Joseph Samuel ( – April 1806) was a German known for having survived his

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

attempts. Convicted for robbery in 1795, he was sentenced in 1801 to

transportation Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

to Australia, one of 297 convicted felons aboard the vessels , and . Britain then maintained a

penal settlement A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer t ...

Sydney Cove Sydney Cove (Eora language, Eora: ) is a bay on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour, one of several harbours in Port Jackson, on the coast of Sydney, New South Wales. Sydney Cove is a focal point for community celebrations, due to its central ...

in the

Colony of New South Wales The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia. At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New ...

. Security in the early penal settlements was reinforced by the isolation of the colony: guards trusted the Australian wilderness to kill any convicts who attempted to escape. Samuel succeeded in escaping and, with a gang, robbed the home of a wealthy woman, and in the process, a policeman named

Joseph Luker Joseph Luker ( – 26 August 1803) (also spelt Lucar and Looker) was a British convict transported to the Colony of New South Wales on the 12-gun sailing ship ''Atlantic'' as part of the Third Fleet. After the completion of his sentence he join ...

, who was guarding her home, was murdered. The gang was hunted down and quickly captured, and during the trial, the woman recognised Joseph Samuel as one of the culprits. He confessed to robbing her home, but denied having murdered the policeman. The other members of the gang, including the leader, were acquitted due to lack of evidence, but because the woman identified Samuel, he was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.

Execution attempts

On 26 September 1803, Samuel and another criminal, convicted of another crime and not a member of the same gang, were driven in a cart to

Parramatta Parramatta (; ) is a suburb (Australia), suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney. Parramatta is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, on the banks of the Parramatta River. It is co ...

, where hundreds of people had gathered to watch the execution.

Nooses A noose is a loop at the end of a rope in which the knot tightens under load and can be loosened without untying the knot. The knot can be used to secure a rope to a post, pole, or animal but only where the end is in a position that the loop can ...

were fastened securely around their necks from the

gallows A gallows (or less precisely scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sa ...

and after they were allowed to pray with a priest, the cart was driven away. This was the common method of hanging of the day, and caused death by slow

strangulation Strangling or strangulation is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain by restricting the flow of oxygen through the trachea. Fatal strangulation typically occurs ...

. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did the British employ the drop method, which breaks the neck. The ropes used were made of five cords of

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a plant in the botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial and consumable use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest ...

, which enabled one to hold , for up to five minutes without breaking, more than sufficient for human executions. The other criminal ultimately died by strangulation, but Samuel's rope snapped and he dropped to his feet, sprained an ankle and collapsed. The executioner hastily readied another rope, also five-hemp, and placed it around Samuel's neck, forced him onto the same cart, and drove the cart away again. The other criminal was still kicking weakly at this point. When the cart drove out from under him, Samuel fell again, and the noose slipped off his neck, whereupon his boots touched the ground. The executioner was sure to have fastened the noose securely around his neck, and as he stood Samuel up to try again, the crowd had become boisterous, calling for Samuel to be freed. The executioner very quickly readied another five-hemp rope, ordered the cart driven back, forced Samuel onto it, fastened the noose around his neck, secured it very carefully and tightly, and then ordered the cart driven away. The rope snapped, and Samuel dropped to the ground and stumbled over, trying to avoid landing on his sprained ankle. Now the crowd stood around in an uproar, and another policeman, watching on horseback, ordered the execution delayed momentarily, while he rode away to find the governor. The governor was summoned to the scene and upon inspection of the ropes, which showed no evidence of having been cut, and the other criminal, who had been executed with an identical rope, the governor and the entire crowd agreed that it was a sign from God that Joseph Samuel had not committed any crime deserving of execution and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment instead. Parramatta's town doctor tended to his sprained ankle. In 1806, Samuel and other convicts tried to escape on a boat. The boat was swept away in a storm, with all presumed lost at sea.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuel, Joseph 1806 deaths Convicts transported to Australia Execution survivors German male criminals German people convicted of murder German people imprisoned abroad German prisoners sentenced to death Year of birth uncertain Place of birth missing 18th-century German criminals 19th-century German criminals People convicted of murder by New South Wales People lost at sea Prisoners sentenced to death by New South Wales

Execution attempts

See also

References