Confessions of a cannibal

MARGIN: Life & Letters in Early Australia, April, 2004 by Craig Cormick

Yet, in his scaffold confession to Father Conolly, it was described as: "Overcome by famine Pearce determined to take Cox's life, which he effected by the stroke of an axe while Cox was sleeping." (8)

The truth of why Pearce killed Cox has never been fully established. Maybe they fought, as he stated, or maybe he really had developed a taste for human flesh, as has often been conjectured? Pearce's own words, which were used to help convict him were: "No person can tell what he will do when driven by hunger." (9)

Pearce, also known as Pierce or Pearse, has become a little lost in the telling and retelling by historians and popularisers of history. The convict Gabbett portrayed by Marcus Clarke as a " spectacle to shudder at ... so horribly unhuman that one shuddered to think that tender woman and fair children must of necessity confess to fellowship of kind with such a monster." (10) was also a step removed from reality, as death's head portraits of Pearce, undertaken by the convict artist Thomas Brock in 1824, show he was quite mild of countenance. His prison records describe him variously as "a small pockmarked Irishman" of "insignificant appearance", (11) or "a little, pockmarked, blue-eyed". (12)

Alexander Pearce was not the only convict to escape from Macquarie Harbour, as dozens of attempted escapes were recorded, and he was not the only convict to resort to cannibalism, which also occurred in several other escape attempts. (13) However he is one of the few convicts to have left written confessions of his life, that in their variation perhaps tell us as much about his character as they do in their agreement.

NOTES

(1) Dan Sprod, Alexander Pearce of Macquarie Harbour." Convict-Bushranger-Cannibal, Cat and Fiddle Press, Hobart, 1977. p.5.

(2) Knopwood Confession, in Sprod. p.28-29.

(3) Cuthbertson confession, in Sprod. p.45.

(4) Bisdee Confession, in Sprod. p. 54.

(5) Cuthbertson confession, in Sprod. p.47.

(6) Knopwood confession, in Sprod. p.38.

(7) Bisdee confession, in Sprod, p.105.

(8) Conolly confession, in Sprod. p. 106.

(9) Warwick Hirst, Great Convict Escapes in Colonial Australia, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 2003. p.60.

(10) Marcus Clarke, For the Term of his Natural Life, Reader's Digest Books, Sydney, 1987. p.113.

(11) Warwick Hirst, Great Escapes by Convicts in Colonial Australia, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1999. p.33.

(12) Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore, Pan Books, 1988. p.217.

(13) Ian Brand, Sarah Island Penal Settlements 1822-33 and 1846-47, Regal Publications, Launceston, 1984, p.57.