the bush with his tribe and working as a farm labourer around Parramatta.
Death
In 1816 Moowattin was charged with the rape of a 15-year-old girl, Hannah Russell, the daughter of a settler in the Parramatta area. The court found him guilty although he protested his innocence and he was sentenced to death. He was executed by hanging on 1 November 1816. Keith Vincent Smith writes "It was 10 years since he had climbed an ironbark tree at North Rocks to gather gum leaves and five years since he last walked through the streets of London and visited Kew Gardens with George Caley. He had been convicted and sentenced largely on the opinion of Gregory Blaxland and the ReverendSamuel Marsden, who testified that he knew the difference between good and evil. He was the first Aboriginal person to be officially hanged in Australia." Daniel Moowattin was the first Aboriginal person in the colony of New South Wales to be convicted and executed of a crime in the Court of Criminal Jurisdiction. He was also the first to be tried by a superior court in New South Wales.
