John Joseph (rebel)

Sources variously state that he was from New York City or Boston, where slavery had been abolished, or Baltimore, where freemen co-existed with enslaved people.

They reported Joseph fired again before dropping the shotgun, picking up a pike, and fleeing to the "guard tent" within the Eureka Stockade.

[2]Butler Cole Aspinall, who appeared pro bono as junior counsel for the defendants John Joseph and Raffaello Carboni, was formerly chief of parliamentary reporting for The Argus before returning to practice and was elected to the Legislative Assembly in the wake of the Eureka trials.

He would receive many other criminal briefs later in his legal career, including the matter of Henry James O’Farrell, who was indicted for an 1868 assassination attempt on the Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney.

Gavan Duffy said of Aspinall that he was: "one of the half-dozen men whose undoubted genius gave the Parliament of Victoria a first place among colonial legislatures.

These matters were weighty and more conclusive of proof than a charge of murder, but they left the Crown with an arduous task of convincing the jury that Joseph had acted with such an elevated intent.

According to Richard Allan's account published in the Ballarat Star, upon emerging from the courthouse, Joseph "was put in a chair and carried around the streets of the City in triumph with the greatest demonstrations of joy".

[1] Fellow rebel Raffaello Carboni described Joseph as a "kind cheerful heart" with a "sober, plain, matter of fact, contented mind".

[9] Australian artist Sidney Nolan drew a portrait of John Joseph, Native of New York, Eureka Stockade (1949).

In February 2023, Joseph was honoured by the US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, for his contribution to Australian history and exemplifying the US Government's "commitment to racial equity and recognising historical injustice".