Australian Indigenous Petitions:

Emergence and Negotiations of Indigenous Authorship and Writings

Chiara Gamboz

Dissertation

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

University of New South Wales

School of Arts and Media

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

October 2012

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Dedicated to Anne and Nathan

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i Introduction 1

Chapter 1. Literature Review 13 1.1. Petitioning as a political resource for representation and negotiation 14 1.2. Indigenous petitions and the humanities in Australia 23 Conclusions 36

Chapter 2. Theoretical Framework and Research Design 37 2.1. A contractarian framework 38 2.1.1. Rousseau on legitimization of power and on freedom: reciprocity and mutual commitments 39 2.1.2. Carole Pateman: the settler contract 45 2.1.3. Charles W. Mills: the domination contract theory 47 2.2. Collecting and analysing petitions 50 2.3. Ethical considerations 54 Conclusions 55

Chapter 3. Contact to Collaboration: Oral petitioning, English literacy and collaboration in writing 57 3.1. Emergence of oral Indigenous petitions in early colonial New South Wales 58 3.2. The development of Indigenous literacy in English 62 3.3. Petitioning the Queen from Van Diemen’s Land: recalling a compact through instances of collaboration 66 3.3.1. Knowledge of petitioning and Collaboration as technical assistance 72 Conclusions 83

Chapter 4. Voices and Expressions: Interrogating the Law, requesting Land and marking a Presence 85 4.1. A petition to the Governor for clemency: white and black laws in early colonial Western Australia 87 4.2. Georgy, Coxen and the Native Police: the petition of Georgy an Aboriginal Native of the District of Darling Downs in the Colony of Queensland 93 4.3. Tommy Dower’s petition for land and fair play 98 4.4. Proclamation Day: Tommy King on behalf of the Aborigines of Albany 108 Conclusions 111

Chapter 5. Behind Text and Signature: Motivations, places and endorsement 115 5.1. Diverse motivations 116 5.2. Places: the penal system 119 5.3. Places: missions and reserves 122 5.3.1. The reserve system in Victoria and New South Wales 124 5.3.2. The Coranderrk petitions 129 5.3.3. Maloga: the two sides of a petition for land 144 Conclusions 160

Chapter 6. Petitions and the Public Sphere: Public venues, commemoration and contemporary discourses 163 6.1. Places: Rural and civic communities 164 6.1.2. Public venues: Petitioning for access to education 168 6.2. Petitions as memorials 183 6.3. Contemporary experiences, perspectives and discourses 192 Conclusions 199

Chapter 7. Appealing to the nation: New forms of Collaboration 201 7.1. Petitions from the late 1920 and protest 203 7.2. William Cooper’s petition to the King, 1933-1937 209 7.3. “Not an ordinary petition”: The Yirrkala Bark Petitions 219 7.3.1. Precedents of assertions of Yolngu cultural and proprietary rights 223 7.3.2. Bridging different scripts and languages, cultures and laws 230 Conclusions 241

Chapter 8. Discussion and Conclusions 249 Conclusions 261

Appendix 265

Bibliography 307

Acknowledgements

The realization of this research project has been financially supported by a University International Postgraduate Award (UIPA) scholarship and by funding for archival research kindly provided by UNSW. This project has been supported from the very first day by my supervisor A/Prof. Anne Brewster, whom I would like to thank deeply for always having been there for me during my candidature. She has introduced me to the work of Charles W. Mills, Michael Warner, Catherine Belsey, Andrea McArdle, Robert Ferguson and other scholars and writers, which I found very useful in conceptualising my research. Most of all, I would like to thank her for her warm encouragement, for always making me feel free to discuss my ideas with her and also for her patience and flexibility. I would like to thank also my postgraduate coordinators, Dr Paul Dawson and Dr Michelle Langford: it’s been a pleasure to meet both of them and I’d like to thank Paul in particular for pointing out to me Peter Craven’s review of the PEN Macquarie Anthology of Australian Literature, published in 2009; it is now part of my literature review chapter. I’d like to thank Penny van Toorn for her pioneering work on Indigenous petitions in Australian literary studies, which inspired me to know more about the genre. I’d like to thank my co-supervisors, A/Prof. Katharine Gelber and A/Prof. Sarah Maddison for their feedback on the first chapters. Dear thanks to Dr Catriona Elder, for her useful editorial comments on the article “Petitions from Indigenous Communities in Australia: Recovering Inherited Voices and Perspectives”, which is partly based on the research I discuss in Chapter 3 and 6 and is now published in New Voices New Visions: Challenging Australian Identities and Legacies, edited by Catriona Elder and Keith Moore, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. My gratitude also to Adam Lucas for his feedback on early drafts of several chapters of the thesis, Saliha Belmessous for her comments on part of Chapter 5 from a historical perspective, Hannah Schürholz for assisting me with photocopies at PROV and for a translation from German. I’d like to thank all the staff of the archives I visited, in particular, Tom Reynolds and his colleagues at SROWA; Margaret Reid and Tilly Geary who provided me with a brilliant source analysis at SROQLD; Snr Aboriginal Officer Wilson Andrew and archivist Matthew Gordon Clark at SROSA; the members of the Koori Records Unit at PROV. Many thanks also to the staff of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office. I would like to thank for their time Dr Wayne Atkinson and Tom Trevorrow, Ngarrinjeri Heritage Committee, for discussing with me the 1881 petition for land from Maloga, and the commemoration of the 1923 petition written by Ellen Kropinyeri, respectively. I’d like to thank also my friends, Renee and Mitch for coming over to bring me food, wash my dishes and be so wonderful during my last week prior to submission; Kim for helping out with the appendix; Nathan for the printing, Jeni Ryde & Bruno Di Biase for the support, and all those whose affection has accompanied me in these last four years and made it a special time. Last, but not the least, special thanks to Margaret O’Shea and the Dean of Graduate Research School Prof Laura Poole Warren who logistically helped me to start and finish the research project.

Introduction

When colonial legislation and early settlers introduced petitions and the right to petition in Australia, they ushered into the country a “political instrument” or “a form of political action” which, by then, had been used widely across the world.1 Petitions, which can be individual or collective and which exist in different forms, some conforming to standard formal models, others closer in form to letters, are characterized by an earnest request. This request is usually inscribed in a narrative which explains and justifies the request itself. This narrative often records fragments of lived experiences and portrays the individual or collective views of the petitioners. This trait of petitions assumes a particular importance in circumstances where there is an absence or paucity of other sources which record and represent these views.

The views of Indigenous people in Australia, especially in the first periods of contact with non-Indigenous people, were mostly refracted or represented, in the written form, in records left by non-Indigenous people which often suffered from authorial inferences and interpretations. Once English literacy and the command of English spread among Indigenous people so did the knowledge of written forms of communication between people and the authorities. Letters and petitions to government authorities offered a way in which Indigenous individuals and collectivities could express and communicate their views and assert their political will and identity in writing.

Retrieving the documents that convey these views is important and timely because these views constitute an integral part of Australia’s national historical and literary landscape. Petitions are valuable sources where the perspectives of the petitioners can be considered and where historical moments of interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia can be viewed. As evidenced by Penny Van Toorn, petitions can also be considered

1 Carola Lipp and Lothar Krempel, “Petitions and the Social Context of Political Mobilization in the Revolution of 1848/49: A Microhistorical Actor-Centered Network Analysis” in Petitions in Social History, edited by Lex Heerma van Voss, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 151, 155.

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within the framework of early Aboriginal writings,2 and can provide a better understanding of the history of Aboriginal textual practices and, I would argue, of contemporary Australian Indigenous literature more broadly. A survey of Australian Indigenous petitions offers therefore several points of reflection in both these directions, historical and literary, and on the role of these petitions in historical and contemporary Australia.

Further, they offer a view onto the emergence of processes of political representation and activism in Australia and show the political consciousness of Indigenous people becoming more visible within these processes. In the writings addressed to colonial, state, Commonwealth and British authorities and in the press articles which reproduced and discussed them, it is possible to see an Indigenous - collective or individual - subjectivity articulated and performed through a language (English) and a textual mode (the genre of petitions) recognizable to non-Indigenous people. The emergence of subjects articulating themselves as an ‘I’ or a ‘we’, establishing themselves as authored and authorizing subjects, enabled them to enter into cultural and political negotiations about their rights.3 Some contemporary Indigenous Australian literature continues this tradition, and in its address to a broader audience it brings awareness to Indigenous Australian experiences and concerns and tries to negotiate better understanding and improved conditions.

Since the 1990s a number of petitions which originated in Indigenous communities in Australia have been published in both historical and literary fields. In the historical domain, among others, Diane Barwick has documented the use of petitions in the 1880s and 1890s by the community of Coranderrk in Victoria to contest decisions taken by the Aborigines Protection Board; Heather Goodall referred to and reproduced several petitions from Koori people in New South Wales to illustrate their attempts, since colonisation, to gain and retain tenure of their lands; Henry Reynolds dedicated a book length discussion to the 1846 petition to the Queen from Flinders Island; and Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus made available several petitions from across Australia ranging from early colonial times to the 1960s and 1970s.4

2 Penny van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing and the Discipline of Literary Studies,” Meanjin 55, no. 4 (1996): 754–65; Penny van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006. 3 I owe this insight to my supervisor Anne Brewster. 4 Diane Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, Canberra, Aboriginal History, 1998; Heather Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1996; Heather Goodall and Allison Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2009; Bain Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 2003; Bain Attwood and

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At the heart of these petitions we see requests for land, for changes in the management of reserves and mission stations or for the return of good managers to the stations. There are poignant requests for freedom of movement, for repeal or alteration of oppressive and unjust legislation, for reforms, for access to wages held in trust by the Protector of Aborigines, for freedom in marriage and employment, for fair and proper treatment, and for representation in Parliament. These petitions record continuing concerns and aspirations, as well as concerns and demands which developed in response to changing historical circumstances.

In the context of literary studies, Penny van Toorn earlier on, and Anita Heiss and Peter Minter more recently, were instrumental in disseminating Indigenous petitions.5 Van Toorn in particular argued for the reconsideration of what counts as Aboriginal writing and suggested that the works following the publication of Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s We are Going (1964) are “merely the latest chapter in a much longer narrative of Aboriginal textual practice.”6 Heiss and Minter presented petitions as part of the range of Aboriginal writing in English, recording or “witnessing” - among other writings and works of prose and poetry - the changes which affected Indigenous Australians after colonisation.7 Their focus is on the voices recorded in these writings, on the practices of authorship and modes of performativity they manifest, and on the nexus between the literary and the political they reveal.

The starting point for my study was provided by these works and those I will explore further and in more detail in the Literature Review. By reproducing the texts of Australian Indigenous petitions and by dedicating critical attention to a number of them, these works have contributed to making such petitions known and appreciated. They have provided the means to observe documents that would otherwise have been very difficult to access, lost in the archives, in voluminous correspondence files, or part of archival publications and exhibitions. They did circulate the petitioners’ voices to an audience larger than the one to

Andrew Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1999; Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League, Canberra, AIATSIS, 2004. 5 See supra note 2 and, also authored by Penny Van Toorn, “Authors, scribes and owners: The sociology of nineteenth-century aboriginal writing on Coranderrk and Lake Condah reserves”, Continuum 13, no. 3 (1999): 333-343; “Indigenous texts and narratives”, in The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature,edited by Elizabeth Webby, Cambridge University Press, 2000; “Indigenous Australian life writing. Tactics and transformations” in Telling Stories. Indigenous history and memory in Australia and New Zealand, edited by Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2001; “Hegemony or Hidden Transcripts?: Aboriginal Writings from Lake Condah, 1876-1907”, in Terra Incognita: New Essays in Australian Studies, edited by Leigh Dale and Margaret Hendersson, Perth, Australian Research Institute, 2006. Anita Heiss and Peter Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 2008 and Nicholas Jose (ed.), Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 2009. 6 van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing”, p. 756. 77 Heiss and Minter, “Aboriginal Literature” in Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, p. 1.

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which they were originally directed and by doing so, they gave readers the opportunity to learn about the experiences of many Indigenous Australians.

My initial hypothesis was that more petitions than those that had so far received attention might have been written and organized in the different state reserves and mission stations, or in rural or civic communities. By conducting archival research I found a number of previously unpublished petitions, which I discuss in Chapter 4 and 6. My reproduction and analysis of them in my thesis aims at contributing to and extending the scholarship that played an important role in their dissemination. Also, because different authors reproduced different petitions in their publications, one of the aims of my thesis is to make available in a single collection a significant number of Australian Indigenous petitions so that these petitions - and the petitioners’ perspectives they contain - may be readily available to other researchers and readers. I chose petitions from across Australia, and ranging in a broad span of time, in order to provide a sense of how and what kind of Indigenous requests were articulated over time.

I limited the scope of this collection to petitions written by Indigenous people in Australia from the early nineteenth century to the early 1960s. This period covers the time when Australian Indigenous people came into sustained contact with early settler society to when government policies and attitudes began to change following the recognition of citizenship rights for Indigenous people after the 1967 Referendum. The decision to propose a collection of petitions that could be viewed as a meaningful sample of such petitions rather than as the collection of all surviving petitions, was dictated by a number of reasons. First, by the awareness that not all petitions have survived or have been recorded. Then, during my research, I have become increasingly aware of the many possible addressees of Indigenous petitions and, therefore, of the increasingly numerous archival locations where they could be found. Finally, due to time and space constraints, I could not reproduce in this dissertation all the petitions I have located. However, the Appendix provides a number of petitions which complement my discussion of the genre.

The other aim of my thesis is to further the exploration and analysis of this genre by using and theorizing this corpus of published and previously unpublished petitions. In order to answer the question of whether these documents can be considered as representing the views of the petitioners and their historical subjectivity in writing, the present research seeks to address important critical issues that emerge when reading these texts: What kind of writing

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process produced them? What is the impact of collaboration in the wording of petitions, of the interweaving of a plurality of voices and strategies upon their textual production? And also, what is the role of the signatories in supporting the requests of a petition? And what forms of individual or collective subjectivity did they fashion and articulate?

While addressing these questions, I focus on the role of petitions in historical and contemporary Indigenous Australian communities and in Australian society more generally. I propose to consider petitioning as a way of entering into dialogue with the petitioned authorities. What were Indigenous petitioners asking and how were they putting forward their requests? What were the issues impinging on this dialogue, molding and affecting it? What kind of intercultural exchange did they instantiate? Or what kind of intercultural dialogue did they convene? What were the outcomes of such attempts to intervene in situations that were affecting negatively Indigenous people in Australia? And are petitions still relevant to contemporary Indigenous people?

In relation to previous works, I attempt to contribute to the development of a theory of authorship for collaboratively written texts. The need for such a theory has been highlighted by Penny van Toorn.8 I do so by drawing attention to useful elements to consider in the development of such a theory. In response to the inclusion of Indigenous petitions in recent Australian literary anthologies, I seek to outline how we can view this inclusion and speculate as to what it tells us about the way Australian literature is construed in the early 21st century and as to what these petitions can tell us about the lineage of Australian Aboriginal literature. Also, following Ravi de Costa’s insight that petitions appeal to a “shared moral world” which provides justification for the requests petitions contain,9 I try to delineate the configuration of the “shared moral world” that emerges by reading a considerable number of Indigenous petitions. Since petitions show Indigenous people actually initiating and attempting to revise, renovate, define and shape different kinds of cross-cultural – or cross-racial relations, I aim to observe how the petitions interpellated Indigenous collective subjectivities. By drawing upon Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills, I account for the political dimensions of petitions, and observe the nugatory, settler and domination contracts that petitions expose, the political identities they construct and the negotiations they instantiate.

8 Van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing”, p. 760. 9 Ravi de Costa, “Identity, Authority and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 3 (2006), p. 670.

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These aims, these questions and their answers inform the structure of my research, which I have arranged chronologically - in order to give a sense of the historical background that saw the emergence of these documents - as well as by theme, in order to address the critical issues that arose during the course of the research and to categorize the petitions I examined.

Chapter One provides the background to the research by addressing previous scholarly work on petitions as a genre of political communication and by foregrounding the attention that the Australian humanities have dedicated to Australian Indigenous petitions. I highlight the contributions of historians such as Bain Attwood, Andrew Markus, Heather Goodall, Diane Barwick, Henry Reynolds and other scholars in making available several petitions from Australian Indigenous people in a published form and in valuing and examining the petitions’ content as the expression of Indigenous voices and perspectives. I note however, how these petitions are published in different books and not available in a single collection.

In the literary field, I focus on the seminal works of Penny van Toorn who first questioned the silence of literary studies on a broad range of textual forms (among which were petitions), because of their non-conformity to the criteria of the “literary” as defined by literary studies. I draw attention to the point she makes that it is “operations of criticism” that classify these texts as literary or non-literary and to the need she detects for a theory of authorship that can account for collaborative and mediated forms of writing.

I review the contribution of Adam Shoemaker, who linked Indigenous petitions to the tradition of Black Australian protest, and other scholars who emphasised the nexus between Aboriginal literature and politics. I then contextualise the debate which surrounded the inclusion of several Indigenous petitions in the PEN Macquarie Anthology of Australian Literature (2009). This debate centred again on the definition of literature and on the appropriateness (or not) of including a selection of petitions in the anthology. As Ivor Indyk suggested, this kind of writing “makes no claim to literary status but (…) has great emotional power and (…) the petitioner asks, again and again, simply to be treated with human dignity.”10

I finally address the works of Ravi De Costa and Geoffrey Stokes who specifically attend to issues of identity. The former focuses on the processes of identity formation of Indigenous

10 Ivor Indyk, “There’s Life in the Corpus Yet,” review of The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, edited by Nicholas Jose. The Australian, August 5 2009, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/theres-life-in-the-corpus-yet/story-e6frg8px-1225757973303.

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people which can be observed in petitions; he attends to the articulation and interaction of the identity of the petitioners and the petitioned authorities in a “shared moral world” and highlights the moral dimension which legitimises the petitioners’ requests. Stokes, addressing identity politics in Aboriginal political thought, draws attention to the engagement of Indigenous Australians with European political ideas in order to achieve recognition.

Chapter Two outlines the Theoretical Framework and Research Design of the dissertation. I here describe the contractarian framework that informs my analysis of petitions and explain the ways in which I collected and examined petitions. First, I draw attention to Rousseau’s concept of covenant, as the contract based on reciprocity and mutual obligations forming a “legitimate and sure principle of government” and the source of all rights.11 I highlight the absence of reciprocity and mutual obligations between the societies of Australian Indigenous peoples and settler societies in the Australian colonial context and consider Indigenous petitions as an act of participation in a body politic from which they had been excluded.

In the following section, I introduce Carole Pateman’s concept of the settler’s contract as a particular type of “expropriation contract” adopted by settlers to create a new society in which Indigenous people were not included and where their political existence was denied through the legitimisation of colonisation via the doctrine of terra nullius. Here, I consider petitions as a testimony to indigenous people’s political existence.

Then, I synthetise the previous positions of Rousseau and Pateman through Charles W. Mills’s contribution. Mills draws attention to the coercive and exclusionary nature of the contract and its being based on inequality. The group domination contract theory he developed is located within a ‘non-ideal’ theoretical framework that acknowledges the existence of dominating and subordinate social groups. Indigenous petitioners, as members of a non-dominating group, can be seen as interacting with and trying to position themselves within a political landscape from which they had been largely excluded. This theory rests on a dimension of “group” or “collectivity” which is central to both collective and individual petitions originated within a “dominated” group. I use the idea of the domination contract as a heuristic device in my analysis of petitions which I see as registering these relations of domination and as attempting to redefine the domination contract, that is, the nature of cross- cultural and cross-racial relations in the colony and post-colony.

11 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Le Contrat Social, 1762 (trans. Maurice Cranston, The Social Contract, London, Penguin, 2004), Book I, p. 1 and Book I, chapter 9, “Of Property”, p. 22.

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In Chapter 3 I delineate the cultural and historical reasons behind the absence of written petitions in colonial New South Wales parliamentary records from 1788 to mid-19th century and address the acquisition of English literacy by Indigenous people in this period. I then discuss the earliest located petition of “the free Aborigines Inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land” to Queen Victoria, 1846, against the reinstatement of a former superintendent at the settlement of Wybalenna, on Flinders Island, where they had been relocated. I use this petition to focus on the collaborative writing process of its production. I subdivide the process into smaller components and propose some possible tools of analysis and elements to consider in approaching the texts of petitions.

Chapter 4 extends the discussion of collaboration in petition writing by exploring examples of collaborative writing, the concept of voice, the language and requests of petitions that have not yet, to my knowledge, been discussed before. These are three petitions I found during my archival research at State Records Office of WA and Queensland State Archives in April 2010, and two further petitions and related documents and I discovered on Trove. The first two petitions, written in Perth in 1845 and in Brisbane in 1864 by non-Indigenous people (a district magistrate and a station owner) ask respectively for the reconsideration of the cases of two young Indigenous men, in relation to a conviction and to protection from the Native Police force. Enabled by communication with and direct knowledge of the Indigenous men in question, these petitions exemplify the mediatory role played by some non-Indigenous people in using their position within the dominating society and their knowledge of its culture and of petitioning to present particular situations for consideration and to obtain “corrective justice”.12

The following petitions I discuss show the emergence of political representation by Indigenous men who held positions of leadership in their communities. The third petition I reproduce, written by a non-Indigenous person on behalf of Nyoongar representatives Tommy Dower and Jonny Carroll in 1886, requested a grant of land near Waneroo, approximately 20 km north of Perth, an area historically connected to the Nyoongar people. I observe the strategic conformity of the petition’s language to norms of propriety and to the civilising enterprise of the dominating society, and its temporary success in leading to the reservation of a tract of land in the requested area. As a counterpoint, I also reproduce another petition by Tommy Dower, addressed to the Governor and dictated by Dower himself to The

12 I use this term as Charles Mills proposes it in his “The Domination Contract”, in Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills, Contract and Domination, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2007, p. 94, note 2.

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West Australian in 1893. Here, I focus on the perspectives and request of “fair play” he puts forward while engaging with the dominating society and the non-Indigenous public through the press. By choosing to publish his petition, he creates an enlarged public sphere in which he voices/stages his views and, by doing so, he facilitates an intervention in the domination contract.

Finally, I present the petition of Tommy King, Albany, 1890, addressed to the Governor William Francis Cleaver Robinson in occasion of the Proclamation of the Constitution of Western Australia, which inaugurated the colony’s self-government. In this petition, published by The Australian Advertiser and by The West Australian, Tommy King writes at a crucial moment in the history of Western Australia as representative of “the few remaining aboriginals of Albany” and acknowledges the expropriation of his people (“in the year 1829 [the year of the founding of Perth], all this country belonged to my tribe”) and the consequences of the dispossession (“we are now in extreme poverty and a deplorable condition”) and asks for some rations for “the aborigines of this district” so that they may take part in the celebrations of Proclamation Day, from which they had been excluded.

In this Chapter I argue that collaboration in petition writing was indeed a necessity in many cases and it should not be used to invalidate the content of petitions thus produced. I also show the rise of an Indigenous political representation in petition writing, the important Indigenous historical interpretations recorded by petitions and the creation of a larger audience for their petitions through the use of the press.

In Chapter 5 I bring to the fore three issues that lie behind the text and the signatures of petitions. By using a petition found during my archival research at Queensland State Archives, I first highlight the heterogeneity of the petitioners as individuals and explore the different reasons signatories might have for signing a petition. I then move my attention to the places where Indigenous petitions were penned, focusing specifically on the institutional structures of the penal system and the reserve system. The penal and reserve systems allowed the circulation of knowledge and the reserve system in particular provides a microcosm in which to observe the interaction of Indigenous and non-Indigenous societies.

In order to better contextualise petitions which originated on missions and stations, I examine the establishment of the reserve system in New South Wales and Victoria in the first half of the 19th century and the active role played by Indigenous leaders in securing tracts of land for their societies. I then draw particular attention to the language of two petitions written at the

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government station of Coranderrk in the 1880s in response to proposed restrictions of freedoms and to oppressive legislation. These petitions illustrate the workings of the group domination contract theorised by Mills and the principles which were being invoked by indigenous people to resist domination or exclusion from the social contract at a crucial time in the development of policies concerning Indigenous Australians. Added weight to the significance of these petitions comes from the fact that they were dictated by William Barak, the ngurungaeta of the community residing at Coranderrk, the leader entitled by traditional Indigenous law to speak for the community and whose clan owned the land where Coranderrk was located.

Finally, in the last section of the Chapter 5, I discuss a petition for land written in 1881, endorsed by the residents of the Maloga mission in southern New South Wales. The petition’s wording was crucial in a determination of a Native Title case which commenced in 1998. By interrogating the language and the writing process of this petition, I will propose that when both the physical presence of the petitioners and their participation in the writing process may be difficult to establish with certainty, or when they are open to debate, the endorsement of the petitioners should be generally considered in relation to the general request of the petition, rather than in relation to its specific wording.

In Chapter 6 I extend the discussion initiated in the previous chapter by considering civic and rural communities as other important places where petitions were written and signed. In the 20th century these public venues of petitioning gathered increasing importance and I argue that they contributed to the creation of an enlarged audience for the petitioners’ concerns and an increased awareness of Indigenous issues among non-Indigenous people. I discuss petitions for access to education in New South Wales and examine the petition written by Ellen Kropinyeri to the South Australian Governor in December 1923 urging reprisal of the 1923 Aborigines (Training of Children) Act. I consider the rhetoric of this individually written petition and, by drawing on memory studies, I focus on the commemoration of this petition’s presentation in Adelaide in 2003. I emphasise the quality of petitions as memorials and as sharing the commemorative function of literature.

The last part of Chapter 6 is dedicated to a previously unpublished petition from Lake Tyers Mission Station, 1931, which records the classifications to which Indigenous people were subjected to (“we were without a word of a doubt, classed as the lowest beings on the scales of humanity, this humane link which has been unlossed [sic]”, write the petitioners). They

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resist these classifications by recognising them precisely as such. This petition also records contemporary experiences relating to access to medical care and to the introduction of the residents at public sporting events.

In Chapter 7, I canvass petitions produced after the First World War, especially William Cooper’s petition to the King, 1933-37 and the Yirrkala bark petition, 1963. I theorise petition writing in this period as shaped by the mobilization of political resources, and address the rise of Aboriginal political organizations, such as the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association led by Fred Maynard in the late 1920s, the Australian Aborigines’ League founded by William Cooper in the early 1930s, the Aborigines’ Progressive Association led by William Ferguson and Jack Patten in the late 1930s, and later organizations, such as the Australian-Aboriginal Fellowhip in the mid-1950s and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (later FCAATSI) shortly afterwards. I explore the new intra-Indigenous and inter-racial collaborations instantiated in this period and the new, broader appeals for solidarity that were made to Indigenous people across Australia and to non-Indigenous Australians through petitions. In examining the Yirrkala bark petition, I discuss the process of its production and its political significance and I extend my discussion of collaboration.

In Chapter 8, I discuss the findings of my research and summarise the arguments of my dissertation. I re-elaborate and conceptualise petition reading and writing and, in relation to literature, I argue that both Indigenous contemporary literature and petitions can contribute to raising knowledge and awareness of the experiences of Indigenous Australians in a public sphere. I discuss Shoshana Felman’s theory that both testimonies and literature are addressed to someone and that this address is important for both addresser and addressee. I therefore draw the conclusions that both Aboriginal literature and petitions share a quality of testimony and of witnessing, which is relevant today. As the commemorations of the 1923 Ngarrindjeri petition and the 1938 Cooper’s petition protesting the persecution of the Jews demonstrate,13 petitions are still considered significant documents that testify to Indigenous peoples’ engagement and negotiations with authorities that denied them (or other non-dominating groups) equal status with other non-Indigenous Australians (that is, with the dominating group). I state that an improved visibility and accessibility to Indigenous petitions and Indigenous literature can contribute to raising awareness and knowledge of Indigenous

13 See Chapter 6, Section 6.2, and Chapter 7, Section 7.2, p. 218.

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history, and in the process, contribute to furthering reconciliation and the undoing of the domination contract.

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Chapter 1

Literature Review

In this chapter I examine the existing scholarly literature on petitioning in general, and then, more specifically, on petitioning from Australian Indigenous people. The first section of the chapter addresses the history and specificity of this genre of writing. It highlights how, in the course of history, petitioning has provided a means for voicing grievances and requests for redress, both in non-colonial and colonial settings, and how it has been theorized as a genre of protest and as a practice of popular political communication. It shows how petitioning, in giving a voice to the disenfranchised and unrepresented, has allowed a form of political participation, and a form of citizenship, to take place and to be transformative. Beside the representative and participatory democratic potential of petitions, the section touches also on the role petitioning can play in mobilizing public opinion and strengthening community views.1 The second section of the chapter focuses on the increasing attention dedicated since the 1990s by the humanities in Australia to petitions from Australian Indigenous people. I trace the rising interest in this genre within a broader national context of increasing attention to previous omissions and exclusions - of Indigenous voices and perspectives - in historical, literary and cultural studies. I overview

1 I borrow the last expression from Sonia Palmieri, Dept of the House of Representatives, Canberra, “Petition Effectiveness: improving citizens’ direct access to parliament”, Paper presented at the ASPG Conference - Parliament’s Accountability to the People, 23-25 August 2007, Adelaide, pp. 1, 7.

13 the work of a number of scholars who have discussed and made accessible a number of these petitions and I highlight, for further discussion, unresolved issues concerning modes of collaborative authorship and the position of petitions in literary studies.

1.1. Petitioning as a political resource for representation and negotiation

Since ancient times, across the globe, petitioning has offered a way of voicing grievances and of presenting diverse requests to the authorities. To name but a few examples, in pharaonic Egypt, building workers petitioned orally for regular and complete ration deliveries;2 in the first years of 17th century Italy, peasants petitioned against banditry;3 in British Naval Dockyards, dockyard workers, including women workers employed in the ropery and colour loft, petitioned in relation to wages and working hours in the late 18th and 19th centuries;4 in China, in the late 1920s, early 1930s, when the government started its antisuperstition campaign, Buddhist leaders petitioned the Kuomintang government in order to protect their assets from seizure; “impoverished little people, cripple and frail”, that is, the fortune-tellers whose occupation had been banned within the same campaign, also petitioned the authorities to keep their “beggar-like enterprise (…) to earn a little rice.”5

In colonial contexts the practice of petitioning spread rapidly. Indigenous American nobles from Tlaxcala (Mexico) sent several delegations across the Atlantic to petition the Spanish Crown from 1528 to retain their autonomy;6 in colonial India, changes introduced in the textile industry brought about the protests of the handloom weavers of Andhra from the

2 A.G. McDowell, Village Life in Ancient Egypt: laundry lists and love songs, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 235-236. 3 C. Povolo, “Processo Contro Paolo Origiano e altri”, Studi Storici 29 (1988): 321-360, referred to Lex Heerma van Voss, Petitions in Social History, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 2. 4 Ken Lunn and Ann Day, “Deference and Defiance: The Changing Nature of Petitioning in British Naval Dockyards” in van Voss, Petitions in Social History, pp. 131-150. 5 Rebecca Nedostup and Liang Hong-Ming, “’Begging the Sages of the Party-State’: Citizenship and Government in Transition in Nationalist China, 1927-1937” in van Voss, Petitions in Social History, pp. 185-207; quotes on pp. 198, 202. 6 Jovita Baber, “Law, Land and Legal Rhetoric in Colonial New Spain”, in Saliha Belmessous (ed.), Native Claims: Indigenous Law Against Empire, 1500-1920, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 41-62.

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1780s to the 1820s, and these protests succeeded precisely because of their petitions, the only recognized legal means of protest they had at their disposal.7

The fact that access to petitioning was not restricted to the enfranchised or to those who possessed a high social status, meant that also groups lacking in these (franchise and/or status) could approach the rulers. The humble origins of petitions are recorded in contexts such as the following: in 17th century England petitioning was considered “the indisputable right of the meanest subject”8 and in debates which led to the 1628 Petition of Right, the constitutional document which outlined the liberties of the subjects not to be infringed by the king, it was stated “We have fallen from a bill to a petition, and lower we cannot go.”9 In Germany a traditional saying stated “Everybody is free to write petitions and have a drink of water”.10

In England, traditions related to petitions developed in mediaeval times.11 Initially, in the 13th century, petitions were not uniformly composed; they were very short and simple, and presented many mistakes; they appeared on strips of parchments of paper where the Parliament indicated a response, and their nature was mainly juridical - concerning miscarriage of justice or requesting relief from taxes and regulations.12 By the early 14th century distinctions between private petitions and petitions of common interest were set. Towards the end of that century, under the reign of Richard II (1377-1399), characteristic forms of address and phrasing were established, in response to growing difficulties in obtaining an answer. Meyer has called it a “growth (…) of a petitionary diplomatic”, employed to avoid “the danger of it [the petition] being delayed or ignored.”13 Professional scriveners and lawyers started therefore to be employed to write them for a fee14 and

7 Potukuchi Swarnalatha, “Revolt, Testimony, Petition: Artisanal Protest in Colonial Andhra”, in van Voss, Petitions in Social History, pp. 107-129. 8 Thomason Tracts, E341(5) 1646, A Glasse for weak ey’d Citizens, quoted in David Zaret, “Petitions and the ‘Invention’ of Public Opinion” in the English Revolution”, American Journal of Sociology 101, 6 (May 1996): 1497-1555; quote on p. 1511. 9 Quoted in David Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1510. 10 Van Voss, Petitions in Social History, p.1. 11 A.R. Meyers, “Parliamentary Petitions in the Fifteenth Century,” The English Historical Review 52, no. 207 (July 1937): 385-613; Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1509. 12 Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1509; Meyers, “Petitions in the Fifteenth Century”, pp. 386--387. 13 Meyers, “Petitions in the Fifteenth Century”, p. 387. 14 Ibid., pp. 387-388. On a small note, the use of scribes to pen petitions and other documents has been remembered also by Gabriel García Márquez in a Caribbean literary setting in Love in the Time of Cholera. He dedicates the name of an arcade to such scribes, “The Arcade of the Scribes”, describing it as follows: “The name dated from colonial times, when the taciturn scribes in their vests and false cuffs first began to sit there, waiting for a poor man’s fee to write all kinds of documents: memoranda of complaints or petition, legal testimony, cards of congratulations or condolence, love letters appropriate to any stages in an affair.”

15 parliamentary and chancery clerks too assisted in drawing up the Commons’ collective petitions.15 In 1400 the monarch formally requested that petitions and requests be presented in a written form.16 When parliament further assumed legislative functions, petitions were used to elicit legislation until early 16th century, when they were superseded by Bills and private Acts for this purpose.17

In the context of pre-revolutionary England, when public political communication was strictly limited and when the subjects were often “on the receiving end” of such communication, petitioning was a practice, indeed “the principal device”, in David Zaret’s words, which “facilitated the opportunities to send messages from the periphery to the political centre”.18 And this was true not only in pre-revolutionary England.

In colonial America, for instance, the right to petition was instrumental in affording some, if little political power and “a minimum form of citizenship”. As highlighted by Stephen Higginson,

Not only the enfranchised, but also the unrepresented groups - notably women, felons, Indians, and in some cases, slaves - represented themselves and voiced grievances through petitions. This broadening of participation and access to relief mitigated some of the hardship of limited colonial suffrage. The right to petition vested these groups with a minimum form of citizenship: petitioning meant that no group in colonial society was entirely without political power.19

Higginson refers to the land petitions from the Podunck (1686) and Massatucksett tribe (1773), as well as a Pequott Indian petition (1698), thus evidencing early land claims

See Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera, transl. by Edith Grossman, Camberwell, Vic, Penguin Books, 2008, p. 120. 15 Meyers, “Petitions in the Fifteenth Century”, p. 388. 16Meyers reports the following parliamentary text: “In the parliament of 1400/01, on 31 January, ‘les communes viendrent devaunt le Roi et les Seigneurs en parlement, et firent plusours requestes par bouche. Sur quoy leur feust responduz et comandez de par le Roy de mettre les dites requestes et leur autres peticions faitz a cel temps en leur communes peticions, et sur ceo le Roy, par advis des Seigneurs espirituelx et temporelx, lour dorroit respons reasonable.’” Rotuli Parliamentorum, iii. 456; C65/64. Quoted in Meyers, “Petitions in the Fifteenth Century,” p. 386. 17 Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1510. 18 Ibid., p.1509. 19 Stephen A. Higginson, “A Short History of the Right to Petition Government for the Redress of Grievances,” The Yale Law Journal 96, no. 1 (Nov. 1986): 142-166; quote on p. 153.

16 advanced by Indigenous peoples through petitions in colonial America; he also reports the approval of an emancipation petition from “a negro man slave” owned by a resident (1779).20

Recent scholarly attention to petitions from Indigenous peoples and from enslaved African-Americans has extended the knowledge of, and the workings of, petitions as a means of representation. Jovita Baber has shown how Indigenous Americans in the 16th century were adopting, indeed “fashioning” legal rhetoric and strategies in their appeals to the Spanish Crown, with a sharp awareness of, and in accordance to, changes in contemporary political culture.21 Craig Yirush, discussing appeals to the British Crown from the Narrangassett in the mid-seventeenth century and from the Mohegans and the Mashpee in the eighteenth century, has highlighted how these appeals, which articulated their legal status, did challenge (and temporarily delayed) the “process of dispossession”, and represented “an indigenous critique of the claims of the settlers.”22 Very aptly, in discussing the Narangassett’s appeals, he argued that they were “designed to restore … a relationship of equals with the king’s subjects in the New World, a relationship that the settlers had subverted by assuming an unwarranted authority over them (…).”23 These discussions are highly valuable in fostering a better understanding of the language of petitions and in observing the design or potential of petitions to renegotiate relationships of domination.

With regards to petitions for emancipation, or for petitions concerning the rights of slaves against their owners, as skillfully highlighted by Andrea McArdle, the 1770s were years in which petitions from enslaved African Americans became part of the “project of public discourse” of Antebellum Black Literature, which aimed at the “externalization of African Americans’ struggle to achieve civil and political rights under law.”24 They became part, that is, of a “genre of protest” constituted also by pamphlets, tracts, speeches, newspaper essays, sermons and autobiographical slave narratives.25

20 Higginson, “A Short History of the Right to Petition”, p. 153. 21 Jovita Baber, “Law, Land and Legal Rhetoric”. 22 Craig Yirush, “‘Chief Princes and owners of All’: Native American appeals to the Crown in the early- modern British Atlantic”, in Belmessous, Native Claims, pp. 129-151; quotes on pp. 146, 129. 23 Ibid., p. 132 24 Andrea McArdle, “The Confluence of Law and Antebellum Black Literature. Lawyerly Discourse as a Rhetoric of Empowerment,” Law and Literature 17, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 183-223; quote on p. 183. 25 Ibid.

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The petitions from blacks in Massachussets, particularly Boston, “advocated the dismantling of the slave trade, protested the denial of suffrage and access to public education to taxpaying blacks, and sought support for plans to emigrate to Africa.”26 Before then, in the 17th century, a slave in America petitioned so that his wife might live with him,27 and in different contexts, in 1832 Brazilian slaves petitioned for the rights they possessed, and illiterate Ecuador Indians in 1899 petitioned similarly.28

It becomes clear that petitions offered means of representation and negotiation, and that they could be transformative. As pointed out by Colin Leys, whose research focused on petitioning in 19th and 20th century England, petitions belonged to radical, extra-party and extra-parliamentary politics; he explains that the organizers of petitions were “largely unrepresented in Parliament” and that the collection of signatures offered a way of “building and maintaining the support on which extra-parliamentary politics depended”, a way to mobilize opinion or forming “bodies of organized opinion.”29 Petitions with copious signatures (over 10,000) were part of radical politics in early nineteenth century England, sustaining, for instance, “the Chartist projects for extension of the franchise, the ballot, reform of Parliament” and “reform of local government” as well as “remedies for unemployment and distress, repeal of the Corn Laws and Newspaper Taxes, alteration in the Poor Laws, factory legislation, and freedom of industrial organization.”30

It is not surprising therefore that extensive petitionioning campaigns accompanied historical moments of revolutionary change: the period of the 1640s leading to the English Civil War, the French Revolution (les cahiers des doléances), the abolition of slavery (accompanied by “gag rules” on abolitionist petitions) and the European 1848 (especially in Germany).31 Mirroring this transformative potential of petitions, in a French context,

26 McArdle, “The Confluence of Law”, pp. 188-189. 27 English historical manuscripts, Oxford, Bodleian Library, referred to in Zaret, p. 1511. 28 Michiel Baud, “Libertad de Servidumbre: Indigenista Ideology and Social Mobilisation in Late Nineteenth Century Ecuador”, in Hans-Joachim Konig and Marianne Wiesebron (eds.), Nation building in Nineteenth Century Latina America, Leiden, CNSW Publications, 1998 and James Rodrigues, “Libertade, humanitade e proprietade,” Revista do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, 39 (1995), both referred to in Van Voss, Petitions in Social History, p. 2. 29 Colin Leys, “Petitioning in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Political Studies 3, no. 1 (1955): 45- 64; quote on p. 59. See also esp. pp. 60, 62-63. 30 Ibid., p.58. 31 Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”; Gilbert Shapiro and John Markoff, “Officially Solicited Petitions: The Cahiers de Doléancess as a Historical Source” and Carola Lipp and Lothar Krempel, “Petitions and the Social Context of Political Mobilization in the Revolution of 1848/49”, both in van Voss, Petitions in Social History, pp. 79-106 and 151-169 respectively; regarding abolitionists’ petitions in colonial America see particularly “The crisis over abolitionist petitions” in Higginson, “A Short History of the Right to Petition”, pp. 158-164.

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Madeleine Rebérioux theorizes petitioning as modes de participation à la vie politique, modes d’accès au politique,32 which are alternative to (or complementary to) the representative system: “la ‘volonté générale’, concept entre tous rousseauiste, ne saurait se réduire au régime representative.”33 A way of participating to or accessing politics which, Rebérioux observes, is marked by a refusal of anonymity and a rejection of delegation of power, a “pratique citoyenne”, a practice of citizenship, expressing the hope for a renewed from of democracy.34

The effectiveness of petitions did not always lie in a prompt response from the authorities but, since the time of the English Revolution, according to David Zaret, their transformative potential lay in the reasoned invocation (and constitution) of public opinion - and in the consolidation of the authority of that public opinion - in mediating between the state and civil society. David Zaret posits in fact that the origins of democracy and of the public sphere (of democracy’s public sphere, more specifically) should be rethought in light of the changes that occurred in popular political communicative practices such as petitioning.35 He highlights that printing led to changes in the production of petitions from discreet, generally reactive devices with an “apolitical” or “depoliticized” rhetorical appearance36 to overtly politicized devices which, especially in the later phases of the English Revolution, in the context of large and organized public rival petition campaigns, invoked the normative role of public opinion.37

With regards to the right to petition, Stephen Higginson has highlighted how it can be considered a right of freedom of expression (the right to present a petition), or as a right accompanied by the additional right to fair hearing and consideration by the government (accompanied, that is, by a duty of the government to respond to petitions). The distinction between these two rights, of presentation and response, has been pointed out also by Sonia Palmieri, who has overviewed different kinds of governmental and parliamentary response

32 Madeleine Rebérioux, “Pétitionner,” Le Mouvement Social 181 (Oct-Dec 1997): 127-132; quotes on pp. 132, 129 (“modes of participation to the political life”, “modes of access to politics”, my transl.) 33 Ibid., p. 132, “The ‘common will’ [or ‘the general will’], Rousseauist concept amongst all, would not reduce itself to the representative regime.” (my transl.). 34 Ibid. Rebérioux suggests, “Dans son refus - ostentatoire? - de l’anonymat, dans son rejet - dangereux? - de la délégation de pouvoir s’expriment - judicieusement: c’est une autre affaire - des pratiques citoyennes que l’on croit nouvelles et l’espérance d’un mode rénové de la démocratie.” (“In its - ostentatious? - refusal of anonymity, in its - dangerous? - rejection of the delegation of power, there is the - judicious: it’s a different affair - expression of practices of citizenship believed new and the hope of a renewed mode of democracy”, my transl.). 35 Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1541 36 Ibid., pp. 1535, 1513-1517. 37 Ibid., pp. 1529, 1542.

19 to petitions. She proposes that “by not responding to petitions or addressing the matters raised within, we [members of the House of Representatives] undermine their fascinating history and deny ancient citizen rights.”38 Zaret too, distinguishes briefly between the right to express grievance and “the duty of officials to receive petitions.”39

Both rights have been restrained or denied at various times throughout history. The potential of petitions - and of meeting in order to organize, promote and present petitions - has been feared by rulers, who at different times and in different ways have sought to curtail it. Petitions were illegal in pre-revolutionary France for instance, and the scope and content of petitions were implicitly or explicitly restricted especially before the English Civil War. Zaret summarized the implicit restrictions which applied before the Civil War - and which still partly inform the writing of petitions: a petition would not “invoke or imply normative claims for the ‘will of the people’”; its rhetoric would describe the grievance as “an apolitical conveyance of information, by emphasizing deferential, juridical and spontaneous attributes of the grievance”; and finally, a petition was to be “local, and neither critical of laws, indicative of discontent with authority, nor made public.”40 Examples of explicit restrictions that were placed on petitions’ content can be found in the petitions to convene Parliament during the reign of Charles II and in petitions against current religious policies during James II. Failure to adhere to these restrictions led to conviction of high treason and confinement to the Tower respectively.41 The right to fair consideration has been limited by “gag rules” (both in America and England) and/or through the alteration of the process of receiving and responding to petitions.42

British legislation, however, enshrined the right to petition in two resolutions passed in 1669 and in the Bill of Rights in 1689.43 So did the French Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, 1791. Most Bill of Rights of American states in the 18th century also specifically protected this right as does the first amendment of the American

38 Palmieri, “Petition Effectiveness”, p. 13. 39 Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1512. 40 Ibid., p. 1513; see also pp. 1513-1517. 41 Van Voss, Petitions in Social History, p. 4. 42 Ibid.; see also Colin Leys, “Petitioning in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” pp. 48-53. 43 Palmieri, “Petition Effectiveness”, p. 2. The 1669 resolutions read as follows: “That it is the inherent right of every Commoner of England to prepare and present petitions to the House in case of grievance; and the House of Commons to receive them. That it is the undoubted right and privilege of the House of Commons to adjudge and determine, touching the nature and matter of such petitions.” The Bill of Rights, 1689, stated “That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.” (as quoted in Palmieri, p. 2)

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Constitution.44 And Higginson highlights how the intention of the Framers implied “a corresponding duty of a fair hearing”.45

When colonial legislation introduced the right to petition in Australia, it introduced a means of political communication which could be used from the periphery to the centre (of political power). It provided the possibility of entering “a privileged communicative space”46 from which it was possible to elicit or modify legislation or to draw the attention of the authorities to issues in need of redress. It also offered a form of representation to those who did not have other ways of accessing the representative system, or who were seeking alternative ways of representation. It further offered a way in which the Rousseauian “general will” could become more inclusive, a way in which practices of citizenship could take place.

Before moving on to address the scholarly attention that petitions from Indigenous Australians have garnered in the last few decades in the Australian humanities, I would like to highlight some methodological issues that scholarship on petitions has brought to the fore. There seems to be a general consensus about the fact that petitions should be read in conjunction with other contemporary (printed and manuscript) primary sources.47 When petitions are part of “substantial political disputes”, private letters, pamphlets, diaries, newspapers can illuminate the metadebate they are part of and provide a counterpart to the petitioners’ claims.48 This holds true also when they are not part of larger disputes, but the challenge, in this case, is to find other primary sources illuminating the petition. In the context of Indigenous claims in colonial America, Andrew Fitzmaurice has proposed cross-examining rival colonial transcripts and utilizing alternative perspectives, such as those provided by archeology and anthropology; Saliha Belmessous suggests employing also the perspectives provided by oral history.49 By using multiple accounts of the same text, James Merrell has suggested that scholars can achieve a “quadrophonic” or “polyophonic” effect and obtain “genuine echoes of a long-forgotten native voice and

44 Higginson, “A Short History of the Right to Petition”, pp. 142-143. 45 Ibid., p. 155. 46 Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1512. 47 See among others, Zaret, “Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1508; van Voss, Petitions, p. 7. Yurish, note 4; Henry Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, 2nd ed., Camberwell, Penguin Books, 2004. 48 Zaret,“Petitions and Public Opinion”, p. 1508. See also within the dissertation, Chapter 7. 49 Andrew Fitzmaurice, “Powatan Legal Claims”, referred to in Saliha Belmessous (ed.), Native Claims: Indigenous Law Against Empire, 1500-1920, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 8.

21 native sensitivity.”50 Wherever possible I have incorporated these additional accounts. When these accounts are missing, I hope that my discussion of the textual production of Indigenous Australian petitions will illuminate other aspects of the petitions which will assist in our not discounting them.

With regards to the language of petitions, taking up issues of authorship and accusations of ventriloquism (of form and content) in Indigenous claims, Saliha Belmessous has beautifully argued for the consideration of the elements which underlie these claims, such as the presence of porous cultural boundaries; of a search for “the possibility of shared meanings” and “mutual understanding”; and a search for the kinds of “titles they [the petitioners] could use to make recognizable and valid claims to land [my emphasis].”51 These insights can aptly be applied to the reading of Indigenous petitions.

Gilbert Shapiro and John Markoff also offer valid insights into methodologies for petition reading. In discussing the circumstances of a petition’s origins, they argue that the act of petitioning is at its most autonomous “where petitioning is generally permitted, but not encouraged, let alone demanded from above.”52 They also look at the possibility of the act of delivering the petition itself as becoming a form of political action - for instance, when ritualized, or when accompanied by marches.53

I have so far presented a number of specificities of petitions as a genre. In the following section I will discuss the scholarly attention that petitions from Indigenous Australians in particular have received in recent years.

50 James Merrell, “‘I desire all that I have said … may be taken down aright’: Revisiting Teedyusung’s 1756 Treaty Council Speeches,” William and Mary Quarterly LXIII (2006), 777-826 (quote at 819), reproduced in Belmessous, Native Claims, p. 147, note 4. 51Belmessous, Native Claims, pp. 5, 7-10. 52 Shapiro and Markoff, “Officially Solicited Petitions”, p. 83. 53Ibid., p. 87. Shapiro and Markoff suggest that these acts can be seen as forerunners of demonstrations as forms of social action. 22

1.2. Indigenous petitions and the humanities in Australia

Since the 1990s, the humanities in Australia have dedicated increasing attention to petitions from Australian Indigenous people. This happened within a broader context of growing national engagement with Indigenous perspectives and voices, which especially since the 1960s had gained visibility on a national level.54 The national campaigns for equal citizenship rights, leading to the 1967 Referendum for constitutional amendment, the presentation to Parliament of the Yirrkala bark petitions in 1963 and 1968, the Freedom Rides that drew attention to the colour bar in rural towns of New South Wales in 1965, the Wave Hill walk-off in the Wave-Hill Limbunya area of the Northern Territory in 1966, in protest at poor conditions for Aboriginal workers, were all important events of national resonance of that time. Simultaneously, in the literary field, the publication in 1964 of Kath Walker’s book of poetry We Are Going, which quickly became a best-seller - marked the beginning of a prolific period for Aboriginal literature and for its engagement with the past and with present struggles.

J.J. Healy reflects on this “simultaneous eruption of Aboriginal politics and Aboriginal literature onto the larger Australian stage” in that decade, in terms of ethnogenesis [my emphasis], in terms, that is, of “the beginning of a renewed sense of group in which the roots of past histories are explored as a frame for present struggles and future prospect.”55 Explorations of the past and of its construction in literary and historical narratives has been conducted since with particular attention to previous omissions.56 What Anne Brewster called the “redrawing” of “literary maps”, the “chart[ing]” of “voices of (…) indigenous writers (…) [which] tell of the omissions, silences and (…) complicities of national literary histories in the promulgation of assimilation and homogeneity”, was to take place also in the redrawing of national historical narratives.57

In 1968, Australian anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner had addressed “the cult of forgetfulness practiced on a national scale”, especially in Australian historical works of the twentieth

54 See for instance Anne Brewster, Literary Formations: Post-colonialism, nationalism, globalism, Carlton South, Melbourn University Press, 1995, p. 5. 55 J.J. Healy, “Ethnogenesis, the State and the Beginnings of Aboriginal Literature in Australia”, Australian and New Zealand Studies 8 (1992), pp. 1-17, quote on p. 2. 56 Anthropologists too were participating in this project. 57 Brewster, Literary Formations, p. 16, in delineating the aim of her book; for debates related to this “redrawing” of national historical narratives see Bain Attwood and S.G. Foster (eds.), Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, Canberra, National Museum of Australia, 2003, pp. 1-10.

23 century, and had highlighted the need to address “the great Australian silence” about the relationship between Indigenous Australians and settlers.58 Across different disciplines, the exclusion and “the silencing” of “the other side of the story” started to be increasingly addressed, while Indigenous writers explored the legacy of the past on the present and possible ways forward in their work.

This intellectual climate, made even more fertile by the advent of postcolonial studies, favored the retrieval and valorization of Indigenous petitions as counterpoint to representations of the colonial subject in imperialist and colonial narratives.

In the historical field, a number of scholars have drawn attention to several distinct Indigenous petitions. Henry Reynolds, in his Fate of a Free People (1995), reappraised and drew attention to the text of the petition sent from the Pallawah people on Flinders Island in colonial Tasmania to Queen Victoria in 1846.59 Diane Barwick brought to light petitions which originated in the Victorian reserve of Coranderrk in the second part of 19th century.60 Heather Goodall has discovered petitions from the 1920s and 1930s written by Fred Maynard and the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, which have been highlighted also by John Maynard in his work;61 further, Goodall has drawn attention in her work to several petitions to gain and/or retain land in New South Wales and Victoria, written as early as 1857, and to petitions for access to education.62 Jim Fletcher, in his studies on the history of Aboriginal education in New South Wales made it possible to observe how petitioning had been used by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to request government assistance in the provision of schools, but also by non-Indigenous parents in order to obtain a segregated school system and by Indigenous Australians in order to resist it since as early as 1902.63

58 W.E.H. Stanner, “The Great Australian Silence,” in After the Dreaming, Crows Nest, ABC Enterprises for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1991, p. 25. For an account of how the silence manifested itself and how Australian historians have interacted with it, see the Introduction of Attwood and Foster, Frontier Conflict, pp. 1-26. 59 Henry Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, rev. ed., Melbourne, Penguin, 2004. See also the following chapter. 60 Diane Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, Canberra, Aboriginal History, 1998; Diane Barwick, “Coranderrk and Cumeroogunga: Pioneers and Policy” in S. Epstein and D. Penny (eds.), Opportunity and Response: Case Studies in Economic Development, London, Hurst, 1972, pp.10-68. 61 Heather Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1996; John Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007. Heather Goodall and Allison Cadzov, Rivers and Resilience, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2009. 62 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy; Goodall, “Land in Our Country: The Aboriginal Land Rights Movement in South-Eastern Australia, 1860 to 1914”, Aboriginal History 14 (1990): 1-24; Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience. 63 See Chapter 6, Section 6.1.2.

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Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus contributed significantly to make more accessible the texts of several Indigenous petitions by including them, among other historical documents, in their documentary histories as texts portraying Aboriginal voices.64 It is now possible to read the texts of petitions ranging from the early 1846 petition to HM Queen Victoria and recorded oral instances of petitioning in the 1850s, to petitions from the mission stations of Coranderrk (VIC), Maloga (NSW), Poonindie and Point Macleay (SA) of the 1880s and 1890s, to petitions from the 1920s through to the 1960s. At the heart of these petitions we can find requests for land, for changes in the management of reserves and mission stations, poignant requests for freedom of movement, for repeal or alteration of oppressive legislation, for reforms, for access to wages held in trust by the Protector of Aborigines, for freedom of marriage and employment, for fair and proper treatment and for representation in Parliament.

Very recently, Ann Curthoys and Jessie Mitchell have drawn attention to known and less known instances of Aboriginal petitioning in colonial times as forms of “nonviolent claim making” which were being made to “the imperial centre” or its direct representatives. Among the less known petitions they referred to, are the successful petition to Governor James Fergusson for reserve land by Rev. Taplin and the Point MacLeay residents (1872), and petitions for boats for fishing (1865, 1867, 1868) from New South Wales coastal individuals to the Minister for Lands, Robertson, and to Governor Belmore. They also discussed the controversial 1881 petition for reserve land at Maloga as a “complex multivalent text” 65 (I will discuss this petition in Chapter 5).

In the literary domain, Paperbark. A Collection of Black Australian Writings (1990), edited by Jack Davis, Stephen Muecke, Mudrooroo Narogin and Adam Shoemaker, was the first anthology to reproduce an Indigenous petition under the title “Letter from Nepabunna.”66 The editors explained that the aim of the anthology was to be representative and that in order to achieve a comprehensive collection of Black Australian

64 Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights; Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black. 65 Ann Curthoys and Jessie Mitchell, “‘Bring the Paper to the Good Governor’: Aboriginal Petitioning in Britain’s Australian Colonies” in Saliha Belmessous (ed.), Native Claims: Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500-1920, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 182-203. 66 Jack Davis, Stephen Muecke, Mudrooroo Narogin and Adam Shoemaker (eds.), Paperbark: a collection of Black Australian Writings, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1990, pp. 55-56. I consider it a petition in virtue of the presence of signatories, of a central communal request.

25 writings they did not apply restrictions of genre or geography [my emphasis].67 The collection therefore included for instance also Patrick Dodson’s address to the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (Sydney, 1986) titled “Restore Dignity, Restore Land, Restore Life”, as well as Ruby Langford’s “A Letter from an Aboriginal Mother” (1987), who, “writing on behalf of my people”, asked to reconsider the system of convictions and indicted the violence of the police in the penal system by retelling her son’s involvement with the justice system.68

Germinal critical appraisal of petitions in literary scholarship was undertaken by Penny van Toorn, who located petitions within the history of early Aboriginal writing, among the “broad range of written and printed textual forms” or “textual practices” preceding and following the work of David Unaipon, the first recognised Aboriginal literary author.69 She has considered them as part of an “older, intercultural body of life writing” which “has remained largely invisible because literary criticism and scholarship has focused exclusively on long narratives published in book form.”70 Since 1996, she has drawn attention to the paucity of attention given to these texts and has questioned this silence.71 In the pages of Meanjin, she observed that

Aboriginal people began using the technologies of alphabetic writing and print far earlier than the dominant literary historical narrative would suggest. (…) Literary scholars have by and large overlooked the fact that from at least as far back as 1796 Aboriginal people have utilized a broad range of written and printed textual forms, including letters, poems, essays, pamphlets, newsletters, newspaper articles, petitions, manifestos, speeches, interviews, anecdotes and traditional stories. On this broad range of textual materials, literary history has so far remained largely silent. Very little attention has been devoted to Aboriginal writing prior to Unaipon, or to the many other texts produced between Unaipon’s work and that of Oodgeroo Noonuccal.72

67 Jack Davis et al, Paperbark, p. xi. 68 Jack Davis et al, Paperbark, pp. 326-329 and 141-143 respectively. 69 Penny Van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing and the Discipline of Literary Studies”, in Meanjin, vol. 55, no. 4, Melbourne University Press,1996, pp. 754-765, quote on p. 754; see also Penny van Toorn, “Indigenous texts and narratives”, in Webby, Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, pp.19-49, esp. 22-27; Penny van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked. Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006, Ch. 5-8. 70 Penny Van Toorn, “Indigenous Australian Life Writing: tactics and transformations”, in Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds.), Telling Stories: indigenous history and memory in Australia and New Zealand, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2000, pp. 1-20, quote on p. 1. 71 Van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing”, p. 754. 72 Ibid.

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While she acknowledged the contributions of the editors of Paperbark, as well as J.J. Healy, Simon Ryan and Simon During,73 van Toorn considered comparatively the degree of knowledge attained about Indigenous writings in Australia, Canada and the United States, concluding that the works produced in the Canadian and American context “have no equivalent as yet in Australia.”74 She acknowledged that “in Australia, it is the disciplines other than literary studies [history, linguistics, anthropology] that have been most willing to acknowledge that Aboriginal people were writing and collaborating in the production of written and printed texts prior to 1964.”75 Feeling the “need to question why literary scholars - even, or perhaps especially, those who describe their specialty as ‘Aboriginal writing’ - have taken so little account of the pre-1964 material”,76 Van Toorn tried to identify

the institutional forces and intellectual assumptions that have been operating within literary studies in Australia to confine scholarship and commentary so narrowly to works of fiction, poetry, drama and autobiography published in book form in the post-1964 period.77

The position she takes in this regard, is that in defining “what counts as writing”, there are political implications which stem from the ideological justification of the ‘civilizing’ mission of British imperialism.”78 In defining “what counts as literature” she suggests that “(…) Australian literary history takes little account of early Aboriginal writing because it does not conform to the criteria of the ‘literary’ as defined by the discipline of literary studies.” However, she highlighted that “‘Literature’ is produced as such by a particular way of reading writing.”79 She clarified her point by quoting Tony Bennett, who suggests

73 Ibid., “Early Aboriginal Writing”, 755. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., p. 756. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., pp. 756-757. 79 Ibid., p. 757.

27 that “(…) written texts do not organize themselves into the ‘literary’ and the ‘non-literary’. They are so organized only by the operations of criticism upon them.”80 Consequently, on one hand she considers Adam Shoemaker’s Black Words, White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929-1988 (1989) as “ground-breaking in being the first book-length study to bring the operations of criticism to bear upon Aboriginal writing.”81 On the other hand, she views these operations as limited in scope to “Literature-with-a-capital-L, looking primarily at the genres of poetry, drama and fiction and, to a much lesser degree, biography and autobiography.”82

Highlighting the participation of Australian Indigenous people in the production of translation works and texts collaboratively produced, she observes that the assumptions relative to authorship, as conceived in western terms as “a non-collaborative activity”, are a further element contributing to the exclusion - from literary discussions - of texts collaboratively produced.83 She points at the political and economical implications of such questions and stated:

A postcolonial history of Aboriginal writing would involve the development of a theory of authorship that accommodated transcribed speech, translation and other modes of collaborative and mediated writing.84

Finally, she warned against the mediation of postcoloniality itself:

(…) any history of Aboriginal writing which attempted, under the banner of postcoloniality, to recover the silenced voices of early Aboriginal writers would need to be very aware of the politics of its own remedial mediatory practice.85

I have presented her position at length because in the course of my dissertation, I will try to contribute to the development of such a theory of authorship, which accommodates collaborative practices of writing. In order to do this, I will highlight salient elements of

80 Bennett, Tony, Formalism and Marxism, London and New York, Methuen, 1979, p. 7 in Van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing”, p. 757. 81 Van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing”, pp. 757-758. 82 Ibid., p. 758. 83 She discusses issues of authorship also in van Toorn, “Indigenous Australian Life Writing”, p. 3. 84 Van Toorn, “Early Aboriginal Writing”, p. 760. 85 Ibid., p. 764.

28 the writing process of several published and previously unpublished petitions, and in doing so, I will try to redress the paucity of attention given to these texts. First I would like however to take into consideration some further contributions by van Toorn and other scholars concerning Australian Indigenous petitions.

In Writing Never Arrives Naked (2006), drawing on Henry Reynolds, Diane Barwick and James C Scott, van Toorn examined the 1846 petition to the Queen from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and petitions from Coranderrk and Lake Condah (colonial Victoria) within the context of the cultures of Indigenous literacy which emerged in the colonial era on missions and reserves.86 She observed the role of several factors in petition writing: traditional Indigenous authority structures; the entanglement of orality and literacy; the presence of scribes and mediators; signatories belonging to different original lands, age groups, and gender; and a certain strategic “performance of subordination” in petition writing.87 The latter has also been commented upon by Saliha Belmessous, who recommends that we “handle carefully the language of subjecthood as it is used in petitions and not to make generalizations about indigenous submission to colonial sovereignty”.88

In The Oxford Literary History of Australia (1998), Adam Shoemaker’s contribution integrated the “sub-literary modes” or “sub-altern practices” that Van Toorn had addressed in her 1996 article.89 In his exploration of the “signposts of all indigenous Australian literature”, he referred to a number of high-profile petitions from Indigenous people, including the 1923 petition by Ellen Kropinyeri for the repeal of the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act and the Yirrkala Bark petition, 1963, which I will discuss in Chapter 6 and 7 respectively. He considered the Yirrkala Bark petition as “the most significant petition in the history of Australian petitions” drawing upon “a venerable tradition of

86 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 18-22 and Chapters 5-8. She discussed a number of these petitions also in “Authors, scribes and owners: The sociology of nineteenth-century aboriginal writing on Coranderrk and Lake Condah reserves”, Continuum 13, no. 3 (1999): 333-343. 87 Penny van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked. Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006, Ch. 5-8; for the reflection on performance of subordination see esp. Ch.7 and also Penny van Toorn, “Hegemony or Hidden Transcripts”: Aboriginal writings from Lake Condah, 1876-1907” in Leigh Dale and Margaret Henderson (eds.), Terra Incognita: New Essays in Australian Studies, Perth, Curtin University of Technology, 2006, pp. 15-27. 88 Saliha Belmessous, “The Problem of Indigenous Claim Making in Colonial History”, in Saliha Belmessous (ed.), Native Claims, p. 9. 88 89 Adam Shoemaker, “White on Black/Black on Black” and “Tracking Black Australian Stories: Contemporary Indigenous Literature” in Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss (eds), The Oxford Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 9-20, 332-347.

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Black Australian protest - a thrust towards freedom and independence via the power of the word.”90

In his overview, Shoemaker included sections titled “Petitions of the People”, “Petitioning the Past”, as well as “Black Australian Journalism”, “Letters, Diaries and Journals of European Exploration.” He connected “the letter or petition” to the theme of entreaty and proposed considering “the letter or petition” as “one of the most significant and durable forms of Black Australian writing (…) enabling people who have always resisted their mistreatment to press their claims to a higher authority.”91 He argues that “community petitions”, which he distinguishes from individual approaches, are “by far the dominant mode of such communication”, most often representing “a collective movement towards the assertion of strength as well as progress towards freedom”92 and indicating that Indigenous Australians were not “passive recipients of injustice.”93

Anita Heiss and Peter Minter reproduced several petitions in the recently published Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature (2008) and Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (2009) provoking a debate, when the latter was published, on the propriety of including petitions and other “not so literary texts” within a literary enterprise, particularly a national one. The editors recognize petitions as part of the body of writings that “witnessed” the changes brought about by colonization and as part of those texts where Aboriginal authorship first appeared and continued to be practised.94 They consider the characteristics of early Aboriginal literature as emerging or being “forged” in the “transactions with colonial administrators”95, where writing in English was used as “a tool of negotiation in which Aboriginal voices could be heard in a form

90 Adam Shoemaker, “White on Black/Black”, quotes on p. 9 and p. 17 respectively and reference to petitions on pp. 16-17 and 332-333, 335. The other petitions he refers to are the following: the Testimony to Governor Gawler (1841, SA), which had been reproduced in Paperbark, 1990, but that strictly speaking may be seen as differing from a petition on several accounts; The Australian Abo Call: the Voice of the Aborigines (1938), which he viewed as “a further development of the strategy of petitioning (…) in the journalistic area”; the 1927 petition to federal parliament proposing the establishment of a separate ‘Model Aboriginal State’ in the Northern Territory. He states: “The document is one of the most remarkable in Aboriginal and Australian history, in large measure because of the assertion of independent indigenous thought and action which it exemplified.” Generally considered as co-authored by David Unaipon, in my research it seemed more influenced by non-Indigenous organizations (see Chapter 6, notes 97-98). The last petition he mentioned is the Barunga statement. 91 Ibid., p.16. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Anita Heiss and Peter Minter (eds.), Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2008, pp. 1-3. 95 Ibid., p. 2.

30 recognizable to British authority.”96 They explain the choice of including petitions and other “texts in a variety of forms” in the anthology of Aboriginal Literature as works “reveal[ing] modes of performativity that are central to literary writing” and as texts that “demonstrate one of the persistent and now characteristic elements of Aboriginal literature - the nexus between the literary and the political.”97

Reviewing the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, which featured the selection of Aboriginal writings by Heiss and Minter, Ivor Indyk saw “the inclusion of indigenous writers, many of whom are writing in the non-literary forms of the petition, the petitioner’s letter and the protest” as the change of direction in the tradition of representing the Australian literary tradition. He observes

the constant counterpoint provided by this kind of writing, which is often untutored, and of course makes no claim to literary status, but which has great emotional power (…) and where the petitioner asks, again and again, simply to be treated with human dignity.98

The inclusion of such writings, according to him, “not only means that the excluded are always present in the anthology, speaking of their exclusion, but that the literary tradition itself is being stretched beyond its normal contours and decorums.”99 If on one hand Indyk fears that the inclusiveness of the collection may jeopardize the “entity” itself of literature, on the other he recognizes as a strength of the anthology “its emphasis on voice.”100 About these voices, novelist and writer James Bradley observes that the editors of the collections offered “a sense of the context out of which these voices speak.”101 Whereas, with regards to the “entity” of literature, Kerryn Goldsworthy proposes that we view literature not an entity “in or of itself”, but rather as “the name of a category, into which people put things,

96 Heiss and Minter, PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, p. 2. 97 Ibid, quotes on p. 7 and p. 2 respectively. 98 Ivor Indyk, “There’s Life in the Corpus Yet,” review of The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, edited by Nicholas Jose. The Australian, August 5 2009, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/theres-life-in-the-corpus-yet/story-e6frg8px-1225757973303. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 James Bradley, “Birds and Sharks and Peter Craven,” city of tongues, September 1, 2009, http://cityoftongues.com/2009/09/01/birds-and-sharks-and-peter-craven/.

31 or not. What they put in depends on who they are, where they are, what year/decade/century it is, and why they are talking about literature at all.”102

The question of what counts as literary and of a binary distinction between superior/inferior texts, addressed by van Toorn a decade earlier, came soon to the forefront. In his critique of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, Peter Craven considered that “it overflows with Aboriginal writing, much of which has no literary value whatever.” He deemed this as “the final glaring failure of the PEN anthology” and added,

(…) it is hard to see what can have possessed the editors (...) to publish reams and reams of everything from Bennelong’s letter to speeches of Patrick Dodson and articles by Marcia Langton - and every kind of doggerel and naïve bit of memoir writing besides. (...) The sheer quantity of Aboriginal writing included in this volume - much of it devoid of literary quality or even literary ambition - is an egregious mistake.103

If the major point of his critical assessment seems to revolve around the absence of literary qualities of a large part of the Aboriginal writings chosen for inclusion in the anthology to the detriment of the exclusion of writers with literary ambition, Nicholas Jose, the general editor of the collection, defended the work of Anita Heiss and Peter Minter by positioning them within “the new generation of writers and scholars ... [who] has made Aboriginal writing and its lineages available as never before.” He explained that,

in extending the definition of literature beyond the conventionally literary, it [such writing] directs our attention to those other kinds of writing - letters, speeches, journalism, humour - that contribute to the making of literature of this country: its texture, constituents and extraliterary contexts.104

102 Kerryn Goldsworthy, post no.5 in response to James Bradley’s article, supra note 105. 103 Peter Craven, “Obscuring the heritage”, Australian Book Review, no. 314 (Sept 2009), p. 8. 104 Nicholas Jose, “The many in one,” Australian Book Review, no. 315 (Oct 2009), p. 4.

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The debate continued on the websites cityoftongues.com and crickey.com, with Peter Craven offering the petition from Maggie Mobourne to the Vice-Chairman of the Aborigines Protection Board, D.N.McLeod, in 1900, as an example that “something crazy has happened to the quality control with the Aboriginal sections of the PEN anthology” and emphasizing the “scandalous” inclusion of much “non-literary Aboriginal writing” in the collection at the expense of other writers.105 Critic and author Simon Hughes seems to agree with Craven in his comments on the “inclusion of inferior material, particularly in the area of Aboriginal literature. What the anthology marks,” he adds,

are important milestones in the inclusion of Aborigines into the polity. But that is not the business of an anthology of literature, surely. … All the Macquarie Pen Anthology succeeds in doing by including mediocre or inappropriate examples [of the genre of Aboriginal writing] is creating the distinct impression that Aboriginal literature is a very poor thing indeed. W.H. Auden once defined the chief criterion for reviewing poetry: Pleasure, he said, is not an infallible guide but it is the least fallible. The anthology in the area of Aboriginal writing does not give much pleasure. Political pieties, you feel, have been allowed to intrude upon the project.106

His comments, which judge the included writings as “inferior”, “mediocre” and “inappropriate” - similarly to Craven, who considers them as “undistinguished”107 - do not take into account, in my opinion, the historical context in which these texts were written, nor the reason(s) why they were written. They overlook one important function of literature which is to inspire, to elevate the reader; to make him/her see the world through different eyes and from different perspectives. This is precisely what some (if not most) petitions do. Further, whereas some of the authors excluded from the anthology (to the irritation of Craven) are relatively easy to find in print, Australian Indigenous perspectives are not often to be found on the shelves of bookshops.

On the other side of the spectrum from Craven and Hughes, there is the editor of Meanjin Sophie Cunningham. She replied to Craven’s review by subtly highlighting “the lack of

105 The petition had been previously discussed by van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 166-167. 106 Hughes’ post on Bradley “Birds and Sharks”. 107 Peter Craven, “Peter Craven replies”, Australian Book Review (Oct 2009), p. 5.

33 rigorous critical appraisal that is sometimes a feature of white reviewers reviewing indigenous work” and she advocated “an Australian literary and cultural heritage that is based on inclusion.”108 Also James Bradley and Kerry Goldsworthy appreciated the overall collection, recognizing the “glimpse of the textures and variousness of the Australian experience” it offers, and the “use of rhetoric to move and persuade the reader” of the texts it included.109 And a review of the anthology in London, on Time Out, also appreciated the “wealth of writing black and white, fictional and factual”110 included in the collection.

The debate over the definition of literature and the literary, however, is not new in Australia. In 1998 Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss had commented on the movement in the 1980s “towards a democratised notion of literature.” They had observed how in Australia,

a shift can be observed from a belles-lettres tradition in which written works were valued chiefly for their beauty of language, and their emotional effects or uplifting moral sentiments (…) to more recent conventions which value literature mainly for the ideas, images and stories it contributes to a wider set of political conversations, or discourses.111

Similarly, David Carter argued that “the literary is no longer a pure category”112 and that, especially in the 1990s, through postcolonialism, “‘Australian literature’ - the construction of Australian literature through the process of canon formation - has come to be seen as (…) the oppressive dominant asserting its power by excluding a range of different voices which is the task of criticism to argue back into the field.”113 In my view, the scholars who have included petitions in their anthologies and literary histories, have tried precisely to undo this “oppressive dominant” and have tried to open up a space, more public and visible, where the perspectives of these previously excluded voices can find a larger audience.

108 Sophie Cunningham, “The black and white of the Australian literary canon”, Crickey, 4 September 2009, http://crickey.com.au/2009/09/04/the-black-and-white-of-the-australian-canon/. 109 James Bradley, “Birds and Sharks”; Kerry Goldsworthy, post no. 1 (Ibid.) 110 “Books. Is Aussie lit really any cop?”, Time Out, Sept 10-16, 2009, p. 47. 111 Bennett and Strauss, Oxford Literary History of Australia, pp.2-3. 112 David Carter, “Critics, writers, intellectuals: Australian Literature and its criticism”, in Elizabeth Webby (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 284-285 113Ibid.

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To conclude my literature review I would like to highlight the contribution of two other scholars, Ravi de Costa and Geoffrey Stokes. Ravi de Costa, in examining the global movement of Indigenous peoples, considers Indigenous petitions within processes of identity formation. He stresses the interactions at play between the identity of the petitioner and the authority being petitioned as well as the moral dimension that underpins such documents. To de Costa, petitions are “implicit descriptions of the moral worlds in which particular claims are made sensible and legitimate” and “act to articulate the identity and status of the petitioner and that of authority in a shared moral world.”114 Geoffrey Stokes, who shares with de Costa the focus on notions of identity, considers the claims and arguments made in petitions as sources, among others, from which we can trace Aboriginal political thought.115

Finally, petitions submitted by Indigenous Australians are now also mentioned and/or reproduced on the websites of most state libraries and national and state archives. And the recent use of several petitions to illustrate the fight for land and freedom of many Indigenous Australians in the SBS documentary series First Australians and the related book as well as on the ABC website Mission Voices, testify to a growing awareness of the significance of early (and later) Australian Indigenous petitions as a window to the past from an Indigenous perspective.116

114 Ravi de Costa, “Identity, Authority, and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 3 (2006): 669–98; quote on p. 670. 115 Geoffrey Stokes, “Citizenship and Aboriginality: Two Conceptions of Identity in Aboriginal Political Thought” in Geoffrey Stokes (ed.), The Politics of Identity in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 159. 116 Rachel Perkins, “First Australians.” Special Broadcasting Service, 2008, http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/; Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton (eds.), First Australians, Melbourne, Miegunyah Press, 2008; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Film Victoria and Koorie Heritage Trust, produced by Ricci Stewart, Mission Voices, ABC, 2004, http://www.abc.net.au/missionvoices/coranderrk/default.htm.

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Conclusions

Petitions, as we have seen, are a complex textual practice with a rich history. Scholars from different disciplines - history, law, literature - have examined them from different perspectives and have theorized them as sources of and for history, as fragments of historical narratives; as political instruments of negotiation, participation and representation; as legal documents; as protest writing and fragmented life writing; as writing witnessing the effects of colonisations; as texts - among others - where Indigenous authorship was first practised and in which current Indigenous authorship is rooted.

In Australia, the discursive space created by the voices uttered and authored (collaboratively and non collaborativley) in these petitions, has been object of a growing scholarly interest which, although in a fragmentary way, has contributed to develop a body of knowledge about Indigenous petitions and the voices they contain, as well as a budding body of theoretical practices designed to approach these petitions.

The debate sparked by the appearance in the national literary field of Indigenous petitions has revolved around the question of their non-literary aspect and around the binary oppositions literary/non-literary, voice/silence, inclusion/exclusion, dominant/subjected to the dominant will/voice. While these oppositions are still unreconciled, my study seeks to propose ways in which we can better understand these texts in the literary field. Further, in order to contribute to the development of a theory of collaborative authorship, I will focus on the writing process of the petitions I examine.

In the next chapter I will suggest a broad overarching framework which accounts for the relations of power within which these petitions were penned and for the collective aspect that they offer present. I will also explain how I conducted archival research and research on secondary sources in order to extend the number of petitions available to other scholars for further research and consideration.

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Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework and Research Design

This chapter explains how I have conducted my research and the rationale behind my choices. In order to account for the complexities of petition writing and straddle the divide between their historical, legal, political and narrative features, I have adopted a broad overarching contractarian framework.1 The first part of this chapter presents this contractarian framework in detail. I introduce the notion of an egalitarian and reciprocal contract theorised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the foundation of legitimate government and the more recently developed notions of settler contract and group domination contract proposed by Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills, which account for the nature of contracts that are based on expropriation (Pateman) and on relations of domination (Mills). Within this framework, Indigenous petitions can be considered as instruments of interaction between the petitioners and the authorities, as writings deployed in order to change, rework and ameliorate the terms of the “contracts” imposed upon them. I use the idea of the contract as a “thought experiment”2, in Mills’ words, to stimulate reflections

1My sincere thanks to Anne Brewster for introducing me to Charles W. Mills’ work. Anne Brewster, “Engaging the Public Intimacy of Whiteness: the Indigenous Protest Poetry of Romaine Moreton,” Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Special issue: the Colonial Present (2008): 56-76; Anne. Brewster, “Brokering Cross-Racial Feminism: Reading Indigenous Australian Poet Lisa Bellear,” Feminist Theory 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 209-22. 2 Charles W. Mills, “Race and the Social Contract Tradition”, Social Identities 6, no. 4 (2000): 441-62, quote on p. 441.

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about Indigenous agency and Indigenous intervention in discourses and practices from which they had been excluded under colonial and postcolonial regimes.

The second part of the chapter illustrates the methods I used to collect and analyse the petitions which are the object of my discussion and those I have reproduced in the Appendix.

2.1. A contractarian framework

The broad, overarching theoretical framework that informs my thesis is based upon the notion of social contract developed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second half of the 18th century and on the revisionist approach to contract theory recently provided by contemporary philosophers Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills. Although widely separated in time, the concerns of Rousseau, Pateman and Mills, enable me to highlight the position from which Australian Indigenous petitioners put forward their requests and the nature of those requests.

Through the image of the social contract proposed by Rousseau and later developed and inflected by Pateman and Mills respectively in their theorization of a “settler contract” and a “domination contract”, it is possible to examine more closely the requests of Indigenous petitioners as attempts to intervene in and modify the “contracts” shaping Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships in Australia.

Like Mills, I am not using the concept of the contract as a model which explains literally the “actual origins of society and government”3 Many thinkers, including some Marxist and feminist theorists,4 have found the concept useful without subscribing to it as a literal description or account of social relations. Like them, I am using it as a heuristic device in order to explore the exclusion of Australian Indigenous people as contracting parties in the original contract or understanding that established Australia’s settler society and the ensuing will to participate in the contract and advance redress evidenced in their petitions. Thus, petitions - like Indigenous literature later on - can be read as mapping the issues

3 Mills, “Race and Social Contract Tradition”. 4 Ibid, pp. 441-42.

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Indigenous people thought of as in need of redress, and as recording and conveying their voice on these issues. It is also a useful device for theorising the articulation and deployment of their voices as performances of political tactics, agency and subjectivity.

The concept of contract has been used widely by “different traditions”5 and to different ends since the early modern period6 when it was theorized by early modern theorists, in particular by Grotius, Hobbes and Locke, and when European colonial expansion intensified. Because of the centrality of contract theory to modern Western political and the humanist tradition, and after the renewed critical attention dedicated to contract theory following John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971), Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills have considered it in their analysis of issues of gender and race.7 The insights they provide, especially into what Pateman terms “the settler’s contract” and what Mills elaborates as “the domination contract”, are valuable, I argue, in understanding the political space that Indigenous petitioners came to occupy when petitioning those who had established these contracts (the settlers) and those who had provided the conditions in which these contracts could to take place (the Crown). This political space can be seen as a discursive space, that is, a space in which a voice is uttered or written, or a signature inscribed, and where subjectivity emerges – a point at which Indigenous people articulate themselves as subjects, especially political ones.

2.1.1. Rousseau on legitimisation of power and freedom: reciprocity and mutual commitments

I will first address the idea of social contract formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His observations offer two interrelated points of reflection, on legitimacy of government and on covenants - upon which rests such legitimacy - based on reciprocity and mutual commitments between individuals and society. In the colonial Australian context, these covenants largely excluded Indigenous people from active participation in the government and petitioning offered a way, among others, to intervene in these covenants.

5 David Boucher and Paul Kelly as well as Will Kymlicka in Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills, Contract and Domination, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2007, p. 81. 6 Charles W. Mills, in Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, pp. 80-81. 7 Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, p. 1.

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Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762) had as a purpose “to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government.”8 Rousseau denied the “right of the strongest” as a right in itself and as the basis for such a legitimate government.9 He explained that “force alone bestows no right”10, referring to the temporariness of force and to the fact that force does not compel a duty of obedience. He proposed instead that “all legitimate authority among men must be based on covenants”11 and stressed the aspects of “reciprocity” and “mutual obligation” involved in these acts: “(...) the act of association consists of a reciprocal commitment between society and the individual (...)”12, “the commitments which bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual.”13

Reciprocity is therefore considered a central aspect of the covenant which, in Rousseau’s words, “serves, within the state, as the basis of all other rights.”14 In highlighting the importance of the aspect of reciprocity in the social contract, Rousseau referred to slavery, which was at this time at its peak. Slavery, for instance, is not considered by Rousseau as being a right belonging to one party precisely because of the absence of mutual obligations

8Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Le Contrat Social, 1762 (trans. Maurice Cranston, The Social Contract, London, Penguin, 2004), Book I, p. 1. 9 Rousseau, Social Contract, Book I, chapter 3, “The Right of the Strongest”, pp. 5-6. “The strongest man”, he argued, “is never strong enough to be master at all the time, unless he transforms force into right and obedience into duty.” He continued, “force is a physical power (...) [and ] to yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will; it is at best an act of prudence. (...) the duty of obedience is owed only to legitimate powers (...).” (Ibid, p.7). 10 Ibid., chapter 4, “Slavery”, p.7. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., chapter 7, “The Sovereign”, p.17. 13 Ibid., Book II, chapter 4, “The Limits of the Sovereign Power”, p. 33. 14 Ibid., Book I, chapter 9, “Of Property”, p. 22. Robert Derathé, in his work Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la Science Politique de son Temps, 1950, highlights that the common good, l’utilité commune, is the psychological fundament of the union legitimised by the social contract - the latter representing the juridical foundation of political authority. He writes in fact, “Rousseau se place (...) au point de vue juridique, lorsqu’il écrit: ‘J’ai posé pour fondement du Corps politique la convention de ses members (...), car, quel fondement plus sûr peut avoir l’obligation parmi les hommes que le libre engagement de celui qui s’oblige?’ Formule qui n’est nullement en contradiction avec le texte suivant, où Rousseau envisage, cette fois, l’aspect psychologique du problème et les motifs qui ont porté les hommes à former des sociétés politiques: ‘Qu-est- ce qui peut avoir engagé les hommes à se réunir volontairement en corps de société, si ce n’est leur utilité commune? L’utilité commune est donc le fondement de la société civile.’” [“Rousseau positions himself (...) from a juridical point of view, when he writes: ‘I postulated as the foundation of the Body politic the covenant of its members..., since, which surer foundation can the obligation among men have but the free commitment of those who commit themselves?’ Expression which is not at all in contradiction with the following text, where Rousseau considers, this time, the psychological aspect of the problem and the reasons which led men to form political societies: ‘What can have urged men to unite voluntarily in social bodies if not their common the common good’? The common good is therefore the fundament of civil society.’ My emphasis. My translation.] Robert Derathé, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la Science Politique de son Temps, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1974 (1950), pp. 173-74. Quotes of Rousseau respectively from Lettres écrites de la Montagne, Lettre VI, (Pol.Writ., II, 200; ou Oeuvres, III, 202) and Manuscrit de Genève, liv. I, chap. V, (Pol.Writ., I, 470).

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between slave and master. Since “war gives no right to inflict any more destruction than is necessary for victory”, the victor’s right to kill a conquered people is refuted and so is, by consequence, enslavement, because the preservation of life would not entail renunciation of freedom:

(...) To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties. There is no possible quid pro quo for one who renounces everything; indeed such renunciation is contrary to man’s very nature; for if you take away all freedom of the will, you strip a man’s actions of all moral significance. Finally, any covenant which stipulated absolute dominion for one party and absolute obedience for the other would be illogical and nugatory. Is it not evident that he who is entitled to demand everything owes nothing? And does not the single fact of there being no reciprocity, no mutual obligation, nullify the act?15

If we consider his words in relation to Indigenous petitions, we can understand petitioning, among other acts, as an act of reappropriation or assertion of freedom, an act of non- renunciation to one’s humanity, one’s rights as people. It is an act of participation in the body politic, even when formal exclusion from that same body severely curtailed such participation. It is an act through which moral significance is returned to one’s actions, and through which “absolute obedience” is not accepted.

The reciprocity and mutual commitments between the individual and society, maintained by Rousseau as the foundation of a legitimate government, did not extend in Australia to its original inhabitants. The social contract, or “the act by which people become a people”16 is described by Rousseau as an “act of association” through which the body politic is formed. He specifies “(…) those who are associated in it take collectively the name of a people, and call themselves individually citizens, in that they share in the sovereign power, and subjects, in that they put themselves under the laws of the state.”17 This act of association itself represented by the contract was largely not present between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It is important to note that there was indeed little adjudicative association during the settler colonial period primarily characterized by

15 Rousseau, Social Contract, Book I, chapter 4, “Slavery”, p. 8. 16 Ibid., Book I, chapter 5, “That We Must Always Go Back To an Original Covenant”, p. 13. 17 Ibid., Book I, chapter 6, “The Social Pact”, p. 17.

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domination. Wolfe and Veracini inter alias would argue that this is one of the defining features of settler colonialism, viewed as a way of structuring or organizing society and intentionally displacing Indigenous people.18 In regards to the status of citizens, as Chesterman and Galligan well document in Citizens without Rights, Indigenous Australians were not to benefit from the status of citizens until well into the 20th century.19 However, with colonization, they had become de facto British subjects, while they continued to be part of and subjects to their own traditional laws and government systems. The case Crown v Wewar and the petition from Murray settlers for the release of We-eva in the early 1840s in what was to become Western Australia,20 both exemplify this status of being subjects to two systems of laws and two social systems. And the petition from William Adams and others to the Commissioner of Public Works of South Australia in 1894 specifically acknowledgess in a post scriptum being subjects to the British Crown but not part of its active political body: “How is it that we are not allowed to vote?” The petitioners continue,

As law-abiding and peaceful subjects of the British Crown we don’t see any reasons why we should not be allowed to vote, as we are made subjects to the laws in South Australia we deem it only fair and just that we should be allowed to have a voice in the framing of those laws.21

They indeed were asking to take part in the body politic as citizens. Rousseau, for the most part of his treatise on the social contract, refers in fact to “citizens” and “voters” as the active contracting parties of the covenant. Subjects, instead, are addressed by Rousseau, as citizens in their passive role, much in the same way in which “state” and “sovereign” are referred to, the former as the body politic in its passive role, the latter, as the body politic in its active role.22 If we apply here his observations, this petition, as many others, asks that the petitioners be considered in their role of active contracting parties of the covenant, which forms, in Rousseau’s theory, the basis of legitimate government.

18 Lorenzo Veracini, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, in particular pp. 11-12; Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, London, Cassell, 1999, pp. 1-3. 19 John Henry Chesterman and Brian Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, Cambridge University Press, 1997. 20 See Chapter Four, Section 4.1., in particular p. 85 for the observations of Wewar in this regard. 21 See Appendix, doc. 10. 22 Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 17.

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If mutual commitments between the individual and society in Australia followed racial lines, especially from a legislative point of view, this is not to say that at individual levels there hadn’t been acts of association. Certainly in the fields of employment or friendly or intimate relationships, there had been acts of association, often based precisely on utilité commune, the common good which Rousseau had envisaged as the basis of civil society.23 Historian Bain Attwood documents some instances in which non-Indigenous Australians became part of a “network of relationships” in which mutual interests were present24 and refers for instance to the relationship of the Brabiralung people in Victoria and the owners of the Macleod’s Mitchell River Station around the 1850s:

[Brabiralung people] attempted to establish a close relationship with the Macleods (and others), trying to assert the principles of sharing and reciprocity which were central to their own social system, in order to gain access to food and other things, as well as to ensure that Europeans treated them with respect. (…) The Brabiralung also sought to incorporate the Europeans into their kinship system by exchanging names with the Macleods and their workers. Thus it was that Tulaba became Billy Macleod.25

Attwood offers several examples in which these relationships were trying to be established and he also refers to the mutual relationship developed in the late 1860s by Alfred Howitt and Indigenous people along the Mitchell River.26 Historian Heather Goodall too points at occasions in which Indigenous people took care of settlers as part of their traditional duty of care for the land and for who and what the land supported:

A number of other perceived benefits [of valuing Aboriginal work for the pastoralists] were derived from Aboriginal commitment to the land rather than from any decision to become loyal servants to whites. These included their well-recorded ‘faithfulness’ to the employers on many runs, which reflected not only the importance Aboriginal people have consistently attached to personal relationships and obligations, but more

23 See supra note 14. 24 Bain Attwood, “Off the mission stations: Aborigines in Gippsland 1860-1890,” Aboriginal History 10, no. 2 (1986): 131-150; see esp. pp. 138-142. 25 Attwood, “Off the mission stations”, p. 135. 26 Ibid., from p. 138. He notes however, how the relationship was inflected by Howitt’s ethnocentrism.

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significantly their faithfulness to the land and their assumption of responsibility for the people and stock who now lived on it.27

Thus, although at a personal level individual contracts may have been in place, however genuine or exploitative in nature, the reciprocity and mutual commitments of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian individuals and their respective societies had not been negotiated in a treaty or otherwise.28 In the context of many court disputes between selectors and squatters on land ownership, the British Privy Council declared in 1889 that Australia had been terra nullius in 1788 and had therefore been “peacefully annexed to the British dominions” at that time.29 Theoretically, therefore, there was no one with whom to negotiate a contract (although in fact there was). The two societies, each with its own original contract, continued, until they could, to coexist largely as two separate entities, each with its own laws, customs and culture. At the same time, interaction between these societies brought along changes that were embraced and imposed, and a developing knowledge of each other’s societies, culture and governmental structure. As we shall later see, from the point of view afforded by Mills’ heuristic device of the domination contract, the Indigenous society was included as an unequal society, as a society of lesser status, within the settlers’ society, and subjected to a contract of domination.

What was then the “legitimate and sure principle of government” in colonial Australia? In the Australian context, authority over Australia’s Indigenous people was legitimated precisely by the doctrine of terra nullius, which as Pateman points out, “cut through all the problems of justification” of occupying the new territory.30 European powers in the early modern period had theorized four ways of legitimizing the acquisition of new territories:

27 Heather Goodall, Invasion to Embassy. Land in Aboriginal Politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1996, p. 61. 28 The British Crown had put forward recommendations or guidelines in order to govern these associations but implementation of these was hindered by settler’s interests. See inter alias Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land, 3rd ed., Camberwell, Penguin Books, 2003. With regards to contemporary discussions of a treaty negotiation, see Sean Brennan, Larissa Behrendt, Lisa Strelein and George Williams (eds.), Treaty, Sydney, Federation Press, 2005. 29 The dispute that brought the Privy Council to this conclusion was the appeal case of Cooper v. Stuart. Heather Goodall reminds how “the Cooper v. Stuart judgement was cited and upheld in the case of Milirrpum v. Nabalco Pty Ltd in the NT Supreme Court in 1971, and in later cases. Goodall suggests that this decision could not have taken place in the 1840s, when there was wide recognition of the relationship to land of Indigenous Australians. See her Invasion To Embassy, p. 106. 30 Pateman, “The Settler Contract” in Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, p. 46. Some scholars hold a different position. See Andrew Fitzmaurice, “The Genealogy of Terra Nullius,” Australian Historical Studies 129 (2007): 1-15.

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through occupation, cessation, annexation or conquest.31 Legitimization by conquest left some critical issues open, such as the need to respect the property and customs of the conquered people,32 and the necessity of establishing an agreement with those governed in the respect of their natural rights (natural freedom, equality and rights) as theories of an original contract presupposed.33 Occupation, on the other hand, because it was on a terra nullius, did indeed resolve - if only in theory - the issue of legitimization, until appreciation of facts and reality overturned this legitimization.

2.1.2. Carole Pateman: the settler contract

I will here delineate the settler contract proposed by Carole Pateman in order to complement Rousseau’s observations on legitimacy of government and covenants with contemporary theories that extend those observations and consider the specificity of the Australian colonial context.

Carole Pateman develops the scholarship of political theory that since the 1990s has investigated the justifications offered to European colonial expansion in early modern texts, especially in the arguments of Locke and Grotius.34 She proposes that such scholarship, albeit very useful, is limited by its exclusive focus on the Americas and the right of husbandry - the right which justified occupation and appropriation of lands that were “uncultivated wilderness” and by its not contextualizing the concept of terra nullius within that of an original contract, which she highlights as “a major feature of the early modern texts.”35 She suggests instead the usefulness of extending the focus to Australia, the other New World where the concept of terra nullius was applied to legitimize colonization, not just as a land of uncultivated wilderness but as an “uninhabited, unoccupied [land] for the purpose of the law”36. Further, she proposes to analyse “the logic

31 Pateman, “The Settler Contract” in Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, p. 41. 32 Ibid., p. 45. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., p. 37. 35 Ibid., pp. 37-38. 36 Mabo judgement, p. 103, quoted in Pateman, “The Settler Contract”, p. 64.

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of the original contract in the form of the settler contract”, which she develops from Mills’ instantiations of the Racial Contract.37 She characterizes the settler’s contract as follows:

The settler contract is a specific form of expropriation contract and refers to the dispossession of, and rule over, Native inhabitants by British settlers in the two New Worlds. (…) When colonists are planted in a terra nullius, an empty state of nature, the aim is not merely to dominate, govern and use but to create a civil society. Therefore, the settlers have to make an original settler contract.38

Australia before the Mabo judgment exemplifies what Pateman refers to as the strict logic of the settler contract, as opposed to the logic of the settler contract illustrated by North America, that is, the tempered logic, where aspects of the state of nature, “pre-existing social orders”, are recognized. In the strict logic of the settler contract she argues that

(…) the state of nature disappears as soon as the contract is concluded and is replaced by civil society. It is thus irrelevant whether or not a social order and a system of law were in existence in the state of nature (when the colonists first planted themselves). A new start has to be made, founded on the principles requisite to civil society, so no cognizance need be taken of what went before; the point of the enterprise is to leave it behind and create a civil society. But this means that the history and institutions of the state of nature (…) are obliterated.39

As Pateman points out, this has led to discriminatory policies at state and Commonwealth level, and to the treatment of Aboriginal peoples as “politically non-existent”40, to their exclusion in the Commonwealth Constitution (1901)41, from the federal electorate (1902),

37 Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1997. 38 Pateman, “The Settler Contract”, p. 38. 39 Ibid., p. 39. 40 Ibid., p. 70. 41 The constitutional articles §51 and §127, repealed in 1967, explicitly excluded Indigenous Australians from being counted in the census and from the power of the Federal government to legislate on Australian Indigenous issues.

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and from citizenship benefits until 1967.42 The reaction and resistance to an imposed “non- existence” was articulated, among other ways, through petitions.

If the settler contract outlined by Pateman denied recognition of the political existence of Indigenous Australians, petitions from those who were subjected to the settler contract offer in fact textual records of the existence of discursive Indigenous individual and collective political subjectivities throughout colonial and postcolonial history. They show Indigenous people’s “will to be part of the political landscape” from which they had been excluded.43 The Coranderrk petitions, for instance, testify to the continuation of Indigenous political history and institutions. The traditional authority of the ngurungaeta William Barak, who according to Kulin traditional law had the right to speak for the community, manifests itself in his dictating to younger scribes proficient in English the petitions to colonial government authorities and representatives. We also see his authority manifest in his heading the list of signatories of the petitions and in leading the deputations to government officials, often to present these petitions.44 Other petitions, as we shall see, do indeed ask for respect of the natural rights such as freedom and equality, presupposed by an original contract,45 and for the recognition of Indigenous people as citizens, in all the three senses or components of modern citizenship identified by T.H.Marshall: civil, political and social.46

2.1.3. Mills and the domination contract theory

I now propose examining the act of petitioning from Indigenous people in Australia within the theoretical framework of the group domination contract theorised by Charles W. Mills.

42 Pateman, “The Settler Contract”, pp. 70-71. 43 Patrick Dodson’s comment on Indigenous petitions, personal conversation on occasion of the screening of the documentary Liyarn Ngarn, Sydney Theatre, 21 May 2008. 44 See Diane Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk; Canberra, Aboriginal History, 1998; Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006, Ch. 6; this thesis, Chapter 5, Section 5.3.2. 45 See this Chapter, pp. 38-39 and Rousseau, Social Contract, pp. 8-9 and 24-25. 46 T.H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class” [1950], in T.H. Marshall and Tom Bottomore, Citizenship and Social Class, 1992, pp. 8, 10, referred to in Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, pp. 4-5. See for instance the petition for freedom from the residents of Coranderrk to the Chief Secretary, Sept 1886 (Chapter 5, pp. 136-137), the petitions for citizenship rights organised by Fred Maynard, William Cooper and later the AAF (see Chapter 7, Sections 7.1, 7.2. and Appendix, doc. 14 and 18, and the appeals to equality with white people of many petitions against the segregation of education, Chapter 6, Section 6.1.2.).

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So far, I have highlighted the importance of reciprocity and mutual obligations in the social contract theorized by Rousseau as the basis for a legitimate form of government. By way of contrast, I have drawn attention to the fact that reciprocity and mutual commitments at a societal level had not been codified, and that Indigenous Australians were not considered as free and active contractive parties of the unwritten covenants shaping their relations, as a distinct society, with settler society. Petitioning, I argue in this thesis, offered one means of attempting to intervene in these contracts. I then discussed the form of legitimacy offered by the doctrine of terra nullius in the Australian context through Carole Pateman’s position: a doctrine which, by denying recognition of the Indigenous inhabitants of Australia, led to the codification of colonial and Commonwealth legislation in their absence and to their inclusion in the polity as (passive and voiceless) subjects rather than as citizens.47 In parallel, I proposed to see petitioning as a testimony to their political presence and will to achieve recognition as people and citizens.

The work of Charles Mills, in its emphasis on the relationship of domination and subordination imposed upon groups of people distinguished by their race, enables me to further these reflections. Charles Mills, in The Racial Contract, observes how legislation “formally codified the subordinate status of nonwhites and (ostensibly) regulated their treatment, creating a juridical space for non-Europeans as a separate category”.48 Subordination was legitimized and codified, he continues, on the principle that non- Europeans were considered lower, subject races in a world more and more racially hierarchical.49

Synthesising and developing Rousseau’s Discours sur l’inegalité (1775), Jean Hampton’s “moral Kantian contractualism,” Carole Pateman’s Sexual Contract (1988), Susan Moller Okins and his own previous works, Mills therefore posits the idea of a group domination contract which rejects the assumptions inherent in classical mainstream contract theories wherein “contract” is conceived as consensual and inclusive and centred on the value of equality.50 He highlights instead the coercive and exclusionary nature of the “contract” and its being based on inequality,51 be it of class (Rousseau), gender (Pateman, Okins) or race

47I here use the terms “subjects” and “citizens” in the sense outlined by Rousseau (Social Contract, Book I, chapter 6, “The Social Pact”, p. 17), see this thesis, Section 2.1.1., p. 41. 48 Mills, Racial Contract, p. 27. 49 Mills, Racial Contract, pp. 26-27. 50 Mills, “The Domination Contract” in Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, pp. 94, 98. 51 Ibid., p. 88.

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(Mills).52 He describes the group domination contract as

a theory of group domination in which one group imposes its will on the subordinate group, placing explanatory emphasis upon coercion and the likely ideologically-generated character of the latter’s ‘consent’.53

It is therefore an exclusionary contract in that certain social groups are included in the polity as unequal.54 By operating within an “overarching framework (...) [of] non-ideal theory”, which “seeks to adjudicate what corrective or rectificatory justice would require in societies that are unjust”, the domination contract acknowledges “crucial social realities” and issues of social subordination not registered by mainstream contract theory.55

It also registers the role of collective human causality in the shaping of society in the course of history,56 and in this sense, it is “explicitly predicated on human collectivities, dominating and dominated.”57 “Groups” are considered as the “key players” of the domination contract, and “individuals” are regarded as reaching consciousness and agency precisely “as members of social groups”.58

Non-ideal theory and the domination contract theory mirror the concerns and the motivations behind many petitions which seek to urge and achieve a corrective justice. The fundamental role attributed to “groups” makes it possible to account for the collaborative textual production of petitions. The latter, in turn, explains the fluidity and mobility of these collectivities when collaboration extends to involve people belonging to a different group (non-Indigenous people, for instance).

Within this perspective, the presentation of petitions by Indigenous people in Australia can be interpreted as an attempt among others to interact with the “pre-existing structures of power” identified in the domination contract as the result of previous human causality59

52 See Mills, The Racial Contract. 53 Mills, “Race and Social Contract Tradition”, p. 446. 54 Ibid. 55 Mills, “The Domination Contract” in Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, pp. 94, 86. 56 Ibid., pp. 87, 96. 57 Mills, “Race and Social Contract Tradition”, p. 446. 58 Mills, “The Domination Contract” in Pateman and Mills, Contract and Domination, p. 96. 59 Mills, “Race and Social Contract Tradition”, p. 446.

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and to redraw the parameters of the contract to include indigenous participation, self- determination and autonomy. The petitioners, as a collectivity of individuals, are not crystallized in the role of “victims” of the domination contract, and they seek change. They approach the sources of decisions, policies and legislation experienced as unjust, and, if not in the position of “freely contracting parties”, they actively engage with the terms of the “contract” that do not represent their will. The collectivity of “unequal[s]”, or the “subordinate group”, petitions the higher levels of the “dominating group” so that their perspectives might be considered.

Insisting that there is a contract in place (in effect) and that it is a domination contract, allows us to identify a group with political demands, i.e. the group that is subjected to the contract, while not being included in it as a contracting “partner.” Using the group domination contract as a heuristic device can help us to think about justice and to map “social subordination” and to demonstrate the changes that are needed for the reconstruction or redrawing of an “ideal contract”. Although speculating about the specific details of a revised ideal contract is beyond the purview of my investigation, in the analysis of petitions from Indigenous people, this strand of contract theory allows us to see some of the changes that were considered necessary by representatives of the subjected group.

2.2. Collecting and analysing petitions

In order to collect the corpus of petitions I utilized as the basis for my discussion and to prepare the collection of petitions in the Appendix, I used three main procedures. The first (and more accessible) procedure was based on the identification of secondary sources that reproduced or referred to petitions from Indigenous people in Australia; once I had identified a petition I could then record the location of the primary source or, if the petition was only briefly mentioned, I noted down the information provided about it (generally, the date and content of the petition and the source where it had been located) and followed up the research; I was then able to retrieve the originals I wanted to examine more closely. At the same time, this procedure allowed me to recognize recurring locations where petitions had been filed and reproduced, that is correspondence files of different government

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agencies, including but not limited to those specifically dealing with Indigenous people, parliamentary papers and newspaper articles.

The second procedure I used was archival research. Thanks to the secondary literature I had already identified a number of petitions which I was able to retrieve from different state archives. In order to access these documents and to find petitions which had not been published yet, I then consulted the archivists, the online databases and the available guides to archival records related to Indigenous Australians of the following state and national archives: Archives Office of Tasmania, Public Records Office of Victoria, the State Records of New South Wales, Queensland State Archives, State Records of South Australia, State Records Office of Western Australia, National Archives of Australia (which also holds records relating to the Northern Territory). At different times during my research, I visited the Public Records Office of Victoria (April 2009), the National Archives of Australia (January 2010), Queensland State Archives, State Records of South Australia, State Records Office of Western Australia (April 2010), the State Records of New South Wales (April 2010) and the relative state and national libraries.

One of the challenges I encountered while preparing for and in conducting my archival research was that many items in usually voluminous correspondence files were not described at item level in either online or archival catalogues. This made the search for individual petitions not previously identified in the secondary literature a lengthy process. What became increasingly helpful was to identify the location of petitions by relying on cross-searches on the web. For instance, I started to locate the names of the different state reserves and missions that had operated in the timeframe I was considering in the different Australian colonies and states, and I began web searches using as key words the name of the reserve and “petition” or “memorial”, “grievance”, “protest”, “deputation” and “aboriginal”, “native”, “black”, considering the changes affecting terminology over time. In this way I found the petition written at Lake Tyers to the Board for the Protection of Aborigines in 1931 asking for the reinstatement of a former superintendent, which I reproduce and discuss in Chapter Six. Previously unpublished, it was however referred to on a PROV online archival publication.60 Other petitions I found using this method were those written by Indigenous parents protesting the exclusion of their children from public

60 “News from the Koorie Records Unit and from PROV’s Volunteer Program,” ProActive. The magazine of Public Record Office of Victoria, Issue 41, Spring 2007, pp. 8-9. Online access www.prov.vic.gov.au/pubs/pa41/proactive41.pdf.

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schooling, which I will refer to in Chapter Six,61 petitions from the AAPA I refer to in Chapter 7 and the petition for land rights of the Larrakia people of the Darwin area addressed in 1972 to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.62

The guides to Aboriginal records held in the different state and national archives, especially those of South Australia and Victoria, were of assistance because they dedicate a number of pages to examples of records to be found in the archives, and within those examples, a number of petitions were reproduced.63 State Records of South Australia has also developed a very useful electronic database, the AIMS (Aboriginal Information System), which although developed primarily as a name index of Indigenous people appearing in records held by SRA, allows for key word searches including words other than the Indigenous names. Thanks to the assistance of Senior Aboriginal Officer Mr Wilson Andrew and the use of the AIMS database, it has been possible to identify a dozen petitions and essential documents to contextualize the origins of the 1927 Petition for a Model Aboriginal State and the 1967 petition from Nepabunna.64 At each state and national archive where I conducted my research, the staff has been most kind and helpful.

I conducted my archival research with due consideration of the political nature of the archive itself and the possible absence and importance of documents which have not been deemed worthy of historical remembrance65 or that have been lost or destroyed along the way. A petition against the persecution of the Jews presented by William Cooper to the German consulate in Melbourne on December 6, 1938 for instance, was not reported on by the then consulate, nor was this protest reported by the German General Consulate in

61 Such petitions were mentioned in an “Aboriginal Education Timeline” authored by Allison Cadzow for the Board of Studies NSW, and reproduced on the NSW Government owned website and in two case studies accompanying the timeline. See http://ab-ed.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/go/aboriginal-studies/timeline. 62 See Appendix, doc. 14 and 22. 63 See for instance Australian Archives and the Public Record Office of Victoria, “My Heart is Breaking”. A Joint Guide to Records about Aboriginal People in the Public Records Office of Victoria and the Australian Archives, Victorian Regional Office, 1993, compiled by Ian MacFarlane and Myrna Deverall with advice from Jim Berg; for South Australia see South Australia State Records, Aboriginal Resource Kit: an introduction to primary sources held by State Records relating to Aboriginal people, Adelaide, State Records, 1993. Other useful texts where I found references to petitions from Indigenous people in South Australia were the following: Christobel Mattingley, Survival in Our Own Land: 'Aboriginal' experiences in 'South Australia' since 1836, told by Nungas and others, Adelaide, Wakefield Press,1988; Constance M. Davey, Children and their Law Makers: a social-historical survey of the growth and development from 1836 to 1950 of South Australian laws relating to children, Adelaide, Griffin Press, 1956; Peggy Brock, Outback Ghettos, Cambridge University Press, 1993. 64 See Appendix doc. 15 and 20 respectively and the files held at SRSA, GRG/52/32/1-15 and GRG52/1/1964/208, in order to contextualize these petitions. 65 Benjamin Hutchens, “Techniques of Forgetting? Hypo-Amnesic History and the An-Archive” in SubStance, no. 113, 36.2(2007): 37-55; Bronwin Batten, “Monuments, memorials and the presentation of Australia’s Indigenous past,” Public History Review, 11 (2004): 101-121.

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Sydney. Further, according to the Political Archives and Historic Service of the Auswärtiges Amt, the German Foreign Office in charge of Germany’s foreign policy, “the files of the Melbourne Consulate from 1939 did not make their way to the Political Archive because they were deliberately burned and destroyed by the Australian government as early as 1949.”66 Because there may have been petitions which had not been acknowledged or filed in the archives, or petitions which had been filed but were later lost or destroyed, contemporary newspapers provided a useful source where I turned next to look for other surviving or not recorded petitions.

The third procedure I used to identify a further number of petitions was therefore the use of Trove,67 the online search tool developed by the National Library of Australia, which allows key word searches on historical newspapers, among other documents. It is continuously updated with newly digitized material, so I conducted my research on Trove at different times. Thanks to Trove and to those who collaborated towards its development, I found the petition of Tommy Dower for fair play dated 12 March 1893 and the petition of Tommy King for a supply of rations for the aboriginals of Albany on Proclamation Day, 19 October 1890, I reproduced and discussed in Chapter 4.

I analyse the petitions I collected against the local historical background and within the larger colonial and state histories and international circumstances that might have influenced their compositions. I consider the procedures used to receive and acknowledge petitions and the legal framework within which they were written, taking into account the policies affecting Indigenous people at the time. I analyse them in the light of the studies that preceded mine and within the revisionist contractarian framework I have introduced.

In order to consider a number of Indigenous petitions which have been recently commemorated by Indigenous people I also make use of memory studies, especially in Chapter Six, and in the Discussion chapter I connect this commemoration to the commemorative function exercised by literature. My analysis pays attention, wherever possible, to the writing process behind the origins of the petition and to the opportunities that the granting of the requests there inscribed would have meant for the signatories. It also considers the language and discourses that inform the petitions’ text and the different

66 Personal communication with the Cultural Section of Melbourne Auswaertiges, 25, 27 January 2010, and Auswärtiges Amt, Politisches Archiv, Berlin, 13, 15 July 2010. Sincere thanks to Hannah Shurolz, La Trobe University, for her kind assistance in translating the reply from the Politisches Archiv. 67 See www.trove.nla.gov.au

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meanings words might have had for both petitioners and addressees as well as for contemporary readers.

2.3. Ethical considerations

During my research I followed the AIATSIS Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies68 and enquired into the possibility of petitions being considered “culturally sensitive texts.” The Ethics Secretariat of UNSW suggested that “petitions are, by their nature, public documents, willingly signed in order to be published (in the broad sense of the term).”69 However, I was also mindful of the recommendation that “to be on the respectful side, the researcher could seek out the opinions of any Indigenous organisation(s) associated with the constituency(ies) that signed the petition(s). (…) Such an enquiry might reveal if there are any potential harms and ethical issues that we cannot foresee.”70

Fortunately, I have been able to discuss the petition from Maloga, 1881, with Dr Wayne Atkinson, and the 1923 petition written by Ellen Kropinyeri with Tom Trevorrow, of the Ngarrinjeri Heritage Committee. As descendants of the signatories, they kindly shared their insights into the meaning of these petitions and of commemorating them. However, considering the difficulties inherent in tracing the constituencies of each petition, especially since to my knowledge many petitions I located were not connected to existing Indigenous organizations, and in consideration of the fact that several petitions have already been published and permission to study particular petitions has previously been accorded,71 I reproduce here other petitions in the respect of copyright and intellectual property rights.

68 AIATSIS, Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies, Canberra, 2000. 69 Comment from the Presiding Member of the Ethics Secretariat, UNSW, 20 February 2009. 70 Ibid. 71 Julie Fenwick, “Worrying About Our Land”: Conceptualising Land Rights 1963-1971, Clayton, Monash Publications in History: 36, 2001.

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Conclusions

The outlined contractarian framework enables us to conceptualize the nature of Indigenous Australian petitions and to note how they gave voice to and enabled the emergence of collective political identities and subjectivities. I will now draw attention to the interrelation of the writing process of petitions and the expression of Indigenous voices within it.

55

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Chapter 3

Contact to Collaboration

Oral petitioning, English literacy and collaboration in writing

This Chapter traces early instances of petitioning, oral and written, in the first part of the 19th century in the colony of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, renamed Tasmania in 1856. I here suggest a number of reasons why not many petitions were recorded in Parliamentary records in this period and propose to consider oral petitions to illustrate the requests that were being nevertheless presented at this time. I address the spread of English literacy among Indigenous people and connect this to early occasions of collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in petition writing. By focusing on the collaborative writing process of the 1846 petition to Queen Victoria from the Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples who had been relocated to Flinders Island, in Bass Strait, I suggest possible analytical tools to adopt in examining the writing process of petitions. Finally, I comment on the broader dialogue convened with the petitioned authorities by the voices articulated in these petitions.

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3.1. Emergence of oral Indigenous petitions in early colonial New South Wales

Not long after the New South Wales Legislative Council was constituted in 1824 as an advisory body to the Governor,1 a committee was appointed “to consider of [sic] Orders and Regulations to be observed on receiving Petitions, hearing the Petitioners by themselves, or Counsel, and the examination of witnesses theron (...).”2 The existence of such a committee and its report in September 1829, suggest the need felt by government authorities to regulate the influx of requests and grievances from the recently settled colonial population. From 1856 to 1869, the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly, constituting the newly formed Parliament of New South Wales, received more than a hundred petitions a year, the number of petitions oscillating between 143 and over 400.3 As to the number of petitions received by Indigenous people from 1824 to 1856 and from 1856 to 1869, the records of both upper and lower house of New South Wales seem not to register any.4

Taking into account the possible absence of petitions which might have once existed,5 there are a number of reasons which could explain the lack of petitions from Indigenous people in colonial NSW government records during this period. The first one is that in the early colonial period, after the first exploratory contacts, Australian Indigenous peoples devoted their energy attempting to contain the expansion of white settlement and retaining independence (or at least a measure of autonomy) from settlers’ society and authorities.

1 Under the provisions of the Imperial Act 4, George IV, cap. 96 (July 1823), the Governor, “with the advice of the Council”, was invested with the “power and authority to make Laws and Ordinances for the peace, welfare, and Good Government of the said Colony [of New South Wales].” See “Despatch from the R.H. the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to his Excellency Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane, transmitting a Warrant appointing a Legislative Council in the Colony of New South Wales” in NSW Legislative Council, Minutes of Proceedings, from 25 August 1824 to 22 November 1825, p. 1. 2 New South Wales Legislative Council, Minutes of Votes and Proceedings, Minute No. 5, 7 September 1829, in R.F. Doust, New South Wales Legislative Council 1824-1856. Abstracts of Votes and Proceedings, Part I, 1824-1843, Sydney, NSW Parliamentary Library, 2004, p. 60. Online as ‘Records of Legislative Proceedings from 1824’, http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/key/pre1991hansard. 3 The number of petitions received by both houses during the first five Parliaments oscillated between 143 and over 400. Arthur Bent et al, NSW Index to Parliamentary Debates. First to Fifth Parliaments, vol. 1, comprising the period from 22 May 1856 to 15 November 1869, Sydney, Parliament of New South Wales, 1992. 4 The sources consulted are those referred above in note 1 and 3. 5 Apart from loss, misplacement or displacement of the documents, there are a number of cases which suggest that petitions were also being rejected. The petition from ‘certain Free Inhabitants of Jerry’s Plains’ was declared “inadmissible because of a technicality” and withdrawn (Doust, New South Wales Legislative Council 1824-1856, 1839/34, 11 September 1839, p. 107). At the same time, memorials protesting the non inclusion of portions of evidence given before committees because not “respectfully worded” (Doust, NSW LC 1824-1856, 12 October 1838, p.95) suggest the necessity, or strategic value, at that time, of “respectfully” wording documents and evidence, in order to have them recorded in full.

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The Dharuk and Gandagara fought along the Nepean and Hawksbury Rivers between 1790 and the mid 1810s; martial law from August to December 1824 followed the resistance of the Wiradjuri in the Bathurst plains; in the 1820s and 1830s the Gamalarai and Ngiyamba tried to resist the rapid invasion of the inland north-west plains; the Paakantji (“belonging to the river”) succeeded in temporarily retaining their land in the upper Murray River area in the 1850s, after the first contacts in the mid 1830s.6 Historian Heather Goodall suggests that once violence subsided, by the 1860s in many farming and pastoral areas coexistence of settlers and local Indigenous groups had reached a fragile balance and access to traditional land, or portions of it, was still possible.7

A second reason which would explain the lack of use of petitions in this period in colonial New South Wales is the social, cultural and physical distance between Indigenous and non- Indigenous people and their societies at that time. Especially after initial violent conflicts and where necessity, or sometimes choice, did not dictate otherwise, contacts with white people would have been avoided where possible. Further, as Ann Curthoys and Jessie Mitchell have highlighted, “the partially elected legislative councils that made up the organs of representative government in the 1840s and 1850s often reflected the views of the very pastoralists who were seizing Aboriginal land.”8 Therefore, appealing to such organs may have proven ineffective. Finally, the existence of an early petition addressed to the Governor General in 1857, held at the Department of Lands and Public Works, “praying for redress, reporting (…) [Jonathon Goggey’s] ejectment from certain lands”9, suggests that parliamentary records are only but one among other venues where Indigenous petitions can be located.

Another element to consider is the large difference in social organization and value systems which would have permeated the perceptions of the respective parties and their behaviour.10 In relation to petitioning, the value Aboriginal people placed on orality over writing, for instance, would have influenced the way in which the first official

6 Heather Goodall, “New South Wales” in Ann McGrath (ed.), Contested Ground. Australian Aborigines under the British Crown, St Leonards, NSW, Allen & Unwin, 1995, pp. 64-66. John Harris, One Blood, Sutherland, NSW, Albatross, 1994 (1990), p. 46. See also pp. 26-27 regarding poisoning and killings. 7 Goodall, “New South Wales”, p. 59. 8 Ann Curthoys and Jessie Mitchell, “’Bring the Paper to the Good Governor’”, p. 182. 9 Petition of Jonathon Goggey the Governor General, 18 Nov 1857, SRNSW, NRS 7933, Department of Lands and Public Works, Correspondence: letters received 1856-1866, 57/4196, [5/3581] identified by Terry Kass, consultant historian and researcher in Lands Department history. The petition is reproduced in Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, pp. 58-59 10 Colin Bourke, Eleanor Bourke and Bill Edwards, Aboriginal Australia, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1998 (1994). Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked.

59 communications with the settlers’ government would have taken place, i.e. in an oral rather than written form. The earliest surviving written petition, from the Pallawah people of Van Diemen’s Land living on Flinders Island, addressed to Queen Victoria in 1846, documents in fact the existence of an oral agreement that had taken place before the petition was conceived: “(...) Your Petitioners humbly state to Y[our] M[ajesty] that Mr. Robinson made for us & with Col. Arthur an agreement which we have not lost from our minds since & we have made our part of it good.”11 In the following years, several records show that Indigenous people presented their oral petitions to the government thanks to intermediaries. In Victoria, in 1859, the appointed Guardian of the Aborigines William Thomas recounts how he received “a deputation of the Goulburn tribe of aborigines (…) [who requested] a tract of land for their sole use and benefit.”12 When they were subsequently received by the Surveyor-General, “the chief of the Goulburn tribe explicitly made known their request, that the tribe were anxious to secure a tract of land on both sides of a creek which falls into the Goulburn River, named Nak-krom [the Acheron River], which the blacks stated was little use to white people, but kangaroos and opossums were abundant there.”13

On the Braidwood goldfields, east of Canberra, local police officer Martin Brennan was approached by a deputation of sixty-two Indigenous people from the south coast and southern highlands areas after a large ceremonial gathering or corroboree - an event at which, according to Goodall, “strategies to meet the current crisis” were also discussed.14 The following is Brennan’s account of the meeting:

When the festival was over, sixty-two blacks called upon me. Jack Bawn and Alick were the leaders of the deputation. I asked Jack what they wanted. He replied, ‘We have come to you to intercede for us in getting the Government to do something for us. Araluen Billy, our king, is old, and cannot live long; my wife Kitty and self are old, too. I have assisted the police for many years, and we want to get some land which we can call our own in reality, where we can settle down, and which the old people can call their home. Everyone objects to our hunting on his land, and we think

11 Petition from the free inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land to Queen Victoria, 1846, reproduced in Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: a documentary history, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1999, pp. 38-39. 12 William Thomas to Commissioner of Lands and Survey, 4 March 1859, reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 41-42. 13 Ibid., p. 42. 14 Heather Goodall, “Land in our own country: the Aboriginal land rights movement in south-eastern Australia, 1860 to 1914,” Aboriginal History 14 (1990): 1-24, quote on p. 5.

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the blacks are entitled to live in their own country’. I replied that I would do what I could for them, and inform Jack Bawn of the result. On 29th March, 1873, I sent [the government] a comprehensive report covering eight sheets of foolscap, detailing their treatment, condition, customs and aspirations. Shortly afterwards I received instructions through the Police Department to survey forty acres of Crown Lands in whatever locality Jack Bawn desired as an Aboriginal reserve. Jack desired the land fronting the Shoalhaven River at the base of the Jingeras, where fish, birds, and wild animals were plentiful.15

Even though hostility from local white farmers prevented the Budawang people of New South Wales from occupying the desired tract of land, they continued to press their demands to Brennan. This episode is significant in a number of ways. It shows that in the early 1870s on the south coast of New South Wales, official oral channels of communication were still prevalent. Together with further evidence left by Brennan and others,16 it shows that traditional cultural practices were still alive and traditional ways of living were still sought. Finally, it highlights the practical difficulties of implementing governmental directions which were not welcomed by local settlers and which could not therefore easily be enacted or enforced.

Another instance which exemplifies the presence of orally presented requests and complaints can be found in the journal of Methodist missionary Francis Tuckfield (1808- 1865) during the time of the Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate (1839-49):

(...) they [the Aboriginal people] are conscious of what is going on - they are driven from this favoured haunt and threatened if they do not leave immediately they will be lodged in gaol or shot. It is to the Missionaries they come with their tales of woe and

15 Martin Brennan, Reminiscences of the Gold Fields, Sydney, 1907, pp. 213-14 in Goodall, “Land in our own country”, p. 5. For other accounts relative to the practice of traditional customs see for instance, Nancy Cato, Mister Maloga, rev. ed., St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1993. 16 Ten years later, in 1882, Brennan reported to Protector George Thornton that: “I have known blacks in the Bradiwood and Coast districts very intelligent, who have been and now are excellent farm labourers, and whose aspirations at all times were to be allowed some land which they might call their own in reality; which they might cultivate unmolested for the use of themselves and their families; and where the aborigines of the surrounding districts might meet periodically for the purpose of holding corroborees and other exhilarating games.” Martin Brennan, quoted in Goodall, “Land in our own country”, p. 5.

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their language is - ‘Will you now select for us also a position of land? My country all you gone. The white men have stolen it’.17

In the cases presented above, individual and collective requests for land were advanced orally to local government representatives (in these cases the Protector of Aborigines, a policeman and a missionary) who were in a position to negotiate or put forward their case further with authorities in higher positions. Within the contractarian framework outlined in the previous chapter, these oral petitions mark an effort to enter into contractual relations and to acquire acknowledgment as legitimate interlocutors. While the group domination contract precluded Indigenous people from having the status needed to claim a voice, and therefore to enter into the contract shaping their relations with the settlers’ society, these instances of oral petitions bear traces of their voices and of their political demands, here, a portion of land they can call their own. They are evidence of attempts to assert their autonomy as contracting parties and their right to land.

Thomas’ letter and the journal entries are a reminder of the fact that Indigenous Australians did indeed communicate and put forward their wishes and requests orally before these appeared in a directly or indirectly written form. From a methodological perspective, the entries also indicate that journals may be considered, alongside correspondence files, as sources for further research where oral petitions could be located.

3.2. The development of Indigenous literacy in English

Before official communication from Indigenous people was to reach the representatives of the colonial government in a written form in English, the acquisition of spoken and written English, or of an Indigenous language on the part of persons willing to serve as interpreters, was crucial. The presence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous intermediaries, who assisted in the actual writing of the petitions’ texts by acting as scribes, served to solve

17 Francis Tuckfield, The Journal of Francis Tuckfield, LaTrobe Library, MSS 655, p.176 in Henry Reynolds, Dispossession: Black Australians and White Invaders, St Leonards, NSW, Allen & Unwin, 1989, p.84; see also Harris, One Blood, p. 153.

62 the concrete problem of drawing up a formal document complying with the conventions and etiquette of petition-writing.18

In order to better understand the practical problem of producing written documents in English, it is worth considering the spread of literacy19 in the early colonial period. In colonial society illiteracy was not limited to Indigenous Australians. John Harris, writing about early missionary attempts to “Christianize and civilize” Indigenous people in the period from the 1830s to the 1850s, maintains that “the services” of most of the young Indigenous men and women who had been raised at a mission, “were in high demand” because they were “more literate than many ex-convict labourers.”20 In a non-systematic way, English had been taught to adults taken captive, such as Bennelong, or to those serving a prison sentence. George Langhorne, for instance, taught English on Sydney’s Goat Island in 1836, before his “students” absconded while being transferred to Lancelot Threlkeld’s mission on Lake Macquarie.21 Reading and writing skills had been taught privately to Aboriginal children who had lived for a period of time with white officers, missionaries and settlers. After a widespread epidemic in 1789, for instance, Abaroo (or Boorong), at the age of about fifteen, during her eleven-month stay in the household of the chaplain of the first fleet Richard Johnson and his wife Mary, was instructed in reading and could speak some English.22 In 1826, an assistant of Rev. Johnson, Samuel Marden, wrote of Harry, an Aboriginal boy who stayed with his family for a certain time and “learned to speak our language.” Nevertheless, both Abaroo and Harry and most of the children who had attended the Native Institutions established by Governor Macquarie in 1814, returned to their communities.23 Although the prevailing attitude among them seems to have been the preference for their own culture and society, they might have shared some of their

18 For a discussion of the role of scribes see van Toorn, “Authors, scribes and owners: The sociology of nineteenth-century aboriginal writing on Coranderrk and Lake Condah reserves,” Continuum 13, no. 3 (1999): 333-343. 19 Although I am aware of the debates on literacies v literacy, I here intend common reading and writing skills. 20 Harris refers in particular to the group of young adults who had been raised by the Watsons at the missions of Wellington Valley (1832-1843) and Apsley (1840- 1855). Most of them, according to Harris, found “positions as domestics or stockmen on surrounding sheep stations.” (Harris, One Blood, p. 74). 21 Harris, One Blood, p. 60. 22 About Abaroo, Johnson wrote: “Have taken some pains with Abaroo (about fifteen years old) to instruct her in reading, and have no reason to complain about her improvement. She can likewise begin to speak a little English (…)” quoted in Harris, One Blood, p. 43. An assistant of Rev. Johnson, Samuel Marsden, wrote in 1826 of a boy who stayed with his family for a certain time: “He learned to speak our language.” (Ibid.) 23 Harris, One Blood, p. 47. See also Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 24-30 and Fletcher, Clean, Clad and Courteous.

63 newly acquired knowledge and literacy skills and they might have acted as intermediaries too when required.

The first attempts to formalize the British education of Indigenous people include those that were made through missionary and government efforts at the Native Institution at Parramatta (1814-1823), Black Town School (1826-1833), Male and Female Orphan Schools in the Sydney area; at Lake Macquarie Mission (1826-1828) and Ebenezer (1830- 1841) north of Sydney; at the Wellington Valley Mission (1832-1843) and Apsley Mission (1840-55) inland from Sydney, past Bathurst; at the mission known as ‘German Station’ (1836-1843/45),24 established near Moreton Bay penal settlement and later moved closer to Brisbane; on Stradbroke Island (ca 1843-1847); at the Buntigdale mission (1836-1848) near Geelong, on the south side of the Barwon river and at Merri Creek Aboriginal School (1841-1851);25 at Hobart Orphans School in Van Diemens’ Land.26 These ventures, aimed at “civilizing” and “Christianizing” Indigenous people, suffered from several set backs: scarce funding and irregular attendance being two of them. John Harris explains that attendance was influenced by several factors: cultural obligations being met by the children and their families; the impact of introduced diseases on Indigenous communities and on the children who had been taken to the schools; the attractions offered by local towns; opposition by local settlers and, at times, by the pupils’ parents themselves, unconvinced by the usefulness of the knowledge imparted at the mission schools. Harris, using the recollections of William Westgarth of 1848, recounts:

It was not long (...) before many Aboriginal parents questioned whether Aboriginal children gained any useful knowledge at all in mission schools. On a number of occasions, Aboriginal people offered to educate white children. An old man threatened that if any more of his children were taken away to school, he would take white children in their places and teach them Aboriginal knowledge. He could give them, he

24 This mission was originally called ‘Zion Hill’. Harris, One Blood, p. 109-114, 120, 131. 25 Harris, One Blood, ch.1-2; Ian D. Clark and Toby Heydon, A Bend in the Yarra: a history of the Merri Creek Protectorate Station and Merri Creek Aboriginal School 1841-1851, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004. 26 Plomley, Weep in Silence, p. 136; Friends of the Orphans School, St John’s Park Precinct, “Aboriginal Children at the Orphan’s School”, 2012, http://www.orphanschool.org.au/aborigines.htm.

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said, useful instruction in hunting, fishing and net-making while European education did his children no good at all.27

It becomes clear that by the 1850s the availability and continuity of a sustained education and training in literacy in English was probably very difficult to achieve. A petition dating 19 April 1967, addressed to Governor General Lord Casey from the leaders of the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory’s Victoria River region, well exemplifies the difficult path of English literacy. The petition, about the “earnest desire to regain tenure of (...) tribal lands in the wave Hill Limbunya area of the Northern Territory”28, ends with the following lines: “These are our wishes, which have been written down for us by our undersigned white friends, as we had no opportunity to learn to write English.”29

Some Indigenous Australians nevertheless did indeed learn to speak and write in English and used their acquired skills to present their perspectives and concerns through letters and petitions. However, because collaboration with non-Indigenous people was at times involved or presumed in the writing of a number of these letters and petitions, their perspectives have been discounted as non-authentic and therefore initially discarded from serious consideration by the relevant authorities.30 The next section proposes a way to avoid or balance this attitude by focusing on the writing process of the petition to Queen Victoria by the free inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land 1846, on the knowledge of petitioning as a form of negotiation, and by suggesting some elements for consideration when addressing the collaborative writing process of other petitions.

27 William Westgarth, Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria, Melbourne, George Robertson and Co., 1848, p.118, in Harris, One Blood, pp. 138-9. 28 Petition of the Gurindji people to Lord Casey, Governor General, 19 April 1967, reproduced in Attwood and Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 224. 29 Ibid., p. 225. 30 Apart from the example of the 1846 petition from Flinders Island, also the Coranderrk petitions of the 1880s and 1890s and the Yirrkala bark petition of 1963 incurred in a reception marked by the belief that “white stirrers” or “trouble makers” had instigated and influenced them. See among others, van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 137-139, 143, 144-46 and Harris, One Blood, pp. 844.

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3.3. Petitioning the Queen from Van Diemen’s Land: recalling a compact through instances of collaboration

Before addressing the collaboration involved in producing the petition to Queen Victoria, I would like to situate it within the historical context in which it took place. This will offer some insights from a contractarian perspective. In Van Diemen’s Land, the first British settlements were established in the early years of the 19th century. From the mid-1820s, the escalation of violent conflict between the original inhabitants and British settlers31 had led to what became known as the Black War, or a Seven Years War (1824-1831).32 Governor George Arthur, in order to end the conflict, sought to open “conciliatory communication with the Aborigines”33 and appointed George Augustus Robinson to the task.34 The Friendly Mission carried out the “negociation [sic] with certain aboriginal tribes” and the “temporary separation of the coloured from the British population” that Governor Arthur had envisaged.35 These negotiations were carried out with the crucial diplomatic assistance of a heterogeneous group of Aborigines, among whom were Trugannini, her husband Woorrady, Pagerly, Dray, Kickerterpoller, Manalargenna and Tanleeboneyer. Trugannini explained that her reason to join the expeditions was the hope that “we would save all my people that were left.”36

Historian Henry Reynolds in particular, but also James Boyce and Lyndall Ryan have highlighted the existence of an agreement,37 indeed referred to by Robinson as a “compact”,38 which induced Tasmanian Aborigines to agree to temporarily leave their

31 James Boyce, “What Business Have You here?” in Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton (eds.), First Australians, Carlton, Miegunyah Press, pp. 73-84; N.J.B. Plomley, The Aboriginal Settler Clash in Van Diemens Land, 1803-1831, Launceston, Queen Victoria Museum, 1992. 32 Clive Turnbull, Black War, Melbourne and London, F.W. Cheshire, 1948; Plomley, Aboriginal Settler Clash, p. 6; Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, Camberwell, Penguin, 2004 (1995), ch.2-4. 33 Quoted in Henry Reynolds, A History of Tasmania, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 69. 34 Ibid, p. 70. 35 Governor Arthur, quoted in Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 105. See also N.J.B. Plomley, Friendly Mission. The Tasmanian Journals and Papers of George Augustus Robinson, 1829-1834, Kingsgrove, Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1966; Boyce, “What Business”, pp. 84-92. 36 Trugannini in a conversation to J.E. Calder, quoted in Reynolds, History of Tasmania, p. 75. 37 Reynolds, History of Tasmania, pp. 74-79; Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, ch. 5; Boyce, “What Business”, pp. 87-88; Ryan, Aboriginal Tasmanians, p.182; Ryan opens chapter 12, “Flinders Island 1835- 39: False Hopes and Broken Promises” quoting Robinson: “In my conferences with them I have been scrupolously tenacious in keeping my word. The tribes knew when in their own districts they would be sent to an island, where they would be secure from the attack of the depraved portion of the white population and where they would enjoy uninterrupted tranquillity in the society of their kindred and friends, their wants and necessities were to be amply supplied in addition to which they were to enjoy their native amusements. Moreover their customs were to be respected, and not broken into by any rash or misguided interference.” 38 Quoted in Reynolds, History of Tasmania, p. 78.

66 lands: Robinson recorded in his journal in 1831 the conversation he had with Mannalargenna, leader and elder of the Oyster Bay people:

I informed him in the presence of Kickerterpoller that I was commissioned by the governor to inform them that if the natives would desist from their wonted outrages upon the whites, they would be allowed to remain in their respective districts and would have flour, tea and sugar, clothes &c given them; that a good white man would dwell with them who would take care of them and would not allow any bad white man to shoot them, and he would go with them about the bush like myself and they then could hunt.

Following these “conciliatory” measures, and a meeting of Manallargenna with Governor Arthur in Launceston in October 1831,39 two hundred and forty-two Indigenous people from different regions of Tasmania were relocated to Flinders Island,40 one of the islands of the Fourneaux Group in Bass Strait that was chosen amongst others as the most suitable, for a settlement.41 Historian N.J.B. Plomley recounts the history of this settlement, which was called Wybalenna, literally “Black Men’s Houses.”42 While George August Robinson was Superintendent at Wybalenna from 1835 to 1839, he applied some principles of representative government. Plomely points out that “the most important of Robinson’s initiatives at ‘Wybalenna’ was to give Aborigines themselves some part in the conduct of their own affairs. He did this by appointing constables from among the natives to keep order, and in allowing the chiefs to administer the law as it applied to them.”43 In the

39 Reynolds, History of Tasmania, p. 78; Boyce, “What Business”, p. 88. Reynolds interrogates the silence of official records concerning the meeting itself. 40 The relocation occurred mainly in the period from 1831 to 1834. See Harris, One Blood, p. 97: “Robinson (...) brought in [on Flinders Island] fifty-four people by 1831, a further sixty-three in 1832, forty-two in 1833 and the remainder, seventy-six, in 1834 (although to everyone’s amazement, seven more turned up in 1842).” James Boyce explains that “once the west coast people were removed, only a few Aboriginal people remained free. Most of these people, desperate to be reunited with family and community, agreed to be removed during 1835; (...) at least one family (...) stayed in the bush until 1842, when they too were taken to Flinders Island.” (Boyce, “What Business”, p. 92 and pp. 84-92). Reynolds mentions two-hundred and twenty as the figure of those who were transported to Flinders Island (Reynolds, History of Tasmania, p. 79). 41 Other locations that had been considered and tried were Swan Island, Gun Carriage Island and “The Lagoons” on Flinders Island. See N.J.B. Plomley, Weep in Silence. A History of the Flinders Island Aboriginal Settlement, Hobart, Blubber Head Press, 1987, ch.3-4. 42 Plomley, Weep in Silence, ch.5-6. 43 Ibid., p. 98.

67 meantime, however, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and epidemics of influenza, had caused the death of many of those who had been relocated on the island.44

After Robinson’s departure, the settlement declined and among the superintendents that followed, Dr Jeanneret took up the position on 15 June 1842. About a year and a half later, on 21 November 1843, he was dismissed as unsuitable.45 Not accepting his dismissal, however, he sought to be re-appointed and compensated (by petitioning the Secretary of State), and early in January 1846, official news of his re-appointment reached the settlement.46 On 18 February 1846, “a number of Aborigines male and female” handed to Superintendent Joseph Milligan “a Memorial to the Queen”,47 which objected to Jeanneret’s return. The petition reads as follows:

To Her Majesty Queen Victoria, the Queen of England & V.D. Land &c. &c. &c.

The humble petition of the free Aborigines Inhabitants of V.D.L. now living upon Flinders Island, in Bass’s Straits &. &c. &c.

Most humbly showeth,

That we Your Majesty's Petitioners are your free Children that we were not taken Prisoners but freely gave up our Country to Colonel Arthur then the Gov.r after defending ourselves.

Your Petitioners humbly state to Y[our] M[ajesty] that Mr. Robinson made for us & with Col. Arthur an agreement which we have not lost from our minds since & we have made our part of it good.

Your Petitioners humbly tell Y.M. that when we left our own place we were plenty of People, we are now but a little one.

Your Petitioners state they are a long time at Flinders Island & had plenty of Supd'ts & were always a quiet & free People & not put into Gaol.

44 According to Stokes, by 1842, 150 Tasmanian Aborigines had already died. Quoted in Turnbull, Black War, p. 222. See also Plomley, “Aftermath” in Friendly Mission, p. iv. 45 Plomley, Weep in Silence, p. 143. According to Governor Eardley-Wilmot, his dismissal had been “long intended and long arranged” (Ibid.) 46 Ibid., p. 148. 47 Quotes from copy of Joseph Milligan to Colonial Secretary, Flinders Island, 18 February 1846, (correspondence enclosing the petition), Tasmanian Archives Office, CSO 11/26/378.

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Your Majesty's Petitioners pray that you will not allow Dr. Jeanneret to come again among us as our Supdt as we hear he is to be sent another time for when Dr. Jeanneret was with us many Moons he used to carry Pistols in his pockets & threaten’d very often to shoot us & make us run away in a fright. Dr. Jeanneret kept plenty of Pigs in our Village which used to run into our houses & eat up our bread from the fires & take away our flour bags in their mouths also to break into our Gardens & destroy our Potatoes & Cabbages.

Our houses were let fall down & they were never cleaned but were covered with vermin & not white-washed. We were often without Clothes except a very little one & Dr. Jeanneret did not care to mind us when we were sick until we were very bad. Eleven of us died when he was here. He put many of us into Jail for talking to him because we would not be his slaves. He kept from us our Rations when he pleased & sometimes gave us Bad Rations of Tea & Tobacco. He shot some of our dogs before our eyes & sent all the other dogs of ours to an Island & when we told him that they would starve he told us that they might eat each other. He put arms into our hands & made us to assist his prisoners to go to fight the Soldiers we did not want to fight the Soldiers but he made us go to fight.48 We never were taught to read or write or to sing to God by the Doctor. He taught us a little upon the Sundays & his Prisoner Servant also taught us & his Prisoner Servant also took us plenty of times to Jail by his orders.

The Lord Bishop seen us in this bad way & we told H[is] L[ordship] plenty how Dr. Jeanneret used us.

We humbly pray Your Majesty the Queen will hear our prayer and not let Dr Jeanneret any more to come to Flinders Island. And We Y.M’s servants & Children will ever pray as in duty bound &c &c &c

/Sd/ Walter G. Arthur /Sd/ King Alexander

Chief of the Ben Lomond Tribes Augustus

John Allan King Tippoo

Davey Bruney Washington

Neptune49

48 At Wybalenna a number of convicts and soldiers were also present. According to the findings of the inquiry held by Matthew Friend after the petition was submitted, Jeanneret, “assembled all the whites and some of the blacks” to free one of his servants who had been unlawfully jailed by the soldiers (see Plomley, Weep in Silence, p. 155). 49 Petition of the free Aborigines of V.D.L. now living upon Flinders Island, to H.M. Queen Victoria, 17 February 1846, Flinders Island, Colonial Secretary’s Office, General Correspondence CSO11/26, file 378,

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From a contractarian perspective, it is noteworthy to observe how “the compact” or agreement that had been entered into with representatives of the British colonial government is mentioned in the very first opening lines of the petition. Implicitly (or quite explicitly?) it calls for the upholding of that agreement. The paragraph that follows, concerning the decline in number of their people, also (discreetly) draws attention to a governmental failure to guarantee the preservation of life which would have been central to the acceptance - by the Tasmanian Aborigines - of the conciliatory mission. The narrative that follows, which outlines the grievances against the superintendent, shows forms of “domination” - grounded in the use of jailing, withholding of rations, coercion - that the petitioners clearly object to.

Critical reception of this petition has changed over the years. On one hand, in the late 1940s, Clive Turnbull had deemed it as “worthless”, seeing it as the result of the “apparent inspiration” of Dr J. Milligan, and displaying “a great deal of false naivete”50 (the sentence of the petition he chose to illustrate the “false naivete” being “when we left our place we were plenty of People, we are now but a little one”51). Plomley too, in the mid 1980s, considered the petition and the letters of protest that followed it, as largely “instigated” by another white officer who resided on the settlement, catechist Robert Clark,52 and that the Aborigines “were used by agitators,”53 among whom he included Walter George Arthur. However, he shows awareness that it was “an unprecedented step in colonial history.”54

On the other hand, Henry Reynolds discussed in detail the scope of this petition in his Fate of a Free People (1995), highlighting “the underlying assumptions and implicit [Aboriginal] historical interpretation the document embodies.”55 He focused on “the idea of a verbal treaty” and proposed that “the Tasmanians thought of themselves as a free people who had left their homelands as a result of an agreement with Governor Arthur and had not been taken prisoners.”56 He defined the petition therefore as “one of the most important, as well as one of the most neglected, documents relating to the history of

Tasmanian Archives Office. Davey Bruny, among the signatories, was the son of Woorady (Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p.13). 50 Clive Turnbull, Black War, p. 224. 51 Ibid. His version has it ending as “(…) we now but a little one.” 52 Plomley, Weep in Silence, p. 155. 53 Ibid. On p. 152, he also writes: “it is obvious that the petition was fashioned for the Aborigines.” 54 Ibid, p. 148. 55 Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 9. 56 Ibid. p. xxii.

70 relations between Indigenous and immigrants Australians.”57 Specifically, he reported the evidence given by Davey Bruny, son of Woorady, and by Walter George Arthur, the main signatory of the petition, at the inquiry that followed the submission of the petition: both testified to their complete awareness of the content of the petition and their agency in its preparation.58

In the literary field, Penny van Toorn has addressed it as a particular form of life writing, “life writing as political and legal supplication”59 and as a “communally generated story about the community’s experience.”60 Today this petition is included in collections such as Documents that Shaped Australia. Records of a Nation’s Heritage (2010) and in Struggle for Aboriginal Rights (1999) by Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus.61 Ricky Maynard, a leading Indigenous documentary photographer based on Flinders Island, chose to accompany one of his black and white photographic works with the same sentence Clive Turnbull had chosen: “when we left our own place we were plenty of People, we are now but a little one.”62 The choice of the same sentence by the historian and the photographer shows how different the interpretation of a text can be. By 1846, when the petition was written, out of the 247 Tasmanian Aborigines relocated to Flinders Island, only 47 had survived.

These shifts in the critical appraisal of the petition suggest the importance of considering collaboration not in terms of “instigation” but rather, a strategic political move designed to overcome the technical difficulties impacting on the effort to establish a dialogue with the highest authority. Surviving documents related to the production of this petition provide an insight into the process of collaboration involved in its making and an examination of such a process will be useful in understanding instances of collaborative textual practices and in assisting an accurate reading of the petition.

57 Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 7. 58 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 59 Penny Van Toorn, “Indigenous Australian life writing. Tactics and transformations” in Bain Attwood and Fiona Magowan (eds.), Telling Stories. Indigenous history and memory in Australia and New Zealand, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2001, pp. 8-12. 60 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 122. 61 John Roberts Thompson, Documents that Shaped Australia. Records of a Nation’s Heritage, Sydney, Pier 9, 2010, p. 109-111; Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 38-39. 62 Ricky Maynard, Portrait of a Distant Land, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2009. The exhibition will be at Brisbane in April/May 2012. His work testifies to the survival and history of his people, the Ben Lomond and Cape Portland peoples of Tasmania.

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3.3.1. Knowledge of petitioning and Collaboration as technical assistance

In order to better contextualise the collaboration that took place in the writing of this petition, I would like to first show how, before the petition was written, the practice of petitioning was known amongst a number of the petition’s future signatories. The names of Arthur [most likely Walter George Arthur], Alexander, Neptune, Tippoo and Washington - that is, five of the eight signatories to the petition to the Queen - feature amongst the thirty signatories to a petition sent by George Augustus Robinson to the Colonial Secretary on 12 August 1838. This petition, witnessed by four officials,63 recorded the people’s “free and unequivocal consent”, as Robinson put it, to follow him to Port Phillip, where he would have wished to relocate more of the residents of Flinders Island.64 The petition reads as follows:

Flinders Island,

12 August 1838

We, the undersigned Aboriginal Natives of Van Diemen’s Land and now residing on Flinders Island, testify, on behalf of ourselves and our families, that we are not only willing but perfectly desirous to accompany the Commandant, G.A. Robinson, to Port Phillip, from whom we do not wish to be separated:

Alexander, Alphonso, Arthur, Alpha [Wooreddy], Achilles, Andrew, Ajax, Alfred, Buonaparte, Edward, Edmond, Eugene, Frederick, King George, Henry, Hannibal, Joseph, James, Leonidas, Napoleon, Neptune, Noemy, PeterPindar, Phillip, Robert, Robinson, George, Tippoo Saib, Thomas, Washington.

M. Walsh, M.D., Medical Officer. Witness- Robert Clark, Storekeeper65

63 See Memorandum, 12 August 1838, signed by the Medical Officer, M. Walsh, the Storekeeper, Robert Clarke, the Chaplain, Thomas Dove and by the Jr Superintendent, G. A. Robinson; reproduced in Turnbull, Black War, p. 203. 64 See Lyndall Ryan, The Aboriginal Tasmanians, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1981, pp. 192- 193. 65 Petition from Alexander and others to Colonial Secretary, 12 August 1838, reproduced in Turnbull, Black War, p. 202. The words “his mark” and a mark follow each name.

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The fact that witnesses were present and that a considerable number of the community signed it with their marks, suggests that before 1846 the community on Flinders Island was becoming acquainted with the use and process of petitioning and of the use of witnesses to bear testimony to official documents addressed to higher authorities. Oral petitioning was also employed on Flinders Island. With a certain note of annoyance, Robinson records in his journal, “King William & King George both have importuned me to leave this place of sickness and saying what do you mean to stay till all the black men are dead.”66

Among other instances in which petitioning was referred to, was in early December 1837, when a young Thomas Brune67 wrote on The Flinders Weekly Chronicle,68

The brig Tamar arrived this morning at Green Island. (…) Let us hope it will be good news and that something may be done for us poor people. They are dying away. The Bible says some or all shall be saved but I am much afraid none of us will be alive by and by nothing but sick men amongst us. Why don’t the black-fellows pray to the King to get us away from this place.69

Closer to the date when the petition was written, in November 1845, Walter George Arthur wrote to George Washington Walker, a prominent Quaker humanitarian who had been in contact with the settlement’s residents, and stated, “(…) the Blacks would all petition the governor to get land to earn for themselves but they are afraid.”70

The examples outlined above, centred on requests to leave Flinders Island as well as to obtain some land to accomplish self-sufficiency provide evidence that knowledge about

66 Quoted in N.J.B. Plomley, “Aftermath” in Friendly Mission, p. iv. 67 Thomas Brune was born on Bruny Island, 1820/23 and had been educated to the Hobart Orphan School. (see van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 105. 68 The Flinders Island Chronicle was a manuscript paper, priced two pence. which appeared every Saturday from September 1837 to January 1838. Its objective was “to promote Christianity and civilisation and learning amongst the Aboriginal Inhabitants [and] be a brief but accurate register of the events of the colony moreal and religious.” Quoted in Lyndall Ryan, The Aboriginal Tasmanians, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1981, p. 187; see also van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 103-106, 116, 119, 122. 69 Flinders Island Chronicle, 7 December 1837, quoted in several sources: Michael Rose (ed.) For the Record: 160 years of Aboriginal print journalism, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1996, p. 18; Lyndall Ryan, The Aboriginal Tasmanian, p. 190. 70 Walter George Arthur to George Washington Walker, 30 November 1845, quoted in Ryan, Aboriginal Tasmanians, p. 195; see also Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 12 and Mary Bartram Trott, “Walker, George Washington (1800 - 1859),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, pp. 562-563.

73 petitioning and about the British colonial political system had been circulating on Flinders Island prior to 1846. This fact supports the view that the initiative in petitioning the Queen could well have belonged to the petitioners.71

I will move now to consider the collaboration that took place in order to overcome the technical difficulties related to the form and presentation of the petition. Considering that a petition not properly worded or not properly presented would have incurred the risk of not being received and therefore of not being considered, collaboration was essential. Henry Reynolds has outlined how the petition came about by examining correspondence files and documents generated during the inquiry conducted by colonial government representatives following the presentation of the petition.72 Extending his discussion, it is possible to focus on important aspects of the collaborative production of the petition.

On 17 February 1846 the future key signatories of the petition presented a letter to the Superintendent of Flinders Island settlement, Joseph Milligan,73 requesting him to provide them with specific assistance in order to draw up a petition to be presented to the head of the British Empire:

71 Specific knowledge of petitioning could have come from direct contact with white officials, missionaries and humanitarians; petitions being published in colonial newspapers, they were also available to be read by those who could read and had access to newspapers. 72 Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, pp. 11-15. 73 Joseph Milligan occupied the position of “superintendent and medical officer of the Aboriginals” from December 1843 to 1855, “except for the period April 1846 to May 1847 when he was visiting magistrate and medical officer at the short-lived second penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour.” W. G. Hoddinott, “Milligan, Joseph (1807 - 1884)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, pp. 230-231.

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Sir,

We the free Aborigines people of V.D.L. do hereby request of you to order the Cathechist Mr Clark to draw up for us a petition to the Queen Majesty of England for us. That she will not let Dr Jeanneret come to Flinders Island again to be our Supdt [Superintendent]. We will tell Mr Clark what he will write for us in the petition as we are not able any of us [my emphasis] and request you order Mr Clark to do it and such of us as can write a little will write our names to it for all the people wish it to be sent to the Gov.r [Governor] to send it to England to H.M. the Queen whom we all love.

We remain,

Walter George Arthur Frederick74 Chief of the Ben Lomond Tribe King Tippo King Alexander Augustus Davey Bruney John Allan Washington75

This letter foregrounds the different roles and moments involved in the writing process: petitioner’s initiative (‘We will tell Mr Clark what he will write for us..’.), clerical assistance (‘...as we are not able any of us...’), a person of authority to command such assistance (the Superintendent to whom the letter was addressed), and the representativeness of the signatories (‘..such of us as can write a little will write our names to it for all the people wish it to be sent to the Gov.r to send it to England to H.M. the Queen...’) [my emphases]. Though the presence of these elements may vary according to the circumstances, they can be used as analytical tools to highlight possible subdivisions of the writing process.76

74 The name Frederick is the only one not to appear among the signatures of the 1846 petition. The name of Neptune, instead, features on the petition but not on the letter under consideration. 75 Walter George Arthur and others to Joseph Milligan, 17 February 1846, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, CSO/11/26/378/ 10-11. 76 As we consider for instance the previously mentioned 1967 petition from the Gurindji people, we can distinguish the following points: a) the reinforcement of the fact that the words of the petition do indeed proceed from the Indigenous petitioners (‘These are our wishes’); b) the acknowledgement of the presence of assistance (‘...which have been written down for us by our undersigned white friends...’); c) the presumable absence of a person in a higher hierarchical position commanding such assistance to be provided; d) the representativeness of the signatories, marked by the numerous ‘we’ and ‘our’ in the text of the petition.

75

Fig. 3.1. Copy of the letter from Walter George Arthur and others to Joseph Milligan, Flinders Island, 17 February 1846 [CSO11/26/378]. Courtesy of Tasmanian Archive & Heritage Office.

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Following the receipt of the above letter, Joseph Milligan immediately contacted Robert Clark. The former Superintendent of Flinders Island indicated to Clark the basis upon which assistance was to be provided both on a theoretical and practical level:

Flinders Island, 17 Feby 1846

Sir,

I have this instant received from the Aborigine Walter G. Arthur a letter signed by a number of the Blackmen requesting me to order “the Catechist Mr Clark to draw up a Petition for them to the Queen’s Majesty of England that she will not let Dr Jeanneret come again to Flinders Island to be their Supdt”. As all classes of the Queen’s subjects have an equal & undoubted right to petition H.M. & as I would not willingly, by throwing any difficulty or obstacle in the way of a Petition from the Aborigines of V.D.L., damp this almost the first evidence of their appreciation of the nature & value of civilized institutions & Gov.mt irrespective of their being now any real or urgent grounds for their application, I hereby authorize & direct you to comply with their request. At the same time I desire that you will as nearly as you possibly can embody their own express ideas in fit words for the occasion & that you will even adapt as far as practicable their own peculiar modes of expression. I have also particularly to impress upon you to see that no compulsion or undue force be used to induce any of the Black people to sign the document when completed. It is desirable that a petition so unique in all its circumstances should be quite spontaneous & in every respect genuine whatever its defects may be in point of form,

I am, .... Joseph Milligan77

On a theoretical level, compliance with the request of William George Arthur and his seven co-signatories was compelled by the “right to petition” they enjoyed as subjects of the Queen. Moreover, from Milligan’s point of view, petitioning the government was significant in that it symbolized the involvement of the petitioners with (colonial) “civilized institutions and governments” - a fact which could have implied the “progress” - among many failures - achieved since their confinement on Flinders Island since 1833. From this point of view Milligan’s letter bears evidence of the status of Aboriginal people

77 Joseph Milligan to Cathechist Robert Clark, 17 February 1846, CSO 11/26/378.

77 as contracting agents working within the official processes of colonial bureaucracy and British law.

On a practical level, the petitioners’ “express ideas” and “peculiar modes of expressions” were in Milligan’s view more important than “defects ... in point of form.” However, these ideas had to be “embodied” in “fit words for the occasion.” The interplay between these two polarities - the precise ideas and language of the Indigenous petitioners on one side and considerations of propriety or “fitness” to official communication on the other - results in the text of the petition. This interaction can be included within the elements to be aware of and/or address when reading a petition produced with clerical assistance.

Two individual petitions from the Northern Territory, addressed in October 1910 and 1915 to the Governor of South Australia, later under consideration of the Commonwealth Government, provide a case in point. The petitioners’ words are highlighted by a clear shift in language which marks the individual voices of the petitioners by maintaining traits differing from standard English. Also in this case “defects ... in point of form” are second to the “peculiar modes of expression” of the petitioners Charlie, Combit and Donah and to the story they wished to tell.78

Returning to the petition to the Queen, Joseph Milligan highlighted, towards the end of his letter, the relevance of the petition being “spontaneous” and “in every respect genuine.” One of the meanings of “genuine” is “actually produced by or proceeding from the alleged source or author.”79 This meant that genuineness, and therefore authenticity, could be achieved, as directed, by maintaining as closely as possible the precise ideas and language of the petitioners. In such a way, words could proceed from the petitioners and find a fixed form in writing. In the process, the absence of constraint or force in both writing the petition and signing it assured that it was “spontaneous.”

78 See. “Cumbit, Donah and Charley, Aboriginals sentenced to imprisonment for life Petittion for Release”, NAA, A3, NT 1918/2640, p. 17 and p. 29, digital copy accessible on the National Archives of Australia website, http://www.naa.gov.au. I further develop this point in the following chapter. 79 My emphasis. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary 2009, entry for “genuine.” http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/genuine.

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An insight into how clerical assistance was specifically given is offered by Catechist Robert Clark himself in his deposition to the inquiry which followed the dispatch of the petition:

When I wrote the Petition to the Queen I had from their mouths the nature of their grievances which I embodied as nearly as possible in their style and modes of expression and in presence of each other with the exception of Tippo who was lying unwell and not there. I read over a rough draft after having written it, I then made a fair copy and gave it to some of them. Some signed it in my presence and others I believe in the presence of each other, the fair copy was read over to all of them by myself and they understood it, of that I have no doubt whatsoever, they came to my house, it was no seeking of mine that they wrote the Petition - all the Aborigines who signed the Petition could not write their names without pencilling which was the method I had adopted at the time to teach them to write but W.G. Arthur, Davey Bruny and Augustus could sign and did so with their own names.80

If we isolate the stages which brought the text of the petition to its final form in this case, we can identify the following: a) a first stage where an account of “the nature of the grievances” is received by the clerk from the mouth of the petitioners; b) a second stage where such grievances are embodied “as nearly as possible” in the “style and modes of expression” of the petitioners; c) the physical presence of the petitioners while their words are being “embodied” in written English; d) a stage of preparing and reading a “rough draft” of the petition to all the petitioners; e) making sure they understand its content; f) the stage of making and giving a “fair copy” of the petition to the petitioners; g) the final stage of signing the fair copy, in presence of the clerk or of each other.

The oral utterance of the grievances is given a written form in the presence of the petitioners themselves; the first “embodiment” of such grievances (the “rough draft”) is shared with all the petitioners and the final version is then signed. The physical presence of the petitioners in this process is therefore a key element which accompanies the actual writing of the petition. I will discuss in Chapter 5 how the lack of this presence can affect a petition’s reception. In addition, it is noteworthy to remember that a similar practice was in

80 CSO 11/27/658, p. 137-8 in Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 13.

79 place in the Legislative Council when bills before the Governor and Council were the object of petitions. In cases where “individual rights or interests” could be affected, “all persons concerned” could be called in to be examined. Their answers would be “taken down by the Clerk, and read over to the Witness, who may then desire any correction to be made, and in case no such correction shall be made, such answer should stand, and shall not afterwards be altered.”81

Signing, finally, had a particular importance. In societies where literacy was achieved only partially, signing was an “intermediary and autonomous cultural practice”, a competence which enabled those who possessed it “to face certain minimal exigencies of public life (...) knowing how to write one’s name - even knowing simply how to draw it - (...) [was] sufficient to be in a certain way within the world of writing, in its configuration at the time.”82 It was a practice that could enable participation in contractual performances. Signing a petition meant supporting the views expressed in it with a symbol of one’s identity. On the other hand, it also meant exposing oneself. Dr Jeanneret, who had resumed in position on 15 March 1846, imprisoned Walter George Arthur for seventeen days “in an attempt to make him renounce the petition” - in clear disregard of British law, which explicitly regarded as illegal “all commitments and prosecutions” for petitioning the king.83 Other residents recorded the threats they were exposed to. Mary Anne Arthur, Walter’s wife, wrote to the Colonial Secretary in June, about Jeanneret frightening them because of their “writing to the Queen”.84 King Alphonso and King Alexander too wrote to the Governor on the same month, stating, “Dr Jeanneret fight me King Alexander a big one for me write my name to petition to the Queen (…) for he want blackfellow to say they write lies we tell him all the petition is true.”85 Clark’s clerical assistance enabled compliance with the conventions of petition writing and, at the same time, was directed at preserving the words of the petitioners. Contemporary correspondence and documents corroborating the petitioners’ narrative, or parts of it, testify to Clark’s attempt of

81 Rules and Orders for the Proceedings of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, “Petitions”, passed on 26 April 1830, in NSW Legislative Council Votes and Proceedings 1824-31, Votes and Proceedings 1832- 37, Sydney, Government Printing Office, 1846, p. 2. (Parliamentary Archive, Parliament House, Sydney) I would like to thank the Manager of the Parliamentary Archives, Mr Robert Lawrie for his assistance. 82 Daniele Marchesini, Il Bisogno di Scrivere, Bari, Laterza, 1992, p. 15. 83 The Bill of Rights, 1689, stated “That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.” 84 Mary Anne Arthur to Colonial Secretary, 10 June 1846, quoted in Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 14. See also in CSO 11/26/378. 85 King Alphonso and King Alexander to the Governor, Colonial Secretary, Flinders Island, 19th June 1846, in CSO 11/26/378.

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“embodying” their words as closely as he could in a “fit” language. As a number of other following petitions suggests, such a practice was followed also afterwards.

Penny van Toorn, who stressed the tactical aspect of the petition - its conformity to norms of official communication and its appeal to commonly held humanitarian principles - suggested that requesting the service of Mr Clark might have originated in a wish to preserve the authority of the document.86 She considers the “communal voice” of the petition not completely autonomous in that “out of political necessity the document was created with the help of, and for the eyes of, a series of white officials occupying positions of institutionalised power.87 Although it is true that different levels of constraints might be at play during the process of petition writing, I tend to view these as part of the political nature of petitions, also when they are written by groups considered as “subaltern” or subordinated. It is undeniable nevertheless that petition writers within a “dominated collectivity” would generally experience a higher level of risk and possible repercussions - as well as logistic difficulties - than people within the dominant culture.

I have here focussed mainly on the collaboration between petitioners and scribe in the textual production of the petition to the Queen and on the possible light this sheds on the writing process of petitions by indigenous people at large. We have seen how it is possible to subdivide the writing process into different moments: initiative, request of assistance, authorization and direction of assistance, assistance, and endorsement by signature. I have also noted how clerical assistance involved, in the case examined, the physical presence of the petitioners during the composition of the petition, and its reading and signing (at least partially). And we have observed how the words of the petitioners were “embodied” in an officially written form. Collaboration, nevertheless, occurred at different levels, among the petitioners themselves in the first place.

86 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 121. 87 Ibid, p. 122.

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The letter briefly referred to above, co-written by petitioner King Alexander - who probably had spent some time at Hobart’s Boys’ Orphan School88 - and King Alphonso, addressed to the Governor (“good Father the Gov.r”), well exemplifies this collaboration. The text of the letter reads as follows:

Flinders Island 19th June [1846]

King Alphonso King Alexander to good Father the Gov.r of the big river the our country we love you good Gov.r, thank you plenty for fine one (...) Me Alexander Me Alphonso tell Gov.r we wan we want Clothes[,] we no like to be naked like long time ago in the bush[,] we wild man that time[,] we all naked very soon. Dr Jeanneret tell us give us no clothes three moons he be here he give black woman that work plenty in his Paddock one red shirt no more he give black men clothes. Dr. Jeanneret talk a big one[,] tell black fellows all[,] he no give us clothes[,] we tell you Gov.r he want to make us work to much a long way in his garden. He tell that Gov.r write him make black fellows work for him for their clothes that come by the ships[;] we tell Gov.r we work plenty in our garden fine one[,] that no good work for Dr Jeanneret[,] he grumble to much[,] we no lazy we like to work[,] Alphonso say he a sick man plenty to much [illigile] what that he do for to keep him warm[,] he no able to work a big one Dr Jeanneret fight me King Alexander a big one for me write my name to petition to the Queen what the for he want blackfellow to say they write lies we tell him all the petition is true but he say he no care for you Gov.r Queen take care of him they white and black man altogether. Alphonso & Alexander want a fine man here who will not let Dr. Jeanneret put us in jail when he like no let him stop our rations no grumble no let us get salt bulls beef we no like that to eat we throw that away & no frighen us to much Alexander wife good woman Alphonso wife good woman[;] all love Gov.r would like to see gov.r plenty[;] King Alexander want to go to Hobart Town[,] will Gov.r tell him he may go for a little while & see good Gov.r King Alexander & King Alphonso love the good Gov.r a big one is Gov.r Children Me write myself King Alexander me write myself King Alphonso.89

Colonial Secretary Hobart Town

88 Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 16. 89 King Alphonso and King Alexander to the Governor, Flinders Island 19th June 1846, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, CSO 11/26/378.

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This letter, which espouses and explains some of the grievances advanced in the petition, attests to the fact that the grievances mentioned, did indeed derive from some of the petitioners themselves. The sentence ‘We were often without Clothes except a very little one’, found in the petition to the Queen, is here reiterated in a request - ‘we want clothes’ - and the reasons behind the request are explained. The motives offered in explanation and justification of their request in fact provide an insight into the petitioners’ perceptions of clothing and nakedness after roughly 30 to 40 years of more sustained contact with white settlers, convicts, pastoralists, sealers, officers and missionaries. Further, the narrative surrounding clothing supply in exchange of work, highlights the difficulties experienced by sick men - like Alphonso - compelled to work to receive a few clothes to keep themselves warm.

The letter also provides the petitioners’ view of the Queen as invested of an overarching power superior to that of the Governor and the Superintendent and reaching white and black subjects alike (“Queen take care of him they white and black man altogether’ [my emphasis]). The oral registry of much of the letter (“Me Alexander Me Alphonso tell Govr”, “we tell you Gov.r”, “Alphonso say”) is consistent with the rapidity with which the writer(s) had to pass from an oral to a written code of communication. The former is then often present in the latter and at times sentences seem to flow into one another. As it appears clear by a comparison with the text of the petition itself other questions arise in both texts: the use of detention, fear, withholding of rations, food quality, and the desire of “a fine man” who would not act as his predecessor. They both highlight, that is, aspects of a domination contract in place that they are seeking to change.

Conclusions

The petition was forwarded to the Colonial Secretary on 18 February 1846 and to London in August. A colonial government inquiry, conducted by Launceston port-officer Matthew Friend in October the same year, determined that the Aborigines were “certainly acquainted with the purpose of the petition.”90 The Secretary of State for the Colonies, Earl

90 Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, pp. 7, 15; Plomley, Weep in Silence, pp. 154-155.

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Grey, presented the petition to Queen Victoria, who received it “graciously” in March 1847.91 Soon afterwards, a dispatch informed the colonial government “to prepare for the removal of the Aboriginal community from Flinders Island.”92 The dismissal of Jeanneret was ordered early in May93 and the remaining residents of Flinders Island left towards Oyster Cove on 15 October 1847, where they were (quite ironically) relocated at an abandoned penal settlement.94 Although there were other factors impinging on these decisions (the removal from Flinders Island, for instance, had been contemplated since at least 183895), the petition seems to have been a precipitating factor.

In this chapter I have focused on the influence of orality on several instances of official communication and petitioning. I have discussed the initial fragmentary spread of English literacy in the early colonial period in New South Wales, and several instances of collaboration between Indigenous peoples and white officers and missionaries in presenting oral petitions or preparing, as on Flinders Island, a written petition. I have demonstrated how the presence of assistance per se in recording the petitioners’ concerns should not be regarded as invalidating a priori the content of petitions collaboratively produced. In general, careful research of the context in which each specific petition was written and signed is necessary and analysis of existing contemporary documents, especially from the main signatories if available, assist in determining whether the petition proceeded from the petitioners themselves and truthfully represented their views.

As the etymology of the word “to collaborate” implies, in order to collaboratively produce a text, it was necessary to work or to labor together, to com laborare. Crucial to this process was the physical proximity of those involved in the collaboration, as well as the exchange of information, knowledge, ideas and concerns that such proximity made possible. The labour of writing was a cultural and political work, and it may have led to, or contributed to, the development of Indigenous political subjectivities.

91 Quoted in Reynolds, Fate of a Free People, p. 7. 92 Ibid, p. 15. 93 Plomley, Weep in Silence, p. 160. 94 Ibid., p. 172. 95 Ryan, Aboriginal Tasmanians, p. 192.

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Chapter 4

Voices and Expressions:

Interrogating the Law, requesting Land and marking a Presence

This chapter investigates the collaborative production of petitions in colonial contexts where the presence of an introduced language and relations of domination and exclusion can hinder those who belong to the excluded and dominated group from voicing their grievances. I approach this issue by focusing on how Indigenous voices are expressed in five case studies where such collaboration took place in pre-Federation Western Australia and Queensland. The petitions featuring in the selected case studies are petitions I located during archival research conducted at the State Records Office of Western Australia and at Queensland State Archives and my discussion of them aims at illuminating the narrative they contain.

The first petition I discuss was submitted in 1845 by a magistrate of the Murray District, south of Perth. It differs from the other four petitions in that it intervenes on behalf of an Indigenous person who had been confined at Rottnest Island. It is a petition written and signed exclusively by non-Indigenous people and it is an example of how some of the

85 colonists belonging to the colonial legal system (justices of the peace and magistrates) interrogated the petitioned authority, and themselves, about the justice of applying the dominating legal system to a people who belonged to a different juridical imaginary and who were obeying a different law. By discussing contemporary accounts most likely related to the same case, I show how Wevar, a convicted Indigenous person, questioned how the white colonial system of justice was being applied to Indigenous people. With regards to the concept of voice, this case study reflects on the practical difficulties an Indigenous person would have encountered at that time in voicing his or her perspectives and assuming a political subjectivity in a formal approach to the authorities, if he/she had wished to do so. Finally, it also portrays the consideration of early settlers regarding what such perspectives could have been.

The second petition I examine was written in Queensland in 1864 by Henry William Coxen, an established pastoralist of the district of Darling Downs. It was written on behalf of Georgy, a young man who had been residing on his station and had been forcefully enrolled in the Native Police. By examining contemporary reports of the events narrated by Coxen in letters to The Courier, and comparing them to the narrative of the petition, I show the importance of the exchange of information between the Indigenous petitioner and the person aiding in the writing and presentation of the petition in order to achieve a shared objective: the protection of Georgy from the Native Police.

The third petition I present is a petition for a grant of land near Waneroo, Perth, subscribed by Tommy Dower and Jonny Carroll in 1886. This petition will be useful in showing how, although the expressions used in a petition may belong to non-Indigenous people, the request itself can still proceed from Indigenous people. The fourth petition I will discuss, also by Tommy Dower, was verbally communicated by him to the staff of The West Australian newspaper in 1893. It shows his ideas and expressive style recorded verbatim, and it is an early example of how the voice present in a petition reached a larger audience through the media.

The last petition I introduce for discussion is the petition that Tommy King presented in an important moment of the history of Western Australia. In the context of the public celebrations for the achievement of responsible government and for the proclamation of the new constitution of Western Australia in October 1890, this petition marks the

86 presence of those who had been excluded from participating in the establishment of the government and in its general rejoicing.

4.1. A petition to the Governor for clemency: white and black laws in early colonial Western Australia

At Perth court house in February 1842 the case Crown v Wewar became the precedent for the conviction of Western Australia’s Indigenous people for crimes committed inter se, or “tribal killings”.1 Wewar, found guilty of murder, was sentenced to be confined to Rottnest Island, which had become a penal establishment for Aboriginal people in 1839.2 During the crossing to the island, Wewar was accompanied by a civil engineer called Henry Trigg, who “(…) using a mixture of signs, English and dialect, discussed the killing and the sentence with the prisoner.”3 In a report to Governor John Hutt, Trigg stated that Wewar appeared to be saying:

I cannot understand why the Governor is sulky or severe with me, if a white man kills a white man we never interfere - sometime back the white man killed many of the natives and the Governor took no notice, now why should the Governor take any notice of me if I kill a fellow native who steals my wife, or kills my brother, when it is according to our law. I admit for me to kill a white man is wrong, but not for me to kill a man who kills my brother.4

Although Wewar’s voice is mediated through “signs, English and dialect” and his views are rendered in the civil engineer’s words, it is still possible to sense Wewar’s perception

1 Neville Green, “Aborigines and white settlers” in C.T. Stannage (ed.), A New History of Western Australia, Nedlands, University of Western Australia Press, 1981, p. 94. 2 There, according to Neville Green, the best of the Nyoongar people were detained, “[leaving] women vulnerable, wrongs unavenged, sacred areas unattended and the traditional life disoriented.” See Neville Green, “Aborigines and white settlers”, p. 93. 3 Ibid., p. 94. 4 Government Gazette, 11 February 1842, quoted in Neville Green, “Aborigines and white settlers”, p. 94.

87 of the ambiguity of colonial law and the actuality, for him, of the law and the jurisdictional rights of his people.

On 29 November 1845, the index to the Inward Correspondence of the Colonial Secretary’s Office records the Protector of Aborigines, Charles Symmons, enclosing a “Petition from Murray Settlers for release of Wi-eva”.5 Although it is not certain whether Wewar, of the case Crown v Wewar, is the same person as We-eva, their cases are very similar as the petition, which reads as follows, demonstrates:

We the undersigned inhabitants of the / Murray River and elsewhere beg leave to bring / before your Excellency ‘s attention the case / of the Native “We=eva” who has been confined / for some years past on Rottnest Island / for killing another Aboriginal Native / named “Dy=ang” who was related to “Ning=a=a[”] / the slayer of his nephew “Nin=da”, the offence having been committed comparatively at the / commencement of the time when the law / began to take notice of acts of violence committed/ by the Natives on each other; and we trust / that the punishment and sufferings which / the prisoner has undergone will be / sufficient to prevent his ever doing the like / again, or being connected with anything of the / sort; we would add that the man was / continually about our dwellings after / the affair perhaps in a measure unconscious of the serious danger he had brought himself into. /

We humbly pray that your / Excellency’s clemency may be exerted before / your departure from the Colony towards / him.

Fran [Francis] Corbet Singleton Resident [Magistrate of the Murray District]

W E Oakley Thomas Watson[?]

Joseph Cooper

Sam’ [Samuel] Ferguson

[..] H Bates A Armstrong

G M Bangles Frs F Armstrong

John Fairbairn J M Lavity

Charles Gentry

T Tichbourne Montgomery JP

5 State Records Office of Western Australia (SROWA), Colonial Secretary’s Office Subject Index to Inward Correspondence for the years 1844-1848.

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James Wright 6

Fig. 4.1. Petition from to the Governor for clemency towards We-eva, November 29, 1845. Courtesy of State Records Office of Western Australia.

This petition, headed by the signature of the Magistrate of the Murray District7 Francis Corbet Singleton and supported by the Justice of Peace, Tichbourne Montgomery, was

6 SROWA, CSO Inward Correspondence file, 1845. My gratitude to the staff of the State Records Office of Western Australia for their assistance in reading the signatures and identifying Francis Corbet Singleton as the local district magistrate.

89 written at a moment when the language barrier and the perception of Indigenous people and their culture and society as inferior, on the part of many in the white population, played an important role in impeding their free and independent access to, acquistion of and expression in English. Local magistrates and JPs were then in a position to act as interlocutors with the Governor, who oversaw the work of the Protectors of Aborigines.

As we will see also in the case of Coxen and Georgy, the writer of this petition had direct knowledge of the Indigenous person on behalf of whom the petition was being written. This knowledge underlies the request for clemency, which is supported by pointing out the ambiguous legal grounding upon which We-eva had been convicted and which had resulted in him being unaware, “perhaps in a measure unconscious” of having infringed white law.

From Mills’ contractarian perspective, we might consider this petition as originating from and operating within the dominating collectivity and calling the attention of the head of that same collectivity to what might have been the perspectives of people belonging to the dominated group at that particular time. It shows a willingness on the part of these few members of the dominating group to reconsider the settler colonial societal structure, from a legal and judicial perspective, in relation to the Indigenous societal and legal structures which preceded colonisation and within which Indigenous people were situated. The voice or perspective of We-eva, although technically absent, is here imagined by the magistrate and the signatories who ‘create a space’ so to speak, in which members of the dominated group might exist and be recognised as contractual agents, in order to have his point of view considered, his political rights respected and his conviction reconsidered.

4.2. Georgy, Coxen and the Native Police: The petition of Georgy an Aboriginal Native of the District of Darling Downs in the Colony of Queensland

I now refer to the collaboration of Georgy and H. William Coxen in the writing of Georgy’s petition requesting protection from the Native Police. This instance of

7 The Murray District is located 86 km south of Perth and was established by Sir Thomas Peel in 1834.

90 collaboration shows how different narratives can merge into the text of a petition and how the position and status of the non-Indigenous person assisting the petitioner can aid in achieving the intended results. In 1863, when the petition was written, Queensland had been separated from the colony of New South Wales for only four years. In 1861, Queensland’s newly constituted Parliament had called a Select Committee to inquire into the Native Police Force, whose legal standing was still uncertain.8 The report of the Select Committee that followed the enquiry stated that the recruits were intentionally selected from places located far away from those in which they would be stationed with the Native Police Force.9 Such had been Georgy’s case.

Henry William Coxen was a prominent pastoralist in Queensland, who had established himself in the Darling Downs, south-west Queensland, in the early 1840s.10 Georgy, described on the title of the petition as “an aboriginal native of the District of Darling Downs in the Colony of Queensland”, had lived “since his infancy”, with his family, on Coxen’ station.11 In 1861 he had been forcefully taken from the station by Lieutenant Carr of the Native Police and had been sent to Rockhampton, six-hundred kilometres north of Brisbane.12 This first event prompted Coxen to complain formally to the government; however communication reached Coxen that the boy preferred not to return to the station.13 However, Georgy, who had become known as Macbeth in the Native Police,14 did leave the force, and upon his return to the station, Coxen enquired into the reason why he had preferred not to come back earlier:

8 The Native Police Force had been active in Queensland since 1848. 9 See New South Wales Legislative Assembly, “Native police force: (correspondence relative to recruits for)”, Sydney, William Hanson, Govt. printer, 1858; Queensland Parliament Legislative Assembly, “Select Committee on Native Police Force and the Condition of the Aborigines Generally, Report from the Select Committee on the Native Police Force and the Condition of the Aborigines Generally together with the proceedings of the Committee and minutes of evidence,” Brisbane, Fairfax and Belbridge, 1861. 10 A. H. Chisholm, “Coxen, Henry William (1823–1915)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/coxen-henry-william- 3282/text4983. 11 H. William Coxen, “Letter to the editor. The Native Police and their acts”, The Courier, 26 March 1863, p. 2, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3162313; “The Native Police”, The Courier, 7 May 1863, p. 3, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3163155. 12 Coxen, “Letter to the editor.” On the 7th May article Coxen states: “The boy is a native of my place, and his relatives have been here since the settlement of the country.” 13 Ibid. 14 Jonathan Richards, The Secret War: a True History of Queensland Native Police, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2008, pp. 163-165.

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I wished to know how it was he had refused to come back before. He [Georgy] replied, that Commandant Morriset, at Rockhampton asked him if he wanted to return; at the same time another officer told him that he would have to walk without clothes, and in an enemy’s country. The boy then said he thought he would stop.15

This very incident, which had been reported by Coxen on the pages of Brisbane’s The Courier on 26 March 1863, appears at the end of “the petition of Georgy”, dated 6 May 1863, in the following form:

I do not wish to remain in the Native Police any longer and I would have left the Force when my Officer asked me if I wanted to / leave whilst in Rockhampton District but I was afraid of being turned / into the Bush naked amongst Blacks who hated my people and so far / from my own Tribe.

In this passage it is possible to perceive more clearly George’s fears and understand what might have influenced his decision. The shift from the speaking position of the officer reported by Coxen, to the speaking position of Georgy in the petition, conveys a sense of the immediacy of his voice. Further, the additional information present in Georgy’s account – nakedness, tribal affiliations and conflicts, distance from the station - adds to the understanding of Georgy’s concerns and of the perspective of an Indigenous person in this situation.

A comparison of these two passages allows us to see how the collaboration of Coxen and Georgy does not invalidate the petitioner’s voice. If we consider the petitioner’s narration of his experience, it seems to have been enabled in a written form by this collaboration rather than being invalidated by it. By examining the petition and the relative accounts of the facts recounted by Coxen and published on The Courier, the basis of the petition seems to lie in, and be constituted through, the exchange of information between Georgy and Coxen. Georgy, after his return to Coxen’s station, was there taken again by Lieutenant Carr and brought to Eluther Barracks - whence he escaped again and returned to Coxen’s

15 Coxen, “Letter to the editor.”

92 station. In the meantime, another former trooper, who had also accompanied the 1861 expedition led by William Landsborough, and wished to return home, found protection from the Native Police at Coxen’s station. His brother had been shot while attempting to escape with him.16 The following is the petition that sought to achieve protection for Georgy and was handed in person by both Coxen and Georgy to Governor George Bowen17:

63/934

H.W. Coxen 7 May

To His Excellency Sir George Ferguson / Bowen Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George Governor General of the Colony of Queensland, &c &c

The petition of Georgy an Aboriginal / Native of the District of Darling Downs in the Colony of Queensland

Humbly sheweth

That I entered the native police about / two years and a half ago and continued a trooper until about December / last when the Camp Sergeant a white man having taken from me my Gin / and on my speaking to him about it having cruelly illtreated me I left / the force without leave of my Officer

That on or about the first Moon of this year for having left / the Force I was arrested at the place of my old master W. H. Coxen Esq / Bendemere by Lieutenant Carr without shewing to me any Warrant / or authority and who at the time of such arrests said before the Servants of / my master W. H. Coxen Esq: after reading a paper given me by Mr Coxen / to shew to the Native Police of whom I was afraid “ I don’t care for / this, but if I did my duty I should shoot you on the spot as I have / done two others and you know them ”

16 Coxen recounts: “I found out on inquiry that Mr. Carr had just come down from Terryboo, where he took the boy Georgey, and that a boy who had left the native police, Brisbane, had been shot at Terryboo stockyard; the deceased was brother to Charley, one of the troopers lent by the government to Landsborough the explorer. It appears that Charley, after this tour, wanted to return home, and persuaded his brother to join him (Charley’s statement): they were employed at Terryboo, Lieutenant Carr took them prisoners, handcuffed Charley, and gave them in charge to his troopers. Lieutenant Carr slept in the house. Charley fearing he would be shot made his escape in the night. The trooper then turned upon his brother and shot him. A magisterial inquiry has been instituted the result of which I am not aware of: but Charley is now here under the protection of myself and Mr Ferrett.” (Coxen, “Letter to the editor.”) 17 “The Native Police”, The Courier, 7 May 1863, p. 3.

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That after such arrest I was fastened to the stirrup of one of the / Troopers of Lieutenant Carr and dragged to the police Barracks at Elutha / about forty miles distant from Bendemere and there I was placed in irons / in the Guard Room

That having had my irons taken off I ran away from the / Barracks and got to the Station of my master W.H. Coxen Esq: where I / have been ever since

That I ran away because I knew that the Native Police had / shot Boys who left the Force without leave as I knew a Boy had been / shot in Camp under arrest for desertion and that I was threatened to be / shot too

That I will give myself up to be punished if I have done wrong / if I am protected from the Native Troopers

That I do not wish to remain in the Native Police any longer / [continues on page 2] and I would have left the Force when my Officer asked me if I wanted to / leave whilst in Rockhamton District but I was afraid of being turned / into the Bush naked amongst Blacks who hated my people and so far / from my own Tribe

And I humbly pray that your Excellency / will take my case into your favourable consideration and grant / to me that protection which I am told as a Boy and an Aboriginal Native I am entitled to from the Queen and the Governor / And I will always thank your Excellency

Dated 6th May 1863

The mark of Georgy X

Witness (having first read over / and explained the petition to Georgy)

JAMES F. GARRICK, Solicitor / Brisbane18

The beginning of the petition focuses on the cause of Georgy’s act of leaving the Native Police force “without leave”, causing his arrest and escape and his seeking protection from the native Police Force under Mr Coxen. These events are variously recounted by Coxen in letters and correspondence submitted to the editor of the Courier in relation to the case

18 Petition of Georgy to Sir George Ferguson, Governor General of the Colony of Queensland, 6 May 1863. Punctuation as in the original.

94 between March and June 1863. An analysis of these two accounts enables us to see the different versions of the incident that set this chain of events in motion:

(…) He [Georgy] also stated the reason for now leaving [the Native Police Force] – that the camp sergeant nearly strangled him in consequence of some dispute about his gin. [H.W. Coxen, “Letter to the editor. The Native Police and their Acts”, Courier, 26 March 1863]

(…) He [Georgy] now also states the reasons for leaving the Native Police, that the camp sergeant had a partiality for his gin, giving him [Georgy] occasion to beat her, the camp sergeant rushed upon him, and nearly strangled him, threatening to shoot him, &c., &c. That night he left (…) [H.W. Coxen to Hon. Colonial Secretary, Bendemere, January 30, 1863, in “The Native Police”, Courier, 7 May 1863]

I reproduced these versions in the same order of appearance on The Courier, respectively on 26 March and 7 May 1863. The latter version, however, was the first one to be written, soon after Georgy returned to Coxen’s station in January 1863. Both versions mention the camp sergeant nearly strangling Georgy as a result of a “dispute about his gin”. In the earliest account the “dispute” is outlined more in detail and the sergeant’s “partiality” towards the woman, the ensuing behaviour of Georgy towards her and the following reaction of the sergeant are recounted, as is the threat of the sergeant to shoot Georgy. If we look at the same events in the petition, we can observe still another formulation of the facts:

(…) when the Camp Sergeant a white man having taken from me my Gin and on my speaking to him about it having cruelly illtreated me I left the force without leave of my Officer [Petition of Georgy]

Here, the “dispute” is referred to by specifying the role (and whiteness) of the sergeant in triggering the chain of events that led Georgy to leave the Native Police Force. In the

95 petition, the “partiality” of the sergeant towards Georgy’s companion is referred to by Georgy (and Coxen?) as “having taken from me [Georgy] my Gin” and Georgy’s reaction is portrayed here in a neutral way. The specific acts of the sergeant - and of Georgy- are encapsulated in a narration that contextualizes more and more strategically Georgy’s act of leaving the force in order to position him favourably in the eyes of the Governor.

The three versions of the events are useful to see how the narration of facts in petitions can be the result of a reworking of the narration with considerations of propriety, as suggested by Van Toorn, and of strategy.19 The narrating voice in the petition avoids the mention of, certain details according to such considerations, probably thought over in collaboration. It may also be that the narrating voice simply states the facts in a different way, as individuals do, sometimes recalling one fact over another, or recalling in one way rather than another, but conscious of operating within an overarching structural framework with a specific goal. The collaboration with Coxen might have been particularly useful in incorporating Georgy’s voice in such a framework. Georgy’s sense of the importance or priority of certain facts might have been very different culturally to that of the non-Indingeous people assessing the situation – so collaboration would have enabled the narrative to narrativise those culturally important details for a non-Indigenous reader.

The following parts of the petition, like its beginning, function primarily by explaining the reason why Georgy left the force and why he seeks protection from it. The fear of the Native Police and the threats of being shot are recurrent in the petition and they appear also in previous accounts.20 This fear can be seen as calling attention to what Ravi de Costa identified as the “shared moral world ... in which particular claims are made sensible and legitimate.”21 A moral world is where a person doesn’t have to fear for his/her life, independently of his/her race, and where freedom of choice in joining or leaving a military force, is considered – especially under particular circumstances. A shared moral world is also the condition of the social contract. The recognition of the dominated person’s moral rights is one way of reworking the domination contract so that it becomes a contractual dialogue between people with equally recognised rights.

19 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 121-22. 20 See supra note 11. 21 De Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 670.

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The presence of a solicitor witnessing the signing of the petition and the explicit statement of the process undertaken of reading and explaining the petition to the petitioner, give formal authority to the statements contained therein.

In this instance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaboration in writing a petition, we can observe how the knowledge, position and age of Coxen, as well as his relationship with Georgy, played an important part in the realization of “the petition of Georgy” who at the time of the events was a boy. The voice of the petitioner and that of his scribe seem to interweave, from the exchange of information concerning the events to their formal framing in the final petition and on The Courier articles.

Central to this collaboration was Coxen’s position within the dominating culture and his knowledge of petitioning in order to raise attention to a particular situation and to obtain “corrective justice.”22 As a result of the petition of Coxen’s use of the media to bring attention to Georgy’s case and to practices of the Native Police, a letter from the Colonial Office written by the Under Secretary A.W. Manning on 1 June 1863, informed Coxen that “under the circumstances, the government will allow ‘Georgy’ to be fully released from his engagement to serve in the Native Police; and that instructions will be issued to prevent any further interference with the law.”23 In the view of the Executive Council, the release of Georgy was influenced by the very fact that the Native Policeforce was “not yet constituted or recognised by law”.24 However, Coxen’s use of the media was influential, in my view, in affecting the outcome: he publicly called attention to the absence of legal standing of the operations of the Native Police, its practice of forcefully removing young Aboriginal men from pastoral stations, and of arresting or shooting those who would abscond or leave the force without leave.25 The publication of the Georgey’s petition26 pressed these points further. In effect it also proved, in my opinion, that there was a public perception that an Indigenous person had rights to fair treatment and also a legal right to appeal to the law and bureaucracy as contractual agents regarding that right to fair

22 Mills, “Domination Contract”, p. 94. 23The Courier (Brisbane, Qld.: 1861-1864), 3 June 1863, p. 2, National Library of Australia, ht tp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3163636. 24 Opinion of the Executive Council, quoted in Jonathan Richards, The Secret War: a history of Queensland’s Native Police, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2008, p. 163. 25 With regards to this last point, the article appeared on The Courier on 3 June 1863 reports the Governor stating that “the force was illegally constituted and that their acts received no authoritative sanction from the State.” Not long afterwards, the Police Act gave legal standing to the Native Police force (see Richards, Secret War, p. 163). See also Coxen, “Letter to the Editor”. 26 “The Native Police”, The Courier, 7 May 1863.

97 treatment. Indeed Coxen’s dissemination of the petition in the public sphere calls upon precisely these rights and confirms traces of a recognition of Indigenous people as contracting and political subjects.

4.3. Tommy Dower’s petitions for land and fair play

Another instance in which non-Indigenous people aided Indigenous people to write a petition can be observed in the “petition from Tommy Dower and others” addressed to the newly appointed Governor of Western Australia, Sir Frederick Broome. The petition was signed by Tommy Dower and Johnny Carroll with their marks. It was received on 15 November 1886 and recorded as “Petition of various Aboriginals for Grant of Land for Camps, Vegetable Gardens, &c.” Its language and form differ from those of “the petition of Georgy” examined in the previous section:

To His Excellency Sir Frederick Broome, K.C.M.G. Governor & Commander in Chief &c_

Sir,

Whereas certain aboriginal / natives living near Perth and Fremantle / are desirous of securing a piece of land, on / which they may erect their huts and plant / gardens, where they and their families may / live. They think that a grant of land / near Waneroo [Wanneroo] would be a suitable locality, / and they respectfully petition your Excellency / to accede to their wishes, and take / such steps as Your Excellency may think / best to put them in possession of some ground for the purpose contemplated

Wilms F L Verol [Verd? Vero?] Beber

his Signed { Tommy + Dower mark Jonny Carroll +

We recommend the above petition, as / we think the object a praiseworthy one.

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D [Daniel] K Congdon JP Mayor of Fremantle, W. Glyn Watkins, H. Albert, W. Harper, [name undecipherable thus far], […] Wray, J.B. Paton, George Sadler, S.H. Parker MLC, Septimus Burt, […], John J. Higham27

This petition was probably written by Williams Verol Beber,28 whose signature follows the body of the petition, on behalf of the two main Indigenous petitioners, Tommy Dower and Johnny Carroll, and it was supported by forty-seven signatories among whom are the Mayor of Fremantle and a number of important settlers in the Colony.29 The explicit reference to “certain aboriginal / natives living near Perth and Fremantle”, the distance between “we” and “they” and the measured expressions of the author(s) lead to a distinguishing of the voices expressing the petitioners’ request from the voices of the petitioners Tommy Dower and Johnny Carroll themselves. The modes of expression belong to and are addressed to members of the dominating collectivity. The proposed land use (“a piece of land, on which they may erect their huts and plant gardens, where they and their families may live”) also reflects a civilizing discourse belonging to the same dominating collectivity that regarded a sedentary way of living based on agriculture as superior to that of a nomadic, hunter-gatherer society. If we consider this request within Mills’ contractarian framework, it can be seen as addressing the domination contract precisely in its own terms, positioning the request for land within the civilizing mission of the dominating collectivity. This purpose is considered “a praiseworthy one”, although the comments in the file of the petition record scepticism as to the possibility of it being attained.30

The location of the proposed grant of land, Wanneroo, seems however to have been specifically chosen by the petitioners themselves, the “aboriginal natives living near

27 SROWA, consignment 527, CSO file 1886/4592. 28 The correct reading of the signature needs to be confirmed. 29 My gratitude to Tom Reynolds, Archives Research Officer of the State Records Office of Western Australia, for kindly providing me with this information and the information relative to the petition’s outcome and for assisting me in deciphering the signatures. 30 The note accompanying the petition reads as follows: “To His Excellency the Governor This Petition has been left with me by the Aboriginal Natives Tommy Dower and Johnny Carroll to present it to Your Excellency – It is apparently supported by certain parties who consider the object a praiseworthy one – doubtless it is so if it could ever be carried out. The natives above mentioned [might?] […] be permitted to occupy a piece of land […]certain[..?] no Crown Grant? Should issue to as they would dispose of it in a bottle of grog. […] Smith 15.11.86” (SROWA, consignment 527, CSO file 1886/4592, Minute Paper No. 4592/86)

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Perth and Fremantle”, headed by Tommy Dower and Johnny Carroll. The area of Wanneroo, approximately 20 km north of Perth, is today part of a heritage trail called Yaberoo Budjara, “the land (Budjara) of the people of north of Perth (Yaberoo)”31. Following the permanent settlement of the Swan River Colony in 1829 and its subsequent expansion, the local Indigenous people, Yellagonga’s tribe, receded north of Perth, first to Lake Monger and then to Lake Joondalup,32 in the proximity of Wanneroo, in the 1830s and 1840s. This area has therefore been connected historically to this particular Nyoongar33 group and to a continuity of their presence in the area. We may say, therefore, that if on one hand their voices seem to remain silent in their peculiar modes of expression, on the other hand it is their request for land at Wanneroo that is voiced in the words of the scribe and of the supporters of the request which in effect recognises their agency as contracting subjects with a political purpose, that of negotiating land with white authorities.

Subsequent to this petition a 2000 acre reserve in the Wanneroo area was gazetted in January 1887 and vested in the newly established Aborigines Protection Board.34 The reserve was revoked in 1901 following the Board’s abolition, with the intent of building homesteads on the “unutilised land”35. However, the late Nyoongar leader Ken Colbung, secured the transfer of this land back to his people in 1975.36

31 Heritage Council of Western Australia, Heritage Trail Yaberoo Budjara, East Perth, Government of Western Australia, 1998, http://tourism.heritage.wa.gov.au/ht_pdf/YaberooBudjara.pdf. 32 Ibid., p. 2-3. 33 Several spellings exist to refer to the indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of West Australia: Noongar, Nyungah, are very common ones. I used the spelling used in the Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, edited by Jenny Gregory and Jan Gothard, Crawley, UWA Press, 2009. 34 With regards to the outcome of the petition, see supra note 29; with regards to the Aborigines’ Protection Board, it was established on 1Jan 1886 - the same year the petition was written – under the Act to provide for the better protection and management of the Aboriginal natives of Western Australia, and to amend the law relating to certain contracts with such Aboriginal natives (statute 25/1886); An Act to provide certain matters connected with the Aborigines (statute 24/1889) and the 1889 Constitution Act. 35 Heritage Council of Western Australia, Heritage Trail Yaberoo Budjara, p. 3. 36 Tom Reynolds says “recently”; possibly, the Lake Gnangara reserve counting 809 hectares, re-established in 1975 by the Nyoongar community, was part of the original land grant of 2000 acres.

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Fig. 4.2. Petition of Tommy Dower and others to Governor Frederick Broome for grant of land, 15 November 1886, page 1. Courtesy of State Records Office of Western Australia.

An article titled “Tommy Dower’s Petition”, published on the West Australian on 21 March 1893, reports another petition by Tommy Dower. Here his voice is more present, in the form of a “communication (…) printed as it was taken down from his lips”:

TOMMY DOWER'S PETITION.

The following communication has been received from the gentleman, who gives his name at the top, and it is printed as it was taken down from his lips : -

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Perth, 12th March, [18]'93.

Well, Honourable Tommy Dower, King of West Australia, friend of Mr. Sir John Forrest and friend of Mr. Alexander Forrest. Well, now the people of West Australia don't treat us right, we want fair play, same as other side. In the Port Fremantle, Perth City, and Guildford we must have tent and blanket, same as York, and want 'em now soon, not by-and-by, when rain all gone away. Col. Forbes and Mr. Dalo loot [look?] after us, Aborigines' Board, Wangie Wangie [talk talk], once a week, and do nothing. Dr. Waylen, Government doctor, ought to look after sick blackfellow all same as white- fellow. Natives very few now, and the Government must look after them. You arrive in Fre- mantle, no natives. When you land Fremantle you see all whitefellow and no natives. In two or three years you won't see one - whitefel- low claim the lot. The board ought to look after us, and build a little room at each place, at Perth, Fremantle, Guildford, and all other places. Mr. Leake37 I never speak to. He is a bad chairman, I think. I never speak to him. I always see him go past, that is all. Horace Stirling38 is a fair talking good man. he take more part of blackman than a whiteman. Col. Forbes must allow blanket to young

37 Mr Leake was the magistrate who had sentenced Tommy Dower to 21 days in prison for drunkenness on a Saturday night (See The West Australian, 31 March 1885, page 3; National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2996838). He was probably also the chairman of the Aborigines’ Protection Board, but I still need to ascertain this. 38 Horace Stirling was the managing editor of The Inquirer. He was known for sympathizing with Aboriginal people.

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and old, all alike. Blackfellow want free pass railways, not Governor carriage, or other ladies and gentlemen ; truck or second-class do all right for us. Jingah gone to Pinjarrah to look for a womanny. I going to get married too, some day, and will put it in the paper, and let you all know. Lots of gentlemen give me plenty bob then. Right you are; good-bye, gover- nor. - TOMMY DOWER.39

At the beginning of the petition Tommy Dower identifies himself as King of West Australia and indicates his friendship with Western Australia’s first Premier, John Forrest, and one of his younger brothers, Alexander Forrest. Both politicians had been explorers and surveyors and Tommy Dower had accompanied both of them in several expeditions, taking part in Alexander’s eight-man party in 1879, which led to the discovery of the Kimberley region, and John Forrest’s survey of the area between Beverley and Albany in 1881, which was to be a premise for the construction of the Great Southern railway.40 By referring to the Forrests, he positions himself within the Governor’s network of people who had a high social and political standing, thus enhancing his own status and the chances of being taken seriously;41 at the same time, by referring to himself as the “King of West Australia”, he specifies his own social standing as high in its own right.

Geoffrey Bolton observes how in the mid-1880s Dower was in fact “regarded as the spokesman for the remnant Aboriginal community”. Dower’s participation in the Forrests’ exploring parties had given him “prestige among the white community” and had made him a “recipient of their patronage”, a position he had enhanced by obtaining a “reputation for intelligence and [through] his assumption of a position of leadership among the Perth

39 The West Australian (Perth, WA: 1879-1954), Tuesday 21 March 1893, p. 2. During my research at the State Record Office of Western Australia I wasn’t able to trace the original petition in the files of the Colonial Secretary Office. It is possible that this petition existed only in the form provided by the oral collaboration of the West Australian staff with Dower, or that if written, it might not have been preserved. 40 C.G. Bolton, “Tommy Dower and the Perth Newspapers” in Aboriginal History, Vol 12, 1988: 79-84; Western Australia, Legislative Council, Votes and Proceedings, 1882, no.2; G. C. Bolton, “Forrest, Alexander (1849 - 1901)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, Melbourne University Press, 1981, pp. 540-543. 41 At a certain moment, however, the Premier and the Governor were not in good relations.

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Aboriginal community”.42 By 1893, when Dower’s petition appeared in The West Australian, he had been able to secure some land for his people through the 1886 petition discussed earlier on, and in 1882 he had questioned the government for the lack of recompense for his services. In fact, soon after the grant of 2000 acres to Alexander Forrest for his expedition in the Kimberley was increased to 5000 acres by a resolution of the Legislative Council, The Inquirer reported:

Thomas Dower, the aboriginal native who accompanied Mr Alexander Forrest on his exploring trip to Port Darwin, wishes to know how it is he has not been remunerated either in money or land, for his services on that occasion. He learns that the other members of Mr Forrest's party have been handsomely treated by the Government "Thomas" is aware that he has a good claim to a very extensive landed estate in this part of Australia, acquired by hereditary right, but he has not the means at command, just now at least, to press his claims further. He considers, however, that the "laborer is worthy of his hire", and that he is fully entitled to a share of the amount voted by the Legislature. And we think so too.43

The voice of Tommy Dower is here reported again more in essence than in the specificity of its expressions. However, this press article conveys the image of a man conscious of his position and not afraid to address the non-egalitarian attitude of the Governor and of the appointed Executive and Legislative Council.

By comparison, in the petition communicated to the press in 1893, Tommy Dower’s voice is markedly present: the interjections “well” - which introduce his self-introduction and that mark the beginning of the petition - and his final parting good-bye to the governor, call to mind the oral transmission of this dictated petition and its rhetorical purpose in setting up a communication act and engaging the attention of its addressee. It is an assertive voice, which calls for fair play and just treatment, for some material assistance (“tent and blanket”, “blanket to young and old alike”, “free pass railways”), for equal

42 C.G. Bolton, “Tommy Dower and the Perth Newspapers”, p. 80. 43 The Inquirer, 22 November 1882 in C.G. Bolton, “Tommy Dower and the Perth Newspapers”, p. 80.

104 medical treatment (“Dr Waylen, Government doctor, ought to look after sick blackfellow all same as white fellow”).

In this petition Tommy Dower also points out the effects of the settler expropriation contract: “When you arrive in Fremantle, no natives. (…) In two or three years you won’t see one - whitefellow claim the lot.” In a move to renegotiate this imposed contract, he proposes that “a little room at each place, at Perth, Fremantle, Guilford, and all other places” be granted. Further, he also calls the Aborigines Protection Board to be efficient and “look after” them. He is here setting himself up as a political agent in effect advising as to a redrafting of the settler contract.

It is possible to read this petition or “communication” published in the article “Tommy Dower’s petition” as not being addressed solely to the Governor who is farewelled at the end.44 It could be seen both as a letter to the Governor and as a letter to the editor with the express political purpose of soliciting attention to the conditions of his people and to press for fair treatment rather than a petition in the strict sense of the term. The addressee becomes then the wider reading public, who is informed of urgent needs of the Indigenous people of Fremantle, Perth and Guildford: tents and blankets for the times of bad weather; medical care on standards equal to those enjoyed by white people; basic access to means of transport; the need for support and care for his people on the part of the Aborigines’ Protection Board. Tommy Dower’s concern for the situation of the original inhabitants and for the expansion of white settlement and the declining number of his people is shared with the larger non-Indigenous reading public. He shares his judgement of people involved in the administration of Aboriginal affairs, and in a personal and intimate move, he also refers to his acquaintance Jingah and to his personal plans for the future.

Although the circumstances that spurred Tommy Dower to release this “communication” are not clear, his choosing the press as a venue for it could be seen as a device employed by Dower to reach the Governor and to present his case, in the manner and language he knew. Bolton, noting that it was in Forrest’s interest that Dower criticized the Aborgines’

44 In 1893, the Governor was Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson, KCMG, who had been appointed as Governor of Western Australia for the third time in 1890 when the Constitution of Western Australia was passed. The previous two appointments of Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson as Governor were from January 1875 to September 1877 and from April 1880 to1883. See F. K. Crowley, “Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson”, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060054b.htm, accessed 17/10/2010. Robinson was succeeding Sir Frederick Napier Broome, KCMG (1883 – 1889), to whom the previous petition by Dower had been addressed.

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Protection Board,45 suggests that “an ambiguity lingers about the press coverage of Dower’s statements”, proposing that:

It would be possible to view him as an early spokesman for Aboriginal land rights, who used his prestige and local reputation to voice Aboriginal grievances whenever opportunity offered. It would also be feasible to see him as a pawn in local political squabbles, whose utterances could be used to embarrass the government or the Aborigines Protection Board; or perhaps as Perth's equivalent of a Shakespearian fool, offering shrewd and at times disconcerting comment as privileged underdog. At the very least, it can be said that he did not go unnoticed.46

I tend to view his petitions as part of an ongoing effort to gain a measure of control over his and his people’s lives and to procure, if not the same opportunities of white people, at least, improved conditions, a “little room at each place” and basic care. Since Indigenous people were precluded from active participation in a representative government - as were women and men who did not own or lease land in Western Australia at that time - petitioning and appealing through the press afforded the “minimum form of citizenship” and access to political life theorised in different contexts by Stephen Higginson and Madeleine Rebérioux.47 From a contractarian perspective, it is by making use of the means of mass communication of the dominating society that Tommy attempted to engage that society formally and publically, on its own terms, in a discussion of its impacts upon the Nyoongar and in an attempt to provide visibility and leverage for his people as contracting subjects.

45 The abolition of the Aborigines’ Protection Board would have meant the end of the contribution of 1% of the colonial revenue of Western Australia to WA indigenous people. 46 C.G. Bolton, “Tommy Dower and the Perth Newspapers”, p. 82. 47 See Chapter 1, pp. 16 and 19.

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Fig. 4.3. Tommy Dower’s petition, The West Australian, 21 March 1893, National Library of Australia.

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4.4. Proclamation Day: Tommy King on behalf of the Aboriginals of Albany

A report published in The Australian Advertiser on 20 October 1890 cites the full text of another Indigenous petition from Western Australia. Contemporary archival sources seem not to preserve copy of, or reference to the petition; however, The West Australian mentioned the same petition a day later in an abridged version.48 Although I’m not aware of how this petition was produced, it displays a number of similarities with the petitions discussed earlier and it is all the more significant because of the moment in which it was presented to the Governor, namely the eve of Proclamation Day.

It was a significant day in the history of Western Australia, when the new Constitution was publicly announced and the colony was granted self-government. The achievement of a greater political autonomy and of greater political representation was being welcomed and celebrated across the colony: floral arches, flags and banners adorned Perth and Fremantle; the arrival from London of the new Governor, Sir William Robinson, was being celebrated in Albany and along his travel by train from Albany to Perth. In Perth, thousands of people at the Esplanade listened to the proclamation of the Constitution, feasted on rich public banquets and enjoyed gala balls and fireworks.49 The press, “fostered a sense of common interest and collective celebration, and this in turn encouraged colonists to ‘imagine’ themselves as part of a distinct community.”50

While these celebrations were being prepared, a deputation led by Tommy King reminded the Crown and the colony of the presence and experience of another distinct community, which had been dispossessed, whose food resources had been taken away and which had been excluded from the general rejoicings of the colony. The presence of the deputation and the petition presented by Tommy King on behalf of the Aboriginals of Albany on the eve of Proclamation Day, can be seen as actively denying the political “non-existence” of indigenous people imposed by a dominating settler contract.51 The deputation was not

48 See “Albany News. A petition from an Aboriginal King.”, in The West Australian, 21 October 1890, p. 3, at National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3137985. See Fig. 4.5., p. 108. 49 Constitutional Centre of Western Australia, “Proclamation Day”, 2010, Government of Western Australia, http://www.ccentre.wa.gov.au/ExhibitionsOnline/ProclamationDay/Pages/Default.aspx. 50 Constitutional Centre of Western Australia, “Proclamation Day: Political progress and economic prosperity?”, 2010, Government of Western Australia, http://www.ccentre.wa.gov.au/ResearchAndSeminarPapers/LaunchingTheShip/Pages/ProclamationDay.aspx 51 See Chapter 2, pp. 46-47.

108 received. However, the following article of The Australian Advertiser reported their petition in full:

On Sunday evening52 a party of aborigines headed by Tommy and Jenny King gaily bedecked and painted and carrying bunches of wild flowers, proceeded to the Residency to ask the new Governor53 for a supply of rations for the aborigines in this district so that they might be able to take part in the general rejoicings on Proclamation Day. The Governor did not see them, but let them know that Mr. Loftie would give them rations if they presented themselves at the Residency on Proclamation Day. Below we give the petition signed by Tommy King on behalf of the aboriginals: “To His Excellency Sir William Francis Cleaver Robinson, K.C.M.G. &c. May it please your Excellency, - I, Tommy King, on behalf of the few remaining aboriginals of Albany, approach your Excel- lency with submission and profound respect, welcoming you to our native shores. We would humbly remind your Excellency that in the year 1829, all this country belonged to my tribe, of which I, at this date, would have been the Chief, but that Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen was pleased to take it from us. Since that time we have been gradually deprived of our hunting grounds. and nearly all our kangaroos have been killed by the whitemen, and we are now in

52 19 October 1890. 53 Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson. 109

extreme poverty and a deplorable condition. Therefore, on this occasion when all the whitemen are rejoicing at Her Most Gracious Majesty having given over our land to a Constitution, we would humbly ask your Excellency to give us something that we may rejoice. A bag of flour, a box of tea. a bag of sugar and some tobacco would make us all very happy, and if Your Excellency will issue and order to Sergeant Cunninghame to procure us these, we shall be very pleased and remain Your Excellency’s most obedient servants. Signed on behalf of the aboriginals of Albany, TOMMY KING.”54

This petition is relevant in several respects. In a high-profile moment of “creation” of the colony, Tommy King recalls the expropriation which underlies it: the “taking” of the land by the Queen, the gradual dispossession of “hunting grounds”, the destruction of part of their food resources and the effects of “extreme poverty” to which this expropriation led. The petition, and the act of not receiving the deputation, reflect the exclusion of a Millsian “dominated” collectivity from the “dominating” white community. Simultaneously, it can be seen as representing the will of the excluded and dispossessed to intervene in such an exclusionary settler contract by presenting its political and socio-economical situation to the dominating collectivity. The humble request for a “supply of rations for the aborigines” of Albany, “so that they might be able to take part in the general rejoicings on Proclamation Day”, calls for the “imagining” or consideration of Tommy King’s community within the broader colonial community.

It is possible to read some irony in the “humble request” for rations, as in the sentence “Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen was pleased to take it from us”. ‘This would indicate another kind of subjectivity – a wry, satirical voice in the “gap” or silence that the settler contract highlighted (i.e. the non-recognition of and non-negotiation with

54 Tommy King, Albany, petitioning on Proclamation Day. Australian Advertiser, 20 October 1890, see Fig. 4.4., p. 113.

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Indigenous people). This foreshadows the use of satire by contemporary Aboriginal literary writers like Alexis Wright, Marie Munkara and Alf Taylor, whose humour is a very important way of gaining a public’s attention in order to mount a political critique.55

The expressions used in this petition present a number of similarities with those found in the petitions previously discussed: the reference to whiteness appears in Georgy’s petition, in his description of his officer as “a white man”56, and in Tommy King’s petition in reference to the colour of the settlers, “the whitemen” who killed the kangaroos and “all the whitemen” celebrating the proclamation of the Constitution Act of Western Australia.57 Both use the expression “take away from”, with reference to a woman and to the land respectively. Both Tommy King and Tommy Dower – as well as many other Australian Indigenous petitioners - refer to the declined numbers of their people: “the few remaining Aboriginals of Albany” and “natives very few now.”58 And Tommy Dower himself refers to the colour of the colonists and to their taking possession of the land: “in two or three years (…) whitefellow claim the lot”59

Conclusions

In the first part of the chapter we have seen how instances of Indigenous/non-Indigenous collaboration enabled reflections on the application of justice in early colonial settings in Western Australia and in Queensland (the 1845 petition for clemency for We-eva and the 1863 petition of Georgy). Collaboration was also present in the form of support from settlers with authoritative positions for a specific (and successful) request for land near Perth by Nyoongar representatives Tommy Dower and Jonny Carroll.

In the second part of the chapter we have seen how the press provided a venue for petitions to be dictated and/or published (Tommy Dower’s petition, 1893; petition of Tommy King

55 Anne Brewster, “Gallows humour and alcohol in Nyoongar writer Alf Taylor’s short fiction: a white cross- racial reading” in Beate Neumeier and Kay Schaffer (ed.), New Indigenous Knowledges (forthcoming). 56 See this Chapter, p. 93. 57 The Constitution Act 1889 received imperial legislative ratification in 1890 and it constitutes one of the two Acts of Parliaments making up the Constitution of Western Australia. The other Act is the Constitution Acts Amendment Act 1899. See “Constitution” and “Proclamation Day” in Gregory and Gothard, Historical Encyclopedia on Western Australia, p. 231-232, 724-725. 58 See this Chapter, p. 109 and p. 102 respectively. 59 “Tommy Dower’s Petition”, The West Australian, see this Chapter, p. 102. 111 on Proclamation Day). The publication of such petitions enabled the views of Tommy Dower and Tommy King, from south-west Western Australia, to reach not only their specific addressee, the Governor, but also a wider audience, the wider (newspaper) reading public. It indicated the conscious political purpose of the Indigenous petitioners in engaging opinion within the public sphere, thereby forging Indigenous political voices.

This act can be seen to bear witness to Indigenous people’s awareness of themselves as political and territorial agents. It facilitates an intervention in the (institutionalised) domination contract, which both Dower and King specifically refer to by indicating its exclusionary and expropriation based aspects, and on the (racially based) inequality that underlies it.

In the case studies presented, we have observed how Indigenous voices and perspectives could be imagined and considered (We-eva); how they could be born out of direct contact and exchange of information and merged into a single strategic narrative to obtain corrective justice (Georgy/Coxen); how they could be phrased according to notions of propriety and to a dominating civilising discourse which would have enhanced the possibilities of obtaining land (Tommy Dower, 1896); finally, how they asked for fair and equal treatment (Tommy Dower, 1893), and consideration within the wider colonial community (Tommy King, 1890). In each of these cases we get a sense of the geopolitical subjectivity of Indigenous people and their assertion of their rights to protect their own welfare and that of their people and to hold the settlers and their administrative superintendence to account for neglecting to include them as contractual parties in a multiracial polity.

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Fig. 4.4. Tommy King, Albany, petitioning on Proclamation Day. Australian Advertiser, 20 October 1890, National Library of Australia.

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ALBANY NEWS.

A PETITION FROM AN ABORIGINAL KING. Fix this text TWO SEVERE ACCIDENTS.

[BY TELEGRAPH.]

(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.)

ALBANY, Oct. 20. Yesterday, King Tom, accompanied by several of his tribe, presented a petition wel- coming the Governor, and stating that pre- vious to 1829 all the land belonged to the blackfellows, and that Queen Victoria had taken it, when otherwise Tom would have been King. The white men, he proceeded to state, killed all the kangaroo, and in conclusion flour, tobacco, etc., was begged for. The Governor promised what was wanted. The Government Resident distributes a large supply of rations, tomorrow, to all the blackfellows assembled, in Albany.

Fig. 4.5. A Petition from an Aboriginal King, The West Australian, 21 October 1890, p. 3, National Library of Australia.

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Chapter 5

Behind text and signature

Motivations, places and endorsement

This chapter brings to the fore three issues that lie behind the text and the signatures of petitions. By using a petition found during my archival research at Queensland State Archives, I will first highlight the heterogeneity of the petitioners as individuals and explore the different reasons signatories might have for signing a petition. I will then move my attention to the places where Indigenous petitions were penned, specifically sites within the institutional structures of the penal system and the reserve system. On one hand, the penal and reserve systems allowed circulation of knowledge and the reserve system in particular provided a microcosm in which to observe the interaction of Indigenous and non-Indigenous societies as marked by relationships of inequality but also as venues for collaboration. Civic and rural communities, on the other hand, represent other important places where petitions were written and signed, and I will discuss these avenues of petitioning in the following chapter. Such petitioning in fact assumed a particular relevance in the 20th century and Chapter Six will discuss petitions from that period.

In this chapter I will examine the establishment of the reserve system in New South Wales and Victoria in the first half of the 19th century and the active role played by Indigenous

115 leaders in securing tracts of land for their communities. Then, I will draw particular attention to the language of two petitions, written at the government station of Coranderrk in the 1880s, in response to proposed restrictions of freedoms and oppressive legislation. These petitions illustrate the workings of the group domination contract theorised by Mills and the principles which were being invoked by Indigenous people to resist “domination” or “exclusion from the social contract” at a crucial time in the development of policies concerning Indigenous Australians. Added weight to the significance of these petitions comes from the fact that they were dictated by William Barak, the ngurungaeta of the community residing at Coranderrk, the leader entitled by traditional Indigenous law to speak for the community and whose clan owned the land where Coranderrk was located.

Finally, I will discuss a petition for land written in 1881, endorsed by the residents of the Maloga mission in southern New South Wales. The petition’s wording was crucial in a determination of a recent Native Title case. By interrogating the language and the writing process of this petition, I will propose that when both the physical presence of the petitioners and their participation in the writing process may be difficult to establish with certainty, or when they are open to debate, the endorsement of the petitioners should be generally evaluated in relation to the general request of the petition, rather than in relation to its specific wording.

5.1. Diverse Motivations

A petition signed by 183 prisoners of the penal establishment of St Helena in Brisbane in May 1886 is useful in shedding light on two important aspects of petitioning: the presence of different motivations behind the acts of signing and supporting a petition and the importance of the place from where the petition originated.

The petition from the convicted men at St Helena outlined a number of grievances ranging from “the stoppage of indulgences” for repeatedly convicted men to “insufficient washing accommodation in the yards” and “only being allowed to receive Letters once in two

116 months.”1 After the petition was delivered to the Colonial Secretary, all 183 petitioners were individually asked to explain why they had signed the petition: “(...) at my last visit to St Helena,” writes the correspondent of the Colonial Secretary,

I had each prisoner who signed the petition up before me, and had their separate grievances noted down as nearly as possible in their own words. You will observe that some 50 of the Prisoners whose names are attached to [the] Petition had no complaints, and some only signed for peace and quietness, and some had had their names put down unknown to them. 2

Although a certain misrepresentation of the petitioners’ wishes is plausible,3 we understand from this description that not all the petitioners signed with the same intent or the same reason, and some did not sign the petition at all. Also, in reading their recorded statements, it becomes clear that a number of petitioners signed for individual reasons differing from those indicated in the outlined grievances. A prisoner, for instance, is reported to have said that he wanted to attract the attention of the Governor General to his own case; others are recorded to have presented further complaints and others again to have been asked to sign by inmates. Some left the statements: “I signed it to please the other prisoners”, or “I signed it for the sake of peace” and “I have no complaint to make. I signed my name but I don’t understand it.”4

Among the 183 prisoner signatories, three men are recorded as Aboriginal: Donald, Jacky Norman and Billy Barcoo. Although I could not trace the recorded grievance of the third man, Donald is recorded to have left the statement: “The white men told me to sign it”5, while Jacky Norman is purported to have said “I signed the petition to try and get some time off my remission.”6 If the first statement seems to indicate compliance with the request of a fellow white prisoner, the second statement shows awareness of the means of petitioning to ask for remission or reduction of sentences. Although most of these recorded

1 Petition from St Helena Penal Establishment, 1886, Queensland State Records, Series 5253 Inwards Correspondence, COL/A469 86/4534. 2 Ibid. 3 Some prisoners may not have felt as free as others in giving their statements, or indeed, they may have been persuaded in releasing certain statements. 4 Petition from St Helena, 1886, COL/A469 86/4534 5 Ibid., p. 43. 6 Ibid.

117 statements belong to non-Indigenous people, as a whole they convey the prisoners’ desire to improve a situation and they act as a powerful reminder of the individuality of the signatories, which may appear as a homogeneous collectivity through their signatures. In parallel, these statements recall that different reasons may lie behind the act of signing a petition.

The relevance and significance of the place where complaints originate is another issue brought to the fore by this petition from St Helena. Confined in a penal establishment, non-Indigenous and Indigenous prisoners came into contact with each other, recognised what they deemed needed change, expressed to each other their desire to improve their situation and identified petitioning as a way to try and attain it. Had the grievances been not (fully) shared, living together generated different reasons for which to support each other: from fear of not supporting a request endorsed by others, to simple compliance; from sympathy with a cause to sincere friendship. Extending this reflection to a wider context, living together with other people in particular places generated shared experiences and gave rise to the identification of common grievances, especially where control or limitation of individual freedoms was employed. Also, coming into contact with different people, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, occasioned communication and sharing of information and knowledge.

If here the place which gave rise to the complaints is the penal system, which I will discuss shortly, other places which produced petitions are missions and government run stations and rural and civic communities in general, which I will address in the following sections. On missions and government run stations, traditional Indigenous landowners7 lived together and fought to retain access to portions of their lands and to regain freedoms that had been taken from them. In the latter, if on one hand racism and fear brought about petitions from white citizens asking for segregation of Indigenous people, on the other hand, non-Indigenous people had the opportunity to support Indigenous causes and to endorse their complaints.

7 Traditional owners identify with and care for the land they and their language groups originate from. Over time, Indigenous people from different areas moved to, or were forced to move to, certain areas, towards which they developed an association. My thanks to Melissa Sutton for the insight.

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5.2. Places: the penal system

The penal system, as an environment where people from different backgrounds found themselves confined together, functioned as a vehicle through which Indigenous people, as other convicts, learned about petitioning, especially in the forms of petitions for clemency, remission of sentence or admission to other institutions.8

Australian colonial literature records the existence of petitions in the penal system in the form of the convict poems of Francis Macnamara or “Frank the poet” (c1810-1861). While serving a seven year sentence for larceny, or possibly for having been a political agitator in Ireland,9 he wrote three petitions in verse at Newcastle after 1839.10 One of these petitions is titled “A petition from the chain gang at Newcastle to Captain Furlong the superintendent praying him to dismiss a scourger named Duffy from the cookhouse and appoint a man in his room”. I have selected a number of its stanzas to illustrate the difference between his and contemporary and later Indigenous petitions within and outside the penal system:

With reverence and submission due,

Kind sir those words are sent to you,

And with them a good wish too,

Long may you reign,

And like Wellington at Waterloo

Fresh laurels gain.

8 For the latter, see for instance the petition for admission of “Billy” [described as “Billy an Aboriginal of Rockhampton”] into Lunatic Asylum. Samuel Sneyd, Gaoler of Her Majesty’s Gaol, to Sir George Ferguson Bowen, Governor in Chief over the colony of Queensland, Brisbane, June 16, 1865. QSA, COL/A67 – 1444. Queensland State Archives preserve a number of petitions for remissions of sentences. 9 John Meredith and Rex Whalan suggest that although according to the records Francis Macnamara was convicted for larceny, the lines of his satire “A Dialogue Between Two Hibernians”, published in 1840 on The Sydney Gazette, seem to indicate that the true reason for his transportation to Australia was his being part of one the secret societies called the Ribbon secret societies. In the first decades of the 1800 in Ireland, these societies were opposed to the payments of tithes to support the Protestant clergy. See John Meredith and Rex Whalan, Frank the Poet. The life and works of Francis Macnamara, “Studies in Australian Folklore”, Melbourne, Red Rooster, 1979, p. 2. 10 One of these petitions is titled “A petition from the A. A. Co. Flocks at Peel River”.

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2nd

Your petitioners are under thy care,

In mercy therefore hear our prayer,

Nor let us wallow in despair,

But soothe each pang,

But allow no flogger to prepare

Food for your gang. (...)

5th

Our jaws now daily will grow thinner,

And stomachs weak, as I’m a sinner,

For Duffy is a human skinner,

Most barbarous wretch.

Each day I’d rather have my dinner

Cooked by Jack Ketch. (...)

11th

Now Sir, your petitioners great and small

On bended knees before you fall;

Not let us in vain for redress call,

Drive Duffy away

And as in duty bound we all

11 Will ever pray.

Frank’s petition differs undoubtedly in many regards from the petitions by Indigenous people examined so far. Perhaps the most striking difference is constituted by the author’s humorous use of the petition form and by its choice of composing it in rhyming verse and stanzas. It also doesn’t present any signatures, as if it had been written as an individual petition. The use of humour and versification in a petition by Indigenous people would

11 Les Murray (ed.), The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse, Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 19-21.

120 have been a strategically questionable option, possibly undermining the serious consideration of the petition’s content.

If we consider the intent of the petition of Frank the Poet as simultaneously that of entertaining and naming those who had been a cause of sufferings and putting forward a request, we can see that the intent of many Indigenous petitions would certainly not include entertainment. This function would have been outside the scope of the petitioners’ aims. However, Indigenous petitions do share with Frank’s petition, as well as certain works of literature, the important aspect of recording or refracting moments or aspects of the life of their authors, of historical and social circumstances. Justice and its enforcement were relevant to both Frank and Indigenous petitioners and they have been relevant to many authors of literary works in different countries.12 Between 1832 and 1840 Frank had received fourteen floggings or 650 lashes, and this experience of his might have spurred the composition of his petition.13 Similarly, the basis of many Australian Indigenous petitions is the experience of an injustice, the experience of human sufferings.

By asking redress, petitions come to share the function of literature of spurring reflections on justice. Like literature, they represent the circulation of the petitioner’s voice in a wider public sphere. By asking that capable and just people be maintained in positions of authority, they come to have a political function. The call for justice recorded in them represents a recognition that the contract under which the petitioners live is actually a breach of contract, i.e. of justice.14

Petitions for clemency and reduction of sentences do record life narratives and often the ambiguous position of Indigenous people under two systems of law.15 It is possible to argue that an aspect of the group domination contract is also visible in the high

12 To name but a few, I think for instance of Rabelais denouncing the excesses of the church in Gargantua and Pantagruel; of Beaumarchais’ portrait of the justice system in France; of the reflections on systems of governance in Orwell’s The Animal Farm and 1984; of Gabriel Garcia Marquez portraying political killings committed and occulted by the authorities in One Hundred Years of Solitude; of Ken Kesey’s One Flew on the Cuckoo’s nest for the administration of justice in psychiatric wards; of Kim Scott’s exploration in Benang of the vicissitudes of three generations of an Australian Indigenous family whose lives are conditioned by oppressive legislation, by those who enforce it, by racial attitudes and by the violence of the policy of ‘breeding out’ a race. I also think of the poems of Césaire, of les poètes de la negritude, of Carribean poetry and of poems recording instances of racism written by writers from the West Indies migrated to London in the 20th c. 13 John Meredith and Rex Whalan, Frank the Poet, p. 3 and successive pages. 14 See Mills on breach of contract, Charles W. Mills, “Contract of Breach: Repairing the Racial Contract” in Pateman and Mills, Domination and Contract, pp. 106-133. 15 See We-eva’s petition addressed in Chapter 4, p. 87.

121 incarceration rates and deaths in custody of Indigenous Australians and in the fact that Indigenous men and women were apparently very easily made prisoners of in early colonial times.16

In the literary field, similar life narratives can be found. The poem “John Pat”, written by Jack Davis in commemoration of the death of a sixteen-year old Aboriginal boy who died of head injuries inflicted by police officers at Roebourne, Western Australia; Ruby Langford’s “Letter from an Aboriginal mother”, where she questions the attitude and proceedings of magistrates and Crown Prosecutors, and her Haunted by the Past, are examples of how Australian Indigenous literature has recently petitioned a larger public to foster reflections on the application of justice.17 The documentary Liyarn Ngarn, which centred on the murder of a young nineteen-year-old Louis St John, allegedly for his colour, in the West Kimberley region, testifies to a similar engagement with the legal justice system in the media.18

5.3. Places: missions and reserves

Other places where Indigenous people lived together and where petitions were employed were missions and government run stations. Petitions that originated in reserves where missionary or government control was established19 testify to the active involvement and participation of the petitioners in the body politic as it was configured locally on the reserves. Broadly, such petitions concerned the management of the reserves, the legislation

16 A 2007 governmental report on social indicators in New South Wales stated that, “In 2006, 20% of the adult male prison population was Aboriginal and 33% of adult females in prison were Aboriginal. In 2006, half the juveniles on remand were Aboriginal, and the rate of Aboriginal juveniles on remand remained more than 10 times higher than the general juvenile population between 2001 and 2006. Aboriginal children represent 46% of juveniles serving control orders.” (New South Wales Government, Two Ways Together. Report on Indicators 2007, Surry Hills, New South Wales Department of Aboriginal Affairs, 2008, p. 66. The pictures of two chained naked unidentified women prisoners in Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton (eds.) First Australians, pp. 182-183, are also very telling. 17 Jack Davis, “John Pat”, in Jennifer Sabbioni, Kay Schaffer, and Sidonie Smith (eds.), Indigenous Australian Voices, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1998.pp. 225-226; Ruby Langford, “A Letter from an Aboriginal Mother”, 13 Jan 1987, in Jack Davis et al (eds.), Paperbark, pp. 141-143; Ruby Langford Ginibi, Haunted by the Past, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1999. 18Liyarn Ngarn, directed by Martin Mhando and produced by David Lightfoot, with Pete Postlethwaite, Patrick Dodson, Bill Johnson and Archie Roach, Australia, 2007. 19 Heather Goodall reminds that in New South Wales “most of the reserves created on Aboriginal demand were farmed and managed by Aboriginal people themselves, and were never controlled by the Aborigines Protection Board” (Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 96)

122 affecting the people living on the reserves, and the existence itself of the reserves when it came to be threatened. Petitions regarding the appointment of managers and the management of reserves are not limited to the 19th century; they continued to be written well into the 20th century. The petition to Queen Victoria in 1846 opposing the re- appointment of Jeanneret at Wybalenna was a first instance; similarly, many later petitions were also to record the petitioners’ concern with the management of missions or stations. I will here discuss some petitions concerning management written at Coranderrk.20

Petitions regarding the legislation affecting Indigenous people living in reserves - and later Indigenous Australians more broadly - as well as the petitions pleading for the continuance of specific reserves, also range widely in time and geographical location. However, they tend to be written at times when particular pieces of legislation were discussed or passed and when the missions or stations were being threatened with closure. The petitions from Coranderrk, which I will discuss in Section 5.3.2., exemplify petitions written in the hope of altering the formulation of legislation. The petition written by Ellen Kropinyeri in 1932 and presented to the Members of the South Australian Parliament for the repeal of legislation legalizing the removal of children from their families, represents another key petition of this kind and I will discuss this in the following chapter.

These different types of Indigenous petitions relating to missions and stations - concerning management, legislation and the existence itself of the reserves - exemplify expressions of Australian Indigenous people’s agency. In the textual microcosm of petitions, it is possible to observe the petitioners’ reactions to colonial experiences of domination, to being considered subject to colonial plans for protection and civilization, and “subjected” to colonial administration, legislation and control. Petitioners, through their agency, and asking for change, become active and visible “subjects” or “authors” of actions. I draw here on Althusser’s definition of one of the meanings of “subject” as “a centre of initiatives, author of and responsible for its actions.”21 Through their petitions, they assert their (active)

20 Other examples of petitions of a similar kind are the petition addressed to the Aborigines Protection Board in 1931 by residents of the Victorian station of Lake Tyers asking for the reinstatement of Captain Newman as superintendent (see Chapter 6.3.) and the petition from Nepabunna, South Australia, 1966, asking to the South Australian government to take over the management of the station (Appendix, doc. 20). 21 See the first meaning of “subject” summed up by Althusser, quoted in “The Politics of Identity” in Donald E. Hall, Subjectivity, New York, Routledge, 2004, p. 86. The expression “subjected to” is from the second meaning he encapsulates for “subject”.

123 political subjectivity to try to alter the domination contract which, by imposing “absolute obedience” upon them, becomes, in Rousseau’s words, a “nugatory” contract.22

Before further exploring petitions which originated on missions and stations, I will briefly overview the reserve system and how it came about, in order to better contextualise such petitions. I will therefore start by addressing the reserve system where it first took place, that is, in the colony that was to become Victoria and in the colony of New South Wales.

5.3.1 The reserve system in Victoria and New South Wales

The experience of race relations in Van Diemen’s Land, which had led to the Black War and the creation of the Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island, had contributed to the establishment of the Aboriginal Protectorate of Port Phillip, around the area today known as Greater Melbourne, in 1838. The short-lived protectorate tried to implement the British “plan for the better protection and civilization of the Native Tribes within the limits of … [the Australian colonial] Government.”23 A Chief Protector, George Augustus Robinson, and four Assistant Protectors, William Thomas, James Dredge, Edward Stone Parker and Charles Sievwright, were appointed to fulfil the task respectively in the areas of Melbourne and Westernport regions, the Goulburn region, the Loddon and Northwest District, and the Western District.24 However, the Protectorate came to be considered not viable, due to lack of appropriate resources, and formally ceased operating in 1849.25 During this time, nevertheless, William Thomas came to be identified, by the Indigenous people he was in contact with, as a person who cared for their situation and it was to him that they presented their early oral requests for land.

22 I here refer to “nugatory” in the context of Rousseau’s words concerning slavery: “Any covenant which stipulated absolute dominion for one party and absolute obedience for the other would be illogical or nugatory”. (“Slavery” in Rousseau, The Social Contract, p. 8). See in this thesis, Chapter Two, p. 41. 23“Aborigines: Dispatch from the Right Honorable Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to His Excellency Sir George Gipps, announcing the Appointment of a Native Protector, and four Assistants; and proposing the removal of the Van Dieman’s Land Natives from Flinder’s’ Island to Port Phillip. No 72 Downing Street, 31st January 1838”, available at the National Museum of Australia Library. Available also online in digitized and transcribed form at http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/nativepolice/documents/04409_u001_1838_001.html (“VPRS 4409/P Copies Of Correspondence Relating To The Establishment Of The Aboriginal Protectorate, unit 1”). 24 Mira Lakic and Rosemary Wrench, Through Their Eyes, Melbourne, Museum of Victoria, 1994, p. 13. 25 Very little funding was available and the area each protector was assigned to, was too large and not proportioned to the means they had at their disposal to fulfil their role.

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In the colony of New South Wales, 35 reserves “of moderate extent” were notified by Governor Fitzroy in February 1850, after the 1842 Land Act was passed allowing Crown land to be reserved for the use of the Aborigines.26 At the same time, camps were established on the largest pastoral runs and Aboriginal labour was integrated into the local rural economy.27 In both areas, there was initially no government or missionary control over the Indigenous people residing there.28 In 1850 Victoria separated from New South Wales and became a self-governing colony. In February 1859, ten years after the closure of the Port Phillip Protectorate, the creation of “reserves for the various tribes on their own hunting grounds” was solicited in the report of a Select Committee formed in order to “investigate the condition and needs of Aboriginal people.”29 The Victorian reserve and rations system was then formally instituted in June 1860: it included reserves, camping places and ration depots managed by honorary correspondents, under the supervision of a Central Board to Watch Over the Interests of the Aborigines - an official body that appointed reserve managers and correspondents and oversaw expenditure.30 In the new colony of Victoria, five missions and two government stations were established between the 1850s and 1860s. The missions were the Anglican Yelta Mission (1855-1869), Framlingham Mission (1861, under Board control from 1866-1916) and Lake Tyers Mission (1861-1970)31; the Moravian Ebenezer Mission (1859-1904) and the Presbyterian and Moravian Ramahyuck Mission (1867-1908). The government-run stations were those of Coranderrk (1863-1924) and Lake Condah (1867-1959). However, not all Indigenous people lived on reserves. According to the census of 1877, 581 out of 1067 Aborigines in Victoria, just over half the recorded figure, lived outside the reserves.32

26 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 44-56. Goodall observes also how “there appear to be no surviving maps which record the locations of these 35 Aboriginal reserves, with the notable exception of Nganhu, the Brewarrina Fisheries” (Ibid, p. 75). 27 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 64-66. 28 Ibid., p. 96. See also this chapter, note 29. 29 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 121-122. The report was particularly influenced by William Thomas, the Guardian of the Aborigines (Ibid., p. 122). 30 See VPDLA, 1859-1860, Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines p.1169; Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 125 and “Understanding reserves”, pp. 126-132; Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, p.16; Diane E. Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, Canberra, Aboriginal History Inc., 1998, pp. 42-44. 31 The title deed of Lake Tyers was transferred to Indigenous people. (Merle Jackomos, “The history of Lake Tyers”, Identity, October 1971. http://www.Indigenousrights.net.au/document.asp?ssID=&sID=&aID=&iID=840) 32 “Aboriginal People in Victoria On and Off the Reserves 1877 Census”, reproduced in Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 147. See also Bain Attwood, “Off the Mission Stations: Aborigines in Gippsland 1860-1890,” Aboriginal History 10, no.2 (1986): 131-150.

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As seen in Chapter 3 in my discussion of instances of oral petitioning, and in Tommy Dower’s petition for land in 1886, the choice of the location of some of these Victorian reserves was determined by the requests from Indigenous people concerning specific tracts of land of cultural significance to them.33 The Kulin people - whose petitions I will later address - chose lands on the Acheron River and at Coranderrk in this way; the Kurnai people of Gippsland selected tracts of land at Lake Wellington and Lake Tyers;34 the Gunditjmara people had some land reserved for them along the Hopkins River and at Lake Condah.35

The colony of New South Wales also saw the establishment of reserves as a result of Indigenous requests. Indigenous people from the early 1860s to the mid-1880s actively tried to preserve and safeguard their society by attempting to secure access to some of their traditionally owned land. This occurred, as we shall see, especially in areas where land use by settlers and pastoralists was increasingly threatening the livelihood and the existence of Indigenous societies. Historian Heather Goodall, who draws attention to the intensification of British land use in Victoria and New South Wales from the 1860s to the 1890s, observes how the location of the thirty-two reserves created between 1861 and 1884 in New South Wales, corresponded closely to the areas where intensification of land use had most affected its traditional owners and their access to resources.36 She also highlights how these reserves were the result of the attainment of land largely through Indigenous people’s requests rather than the result of a government policy of segregation:

The greater proportion of these reserves, 27 out of 32, were created because Aborigines had demanded them or had already reoccupied the land and begun farming. If we include Cumeragunja [the station which developed near Maloga, southern NSW along the border with Victoria, after Maloga was closed], in spite of some involvement by the missionary Matthews, this makes 28 out of 32. The creation of these reserves was not

33 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 122-126. Indigenous Australians were also asked to accompany missionaries to identify suitable locations for new reserves. Such was the case for instance of the location chosen for Warangesda. See Nancy Cato, Mr Maloga. 34 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 122-126. See also Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 39-40, 48; Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 77-79. For information regarding the Kulin people see Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, chapter 1 and 2; Gary Presland, First People, Melbourne, Museum Victoria, 2010. For information regarding the Kurnai people (also spelt Gunai) see Lorimer Fison and A.W. Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Melbourne, 1880. 35 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 126. 36 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 69, p. 85-86.

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the implementation of a government policy to segregate but the achievement of a victory for Aboriginal communities in their attempts to regain some of their land, although the title fell far short of the inalienable freehold for which they were asking.37

That segregation was not the aim of government policy at this stage - early 1860s to early 1880s - has been observed also by anthropologist Diane Barwick, in her discussion of the Victorian Board policy.38 However, a different trend was soon to emerge. In New South Wales, Indigenous peoples’ access to land and to their traditional resources was increasingly disrupted in the decade following the Land Act of 1884. This Land Act increased “the pace of change in land use” on the coast and along the central and northern slopes of the colony. As a result, a growing number of settlers, cattle and sheep, along with developing rural towns and infrastructure - roads, railways and steamers along the river ways - interfered with the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous communities and upset an already delicate and precarious balance.39

Thus, in the period that followed, that is, from the mid-1880s to the mid-1890s in New South Wales, reserves came to be considered by non-Indigenous people as places of possible segregation. Goodall writes that

forty-five per cent of [the 85] reserves created [in New South Wales] in this decade [1885 to 1894], were not the result of Aboriginal request … not only employers but also rural town authorities had recognised that reserves could serve their purposes, which were to have true segregation areas to contain Aboriginal town camps out of sight but not out of reach.40

It is possible to see here the confluence of two (or more) understandings of the reserves and the different meanings they came to have. For the Indigenous people whose land was being more and more occupied and taken from them, the establishment of reserves could mean the possibility of continuing to live on tracts of their traditional land, with limited

37 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 87. 38 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 52, 61. 39 Ibid., p. 92. 40 Ibid., p. 93.

127 encroachment upon it from white settlers. It could mean a safe refuge as well as a place where some material and medical assistance was provided - the former, especially in the form of rations and/or clothing and other items being supplied by colonial governments. With the establishment of schools on missions and stations, reserves might have come to be seen by Indigenous people also as providing the opportunity to learn and master the coloniser’s language and culture to further more equitable interactions and foster better future prospects for their children.

From the perspective of settlers, on the other hand, as observed by Goodall, reserves became places where Indigenous Australians could potentially be segregated, especially in areas where rural towns developed. Further, where the land upon which these reserves were established was cleared and put under successful and productive cultivation by Indigenous people, it became coveted by selectors and settlers who began to lobby for the dismantlement of such reserves in order to access the land. For the authorities, reserves represented places where they might “protect and civilize” Indigenous Australians and educate them in the ways of the white people, as well as places where they might be controlled. As for the missionaries, mission stations meant the possibility of providing relief to distressed Indigenous people who had been dispossessed and reduced to poverty and exploitation, and the possibility of Christianizing and civilizing them - very often, however, to the detriment of the preservation of their own culture and language.41 These perspectives altered over time, with changes in political and economic situations and in discourses on the disappearance of the race coming to play a greater role in the conceptualization of reserves and legislation. However, the tie of Indigenous peoples to their land remained unchanged.

In a contractarian framework, the reservation of land upon Indigenous request underlines the role of Indigenous people as active contracting parties in the attempt to re-establish an Indigenous social order (connected to land) which would safeguard their societies. However, reservation of land was, in fact, achieved on precarious basis not in a formally contracted way, and when access to traditionally owned land was threatened and when government or missionary control was imposed on their communities, petitions and letters

41 For an account of the many different missions established in Australia since colonial times see John Harris, One Blood, rev. ed., Sutherland, NSW, Albatross Books, 1994 (1990).

128 offered an instrument with which to try to assert their autonomy as contractual partners and protect their land and liberties.42

5.3.2. The Coranderrk petitions

The petitions written at Coranderrk from the mid-1870s represent the first well-documented wave of petitions from a government-run station. They include all three types of petitions sketched earlier, namely, those concerning (1) management, (2) legislation and (3) preservation of the reserves - as well as instances of oral petitioning. I will here discuss these different kinds of petitions as they were formulated at Coranderrk not only to exemplify the typologies of the petitions, but also to reflect on the language they were written in and on the political identities they produced. I will also comment on the role of these petitions in the struggle to retain Coranderrk and to manage it in a way that would benefit its residents.

If we first consider oral petitions, requests for land had been voiced by the Kulin people since at least 1843. At the time of the Port Phillip Protectorate, William Thomas had recorded these requests while serving as Assistant Protector for the Melbourne and Westernport regions and later as General Inspector of Aboriginal Missions and Reserves.43 In February 1859, Daungwurrung representatives, assisted and accompanied by Woiwurrung representatives - among whom Simon Wonga, a Woiwurrung spokesperson or ngurungaeta, acting on this occasion as interpreter - asked William Thomas, for “a block of land in their country where they may sit down, plant corn, potatoes, etc. - and work like white men.”44 The request of land “in their country” was important because it testifies to the continuing relevance of “country” to its traditional owners. And so was the reference to agriculture and working like “white men”, in that both agriculture and industry were being proposed (by settlers and authorities) and understood (by original inhabitants) as ways to make the tenure of land visible and potentially secure.

42 For the theoretical question of Aboriginal writing induced by government institutionalisation versus Aboriginal agency, see Stephen Muecke and Anne Brewster’s positions in van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 201; Anne Brewster, Literary Formations, pp. 33-36. 43 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 123. 44 Ibid.

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Shortly afterwards, William Thomas translated and presented to the Surveyor-General of Lands the desire for land expressed by the two Kulin groups that had been in contact with him. A Kulin deputation waited upon Charles Duffy, the Minister of Lands, who approved their request for a specific tract of land on the Acheron River, or “Nakkrom”.45 However, this “covenant” as Thomas termed it, was broken a few years later when, under the pressure of an influential squatter, the Kulin people who had settled on the Acheron River were forced to move to a different location, the Mohican station.46 It was then, in 1863, that Woiwurung spokespersons, William Barak and Simon Wonga, supported by both William Thomas and Reverend John Green, his successor as General Inspector, asked the Board to have the land of a traditional Woiwurrung camping site at Coranderrk Creek reserved for them. 47

From a contractarian perspective we can observe how spokespersons of local Indigenous groups, supported by local representatives of colonial authorities - such as William Thomas and John Green - were trying to reach “covenants” or agreements concerning the use of land, with colonial authorities, initially in an oral form. The value placed on orality by Indigenous clan-heads as their traditional form of communication - including communication in the political sphere - influenced their consideration of these oral agreements as having a binding value. However, they had experienced how oral agreements had been easily broken by their non-Indigenous counterparts.

The local colonial representatives they chose as intermediaries to put forward their words, William Thomas and John Green, were willing to recognise Indigenous people, their specific culture and their right to occupy their traditional land. The support and cooperation they provided was an effective way to formally communicate with British colonial authorities in higher positions, because this support endorsed and sanctioned the petitioners and their subjecthood, their position and their voice. However, this same cooperation was fraught with the danger of attaining the exact opposite effect. Those who were not prepared to recognize Aboriginal agency looked at these collaborations as evidence of white agency rather than Aboriginal agency.48

45 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 123. 46 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 49; Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 124. 47 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 65-66; Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 124. 48 See for instance, van Toorn, “The double jeopardy of mediation” in Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 133- 140, esp. 135, 137; Mudrooroo, The Indigenous Literature of Australia, South Melbourne, Hyland House, 1997, p. 35.

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If we focus on the kind of “contract” or “covenant” these communications were trying to achieve, we can gain a further understanding of the political identities and contractual strategies that Indigenous people developed in order to negotiate with the coloniser. In Rousseau’s formulation, the social contract sanctioned the formation of a society by the free association of its members. However, the covenants that Kulin representatives were trying to attain with colonial authorities were not directed at seeking the free association of the members of the two distinct societies - colonial and Indigenous - in order to form a new society (although they did indeed associate). Rather, these covenants revolved around the request for respect of Kulin land ownership and Kulin society, that is, for respect of the land upon which Kulin society was based and that informed their cultural identity. In other words, rather than stipulating the formation of a society in which both Indigenous and non- Indigenous people would associate, such contracts proposed the recognition of Indigenous society. Within a framework of a desired reciprocal respect, they set forth the basis for the continuation and safeguarding of Indigenous society and culture. However, such oral (and later written) covenants were not secure. They concerned land and they took place in the specific historical context of colonial expansion, increased settlement and increased occupation of Indigenous land. Hence, these contracts were prey to the appeal that reserve lands - cleared, improved and made productive - exercised for squatters and settlers, as the case of the Acheron and Coranderrk reserves demonstrate.

Kulin clan-heads did not address themselves only to local government representatives but, when the opportunity arose, they presented their messages and requests to those who occupied the highest governmental offices, as the Pallawah people had previously done from Flinders Island. Woiworrung leaders Simon Wonga and William Barak decided to attend the celebrations organised by Governor Henry Barkly on 24 May 1863 in Melbourne for the Queen Victoria’s birthday and for the recent marriage of her son Albert, Prince of Wales. During the public levee, not only did they offer gifts for the sovereigns, they also presented a written “loyal address” to the Queen, drafted with the help of William Thomas, and spoke about their need for land to the Queen’s representative, the Governor.49 About a month later, on 30 June 1863, 2,300 acres of land at the site of Coranderrk were gazetted for their use and, shortly afterwards, copies of a letter from the Queen “promising her protection” were received by the Coranderrk residents. This gave rise to their belief that the land at Coranderrk had been reserved for them thanks to the Queen’s intervention.

49 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 66; Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 125.

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Diane Barwick considers this belief erroneous and the timing of the gazettal of the reserve as coincidental; however, both she and Penny van Toorn highlight the Kulin’s raised awareness of the effectiveness of formal written communication to authorities in high positions.50 Penny van Toorn suggests that,

whether or not the queen intervened, the people of Coranderrk were correct in their perception that deputations and letters to people in high places were an effective way of asserting their needs and defending their interests. They used the medium of writing not to preserve words over time, but rather to carry their voices over the heads of local officials so they could be heard by higher authorities to whom the locals were accountable.51 [my emphasis]

By using what van Toorn called a “bridging strategy”, or, in Charles Mills’ terms, by addressing themselves to the highest representatives of the “dominating” society, the Woiwurung leaders, William Barak and Simon Wonga, sought to secure land tenure within a more stable and certain covenant, which they aimed to establish with British imperial authorities to whom land now formally belonged in the form of Crown land.

In the events leading up to the reservation of Coranderrk we observed the emergence of different strategies to press for and secure land, to preserve access to and connection with the land which represented and still represents a fundamental part of Indigenous Australian culture and identity.52 The strategies included actual occupation of land, deputations, oral petitions and diplomatic formal addresses. Now, with the gazettal of the reserve, the object of the petitioners’ requests shifted towards the management and the preservation of the reserve. Their requests also passed from an oral form to a written one, or to a dimension in which the oral and the written forms coexisted, leading indeed to the preservation of Kulin words over time.

A great number of petitions concerning the management of Coranderrk, addressed to the Board and later to Chief Secretaries over two decades since 1874, had as their central

50 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 66. 51 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 125. 52 For the relation to land of Indigenous Australians, see for instance Colin Bourke, Eleanor Bourke and Bill Edwards, Aboriginal Australia, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1998.

132 request the reinstatement of John Green. In the words of Kulin people recorded in their petitions, John Green was a man “God [had] chosen to lay the foundation of Coranderrk”, who had “appointed” them “to the living God” and who had saved and protected their lives: “… if it wasn’t for him we what a [would have] been all dead”.53 John Green, a young Scottish Presbyterian minister, had supported the Kulin people in their efforts to secure land at the location where Coranderrk was later established. He had walked with them from the Acheron reserve to the site of Coranderrk in 1863 and had been appointed by the Board as Coranderrk’s first manager. He considered Kulin people as free, independent and equal to white men and he did not discriminate between Kulin people of full or mixed descent - although the latter were considered superior to the former in intelligence and abilities by his contemporaries.54 He believed Kulin people should be allowed to “rule themselves” and established a form of government on the station where Kulin people actively participated in the political life of the station and attained what today might be considered a degree or a form of self-determination.55 Disputes were settled by a committee presided over by John Green and formed by elders in the respect of their own law, culture and traditional hierarchical structure.56 In Rousseauian terms, it can be said that locally, they were part of the body politic as active contracting parties.

Over the years, John Green fought in the interests of the residents of Coranderrk for the implementation of a system which rewarded the best workers and for cash wages, and when the Board planned the sale of the reserve, he intervened so that the reserve maintained its status. Precisely because of its stance, he came into conflict with Board members who rarely visited Coranderrk and did not consider Kulin people capable of (political or managerial) agency, and were preoccupied with the allocation of limited and uncertain government funding. In 1874 he was pressed to resign and, as a result, Woiworung spokeperson and leader William Barak and the Coranderrk residents repeatedly pressed for his return.57 The words of Barak - entitled by traditional law to speak for the community established at Coranderrk on the land traditionally owned by his clan - were given written form by Thomas Dunolly, a young Djadjawurung man of mixed descent, taken to Coranderrk as a child from the Mount Franklin Station, north-west of

53 Petition from William Barak and others to the Chief Secretary, J.A. Macpherson, Coranderrk, 20 October, 1875, in van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 135. See Appendix, doc. 2. 54 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 59, 62, 67-68, 79. 55 Ibid., p. 67. 56 Ibid. 57 See Appendix, doc. 2-4.

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Coranderrk, where a school had been established and where he had received some education. His proficiency in spoken and written English enabled him to be Barak’s assistant and to serve the Coranderrk community.58 Two other assistants of Barak were Robert Wandin and Thomas Bamfield, respectively Barak’s nephew and the head of the allied Taungurong clan.

Penny van Toorn has discussed a number of these petitions concerning the management of the reserve. Focusing on the social writing process or textual production of these petitions - reflecting Kulin traditional authority structures and traditional social order as well as the interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures - she has highlighted their importance in the history of Australian Indigenous writings, as testimonies to the resilience and adaptability of Indigenous cultures.59 In order to extend and complement her discussion, I will here analyse two petitions concerning legislation that was to affect Kulin people at Coranderrk and that they rebelled against.

The first petition I will address was written at the end of August 1882 in response to a two day meeting - held from 18 August 1882 - where the managers of five Victorian mission stations discussed the future of Aboriginal policy, the Aboriginal Act 1869 and the question of disciplinary rules at the stations. The meeting resulted in 17 resolutions, the majority of which regarded disciplinary measures. Press coverage of the meeting was critical of the paternalistic attitude of the managers and The Argus published the following letter to the editor from William Barak and others on 29 August 1882:

Sir, - We beg of you to put our little column in your valuable paper please.

We have seen and heard that the managers of all the stations and the Central Board to have had a meeting about what [is] to be done so we have heard that there is going to be very strict rules on the station and more rules will be to[o] much for us, it seems we are all going to be treated like slaves, far as we heard of it,

- we wish to ask those Managor [managers] of the station[s] Did we steal anything out of the colony or murdered anyone or are we prisoners or convicts. We should think we are all free [as] any white men of the colony.

58 On the role of Dunolly as a scribe see Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 74, 125; van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 146-49. 59 Van Toorn, “Literacy, land and power: the Coranderrk petitions” in van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 123-151.

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When we all heard of it, it made us very vex it enough to make us all go mad the way they are going to treat us it seems very hard. We all working in peace and quietness and happy, pleasing Mr. Goodall, and also showing Mr Goodall that we could work if we had a good manager expecting our wishes to be carried out, what we ask for, but it seem it was the very opposite way. So we don’t know what to do since we heard those strict rules planned out. It has made us downhearted. We must all try again and go to the head of the Colony.

– We are all your Most Obedient Servants, Wm Barak (X), Thos. Avoca, Dick Richard (X), Thos. Mickey (X), Lankey (X), Lankey Manto, Thos Dunnolly, Robert Wandon, Alfred Morgan, Wm Parker. Coranderrk, August 29th, 1882.60

I would like to focus my analysis of this petition - and the following one - on the concept of freedom. The opening part of the petition records an already oppressive and regulated situation and its potential aggravation is felt as extreme, as a cause for fear and anguish, anger and exasperation, disheartenment and demoralization. The collective monologic voice61 of the petitioners first refers to reports that they were going to be subject to very strict rules and to the idea that they were going “to be treated like slaves”, an expression which was rooted in the historical context of the time. Slavery had been abolished in the 1833 throughout most of the British Empire and in the 1860s the topic of slavery had been significant in the Australian news, especially as it was discussed in the United States, 62 where civil war was to lead to the abolition of slavery in 1865. In the mid-1870s, slavery seems to have been still part of current political discourses. Kulin men who had been “allowed” to go on a shearing holiday with their families in 1876 at Yea and Mansfield, for the first time in four years, had heard from some employers that the objective of the Board was “to make slaves of them” at Coranderrk.63

60 Attwood and Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 47-48. Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 252-253. 61 I here refer to “monologic voice” as it has been defined by Robert A. Ferguson in “Rhetorics of the Judicial Opinion. The Judicial Opinion as Literary Genre”: it appropriates different voices into a monologue, it meets the need for the identification of speaker and text, and it is oriented toward the listener/reader and his answer. See also Michael Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981, p. 280. Robert A. Ferguson, “Rhetorics of the Judicial Opinion. The Judicial Opinion as Literary Genre,” Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 2, no. 201 (1990): pp. 204-209. 62 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 59. 63Ibid., p. 121.

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Hence, the concept of slavery was part of Victorian colonial discourses and language, and it had been used as a point of comparison to suggest similarities between the condition of slaves and those of the Indigenous Australians who lived in the Victorian station. The reference to this rumour - of their going to be treated like slaves - opens up a space in which to further address the limitation of their freedom and it provides a category for them to formulate their own sense of their political and cultural identity, i.e., that they are not slaves.

The petitioners move then to ask the station managers - and by implication the wider public of the Argus readers - a series of questions which continue to revolve around the absence of freedom: “(…) Did we steal anything out of the colony or murdered anyone or are we prisoners or convicts.” In this part of the petition, the point of comparison is not the institution of slavery but the condition of those whose liberties are restricted as a result of the crime(s) they committed. The interrogative mode, identified by Robert Ferguson as the key feature of judicial or courtroom opinion as a literary genre, leads in law courts to the formulation of the case, shapes knowledge - as previously asserted by Francis Bacon - and offers power to the questioner (“power adheres to the questioner who is answered”, writes Ferguson).64 By drawing on Ferguson’s identification, it is possible to highlight the role of the interrogative mode in this and later petitions where, in a parallel way, questions assist in formulating the case, shaping knowledge and offering a degree of power to the questioner.

The questions they asked inform and shape the knowledge that Kulin people did not commit any crime that would warrant the restriction of their freedom. In this petition, as in the law court, the questions are in fact asked rhetorically, “with an answer firmly in mind65: “We should think we are all free [as] any white men of the colony.” What Ferguson called “the march from questions to answer”66 in a legal framework, highlights in this petition their quest for equality regardless of, or in fact, despite of, their colour, in a context where the lack of such equality is felt with penetrating awareness. The final part of the petition (from “When we all heard of it…”) presents a quick succession of sentences, where it is possible to detect a certain oral influence on the writing. The reference to Mr

64 Ferguson, “Rhetorics of the Judicial Opinion”, esp. pp. 208-210. 65 Ibid., p. 208. 66 Ibid.

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Goodall,67 and to their positive work under his management, correlates to the petitioners’ wishes to have their requests (“what we ask for”) granted. However, the realization that their positive attitude and work hasn’t led to the results they had hoped for, leads them to disheartenment and to their final resolution to appeal to the head of the Colony.

The concept of freedom, highlighted by contrast through the similes relating to slavery and conviction, returns powerfully in the following petition. It was addressed to the Chief Secretary, Alfred Deakin, on 20 September 1886 by William Barak and the fifteen adult men of full Indigenous ancestry who still resided at Coranderrk. Reproduced the following day on Melbourne’s Herald, the petition was written in response to the parliamentary discussion of the Bill introduced by Alfred Deakin in Parliament in June that year.68

The Bill gave legislative authority to the Victorian Board to order Indigenous Victorians of mixed descent between 14 and 34 years of age and Indigenous women not married to an Indigenous person of full descent, to leave the reserves and to look for employment and housing into the wider (white) community.69 For this reason, it also became known as the “half-caste act”, from the name given to those who were now considered “legally white” on the basis of their white ancestry, the whiter colour of their skin, their age and status. It was the first piece of legislation in Australia that legalised the removal and separation of young Indigenous men and women from their families and communities in order to achieve assimilation.

In the Australian context, assimilation aimed at attaining the absorption or “merging” of Indigenous people and their cultural identities into the white population and white mainstream culture and beliefs. It has also been considered, at a later stage, as aimed at attaining, over time, the eventual disappearance of Australian Indigenous people as a race through their assimilation or absorption on a racial level by intermarriage - a “biological and social absorption”, as summed up by Kim Scott in his novel Benang.70 The

67 William Goodall, who succeeded Strickland as manager of Coranderrk on 26 May 1882, some 5 months before the petition was written, was an experienced farmer, teacher and preacher. He had worked among the Aborigines at Framlingham since 1869 and had visited Coranderrk regularly as a friend of the Greens. Once at Coranderrk, he consulted Kulin people about farm management, supported their requests for better housing and needed improvements and had reported to Captain Page, then Head of the Board, that the residents were “kind, cooperative, well-behaved” (Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 217, 242-43, 258). 68 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 296. 69 See Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, “Under the Acts”, pp. 185-193. 70 Kim Scott, Benang, North Fremantle, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1999, p. 43. Oodgeroo Noonuccal, in her poem Assimilation-No!, first published in 1966, referred to assimilation as an action, “Pour your pitcher of wine into the river / And where is the wine? There is only the river.” To which she opposes “(…) keeping

137 assimilation policy aimed at reducing costs associated with government expenses for Indigenous people living on reserves and it paved the way for the eventual opening up for selection of those lands that had been reserved for the use of the Aborigines. In fact, as Wayne Atkinson summarises, “the assumption was that the old members who were still living on the reserve would eventually die out and the end result would be that the Indigenous race would become absorbed into the mainstream population.”71 Using terminology developed after 1945, historian Michael F. Christie in the 1970s, and in the past decade historian Richard Broome, anthropologist Marcia Langton and academic Wayne Atkinson during the past decade, referred to the 1886 Act as aimed at genocide.72

The policy variously referred to as the “merging of the half-caste”, “absorption” or “dispersal” policy had been first formulated in the late 1870s by the Board’s General Inspector Christian Ogilvie as a policy of gradual “decentralisation.” In June 1881, the policy was reported by the Board to the Chief Secretary and, after being shaped in the early 1880, at a time profoundly influenced by racial thought, in 1884 amending legislation to implement the policy was being drafted.73 The policy, advocated by Hagenauer and Page among others, had met the reluctance and resistance of other Board members, Parliamentarians and Graham Berry.74 Barwick has highlighted how there was “no public debate on the morality of this racial classification”, of excluding the so-called

/ Our own identity, our pride of race.” (see Anita Heiss and Peter Minter (eds.), Maquarie Pen Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2008, p.44). With regard to the policy of assimilation by intermarriage in the Northern Territory in the 1920s and 1930s see “Civilisation by Blood” in McGregor, Imagined Destinies, pp. 142-180; for a comparative discussion of assimilation, see Gary Foley, “Assimilating the Natives in the U.S. and Australia”, The Koorie History Website, 2000, http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/essay_15.html; Ellinghaus Katherine, “Biological Absorption and Genocide: A Comparison of Indigenous Australian Policies in the United States and Australia,” Genocide Studies and Prevention 4, no. 1 (2009): 59-79. 71 Wayne Atkinson in Rachel Perkins, First Australians, SBS, Episode Three, “Freedom for our lifetime”, http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/. 72 Michael F. Chrstie, Aborigines in Colonial Victoria 1835-1886, Sydney University Press, 1979, p. 205; Marcia Langton, “Freedom for our lifetime”, in Perkins, First Australians, 2008 http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/; Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 188; Wayne Atkinson, in Perkins and Langton (eds.), First Australians, p. 167. Some historians have questioned, however, the usefulness of exploring the issue of whether genocide has occurred in Australia (see Attwood and Foster, Frontier Conflict, p.10). 73 See for instance Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 281-83; Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, 178-181. Broome distinguishes two phases in the formulation of this policy. An earlier phase, from the late 1770s, in which the ‘encouragement’ of adult Aboriginals to leave the reserve to find work and the apprenticing of Aboriginal youths outside the reserve mirrored a prevailing ethic of self-improvement; a second phase, marked by the racial distinction of Aboriginal people by degrees of descent and by a wish to exile agitators from the stations. 74 Graham Berry was the former Chief Secretary who had supported William Barak and the Coranderrk community in their efforts to retain Coranderrk. Thanks to him, on 6 October 1884 Coranderrk had been gazetted as a permanent reserve, revocable only by Act of Parliament (Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 284).

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“half-castes” from the category of “Aboriginal”, nor there was “concern about the civil liberties it affected”.75 Although it is difficult to determine the exact extent to which Barak and the other fifteen petitioners knew the Bill and its dispositions, it is noteworthy to observe how their petition revolves around their wish for freedom on equal terms with the white population rather than the Bill in its entirety. That is, their petition and their requests are centred on a principle, on the underlying common ethic world, or “shared moral world” distinguished by Ravi de Costa as the moral dimension in which petitioners’ requests can find justification and legitimisation.76

Like the previous petition which was prompted by the discussion of the disciplinary measures to be employed at the station, this petition was also triggered by a particular clause which related to discipline and to precluding the right of appeal to the Chief Secretary. This is The Herald’s article that reproduced the petition:

The Protection Bill and the Coranderrk Blacks

In the Aborigines Protection Bill now before parliament one of the clauses (No. 5) gives the Board for the Protection of Aborigines supreme control over the blacks. Any aborigines guilty of breaches of discipline may be removed from stations kept up by the Government, or may have their rations stopped by the Board. Previously the blacks have always been able to appeal from the Board to the Chief Secretary, but in the Bill under notice this right of appeal is taken away. The Coranderrk blacks are strongly opposed to this clause, and prepared a petition against it, for presentation to the Chief Secretary …

The following is verbatim copy of the petition, which is signed by the whole of the black male adults at Coranderrk: -

To the Chief Secretary.

Sir, - We wish to ask for our wishes, that is, could we get our freedom to go away shearing and harvesting, and to come home when we wish, and also to go for the good of our health when we need it; and we aboriginals all wish and hope to have freedom, not to be bound down by the protection of the Board, as it says in the Bill (clause 5),

75 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 282. 76 Ravi de Costa, “Identity, Authority, and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no.3 (2006): 669-98.

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But we should be free like the white population. There is only few blacks now remaining in Victoria. We are all dying away now, and we blacks of aboriginal blood wish to have our freedom for all our life time, for the population is small, and the increase is slow. For why does the Board seek in these latter days more stronger authority over us aborigines than it has yet been. For there is only 21 aborigines on the station of Coranderrk, including men and women. –

Your servants, Chief William Barak, John Logan, Thomas Avoca, John Terrick, Charles Kable, Thomas Banfield [Bamfield], Thomas Gilman, Dick Richard, Lanky Manton, Lanky Gilmore, Edward McLennon, Thomas McLennon, Camgham John, Samuel Rowan, Mooney Clark, Frederick Stewart. Coranderrk, 20th September.77

The repeated questions and statements of the petition convey a passionate and assertive request for freedom: “could we get our freedom”, “we aboriginals all wish and hope to have freedom”, “we should be free like the white population”, “we blacks of aboriginal blood wish to have freedom for all our lifetime”. The repetition of the words “freedom” and “wish” (the latter used as a verb and a noun and also associated to “hope”), achieve the intensification of the request, in a way not dissimilar to that discussed by Andrea McArdle in her analysis of early antebellum black literature in Boston.78

The petitioners’ wish for freedom is juxtaposed in the text to the “protection” and authority exercised by the Aborigines Protection Board: “we aboriginals all wish and hope to have freedom, not to be bound down by the protection of the board, as it says in the Bill (clause 5)”, “why does the Board seek in these latter days more stronger authority over us Aborigines than it has yet been” [my emphasis]. The expressions “bound down” and “over us” suggest an imposed position of subjection which the petitioners do not accept and are seeking to alter in order to achieve the same freedom enjoyed by white people: “we should be free like the white population”, they state, echoing the former petition, “we should think we are all free as any white man of the colony”.79 In asking to be freed from the “domination” imposed upon them by the dominating society (through the Aborigines Protection Board), the petitioners acknowledge and record their objection to this

77 “The Protection Bill and the Coranderrk Blacks”, Herald, 21 September 1886, reproduced in Attwood and Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 50-51. 78 Andrea McArdle, “The Confluence of Law and Antebellum Black Literature: Lawyerly Discourse as a Rhetoric of Empowerment”, Law and Literature 17, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 183-292. 79 See petition discussed above, p. 134.

140 domination and outline the parameters of an alternative social contract. And in articulating their request, they invoke a principle shared by the dominating society they are addressing, the principle of freedom. They in effect ask for a change in the contracted paradigm in which they are interpellated, one which recognises overtly what the law putatively accords them, namely their status as free beings (as distinct from slaves).

The freedom of movement specified and requested in the initial part of the petition has significant meanings. Leaving the station to go away shearing and harvesting constituted a necessary form of travelling, visiting other people and going back to one’s own country. It allowed the Kulin people to maintain social, spiritual and cultural connections with people and land. At the same time, it also increased the possibility of receiving cash wages and achieving a certain, or a higher degree of, economic independence, and a related higher standard of living. Cash wages on the station had been introduced only in the early 1870s after John Green and the Coranderrk residents had pressed for them for several years, but they were still lower than those payed outside the station and they were often not reliable.80

Going away “for the good of our health when we need it” meant having the possibility of accessing medical care, of caring of the sick and assuring the continuation of their people’s lives. In the mid 1870s the reserves had been struck by epidemics, aggravated by poor housing conditions and poor diet; there was no hospital on the station nor were there medical practitioners to provide a regular service to the community; the death rate was reported to be 11 times that of the general population.81 Barak himself had experienced the difficulties of access to medical attention. In the early 1880s, after losing his second wife Annie, Barak took his fourteen-year old son, David, to a Melbourne hospital; Barak himself was not allowed to remain beside his child, who died alone in the hospital.82 Access to medical care was an issue of no less relevance for later petitioners, as demonstrated by the 1931 petition from Lake Tyers and the 1970 petition to the U.N.83

80 Cash wages were paid by the Board from 1874. See Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 80, 82, 84, 88- 90, 92, 95, 97-98, 100, 117. 81 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 143. 82 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 174-75, 181-82; Bruce Pascoe, “How it starts”, in Rachel Perkins and Marcia Langton (eds.), First Australians, Carlton, Miegunyah Press, 2008, p.160; Rachel Perkins, First Australians, SBS, Episode Three, “Freedom for our lifetime”, 30:45-33:38, http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/. The death of Barak’s son is also the central theme of Tony Birch’s “Coranderrk - 1881”, first published in Meanjin 65, no. 1 (2006). 83 See Chapter 6, Section 6.3. and Appendix doc. 21 respectively.

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Certainly, therefore, regaining freedom of movement had vast implications for the petitioners, in social, cultural, financial and health related contexts.

The second part of the petition frames the request of the “blacks of aboriginal blood” for “freedom for all our lifetime”, within a specular reference to the small number of “blacks (…) remaining” in the colony of Victoria and at Coranderrk. The request is here expressed in terms closely connected to the idea that Aboriginal people, specifically as identified as such by “full-blood”, would “die away”. It doesn’t seem coincidental that it was indeed in the 1880s that the “doomed race theory”, the notion that Indigenous Australians of full descent were doomed or destined to extinction, found its consolidation. If already in the 1830s this idea was entrenched in colonial imagination and had spurred the writing of romantic verses on the passing of the Aboriginal race,84 by the 1880s it had been consolidated by the rise of evolutionary science. The expression “the population is small, and the increase is slow”, does recall the contemporary suggestion that the decreased birth rate could explain “racial extinction”.85 The petitioners, however, use this trope and the factual specificity of their numbers to question the resolve of the Board to impose upon them restrictions and control. They employ a discourse of logic to buttress their request for freedom, heightened rhetorically through repetition, juxtaposition and pointed questioning.

As a result of this petition and of a deputation to the Chief Secretary, and also through the opposition of several Parliamentarians to restrictive clauses of the Bill, the clause objected to by the petitioners was excised from the final Bill, the Aborigines Protection Law Amendment Bill. However, the Bill itself was nonetheless hastily passed on 15 December 1886,86 “to enable those half-castes … connected with the mission stations to earn their living, thus relieving the state of the burden of their maintenance, and preventing the Aboriginals from being crowded out of the station.”87

84 See for instance Barron Field’s verses on the passing of the Aboriginal Race in 1825, Barron Field, “On the Aborigines of New Holland and Van Diemens Land”, in Barron Field (ed.), Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales, London, 1825, pp. 228-229, quoted in McGregor, Imagined Destinies, pp. 13-14. 85 In an early account of the doomed race theory, Paul Strzelecki, a Polish explorer, highlighted the decline of births, rather than the increased mortality rate, as a factor contributing to the decline of the Australian Indigenous population (see McGregor, Imagined Destinies, pp.15-16). 86 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, pp. 297-300; Bruce Pascoe, “Half-Caste Act” in Perkins and Langton (eds.), First Australians, p. 166. 87 Victorian Parliamentary Debates, Session 1886:181, 2912-13, quoted in Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 300.

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The 1886 Act, and the following and more restrictive 1890 Act, led to the halving of the reserve population by 1902.88 The older and younger generations were separated and, as a consequence, as Penny van Toorn argued, “the intergenerational collaboration on which Aboriginal writing depended… [and] traditional lines of cultural transmission” were threatened.89 Historian Michael Christie argued that the policy intended to silence of the protests through the removal of young literate Indigenous men and women of mixed heritage from the reserve.90 Richard Broome highlighted the loss of freedom, the separation of families, the removal from home and the closure of the reserves as consequences of the legislation and the 1890 consolidation Act.91 Many exiled residents however tried to maintain contacts with the community on the reserve and found employment in its vicinity.92

The economic depression of the 1890s and the prejudices within the white community towards Indigenous people hindered their inclusion into the white community on social and economic levels, and many former residents of Coranderrk moved to the Maloga mission to find assistance.93 Established in 1874 in southern New South Wales along the border with Victoria, the Maloga mission did not fall under the reach of the 1886 legislation. We shall see shortly some of the results of this mobility across reserves in terms of the spreading of the knowledge and use of petitioning. Before doing so, however, I would like to summarize my reflections based on the petitions from Coranderrk here discussed.

I focused my attention on two petitions that were written in response to the desire to be freed from the “domination” or restriction of personal liberties exercised by the Aborigines Protection Board as representative of the “dominating society”. This desire for freedom, and the assumption of a political identity, are expressed in terms of the insistence of

88 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 194; Australian Archives and the Public Records Office of Victoria, My Heart is Breaking, p. 107. for the impact of both the 1886 and 1890 Acts see also Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 185-193 and Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, pp. 11-30. 89 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 150. 90 Michael Christie, Aborigines in Colonial Victoria 1835-1886, Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1979, pp. 194, 196, 198. 91 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 185-193. For the impact of both the 1886 and 1890 Acts see also Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, pp. 11-30. 91 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p.150. 92 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 189-90. Bruce Pascoe, “Half-Caste Act”, in Perkins and Langton (eds.), First Australians, p. 166. 93 Barwick, Rebellion at for the impact of both the 1886 and 1890 Acts see also Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 185-193 and Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, pp. 11-30.Coranderrk, p. 302.

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Indigenous people’s right to freedom on equal basis with the white population by using an interrogative mode sustained by an assertive tone. The invoked principles of freedom and equality are used to interrogate the managers of the reserves (in the former petition) and the Chief Secretary (in the latter), as well as the white community (the reading public of the newspapers where the petitions were reproduced), on the justice and logic of such restrictions. By employing emotive language, they encourage the petitions’ addressees and readers to empathise with their situation and while posing their questions to the addressees, the petitioners assert their just entitlement to freedom and equality. The engagement of the audience, the use of logic and questioning are similar to those deployed by protest literature including by contemporary Australian Indigenous protest literature.94

In a certain sense, these petitions expose the contract of domination outlined by Charles Mills, and expose it as “illogical and nugatory”, in Rousseauian terms, precisely because of the constraints on freedom it involved.95 They show the resistance to having freedom being taken away, that is, their non-renunciation of freedom. It also shows an example of emergence of political identity in order to engage in a discussion over Aboriginal rights. Although it isn’t clear how the former petition impacted on the planned disciplinary rules, the latter petition was successful in determining the excision of the clause foreclosing appeal to the Chief Secretary. However, the 1886 Act and subsequent legislation failed to recognise Indigenous Victorians freedom on equal basis with white citizens and it resulted in what Chesterman and Galligan referred to as a citizenship divide between citizens and non-citizens.96 Freedom and equality, as principles, were to be accepted and enshrined in legislation only much later on (and it would be interesting to explore to what extent this happened).

5.3.3. Maloga: the two sides of a petition for land

I would like now to discuss a petition signed by forty-two men residing at the Maloga mission in order to elucidate some methodological aspects in considering petitions and as a

94 Anne Brewster, “Engaging the Public Intimacy of Whiteness: the Indigenous Protest Poetry of Romaine Moreton”, JASAL, Special Issue: The Colonial Present, 2008, pp. 62-63. Andrea McArdle, “The Confluence of Law and Antebellum Black Literature”. 95 See Chapter 1, Section 1.2.1., Rousseau on renunciation of freedom, p. 41. 96 Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, p. 18.

144 counterpoint to the petitions from Coranderrk. The petition requested “a grant of land” in favour of the “aboriginal natives (…) members of the Moira and Ulupna tribes”, the Indigenous people belonging to the Yorta Yorta97 language group at the border of New South Wales and Victoria. It was presented to Lord Augustus Loftus, the Governor of the colony of New South Wales, and it was published in the Sydney Morning Herald in early July 1881 a few days after its presentation. It exemplifies a case in which the text of the petition can be used and interpreted in ways that were unforseen at the time of its composition. It reminds us of the importance of the signatories’ support of a petition’s request, regardless of its precise wording and of the influence of contemporary discourses on the wording.

More than a hundred years after the petition was written and signed in fact, some of the descendents of the signatories and other members of the Yorta Yorta Indigenous community tendered this petition in a native title claim as evidence of numerous attempts across time of the will of the Yorta Yorta people to continue to live on the land they had traditionally occupied. The court judge, however, interpreted the wording of the petition unfavourably and used it to contribute to the denial of the claim.98 After showing that the drafting of the petition’s text may reasonably be attributed to persons other than the signatories, I will clarify the request of land at the heart of the petition suggesting that it might well have originated among those who signed it. Consequently, I will argue that the signatories’ support of a petition’s request(s) is relevant and that when the input of the signatories towards the drafting of the text is not documented it is this endorsement and the nature of this support that needs to be considered, rather than the petition’s specific wording. The legal assessment of this petition in the native title claim Yorta Yorta Aboriginal community v The State of Victoria & Ors, raises the critical issue of whether the statements contained in a petition (and in this petition in particular), do represent the petitioners’ views accurately.99 I will address this issue by looking at the writing process of the petition itself and by examining its request within the local historical context.

97 Alternative spellings Joti Jota, Yoti Yota. 98 See Editors, “Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v The State of Victoria & Ors - Case Summary” [1999] AUIndigLawRpr10; (1999) 4 (1) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 91, (here forth referred to as Yorta Yorta v. Victoria & Ors, 1999), especially § 120, §121, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AILR/1999/10.html; Wayne Atkinson, ‘Not One Yota’: The Yorta Yorta Struggle for Land Justice, unpublished PhD thesis, La Trobe University Library, 2000, esp. pp. 199- 202. 99 Yorta Yorta v. Victoria & Ors, 1999, §121.

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The history of the Maloga mission is useful in contextualising the request for land of the petition, from both the perspective of Daniel Mathew, the founder of the mission, and from the perspective of the Indigenous signatories. In the early 1850s, a young Daniel Matthews arrived to Australia from Cornwall with part of his family to rejoin his newly migrated father. After some time in Melbourne, the family moved to the goldfields at Bendigo, north of Melbourne, where Daniel first saw the local Indigenous people, their marginalized conditions, their poverty, the effects of drinks among them and their exploitation and treatment by settlers.100 When in 1864 he opened a store in Echuca with his brother William to supply the growing paddle steamer trade on the Murray River, he became known as their supporter, and was called by them maranooka, “friend”.101

It was in those years, within the context of the newly established reserve and rationing system, that Daniel Matthew started advocating for the need to reserve some lands for the use of the local Indigenous people. In an article to the editor of The Age, dated 29 May 1866, Matthew described his visit to Coranderrk and stated: “On the Murray and Goulburn Rivers, there are hundreds of these poor wretches, worse than uncared for (…) Large tracts of land should be set apart for them (…).”102 Between 1865 and 1868 Daniel and his brother William, with the financial assistance of their brother John Matt residing in England, purchased three adjoining blocks of land, for a total of 310 hectares (800 acres) under the New South Wales land acts of 1861. 103 The land was located near the Victorian towns of Echuca and Moama, on the New South Wales side of the Murray River, at the border of the two colonies. On discovering that part of the land they had selected had been a traditional gathering place and ceremonial ground for the local Indigenous tribes - the Wollithiga clans of the Yorta Yorta (also referred to as Echuca clans or Bangerang tribe) - the brothers set aside eight hectares of river frontage for them and retained the original name of the place, Maloga, “sand”, after the sandy promontory where it was situated.104

In 1868, 1870 and 1872 Daniel visited Coranderrk again, the fourth time accompanied by his newly wedded bride, Janet Johnson, on the occasion of their honeymoon.105 In a

100 Nancy Cato, Mister Maloga, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1976, 1993, pp. 4-5. 101 Ibid., pp. 6, 8. 102 Daniel Matthews, “To the Editor of the Age”, Sandridge 29 May 1866, in “Aboriginal Clippings Aboriginal Subjects”, Mitchell Library, Nancy Norman’s papers relating to Rev. Daniel Matthews, ca 1857- 1970. 103 Cato, Mr Maloga, p. 9. 104 Ibid., pp. 16-17. 105 Ibid., pp. 21, 23, 26. Daniel and Janet Johnston married in June 1872. She was daughter to Scottish parents and her father was active in the Congregational Church. See Cato, Mr Maloga, pp. 22, 26-27.

146 pamphlet titled “An Appeal on Behalf of the Australian Aborigines”, published in May 1873, Daniel reiterated that “large grants of land” should be given to Australian Aborigines and he outlined the mission he intended to create at Maloga to provide them with secular and religious instruction.106 One year later, in June 1874, he and his wife moved from Echuca to Maloga, to start a mission and a school on the land that in the meantime had been transferred under mortgage to Daniel’s brother John in England.107 Coranderrk’s station, which had been so far under the good management of John Green, served as a model to Daniel, who had been visiting the Indigenous camps set up near local pastoral stations, and initially gathered at the mission Indigenous children from the Moira and Madowla camps from along the Murray river.108

The first group of children he gathered at Maloga came from the Moira Station, where Kitty, William Cooper (“Billy”)’s mother, was residing. At the start however, the children, stayed only four months. Other Indigenous people who settled at Maloga came from the Goulburn River and Moira Lakes, Ovens, Campaspe, Korong Vale. Others came from Coranderrk, and Ulupna. He started teaching them to read and write and gave them religious instruction based on biblical readings and on his Wesleyan background. He taught them to sing hymns and because he believed in adult education, night classes were available to young men and adults who had been working during the day.109 Letter writing was encouraged at Maloga110 as was contact with the settler’s society, especially for the men. Cato’s research suggests in fact that “Daniel took the men as often as possible to Echuca and Moama, to political meetings, or a circus, a concert, to hear visiting preachers, or [to] visit Cooper & Bailey’s menagerie.”111 These kinds of contact, together with those the men had at and through the pastoral stations where they worked and through other acquaintances who did not live on missions or stations, might have familiarised the men with different forms of settler culture and political action.

Although the beginnings of the mission were difficult, marked by shortage of food and money112 and by fluctuating numbers of residents, the mission gradually grew and Daniel

106 Daniel Matthews, An appeal on behalf of the Australian Aboriginals, Echuca, Vic., Haverfield & Co., 1873, quoted in Cato, Mr Maloga, p. 42. 107 Cato, Mr Maloga, p. 19. 108 Ibid., pp. 43, 49-50, 53, 56, 63. 109 Ibid., p. 84. 110 Ibid., p. 85. 111 Ibid., p. 75. 112 Ibid, pp. 74-75.

147 publicized it and advocated support for it in both colonies through press and contacts with church ministers and politicians. With time, small sums of money and rations were provided by the New South Wales government, and in 1878 a Committee for Maloga was founded in Sydney “to co-operate” with the Maloga Mission and “to endeavour to extend the work more generally throughout the colony”113 (this committee would later merge with the Aborigines’ Protection Association of New South Wales, which was formed in January 1881). In his diary, in September 1878, Daniel Matthew notes that “a petition was drawn up for presentation to H.E. the Governor setting forth the necessity of protecting the Aborigines of NSW and providing for their (…) wants.”114 We can observe therefore that Daniel Matthew had been advocating the reservation of land for Indigenous Australians since the mid-1860s and had tried to gather support for his missionary work, utilising petitioning as well.

In the meantime, a number of families exiled from Coranderrk by Captain Page (the Secretary of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines from 1877 to 1889) were now living at Maloga (the Briggs, Kerr and Morgan families); new kinship ties and new alliances had been established between the Kulin people and the Murray River tribes through marriages,115 and William Barak himself visited the station in 1881 with his son to try and improve the boy’s health conditions. Diane Barwick’s research shows that Burapper, Joti-Jota, Kwatkwat and Pangerang at Maloga and their friends and relatives at Coranderrk often visited each other.116 The visitors from Coranderrk were considered by Daniel Matthew to be a danger to the management of Maloga because of the “restless and independent spirit” they would “infuse” at the station; Alfred Morgan, for instance, brother of one of the signatories of the 1881 petition (Bagot Morgan) and originary from Coranderrk, was hailed in Maloga as “one who knew how to speak to the Chief Secretary”.117 According to Barwick,

fifteen ‘full-blood’ and twenty-nine ‘half-caste’ Pangerang and Kulin adults and children had migrated from Coranderrk to the Maloga mission between 1979 and 1886 . A majority of the fifty ‘half-castes’ exiled after the passing of the 1886

113 Daniel Matthew’s Diaries, 16 September 1878, quoted in Cato, Mr Maloga, p. 76. 114 Cato, Mr Maloga, p. 77. 115 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 291. 116 Ibid., pp. 263-264. 117 Daniel Matthew to Page, 20 and 30 April 1883, quoted in Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 271.

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Aborigines Act also sooner or later took refuge across the Murray settling at or near Maloga, and later, the new government station, Cumeroogunga.118

There is a palpable sense of mobility between the two stations of Coranderrk and Maloga, and this mobility would have created occasions to share thoughts on current and past situations and on interactions with government officials that had been effective in fostering their interests - be it the reservation of land and its protection or the attempts to intervene in the management of the stations. At Maloga, news in the press concerning Coranderrk’s struggle to retain the station and to have their former manager reappointed, may have also contributed to the spreading of the knowledge of petitioning in the community at Maloga.

On July 2, 1881, the Sydney Morning Herald published in its pages a petition signed by 42 residents of Maloga. A few days later, on July 5, 1881, the Sydney Daily Telegraph too reproduced the petition, including the names of its forty-two signatories. The former article reads as follows:

THE ABORIGINES

The following petition, signed by forty-two of the aboriginal inhabitants of the colony (most of them only with their marks) has recently been presented to his Excellency the Governor. The matter has not yet, we understand come under the consideration of the Cabinet, but will probably be taken into consideration in the course of a few days:–

“To his Excellency Lord Augustus Loftus, G.C.B., Governor of the colony of New South Wales.

“The humble petition of the undersigned aboriginal natives, residents on the Murray River, in the colony of New South Wales, members of the Moira and Ulupna tribes, respectfully showeth:-

“1. That the land within our tribal boundaries has been taken possession of by the Government and white settlers; our hunting grounds are used for sheep pasturage and the game reduced and in many places exterminated, rendering our means of subsistence extremely precarious, and often reducing us and our wives and children to beggary.

“2. We, the men of several tribes, are desirous of honestly maintaining our young and infirm, who are in many cases the subjects of extreme want and semi-starvation, and we believe we

118 Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 302.

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could, in a few years, support ourselves by our own industry, were a sufficient area of land granted to us to cultivate and raise stock.

“3. We have been under training for some years and feel that our old mode of life is not in keeping with the instructions we have received and we are earnestly desirous of settling down to more orderly habits of industry, that we may form homes for our families.

“We more confidently ask this favour of a grant of land, as our fellow natives in other colonies have proved capable of supporting themselves, where suitable land has been reserved for them.

“We hopefully appeal to your Excellency, as we recognise in you, the protector specially appointed by her gracious Majesty the Queen to promote religion and education among the aboriginal natives of the colony, and to protect us in our persons and in the free enjoyment of our possessions, and to take such measures as may be necessary for our advancement in civilization.

“And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.”

(Signed by 42 aboriginals)119

The names of the signatories were the following: Bobby Wilberforce (Cooper), Richard (X, his mark), Thomas Williams, Aaron Atkinson, George Charles, Freddy Walker, Daylight, David Berrick, Peter Stuckey, Jacky Wilberforce (Cooper), Jimmy Turner, Sydney, George Keefe, James Coghill, Sampson Barber, Bagot Morgan, John Atkinson, Peter, Robert Taylor, David Taylor, Jasper Angus, George Aben, Bradshaw, Harry Fenton, Thomas Fenton, Alowidgee, Johnny Galway, Charlie Stewart, Ted Robertson, Rochford Robertson, Gibson Platt, Jackie John, Tommy Hawke, Robertson, Boney Cockie, Barralta, Harry, Jimmy Martin, Blucher, Dick Richards, James Edgar, Whyman McLean.

119 “The Aborigines”, Sydney Morning Herald, July 2, 1881, in Nancy Norman Papers relating to Rev. Daniel Matthew, Mitchell Library. Nancy Cato reproduced the petition with the names of the signatories in the appendix to Mr Maloga, under the title “Petition for Land, Maloga Mission – Murray River, New South Wales 1881”, followed by “Names of 42 Maloga Aboriginal Men (A Petition for Land Reserves)” (Cato, Mr Maloga, pp. 279-280). Cato uses as source the Daily Telegraph, but the published articles are identical apart from some minor punctuation and capitalization differences.

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Fig. 5.2. Petition for land from the residents of the Murray River, Sydney Morning Herald, July 2, 1881. “Aboriginal Clippings on Aboriginal Subjects”, Mitchell Library, Nancy Norman’s papers relating to Rev. Daniel Matthews, ca 1857-1970.

Although I could not find information about every single signatory, four among them were relatives (younger brothers) of William Cooper, who would become a prominent figure of Aboriginal political activism in the 1920s and 1930s: Bobby and Jack Wilberforce/Cooper, Aaron and John Atkinson as well as William Cooper were children of Kitty Atkinson/Cooper; David Berrick, according to Diane Barwick, was William Barak’s fourteen-year old son, at Maloga with his father in the attempt to improve his health condition;120 three signatories are recorded as having toured together the towns of northern Victoria in 1887 with the Maloga Choir and Missionary band: they were Sampson Barber, Freddy Walker and Whyman Maclean. Nancy Cato wrote that they “travelled with the

120Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk, p. 255. See also Matthew Papers, vol. 2, part 2, petition by Maloga men, c 5 July 1881; AH Howitt, “Memories of King Barak” in Howitt Papers.

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Matthews and spoke about their people and their conversions.”121 An article titled “Black Evangelists” on the Albury Border Post, 22 Oct 1887, described them in the following way:

(…) Sampson Barber, the lieutenant, is about 36 years of age, belongs to the Wee- wor-rung tribe, and was born on the Goulburn or Worrung river. At a corroboree held at Mansfield 19 or 20 years ago, his tribe assembled to the number of 350 - a poor remnant of 25 to 30 only now survives. (…) Freddy Walker, a native of Ulupna (Rocky River) is about 45 years old. His tribe has dwindled away in 12 years from 200 souls to two or three families. (…) Wyman [sic] McLean is a half-caste, aged about 27, and a fine intelligent earnest fellow. His mother belonged to the Boreba- Boreba tribe and his father was a European. The tribe inhabited the district about Barata near Deniliquin, N.S.W. (…).122

If the ages referred to in this article are correct, at the time of signing the petition Sampson Barber would have been about 30, Freddy Walker about 39 and Wyman McLean 21. This article shows that the signatories belonged to different but neighbouring tribes, that they had witnessed the loss of many of their respective tribes. They were sharing with non- Indigenous people some of their experiences at the meetings Daniel Matthew organised to raise money for the mission. The reference to Wyman McLean’s mixed parentage, indicates that in this case mixed heritage did not hinder the identification of a person as “Aboriginal” - the petition in fact is from “the undersigned aboriginal natives” and is also referred to by Daniel Matthew as the “petition from blacks”,123 expressions which include McLean and the other signatories of mixed descent as “Aboriginal”.

Among the other petitioners, Alowidgee was a “Maloga fisherman”; Jimmy Turner is described as one of the “early protégés” of Daniel Matthew at Coranderrk;124 Bagot Morgan was a boy of mixed parentage who came to stay at Maloga in 1876; “eager to learn” he helped in harvesting crops and assisted Daniel Matthew and Rev. Gribble, together with Johnny Atkinson, to choose the site for a new mission, the future

121 Nancy Cato, Mr Maloga, p. 171 122 Ibid., pp. 170-171. 123 See Matthew’s Diaries, June 17, 1881, in Nancy Norman’s papers relating to Rev. Daniel Matthews, ca 1857-1970. 124 Cato, Mr Maloga, photo caption.

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Warangesda, and became a very independent man.125 His descendant, Ronald Morgan, wrote in 1952 Reminiscences of Cumerrogunga.126

Although unfortunately it isn’t clear how and when the petitioners signed their endorsement to the 1881 request for land,127 thanks to the notes left by Daniel Matthew in his diaries, it is possible to consider the writing process of this petition. On May 25 and June 17, 1881, Daniel Matthew wrote: “To Mr. Palmer’s office preparing the petition from our men at Maloga for land - Points” and “After dinner to Mr Palmer’s office. Preparing petition from blacks and plan of land etc.”128 These notes, written during his visit to Sydney, show that the petition was collaboratively drafted between the end of May and about mid June 1881 by Daniel Matthew and Mr Palmer. As Wayne Atkinson suggests, “Matthews’ diaries indicate that he wrote the petition in Sydney without the input of the Yorta Yorta people.”129 The expressions “petition from our men at Maloga” and “petition from blacks” [my italics] suggest however that the request for a grant of land may have originated, or “come from” the signatories themselves. As shown, the residents of Coranderrk and Maloga had been in contact for some time before the petition was written, and the petitions from Coranderrk and William Barak himself may have provided an example of political action.

Other contemporary articles are helpful in contextualizing the composition and wording of the petition and will be useful in understanding some of its expressions. On the occasion of a meeting held “for the purpose of organising a society for missioning the aborigines of the colony”,130 Mr Palmer, the Secretary of that society, which would become the Aborigines’ Protection Association,131 read a report. In this report, published in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 17 February 1880, Palmer referred to the Indigenous people connected to the Maloga mission, initiated by Daniel Matthew in 1874, in the following terms:

125 Cato, Mr Maloga, pp. 74, 88, 119, 130-131. 126 Ibid., p. 36. 127 The petition was published after Daniel Matthew’s visit to the Sydney Morning Herald. 128 Daniel Matthew’s Diaries, May 25 and June 17, 1881, in Nancy Norman’s papers relating to Rev. Daniel Matthews, ca 1857-1970. 129 Atkinson, ‘Not One Yota’, p. 200. 130 “The Aborigines of New South Wales”, The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 17 February 1880, p.6, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printArticlePdf/28389540/3?print=n. 131 “Association for the Protection of Aborigines of New South Wales”, The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 21 February 1880, p. 6, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printArticleJpg/13441724/3?print=n.

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There are now connected with the mission about 60 blacks of all ages; of these 15 are old and infirm, retaining their old mode of life, and 45 are children and young married people, who have been trained in the mission for periods varying from nine months to three and a-half years. Many of these can read and write, and 22 can write sufficiently well to correspond with their friends. The young children, 29 in number, show great aptitude for learning, and have made very creditable progress in writing, reading, singing and arithmetic. Writing they seem to possess a special attitude for. (...)132 [my emphasis]

In the same report, while describing the difficulties relative to the employment situation for the young men residing at the mission, Palmer noted also the decrease in available traditional food resources, which were used to contribute to or supplement the meals provided on the mission and the income provided by seasonal work. Finally, as a consequence of this situation, reserves to be made self-supporting were advocated:

They sometimes get work on the sheep stations of the district, and as a rule when so working they consider Maloga their home, and get back to see their friends and attend service on Sundays. (...) they are active at shearing time and harvest, occasionally earning wages equal to white men; but the kind of labour they are capable of is only obtainable at certain seasons, and at other times they are dependent upon the mission for support, or on the very precarious living gained by hunting and fishing; their chance efforts to procure food according to their old mode of life being very uncertain on account of the wholesale destruction of fish in the lakes and rivers, and game in the forests, by the settlers. Sometimes, after being a few days absent from the mission, they have returned famished with hunger, not having been able to procure food. (...)

This consideration leads us to the necessity for an adequate reserve for the blacks, where the labour of young and old could be made directly available for their own support, and Mr. Matthews distinctly states that under judicious management they would ultimately make the establishment self-supporting.133 [my emphasis]

132 “The Aborigines of New South Wales”, The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 17 February 1880, p.6, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printArticlePdf/28389540/3?print=n 133 Ibid.

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In these two excerpts we can observe several expressions that are used in the petition that provide insights into contemporary textual discourses. The expression “their old mode of life” is here repeatedly used, and it is also employed in the third point of the petition; in the report, such an expression is counterposed to the term “trained”, which in the same point of the petition appears in the phrase as “under training” and as “instructions” being received. This language, remarking opposition between the Indigenous people “retaining their old mode of life” and those “under instruction”, seems to reveal the writer’s attitude towards Indigenous people and the assimilationist project and discourse of civilization and Christianization of which both Palmer and Matthew were part.

Both the report and the petition (written a year or so after the report), refer to “the very precarious living gained by hunting and fishing”, which in the petition is mentioned as the “means of subsistence” made “extremely precarious” by the land use of the white settlers. We notice here the discourse of self-support, widely used in both Australian and North American reserves,134 being employed in both the report and the petition. The use of these phrases and concepts in both this report and the petition, makes it reasonable to assume that these expressions and terms, and the discourses of assimilation that belie them, may derive from Palmer and Daniel Matthew also in the petition, or at least, they do also mirror their concerns. Further, it also demonstrates that Daniel Matthew and Mr Palmer shared the Indigenous petitioners’ request for land (albeit animated by different reasons).

I have dwelt for some time on the language used in this petition because it was to be object of discussion in a successive native title case, Members of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Community v. State of Victoria & Ors, 1994-1999.

The High Court court case Mabo vs State of Queensland, 1992, had led to the historical legal recognition of native title in the Native Title Act, 1993. Native title, as defined by Justice Brennan in 1992,

describes the interests and rights of Indigenous inhabitants in land, whether communal, group or individual, possessed under the traditional laws acknowledged by and the

134 This discourse reflected the ethic of self-improvement widespread in the 1880s.

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traditional customs observed by the Indigenous inhabitants.135

In a determination of native title, proof of descent from the original inhabitants, continuing occupation of the land and acknowledgement of traditional laws and observance of traditional customs are crucial elements.136

I will now examine Judge Olney’s assessment of the petition as included in the Yorta Yorta Native Title claim. By doing so I will highlight the importance of reading and interpreting petitions in light of the main request expressed, in light of careful consideration of the writing process of the petition and in light of the language strategically used in order to maximize the chances of having the requests granted.

In 1994, following the landmark recognition of Native Title, members of the Yorta Yorta Indigenous community started seeking recognition of native title to the lands and waters their groups had traditionally occupied in Northern Victoria and southern New South Wales, along the Murray, Goulburn and Oven Rivers. Among the claimants, there were the descendants of some of the signatories of the 1881 petition for land from Maloga - the Walker family, the Morgan brothers - and the descendants of Kitty Cooper.137 The petition itself was tendered as evidence of several attempts across time to regain tenure of their traditional land. However, the legal interpretation of the petition was one of the elements used to deny the native title case. Justice Olney in fact, representing the Federal Court of Australia, found that the wording of the petition proved the claimants’ dispossession and their acknowledgement of cessation of observance of traditional laws and customs.

The legal interpretation of the wording of this petition revolved around two main issues. The first one was the presumed identification of the signatories with the two main pastoral properties in the area, Moira and Ulupna. The second one was the apparent recognition by the signatories that “all land within tribal boundaries has been taken possession of by government and white settlers.” Justice Olney, suggested that:

135 Justice Brennan, quoted in Yorta Yorta v. Victoria & Ors, 1999, p. 3. 136 Ibid. “Native title has its origin in and is given its content by the traditional laws acknowledged by and the traditional customs observed by the Indigenous inhabitants of a territory. The nature and incidents of native title must be ascertained as a matter of fact by reference to those laws and customs.” (Justice Brennan, Mabo Judgement, p. 58) 137 Yorta Yorta v. Victoria & Ors, 1999, p. 12.

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A number of observations can be made concerning the petition and the signatories. (…) The petitioners are described as members of the Moira and Ulupna tribes, a description which is not found in Curr’s writing138 but [which] suggests that the individuals concerned identified with the two main pastoral properties in the region rather than as Bangerang or any of the other sub-groups referred to by Curr. The petition contains a frank acknowledgement that ‘all land within (the petitioners’) tribal boundaries has been taken possession of by the government and white settlers’ a state of affairs which no doubt gave rise to their desire to change ‘our old mode of life’ in favour of ‘settling down to more industrious habits of industry’.139 [my emphasis]

With regards to the first point, these remarks do not take into account a number of related issues. Firstly, large pastoral properties provided Indigenous people not only with some means of subsistence but also with the chance of remaining on their tribal land and practicing their culture.140 In addition, the Justice himself uses the expression the petitioners are described as members of the Moira and Ulupna tribes, an expression which in its passive form evokes the uncertainty about who was making that identification. In any case, in my opinion, the identification of the Yorta Yorta people with large pastoral stations located on their traditional land would not exclude a coexistent identification of this Indigenous group with their own traditional tribes. Another consideration which seems pertinent here is Geoffrey Stokes’ suggestion that “having access to multiple identities allows for greater political flexibility.”141 This political flexibility both enabled and was enabled by these multiple identifications.

In regards to the second point, the Judge connected the awareness of the presence of white government and settlers within tribal boundaries to a “frank acknowledgment” of

138 Edward Curr (Hobart Town, 1820 - St Kilda, Melbourne, 1889), observed and wrote about many cultural practices of the Yorta Yorta people he met on the western Goulburn Valley runs he was managing around the 1850s and that were located on the traditional territory of the Yorta Yorta or Bangerang tribes. In his Recollections of Squatting in Victoria (1883), he described some of his observations and his writing was used by Justice Olney as “an important piece of evidence against the Yorta Yorta in their 1998 native title claim.” (State Library of Victoria, 2011, http://slv.vic.gov.au/ergo/edward_curr_and_native_title; Harley W. Forster, “Curr, Edward Micklethwaite” (1820-1889), Australian Dictionary of Bibliography Online, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030475b.htm) 139 Yorta Yorta v. Victoria & Ors, 1999, §120. 140 See Heather Goodall, “Dual occupation in practice”, in Invasion to Embassy, St Leonards, NSW, Allen & Unwin, 1996, pp. 61-66. 141 Geoffrey Stokes, “Citizenship and Aboriginality: Two Conceptions of Identity in Aboriginal Political Thought”, in Geoffrey Stokes (ed.), The Politics of Identity in Australia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

157 dispossession and to an ensuing “desire to change” their “old mode of life”. This interpretation leads him to state:

It is clear that by 1881 those through whom the claimant group now seeks to establish native title were no longer in possession of their tribal lands and had, by force of circumstances in which they found themselves, ceased to observe those laws and customs based on tradition which might otherwise have provided a basis for the present native title claim; and the dispossession of the original inhabitants and their descendants has continued through to the present time.142

If we reconsider the expressions that led the Judge to these conclusions in light of the evidence provided above - that phrases such as the “old mode of life” of the signatories are influenced by Daniel Matthew and Mr Palmer - it is possible to modify this position. The Judge himself acknowledges the influence of Daniel Matthew in the composition of the petition,143 yet, he remains strictly dependent upon its specific wording for his determination of the native title claim. He suggests in fact that,

whilst there can be little doubt that Matthews would have played a part in the composition and presentation of the petition it has not been suggested in this proceeding that the general thrust of the statements attributed to the petitioners was factually inaccurate or in any way misrepresented their views or their aspirations.144

It is precisely the accuracy of the representation of the petitioners’ views that comes here to the foreground. When articulated in the absence of the signatories, what meaning do they take? The meaning attributed to the petition’s words by Olney is different to that attributed to them by the Maloga signatories and by Daniel Matthew and Mr. Palmer. Certainly, the words used at point 3 of the petition, referring to the petitioners’ “old mode of life” as “not in keeping with the instructions (…) received” and their desire to “settle

142 Yorta Yorta v. Victoria & Ors, 1999, §121. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid.

158 down” “to more orderly habits of industry”, would have had different meanings for each. For the Maloga signatories they might have meant the possibility of participating in the white colonial social-economic world, and their willingness to take part in it, without indicating thereby an abdication of their distinctive culture and traditions; however, for Daniel Matthew and Mr. Palmer they might have meant their subscription to their missionary work; for Olney it meant the acknowledgement of discontinuation of observation of traditional laws and customs.

As Catherine Belsey suggests, “(…) meaning is never a fixed essence inherent in the text but is always constructed by the reader, the result of a ‘circulation’ between social formation, reader and text.”145 In the case discussed, the social formation differed largely for the Indigenous petitioners, who desired to obtain secure land tenure; the missionaries, who seem to have prepared the petition; and the judge who in the late 1990s was to determine the native title case of the Yorta Yorta claimants. Further, Indigenous petitioners, missionaries and the Federal Court judge lived in different social contexts, which exercised different types of pressures upon them, and upon their writing and reading practices. As a consequence, in this and similar cases, the different layers of meaning that words might have and might generate should not be forgotten.

In this context, the central request of the petition for “a grant of land” can be seen as articulating the desire of the signatories to remain on their land and to secure a title to it; it becomes the articulation of their views not so much in the specific terms used146 but in the expression of their desire to maintain their connection and relationship with their traditional land.

As a result of this petition, an area of 730 hectares of land was granted in 1883 and became the reserve known as the reserve of Cumeroogunga, to which the inhabitants of Maloga later moved.147 The Yorta Yorta claimants, after the legal process of recognition of native title failed, achieved communal inalienable freehold title through a National Park Joint Management agreement.148

145 Catherine Belsey, “Addressing the Subject” in Critical Practice, London, New York, Methuen, 1980, p. 69. 146 For the appropriation of the language of free selection from 1860s see Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 76, 84-85. 147 Cato, Mr Maloga, pp. 176, 184, 187. 148 Personal conversation with Dr. Wayne Atkinson, Sydney, 24 December 2010.

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Conclusions

In this section I have considered how individual signatories might have had different reasons to sign a multiply-endorsed petition. I have also highlighted relevance of the places where the signatories encountered the petition as a form of intervention into aspects of community life, places where they could meet other people with whom they shared a grievance or people who initiated a petition they then adhered to. I have briefly addressed the penal system as a place where these encounters took place and from which knowledge of petitioning might have spread, especially in the form of petitions for clemency or remissions of sentence. By reading a part of the petition of “Frank the poet”, I highlighted that considerations of strategy were central to Indigenous petitioners.

I then moved on to discuss the reserve system, in order to contextualise missions and stations as other places where petitioning was used. I focused on cases in which reservation of land was first achieved through Indigenous oral petitioning endorsed by white officials who recognised Indigenous people’s agency, and I proposed that oral petition enabled fragile oral covenants to take place. More stable covenants, I argued, were sought to preserve the established reserves and to manage them in consideration of the residents’ views thanks to written petitioning - enabled by the collaboration of young Indigenous men literate and fluent in English, with the ngurungaetas who represented and spoke for the community, according to traditional law.

I discussed two petitions from the government station of Coranderrk, which by engaging the addresses (and the readers of the newspapers where they were reproduced) with an appeal to logic and to values - such as freedom and equality - appreciated in colonial society, argued for freedom on equal basis with the white population. The language used in this petitions, the reference to slavery and being treated like criminals in particular, was examined as being embedded in language used at that particular historical time. It highlighted the discrepancy between the law (that Aboriginal people were not slaves) and the conditions that the settler contract effectively subjected Indigenous people to (the loss of their liberty). In critiquing this nugatory contract and in seeking to refashion it in ways which recognised Indigenous rights, these petitions enabled the articulation of Indigenous political subjectivities.

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The petition for land from the Maloga mission was then useful to clarify that when it isn’t clear whether the signatories themselves wrote the petition, or when the drafting of the petition was the work of a non-Indigenous person - the endorsement of the request(s) of the petition should come to have a primary importance compared to the wording of the petition. I have shown however, that the wording of this petition too reflected contemporary discourses, especially that of assimilation, instruction, civilisation and an ethic of self-improvement that were thriving in the 1880s.

The language of the examined petitions was, and needed to be, “readily recognisable” by the authorities, to use Geoffrey Stokes’ expression; it was a language deployed with a “political objective” and it represented “intelligent appraisal of viable strategies within different political contexts”.149 The language was the language of the “dominating” society precisely because it was the dominating society that could accept or refuse the request(s).

149 Geoffrey Stokes, “Citizenship and Aboriginality”, pp. 163, 166, 168, 170. Stokes considers the language and arguments of William Ferguson (1882-1950) and Jack Patten (1904-57) in the pamphlet “Aborigines Claim Citizenship Rights!” (1938) and arguments reasserting cultural difference in the 1970s. His reflections can be adapted also to this earlier context.

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Chapter 6.

Petitions and the Public Sphere

Public venues, commemoration and contemporary discourses

In this Chapter I extend the discussion I began in Chapter 5 by considering civic and rural communities as other important places where petitions were written and signed. In the 20th century these public venues of petitioning gathered increasing importance and I argue that they contributed to the creation of an enlarged audience for the petitioners’ concerns and an increased awareness of Indigenous issues among non-Indigenous people.

In the first part of the chapter, I address the fact that within these public venues petitioning was employed by non-Indigenous people against the presence of Indigenous people and as a result, it might have become known to the latter as an instrument of political pressure used against them, and through which their lives could be affected.

I focus on petitioning for access to public education. I highlight the role of petitions both in pursuing (by some white parents) and resisting (by Koori parents) a segregated school system in New South Wales. The section presents several petitions written by parents whose children were being denied education facilities because of their colour and it culminates with the discussion of the petition written by Jane Duren to King George V in

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1926. I argue here that the debates surrounding segregated education, which came to involve also white supporters, were to constitute an important public place of interracial contact and negotiation.

In the second part of the chapter, I discuss the petition written by Ellen Kropinyeri to the South Australian Governor in December 1923 urging reprisal of the 1923 Aborigines (Training of Children) Act. I consider the rhetoric of this individually written petition and, by drawing on memory studies, I focus on the commemoration of this petition’s presentation in Adelaide in 2003. I here emphasise the retrospective function of petitions as memorials and the way in which they can contribute to the construction of a more inclusive memory of the nation.

In the final section of the Chapter, I reproduce a previously unpublished petition from Lake Tyers Mission Station, 1931, which, while asking for the reinstatement of a former superintendent, records the classifications to which Indigenous people were subjected (“we were without a word of a doubt, classed as the lowest beings on the scales of humanity, this humane link which has been unlossed [sic]”, write the petitioners). Classifications they resist by recognising them as such. This petition is significant in that it records the extent to which these racial thoughts had become widespread in the public sphere. It also records moments of inclusion of the residents of Lake Tyers in this public sphere as “sporting people”, through their “introduction in the public” at public sporting events. Finally, it also records the contemporary experiences relating to difficulties of access to “public” medical care.

6.1. Places: rural and civic communities

Rural and civic communities represent another place where Indigenous and non- Indigenous people lived together and where petitioning was utilised. The act of collecting signatures in public venues gave visibility to this form of official request and to the content of different petitions. In turn, the visibility given to the petitions’ content and its public discussion helped raise awareness about the demands of the petitioners and about the aims people shared and decided to endorse, or did not share and decided not to endorse with

164 their signatures. In this section I will first outline several cases in which petitions submitted by white settlers, aimed broadly at segregation, had direct impacts upon Indigenous Australians. I argue that in certain cases petitions might have come to the attention of Indigenous Australians precisely because they were used against them.

Heather Goodall and Allison Cadzow, in their recent publication Rivers and Resilience, 2009,1 refer to several petitions from Indigenous people living in the Liverpool area, inland from Sydney, dating from 1857 onwards. One petition in particular they refer to, although from a much later date, sheds light on possible ways in which Indigenous people might have come into contact with petitioning, in this case as a political instrument used to try to deny them access to certain areas or, as I will show later on, to education.

Goodall and Cadzow refer to the experience of the Smith family, who moved to Eureka Crescent in Green Valley, to the west of Liverpool on the Georges River, in 1963. The area was very barren, with “no public transport, no shops, no community services and just scoured infertile land”,2 and the historians quote the memories of Judy Smith, who at the time of the events was thirteen:

(…) We were only there two weeks and they had a petition out to say that she [Judy’s mother] was going to bring the value of the houses down. There were Two-Pound Poms next to us! And everyone was RENTING! Everyone in Eureka Crescent was in public housing and they still had a petition out!

Dad told us to laugh it off - he said ‘You OWN this country! Don’t worry about them other fellas out there!’

There was two people in the street that didn’t sign it, and that was the people that lived on the other side who were Catholics - quite nice people - and there was a man up the road who I found out a few years later was Aboriginal. And he said to me he wouldn’t have signed it even if it had been against a white family - ‘You just don’t do that! We’re all WORKING class!’3

1 Goodall, Heather and Cadzow, Allison, Rivers and Resilience: Aboriginal People on Sydney’s George’s River, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2009. 2 Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, p. 201. 3 Ibid.

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These memories highlight how petitioning was used, and might have been used in other cases, against Indigenous people in certain areas. It is possible to infer, therefore, that petitioning might have come to the notice of some Indigenous Australians precisely because of its use against them. The excerpt is useful also because it points to the fact that the choice of signing or not signing a petition was a meaningful act of endorsement - or non endorsement - of the principles underlying a petition’s request(s). The words of the Aboriginal man who did not sign the petition remind us that behind his choice lay the sensitivity to shared experiences, regardless of colour.

Another example of petitioning used against Indigenous people, to protest against their presence in certain areas, can be seen at Fraser Island in Queensland. On 26 April 1897 a petition from the citizens of Maryborough carrying over 700 signatures was presented to the Home Secretary in Brisbane, bringing to his attention “a grievance that is causing much unpleasantness to Boating Parties and excursionists to the White Cliffs, vis: - the settlement of the Blacks at that favorite [sic] pleasure resort”.4 The petitioners requested that measures be taken “to have the Camp shifted to a more suitable site (many of which are to be found on the ‘Island’ where the Blacks will not interfere with, or be interfered with, by Excursionists and others landing on Frasers Island”5 [as underlined in the petition]. The justification of such a request was that,

the present site of the Camp has been a favourite resort for pleasure Parties for over 20 years being a fine landing place, and also on account of the fresh water creek, which runs right down to the Beach at this spot, and we consider it a very serious injustice to the public having this favourite resort closed against them.6

The public the petitioners referred to clearly did not include “the Blacks”. A few days later, a letter from one of the signatories to this petition shows that some signatories were not completely aware of - or had not paid much attention to - how their request would affect those whose camp they wanted to relocate. C. Stupart, “as one of the signatories to

4 Petition for the removal of the Blacks from White Cliffs (Fraser Island), 26 April 1897, Meston File: correspondence and papers of Fraser Island Mission Station, Queensland State Archives, COL483A, PRV8798/1/1. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

166 the petition about White Cliff Reserve”, wrote to the Home Secretary stating that he had signed the petition “believing that there would be no difficulty in finding an equally good site.” However, he added,

I want to say that if there is no other place on the island suitable for the Black Camp it would be a grave mistake to break it up. I signed it believing that there would be no difficulty in finding an equally good site. The work of Mr Meston has done is too good to be undone without very careful consideration. (…) I sincerely trust that nothing will be done to jeopardise the Continuance of the Camp.7 [my emphasis]

I could find no trace of whether the petition in question was known to the Indigenous people whose camp was becoming object of dispute. It seems likely, however, that the petition originated from a public protest meeting held at Maryborough in response to a group of Indigenous people driving away Maryborough excursionists from the beach.8 As a result of the petition and local pressure, the reserve was relocated at Bogimbah Creek, where the living conditions caused more than a hundred Indigenous people to die from malnutrition, dysentery, syphilis, influenza and tuberculosis. A few years after this mission was closed, 117 former residents were displaced to Yarrabah, near Cairns, and to Woodford and then Cherborough, north-west of Brisbane.9

It seems evident therefore that white settlers’ petitions and protests, directed to the authorities, did influence the life of Indigenous Australians, and petitions might have become known to them also precisely as instruments used against them. Learning to master this means of having their voice heard by the authorities would prove important in trying to counteract white settlers’ protests.

7 C. Stupart to Fazier [?], 29 April 1897, in Meston File: correspondence and papers of Fraser Island Mission Station, Queensland State Archives, COL483A, PRV8798/1/1. 8 FIDO, “A History of Aborigines of Fraser Island,” 13th educational supplement to MOONBI 105, July 2003, http://www.fido.org.au/education/AboriginalHistory.html. 9 Ibid.

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6.1.2. Public venues: Petitioning for access to education

The field of education provides other examples where petitioning was used by white settlers to protest at the presence of Indigenous Australians. The documents collected by Jim Fletcher regarding Aboriginal education in New South Wales show that, on numerous occasions, white parents petitioned the Minister for Education requesting the segregation of Aboriginal children. Following the passing of the Public Instruction Bill in 1879 by Henry Parkes - who had envisaged a primary public school system open to all children, regardless of their religion, class and ethnic background - and the Public Instruction Act in 1880 - which introduced compulsory education in New South Wales, - the enrolment of children of Aboriginal ancestry in public schools grew.10 So, however, did the resistance and opposition of white parents to their enrolment.

At Yass, south-west New South Wales, in 1883, following protests from white parents, 15 children were expelled from the local public school; after an appeal of the Aborigines Protection Board to the Minister of Education, a segregated class was created for them in the Yass private Catholic school.11 In 1885 at Rolland Plains, near Wauchope, on the north coast, a petition to the Minister for Education signed by nine parents “suggested” that the Minister “would exclude the said Aboriginals [the Aboriginal children attending the public school]”. The petitioners claimed “they are immoral and use bad language, and live in the usual black’s camp.” The claim that they were “immoral” and used “bad language” was later refuted by a report written by the local inspector of schools, and the Minister for Education concluded by objecting to their expulsion, stating that “so long as these children are properly dressed, clean and healthy and [there is] nothing against their moral character, I do not think they should be excluded.”12

The policy of the Department however, changed quickly from the “clean, clad and courteous” policy to a policy of “exclusion on demand”, which led to the creation of segregated schools and classes and to proposing the relocation of the children’s families to locations where segregated schools already existed, often on reserves. The Department also decided to provide Indigenous children with an education of lower standards and more

10 Jim Fletcher, Documents in the History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales, Carlton, NSW, Southwood Press, 1989, pp. 54, 73-74. 11 Ibid., p. 74. 12 Petition to Minister for Education, 26 June 1885, Rolland Plains school files, Box 5/17505, NSWSA quoted in Fletcher, p. 77; Minister for Education M. Trickett, 11 September 1885, Rolland Plains school files, Box 5/17505, NSWSA, quoted in Fletcher, p. 78.

168 restricted in scope than that provided to white children, with consequent effects upon their lives and work prospects.13

The parents of the excluded children however did try to oppose this course of events. By using the same means used by the white parents, they contested these measures. In 1902 the parents of nineteen Aboriginal children who had been excluded from Breeza Public School, in north-west New South Wales, petitioned the Minister for Education “to have an inquiry made into the matter.”14 Although Fletcher does not reproduce the text of this petition,15 the accompanying documents he reproduces give a sense of the parents’ reaction to their children’s exclusion from public education, as well as how their reaction was received. The teacher at Breeza, while proposing to inform the parents that “on account of their Aboriginal descent their children’s attendance has been objected to, and that their prospects of readmission are hopeless,” stated:

(…) I have heard most of these parents express their intention not to send their children to an Aboriginal school if granted to them. They have so long held the privilege of attending this school, and deeming themselves equal to white people, that I think they only need to be informed by official letter as above that in debarring their children I am carrying out the Minister’s instructions. [my emphasis]

In reply to the protests of Mr Clift, a white settler who had objected to the exclusion of the children, among whom was the daughter of the late “half-caste” George Brown, whom Clift had raised as a son, the teacher of Breeza W. Cox added,

(…) I feel sure that, if he [Mr Clift] was fully informed of the petition objecting to the presence of the ‘dark’ children in the school, and the Minister’s decision, he would not complain of any action, which is simply the will of the people with the Minister’s sanction. / All children with Aboriginal blood, whether either of the

13 Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, pp. 74-75, 88-90, 85, 110-113, 119-122. For other examples of petitions by white parents, and occasionally, Aboriginal parents as well, requesting the exclusion of “coloured children”, see pp. 122-123, 125, 127-128, 141, 143. 14 Ibid., p. 90. 15 Further research at the State Archives of New South Wales might reveal whether the text of this petition has survived.

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parents are white, half-castes, or full-blood under the designation ‘dark’ have been objected to by the white parents, and I have had an unpleasant duty to perform without discrimination. / All the parents of dark children from the whitest to the darkest are indignant and full of resentment, deeming themselves as good as white, and I have been subjected to continual annoyance, vexation and impertinence, and in individual cases have had to repeatedly refuse admittance to their children, and point out that though unpleasant to them and myself I must do my duty.16 [my emphasis]

The teacher at Breeza describes twice the attitude of the parents of the excluded children as an attitude based on the idea of equality with white people (“equal to”, “as good as”), a certitude they held and defended against the belief of many - Aborigines Protection Board and Minister of Education included - in an innate inequality. The Board for instance, considered that the “usual standard” of public education was “scarcely applicable for schools for Aboriginal children.”17 It regarded “the school life of the dark children” as “too limited and uncertain” and, pointing at the fact that “avenues of employment requiring literary attainments are practically closed against them”, in 1916, it suggested a “practical” syllabus for the growing segregated school system, which aimed to prepare Indigenous Australian boys and girls to become farm labourers and domestic servants respectively.18In 1934, a Board’s inspector, visiting a recently established segregated school at Moree, referred to the “benefit” of “a special school intended to meet the requirements of their own race and to help the children in their own particular problems [my emphasis].”19 Similarly, during and after the first world conflict, the attitude of the Ministry for Education and of some white parents requesting a segregated school system would stress differences in ability or “inherent difference of capacity.”20

16 Teacher of Breeza PS, minute on Aboriginal parents’ petition, 24 April 1902, and W. Cox, teacher of Breeza PS, 14 April 1902, Breeza school files, Box 5/15076, NSWSA, quoted in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, pp. 90-91. 17 Aborigines Protection Board Report, 1893, p. 3, quoted in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, p. 85. 18 Inspector R. Henderson, G. Dart, and J. Dunlop, report to Director of Education on the Aborigines’ School Syllabus, 11 February 1914, CI Correspondence, Box 20/12561, NSWSA. 19 Inspector C. Chambers to Aborigines Protection Board, 20 September 1934, Moree School Files, Box 5/16914, NSWSA, quoted in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, p. 127. 20 See for instance, NSW Department of Education, Course of Instruction for Aborigines’ Schools, 1916; Petition of white residents of Gulargambone to Minister of Education, 10 September 1919, Gulargambone School Files, Box 5/16179, NSWSA; both reproduced in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, pp. 121-123.

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In this context, this early resistance of the Breeza parents to the exclusion of their children from public education in 1902 shows their opposition to ideas of racial inferiority furthered by the rise of social darwinist discourses and eugenics.21 It points at the equality which should inhere in the social contract and should place them on an equal standing with white people. Their indignation and resentment, highlighted by the teacher, and the ways in which they tried to persevere in keeping their children at school (by keeping on sending them to school, and probably by questioning the teacher about the exclusion and by openly objecting to it), are also signs of a more broader opposition to the beliefs and values and ideas that underpinned such exclusion.

Similarly, in other locations, other protests took place. In 1915, four fathers, defined as “half-castes”, and whose wives were “either half-castes or white women”, were assisted by a solicitor in trying to persuade the Minister for Education to end the exclusion of their “coloured children [who were] being disallowed to attend the Bellata Public School.”22 The segregation of the school continued, and in 1916, John Quinn, the father of one of these children, wrote to the Minister for Education the following letter:

For the past year my child has been deprived of education, and the only reason is she is the offspring of coloured parents, and five of the milk white residents of Bellata prayed through the medium of a petition containing five only signatures,23 to have my child age 10 expelled from Bellata school. I am a taxpayer and an elector, so therefore I am assisting to carry the burden of education [to] the children of New South Wales. And I contend that I am perfectly justified in asking the same facilities of education will be extended to my child that is afforded the children of all castes the Hun and Turks included.

In conclusion I ask that you will have this great wrong rectified for I consider that the fact that Mrs Quinn and myself being native born British subjects, that we are being subjected to an unconceivable injustice, by having impressed upon us week after

21 Goodall, “Land, Children and Power,” in Invasion to Embassy, esp. pp. 118-119. 22 T. Hogan, solicitor, Moree, to Minister of Education, 1 February 1915, Bellata school files, Box 5/14854, NSWSA, reproduced in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, pp. 116-117. 23 Fletcher observes that the white parents who signed the petition were actually 11.

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week, that our child must grow up to womanhood in ignorance through being the child of coloured parents. Thank you in anticipation.24 [my emphasis]

John Quinn, by referring to the petition of a few “milk white residents” to have his child expelled from the school, records the awareness of petitioning as an instrument used by white settlers to ask for segregation, as in this instance.

He justifies his request of having his daughter re-admitted at the local public school by pointing to his position in the community as “a taxpayer and an elector”; as a parent contributing to the economic and political life of the state. Sharing in the same obligations of other citizens justifies his request of having the same rights as other members of the community - here, specifically, the right of access to education facilities. Quinn shows awareness of the mutual obligations which should be inherent in the body politic to which he formally belongs in being subject to the laws of the state as taxpayer and elector. That is, being a taxpayer and elector, positions him within the social contract and Quinn highlights the discrepancy between the ideals of an egalitarian social contract and an asymmetrical social contract which endorses a segragated education or no education for children of a different colour or “caste”.

Quinn reinforces his point, and further justifies his request that education be open to his child regardless of her “caste”, by referring to education being accessible to “the children of all castes the Huns and the Turks included.” The ANZACS had just fought “the Turks” overseas (the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey having ended early in January 1916, only two months before the letter was written), and “the Huns”, or Germans, as they were referred to during the First World War conflict, belonged also to a country against which the British Empire and its dominions had been and were still at war. Quinn uses his awareness of the contemporary international political scene and a comparison of accessibility to education facilities between his child and the children of immigrants from enemy countries to highlight the discrimination of the denial of such facilities to his daughter on the ground of her descent.

John Quinn concludes his letter by reiterating his request. This time, he supports it by positioning himself and his wife as “native born British subjects” and by stressing the

24 J. Quinn to Minister for Education, 6 March 1916, Bellata School files, box 5/14854, NSWSA, reproduced in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, pp. 118-119.

172 injustice of his child’s exclusion from Bellata Public School because of her being “the child of coloured parents”. Here, he refers also to the ultimate effect of the exclusion upon the girl, of having to “grow up to womanhood in ignorance”, an effect which is the direct result of the policy of exclusion on demand sanctioned by the Minister. His appeal to the status of native born British subject, emphasises the status of equality with other native born British subjects (and possibly of superiority with regards to those non-native born) which he feels this position should confer. His petition points therefore to the discrepancy between an ideal formal equality and the actual inequality and seeks to negotiate a rectificatory justice which would allow his daughter to access education. He demands, in fact, that the ideal social contract be adhered to. The result of these early protests at Breeza and at Bellata are unknown.25 However, they testify to the objections of the parents of those children who were being excluded from public schools because of their colour and parentage; and these objections are couched in terms of equality of status with white people.

Another father of expelled children at Huskisson, south coast New South Wales, wrote to the Minister for Education in 1922 objecting the decision of the public school’s headmaster to refuse education to his children. The father indicates the colour of the children as the reason for the expulsion of his children from the school. However, he asks the Minister for Education for the reason why they have been expelled, in order to be able to address the police who are “dogging” him “about”:

In reference to the public school master of Huskisson, Mr George, refusing to educate my children as they are a shade on the coloured side I wish to know the reason so as to prevent the police from dogging me about. I have never been under any recompense from government or my father before me. I have heard from several people of Huskisson that the coloured children are filthy but by all appearance if that be the case the fairer sex are equally as bad and I defy any health authority or any citizen of Huskisson to prove to me that my children are filthy and not in a proper state to attend the public school.

25 The families of other children excluded from Bellata Public School left the town to go to other places where they could provide their children with education. Further research at the NSW State Archives may provide further insights.

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No later than the 2nd March 1922 I had a police officer, Mr Hines, to my house giving me instructions to shift my children to Wreck Bay [Aboriginal Reserve] and send them to the [Jervis Bay] Naval College school some twelve or thirteen miles distant. I suppose he thinks that I am a fool like a few more of the coloured folks about here [who] run away and leave the town; but as I have my work here I do not intend to leave so if there cannot be something done in the matter I will only have to do the best I can with the teaching of the children myself.

Another little tale this policeman came with was [that] the school was not big enough for the quantity of children who were attending, but that is no excuse as there is a saw mill within 100 yards of the school and a steamer could bring the iron within 500 yards.

As I have been reared here and the rest of the coloured people, it comes very hard to think that our children are turned away from school. My father, who cleared the timber off the land so as the school could be erected in 1883 … had six of us attend the same school - for same he was paying weekly for our education. As we are some of the oldest inhabitants of Huskisson I do not see why our children should be turned away by a servant of the public. I wish for you to give the matter your earliest attention as my children have been away from school for a week.26 [my emphasis]

The second paragraph of his letter testifies to the complex relationship between education, land and employment, evidenced also by Heather Goodall. She highlights how the segregation of schools was an instrument used to move entire communities away from the rural towns which had grown rapidly in the late 1920s.27 As part of a “new spatial politics”, the inhabitants of some towns sought to confine Indigenous people within reserves where a segregated school could be provided “beyond the residential area which would entitle them to vote”.28 Some parents, fearing the intervention of the Protection Board and the removal or apprenticeship of their children did indeed relocate. Others persisted in objecting to the discrimination, as the petitions from the Bateman’s Bay communiy will show.

26 T.Campbell to Minister for Education, 8 March 1922, Huskisson school files, Box 5/16348, NSWSA, reproduced in Fletcher, Documents in Aboriginal Education, pp. 124-25. 27 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 174. 28 Ibid. See also this Chapter, p. 178, last paragraph before the text of Jane Duren’s petition.

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In the last paragraph, Mr Campbell expresses the feelings that such exclusion arose and positions himself and other “coloured people” as “some of the oldest inhabitants of Huskisson”, who have been raised there. His statement, almost a proto-statement of continuous occupation, is followed by a description of the role of his familiy in the building of the school and the family’s connection to it. All these facts support his appeal by indicating the relation of the family to the place and to the school.

If the opening of the letter raises the question of “why” the children are being excluded, so that the answer may prevent police harassment, the closing of the letter returns to this subject: “I do not see why our children should be turned away by a servant of the public.” The writer, that is, while he argues against the decision of excluding his children from the school, specifies the position of the police in the implementation of the decision. By referring to the role of the police as “servant of the public”, he seems to position himself and his family within this public and seems to point therefore at the discrepancy between what this inclusion in the “public” should mean and what the discrimination implies.

The fathers of the excluded children were not the only ones to protest. Mothers too wrote to the Education Department asking for the readmission of their children, and also white inhabitants who were opposed to these exclusionary decisions petitioned the Education Department, the Minister of Justice and the Premier as the case at Bateman’s Bay in the mid 1920s demonstrates. According to documents contained in the Bateman’s Bay School Files held at New South Wales State Archives, between June and July 1925 nine to twelve children had been expelled from Bateman’s Bay Public School because of objections to their enrollment from local residents.29 In November that year, Mrs Harry Stewart, the mother of one of these children, wrote to the Education Department asking for the reason why her child had been excluded and asked for her readmission to the school:

29 There is a certain uncertainty about the exact number. Heather Goodall states that fifteen to twenty children were excluded (Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, end of Ch.11). Mrs Hamilton, in her letter to Premier Lang, 12 April 1926, refers to twelve excluded children (see note 32), while another letter contained in the Bateman’s Bay School Files, refers to nine excluded children.

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Batemans Bay

6/11/25

To the Education Department

Dear Sir

I have a daughter eleven years / old who has been sent away / with others native children from the State School / Batesmans Bay [sic]. I would like / to know the cause, and would / also like my daughter to be / allowed to attend school / again. It is three months / now since they were turned / out of school, will you kindly / let me know what is going /to be done for the education / of our children. I remain

Yours obediently

(Mrs) Harry Stewart30

Fig. 6.1. Mrs Harry Stewart to Department of Education, 6 November 1925, Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW.

30 Mrs Harry Stewart to Education Department, 6 November 1925, Bateman’s Bay School Files 1875-1939, NRS 3829, [5/14819], State Records NSW.

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The Department of Education considered suggesting that the Aborigines Protection Board create a separate school at Bateman’s Bay or that the “aboriginal families” be “induced” to “remove to Wallaga Lake where there was a settlement and a school.” It also acknowledged that “the Bateman’s Bay families resolutely refuse to either reside on the Reserve at Bateman’s Bay, or to move at Wallaga Lake.”31 They refused, that is, to be discriminated against and to have their children taken from them or to move with their families to a reserve. They refused the exclusion of their children and their families from the public sphere and did not renounce a vision of an egalitarian social contract which would protect their inclusion in the public sphere.

In April 1926, Mrs Hamilton, a resident of Bateman’s Bay who was familiar with the school and who had been requested to write to the Premier regarding the exclusion of these children, wrote to Mr Lang outlining the situation. She stated that “all the half-cast [sic] children about the place” had been expelled following a request by the Parents and Citizen Association; that some of them lived on the reserve and others did not, but that they were “always clean and tidy; that “all these dark children (12) are all half-casts children (…) all descendants of the Butler family, who had their Reserve granted to them by the late Queen of England.” She asked the Premier to “kindly do something for them, or hurry Mr Mutch [T.D. Mutch, the Minister for Education] along, as they have been expelled since last June 1925.” She also referred to the arrival of a new teacher as a factor related to the decision of expelling the children.32 Two months later, in June 1926, A.H. Annetts wrote to H.J. Bate Esq. MLA to ask for his cooperation “in regard to the gross injustice that has been done to our halfcast [sic] children here in debarring them from attending the Public School here for no other reason that they are half cast [sic] or Octoroon as it is sometimes termed.”33

These two letters, and those of other white supporters,34 were followed by Jane Duren’s petition to His Majesty King George V, dated 14 June 1926. Several authors have referred to her petition: Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus referred to it within the context of petitioning in the 20th century and as a precedent to William Cooper’s petition to the King in the early 1930s; John Maynard used it to exemplify direct approaches to the Crown by

31 Department of Education, Bateman’s Bay: Question of exclusion of aboriginal children, Report of Inspector West, 1 February 1926, Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW. 32 Mrs A. Hamilton to Premier Lang, Batemans Bay, 12 April 1926, Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW. 33 A.H.Annetts, to H.J.Bate Esq. MLA, Bateman’s Bay, 10 June 1926, Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW. 34 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, Chapter 11, note 62.

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Indigenous Australians and to illustrate the political activity of Koori women aligned with, and then associated with, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA)35 - the first Aboriginal political organisation which developed in the early 1920s, in a climate of increased pressure on reserve lands and Indigenous families and amidst a mounting segregation of town services.36 Among its aims was that of the protection of reserved lands and the cessation of the removal of children from their families.37

Heather Goodall in particular has highlighted how Jane Duren’s petition, and other Koori protesters, contextualised the attempt to segregate a local public school within a broader attempt to revoke the reserve on the vicinity of the town, and to have, as a consequence, the local Indigenous community relocated away from the town and its services.38 Duren’s appeal states: “let them stay on the reserve that was granted to them.” Her petition reads as follows:

Moruya New South Wales Australia June 14th 1926

To His Majesty King George V

On behalf of the Quadroon and Half-caste children of Bateman’s Bay New South Wales Australia I beg to state that it is months and months since these children were at school and it is a shame to see them going about without education. At Bateman’s Bay

35 See Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black. William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004, p. 7; John Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom. The origins of Australian Aboriginal Political Activism, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007, pp. 73, 97-98; Heather Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 148, 160. 36 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 149. 37 See Goodall, “‘Crying out for land rights’”, and “‘For liberty, freedom, the right to function in our own interest’”, in Invasion to Embassy, Ch.12; see Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom; my discussion of the AAPA’s platform and petitions in Chapter 7, Section 7.1., esp. p. 206. 38 Other Koori protesters Goodall refers to as contextualising the segregation of education within broader attempts to remove the Koori community are Mrs H. Stewart to Minister for Education, 6/11/1925, 25/1/1926, 22/3/1926; Mrs Les Stewart to Minister for Education, 7/3/1927, 30/3/1927; Mrs Agnes Davis to Minister for Education, 28/7/1926, Batemans Bay Public School Files, Department of Education In-Letters, State Records NSW (See Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 373, note 63).

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there is a Public School, and why are those not allowed to attend, when the School is Public. Another thing Your Majesty we have compulsory education why are they not compelled to attend school the Quadroon and Half-caste people of Batemans Bay has been writing to different places, namely, the Minister of Education, the Child Welfare Department, the Aborigines Protection Board also to our Member’s of Parliament but cannot get fair play. Even the reserve where the colored race were bred and born the white race are trying to have them turned off onto another piece of land. It is unfair and I hope you will see that fair play be given / let them stay on the land that was granted to them /also compel the children to be sent to the Public School at Batemans Bay. Trusting you are well, I am Yours truly Jane Duren Moruya New South Wales Australia39

Several aspects of this petition are worth discussing. Firstly, Jane Duren distinctly identifies racially - using the terminology of time - and geographically those on whose behalf she is appealing: “the Quadroon and Half-caste children of Bateman’s Bay New South Wales Australia.” After briefly stating their situation (an implied consequence of their racial identity), her following pointed questions stress how the children are neither allowed nor compelled to receive a public and compusory education, when, however, they should be both entitled and compelled to do so. Duren, as the parents of the excluded children in the petitions previously discussed, asks “why” this is so.

The interrogative mode assists Duren in formulating the children’s case in an assertive way40 in a similar rhetorical move as the one employed in the petitions from Coranderrk addressed earlier.41 Further, as the interrogative mode on which appellate judicial opinion is based, as pointed out by Ferguson, this interrogative mode “is driven by a declarative

39 Jane Duren to King George V, Moruya NSW, 14 June 1926, Bateman’s Bay School Files 1875-1939, NRS 3829, State Records NSW. 40 See the description of the declarative tone by Robert A. Ferguson in “Rhetorics of the Judicial Opinion: The Judicial Opinion as Literary Genre”, Yale Journal of Law and Literature 2 (201), 1990, pp. 210-213. 41 See Chapter 5, especially the discussion of the interrogative mode, Section 5.3.2., p. 136.

179 tone.”42 A delarative tone that draws attention to inconsistency between the rhetoric of rights and actual practice, a discrepancy that McArdle has discussed as being highlighted also in black writings preceding the Civil War in America, and which serves, she stressed, as a rhetorical strategy towards empowerment.43

This “disjunction” between the legislation corcerning public and compulsory education and the current practice of excluding the “Quadroon and half-caste children of Batemans Bay” from that “public”, is highlighted to provide the basis for the request of “fair play”, which so far, Duren stresses, has been denied by the other constituencies approached. The trope of fairness or “fair play”, which Goodall typifies as a characteristically Australian myth,44 is then used also to buttress the request of protection of the local reserve for the “coloured race” from the “white race.”

The forms of personal address she employs engage the addressee directly and forcefully: King George V is addressed as if he were closeby (“another thing His majesty”) and she presents final direct and imperative injunctions (“let them stay on the land that was granted to them” and “compel the children to be sent to the school at Batemans Bay”).45 A similar mode of personal address can be found in some Indigenous protest writings46 and in Indigenous life writings.47

Her petition was received and registered, but not acknowledged, by the Private Secretary’s Office of Buckingham Palace on 27 July 1926. It was referred back to the competent Ministers in New South Wales,48 who however, had been supporting the segregation. One year later, after further protests49 and a visit of Jane Duren to the Education Department in Sydney early in 1927, the Child Welfare Department was called upon to intervene, but the nominated Inspector refused to remove any children from their families and supported the

42 Ferguson, “Rhetorics of the Judicial Opinion”, p. 210. 43 Andrea McArdle, “The Confluence of Law and Antebellum Black Literature: Lawyerly Discourse as a Rhetoric of Empowerment”, Law and Literature 17 (2), 2005, p. 183. 44 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 148. 45 I have here drawn a parallel with Anne Brewster’s discussion of how Indigenous protest writing engages non-Indigenous audiences, especially through her analysis of the forms of address in Romain Moreton’s poetry. See Anne Brewster, “Engaging the Public Intimacy of Whiteness: the Indigenous Protest Poetry of Romaine Moreton”, JASAL Special Issue 2008: The Colonial Present, pp. 56-76. 46 Brewster, “Engaging the Public Intimacy of Whiteness”. 47 vanToorn, “Indigenous Australian Life Writing”, p. 19. 48 Sgd L.S. Amery to Education Department, 18/9/1926, “Aboriginal Children, exclusion of,” in Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW. 49 B.E.Fitzpatrick to Minister of Justice, 22 September 1926; Mrs Les Stewart, Batemans Bay, to Department of Education, 7 March 1927, 30 March 1927, Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW.

180 demands for readmission to the school.50 Finally, on 30 August 1927 the Education Department communicated to Jane Duren its decision to “sanction the re-admission of aboriginal children to the school, subject to their being in good health and in a proper state of cleanliness” and the children were effectively re-admitted to the school on 5 September 1927, after two years of segregation,51 and the reserve land was not sold.52

Fig. 6.2. Jane Duren’s petition to King George V, Moruya, 14 June 1926. Courtesy of State Records NSW.

50 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 148. 51 S. Lasker to Jane Duren, 20 August 1927; C. Carter [Headmaster of Batemans’Bay Public School], subject: “re-admission of the coloured Children”, reference: 30/8/27/S, both in Bateman’s Bay School Files, State Records NSW. 52 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 148.

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Two months later that year, Jane Duren publicised her act of writing to the monarch during a meeting between seven AAPA members - including its leader, Fred Maynard, Jane Duren herself, another woman and church representatives. The Sydney Morning Herald article covering the meeting, titled “Aborigines. Want Racial Equality. Appeal to Churchmen. Letter to the King”, stressed how Mrs Duren “astonished Bishop D’Arcy [Bishop Coadjutor of Sydney] by saying that she had written to the King” [my cursive]. Jane Duren, that is, in publicising her appeal, let her act of writing individually to the monarch become public and her act of writing, her act of enunciation, arouse surprise. Her authorship, her interaction with the highest level of governmental authority, and her making it public, counteracted or resisted contemporary beliefs in the inferiority of abilities of Indigenous people. In the same meeting, also Fred Maynard, in a parallel way resisted these views. When the chairman of the Australian Board of Missions, Mr Needham, pointed out the supposedly general inability of the “natives” to improve themselves, referring to only two cases as exceptions - that of David Unaipon and of “a Queensland girl” - Maynard stressed “the most appalling conditions” in which some communities were living, the “starvation” of eighty members of the community at Macleay River, and their will not to approach the police for fear of having their children taken away from them. Maynard, similarly to Jane Duren, resisted the commonly held beliefs and tried to make public what a “hush policy” had kept from the public. Both Duren and Maynard that is, tried to renegotiate the position of Indigenous Australian communities by making accessible to the public the experiences of many Indigenous Australians.

The episodes discussed in this section, highlight how a public access to education - on equal footing with white children - was important for Indigenous parents but still difficult to achieve in the first decades of the twentieth century. The segregated school system spread in New South Wales. Only in the 1950s was the syllabus for Aboriginal schools changed to match the normal syllabus for public schools53 and only by the mid-1950s the teachers in Aboriginal schools were substituted by trained teachers. In the 1960s, thanks to a changed and more tolerant public attitude, and to Aboriginal affairs becoming more

53 Fletcher, Documents in the History of Aboriginal Education, p. 133.

182 public, integrated schooling started to take place and Aboriginal schools were slowly phased out.54

We have also seen how school segregation could provide the grounds for the removal of Aboriginal children from their families: being unable to provide them with access to education could result in a charge of neglect of their children. As a consequence, we have seen how some families, in order not to have their children removed, decided to relocate to places, often reserves, where a segregated school already existed and which their children could attend. The petition I will discuss in the next chapter also stems from the desire of Indigenous parents to maintain their family unit, this time in South Australia, and it opposes (white) considerations on the type of education - or training - that was thought to be desirable for Indigenous children in that state.

6.2. Petitions as memorials

In South Australia, in the early 1830s, the presence of British settlers spread first to the south, to Encounter Bay and Goolwa, then, eastwards, north and west of Adelaide in the 1840s. A gradual occupation of the Eyre Peninsula was at that time accompanied by resistance by the local Nauo people. In the 1850s a movement towards the interior of South Australia brought settlers also to the salt lakes district and to the Flinders Ranges, causing violent resistance. By the 1880s, only the north-western and western interior areas had not been settled.55

Notwithstanding some efforts of the British Colonial Office to protect the property rights to land of the original inhabitants in the 1830s,56 from a legislative point of view the preamble of the South Australian Constitution Act, declared the colony of South Australia

54 Ibid., p. 135. 55 Peggy Brock, “South Australia” in Ann McGrath (ed.), Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines under the British Crown, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1995, pp. 214-215. 56 The Colonial Office insisted in the appointment of a Protector who “would ensure that land occupied by Aborigines was only acquired if the Aborigines sold it voluntarily” and included in the Letters Patent a clause protecting “the actual occupation … of any lands now occupied or enjoyed by such natives.” See Brock, “South Australia”, p. 221; re land rights embodied in the S.A. Letters Patent, see Reynolds, Law of the Land, pp. 132, 135-6.

183 to be “waste and unoccupied lands (…) fit for the purposes of colonisation.”57 The Waste Land Act, 1842, provided the Protector of Aborigines with the means to reserve lands for Aborigines. By 1860, however, most of the 8000 acres allocated as Aboriginal reserves had been leased to settlers.58 The 1850s and 1860s saw the establishment of a few missions: Poonindie (1850-1895), established by the Anglican Church near Point Lincoln, on the Eyre Peninsula; Point McLeay (1859), established to the south-east of Adelaide [on Lake Alexandrina]; Killalpaninna and Kopperamanna, established to the north of the Flinders Range (1866); and later on, Koonibba (1898), on the Great Australian Bight. According to Peggy Brock, two large communities were located at Point McLeay and Point Pearce, on the Yorke Peninsula.59 Point McLeay in particular was to be home to both David Unaipon, considered the father of Aboriginal literature, and Ellen Kropinyeri, whose petition I am about to discuss.

After South Australia’s first protection legislation was enacted through the Aborigines Act 1911,60 a Royal Commission on “The Aborigines” was set up and debated, among other issues, the apprenticing of “half-caste” Aboriginal children. The Commission, as pointed out by Chesterman and Galligan,

(…) advocated two courses of action which many states had already adopted: greater government regulation of Aborigines, and the separation of ‘full-bloods’ from ‘half- castes’. The latter group, the Royal Commission recommended, should be removed from their communities and become self-supporting.61

Among those who gave evidence to the Royal Commission were David Unaipon and Matthew Kropinyeri. Matthew Kropinyeri in particular had specified his position on the removal of children for training purposes in an addendum to his evidence:

57 Brock, “South Australia”, p. 221; Reynolds, Law of the Land, p. 127. 58 Brock, “South Australia”, p. 222. 59 Ibid., pp. 215-216. 60 This Act was modelled on similar protection legislation enacted in Western Australia and Queensland, while Victoria was gradually reconsidering the merging of the half-caste act and the arbitrary division between “half-castes” and “full-blood”, see Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights , pp. 29, 65, 139 -142. 61 Chesterman and Galligan, Citizens Without Rights, pp. 139-140.

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In regard to the taking of our children in hand by the state to learn trades, &c., our people would gladly embrace the opportunity of betterment for our children; but to be subjected to complete alienation from our children is to say the least an unequalled act of injustice, and no parent worthy of the name would either yield to or urge such a measure.62

His phrase, an “unequalled act of injustice”, which referred to the separation of children from their parents, echo the words of John Quinn, whose phrase “an unconceivable injustice”, referred to the segregation of Bellata Public School.63 The denial of parental rights as well as the denial of access to education facilities on equal basis with white children, are both understood and expressed in terms of injustice. Further, Matthew Kropinyeri’s words highlight how Ngarrindjeri parents might have conceived training (or education) opportunities for their children, as occasions for “betterment”, for chances to improve their general life prospects, social and economical.64 This view was held also by his contemporary Susie Wilton, née Susie Noble, an Adnyamathanha woman who spoke of the need for a school at Mt Serle in the north Flinders Ranges. At the South Australian Royal Commission hearings in 1914, she specified that “reading, writing and arithmetic” would serve as a protection against “unscrupulous employers.”65

The relation between education and job and life opportunities will also be referred to in a 1936 petition from Point McLeay Station, whose main signatory, Creighton Unaipon, was the youngest brother of David Unaipon. In advocating the establishment of an Aborigines Protection Board “for a better System of management to control the affairs of the Aborigines”, the third and fourth point of the petition clearly relate education and training opportunities to better employment opportunities and social integration:

3) An Aboriginal Protection Board would be beneficial in assisting the Government in any schemes regard the Social education and development of the Aborigines, and

62 See the website South Australia Memory, “Aboriginal Rights”, “Aboriginal Response.” www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=653. 63 See this Chapter, Section 6.1., p. 171. 64 The need for a school at Mt Serle, north Fliders Ranges, was highlighted also by Susie Wilton, an Adnyamathanha woman, who stressed at the South Australian Royal Commission hearings in 1914 that “reading, writing and arithmetic would help protect them against unscrupulous employers.” 65 Royal Commission on the Aborigines, South Australia, South Australian Government Printer, Adelaide, 1916, p. 16, referred to in Peggy Brock, “South Australia”, p. 211.

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especially the traing [training] of the rising generation in some definite avocation [vocation] which would give them a better chance in the general life of the community So that eventually they may be able to take their stand among the civilised people

4) We consider that our welfare would be much better advanced by a board than by any one Person acting as Chief Protector as we feel sure that the outlook of the Aborigines in the future would completely change if some new method were introduced which would aim to give us a better Place in the community as workers, instead of being condemned to idleness as is the case under the Present System66

It is clear therefore that education was relevant to Indigenous parents across time also in relation to broader employment and social opportunities. Further in the 1930s “stand[ing] among the civilised people” had a particular relevance because at that time it was on the basis of the idea of civilisation that citizenship rights were being invoked by Aboriginal activists.67

The petition reproduced below, written by Ellen Kropinyeri, was submitted in response to the passing of the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act, 1923, which authorised the Chief Protector of Aborigines to “commit any aboriginal child to any institution ... to be there detained or otherwise dealt with under the said Act [State Children Act, 1895] until such child attains the age of eighteen years.”68 A deputation from Point McLeay, composed of John Stanley, Willy Rankine and Leonard Campbell, went to Adelaide to petition the government to repeal the Act. The petition they presented on that occasion was reproduced on the pages of The Register69 on 21 December 1923 in an article titled “‘Give Us Our Children’. The Aborigines’ Plea. Opposition to New Act.”70 The plea, or petition, reads as follows:

66 Creighton Uniapon, E.N. Kroninyeri, H. Ulingbo, G. Seymour, W. Rankine, Jacob Harris and others, Point McLeay Mission Station, to the Members of the House of Assembly, 23 March 1936, SRSA, GRG52/1/43/31/36. See Appendix, doc. 16. 67 Russell McGregor, “Protest and Progress: Aboriginal Activism in the 1930s”, Australian Historical Studies 25, no. 101 (1993), pp. 555-568. 68 Aborigines (Training of Children) Act, 1923 (SA), Section 6.1. http://asset0.aiatsis.gov.au:1801/webclient/StreamGate?folder_id=0&dvs=1246843945757~433 69 South Australia’s first newspaper, June 1836 - February 1931. 70 Attwood and Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 109-111.

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A Remarkable Petition

PORT MACLEAY. December 16. The hon. members of Parliament of South Australia. Dear Sirs, The Bill has passed, legalising the Act of taking away the children from their parents. This Act, like a mysterious creature of ill omen, is casting a gloom over this one little mission home. Yes, this Bill has passed at last, and the passing of it provides food for serious consideration. And the first that presents itself to the mind, is the fact that, an Act, which, hitherto had been illegal and I believe, punished by law, is now legal and supported by law, which produces a reverse effect upon the past legal law, as for instance, in the past any one taking a child away from its parents without their consent, will be liable to punishment by law. But to-day, any desiring to return and live with their parents, will be dealt with by the laws contained in the Act. Here we have a queer conglomeration of laws, through some unaccountable way, the wild cat of confusion, has effected or gained an entrance into the dovecote of legal harmony, and caused such utter confusion among the inmates, to such an extent, that some, if not all, of them cannot with any degree of accuracy, claim each their respective relationship either to the legal, or illegal origin. However this is not the matter on which I wish to write. It is mother's love, its claims, its rights, its demands. Now it is understood that a refusal to comply with the demands of an ultimatum of one nation to another, is an acceptance of condition of warfare whatever those conditions may lead to, so the passing of that Bill is a declaration of war between right and wrong. And there is only one right, and only one wrong, which of the two contending party (sic) is right. We will see presently. Mark well, the two forces, arrayed against each other. There stands the advocates, and supporters of the Bill that has passed, strongly fortified, their guns of "intellect" trained and ready for action, they represent "Right." There, on the opposite and facing them is the rank of the enemy, strongly opposing the Bill, a very strange army, possessing no weapons of war, no intellectual powers, no Parliamentary eloquence, not a grain of science in the whole body, that makes the army of motherhood. The only piece of artillery which that army possesses is the weapon called love. And thus equipped, the army of motherhood has taken up their position in opposition to the Bill. The invader of those Godgiven and therefore sacred dominions of mother's love is its claims, its rights, its demands, a possession voted for them in the parliament of heaven, sealed with the image and superstition of His Majesty, whose name is "Love". This army also represents Right. Thus we see the two contending forces each striving for precedence in their claim of Right, and we ask, who is going to win the day? And the reply comes from the ranks of Intellect, "victory is ours", and relying on their weapon of attack, Intellect, they thunder forth their intellectual arguments again and

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again, propelled by the full force of scientific facts. Poor motherhood, how are you going to retain the beauties and glorious possession of motherhood, the right, the claims, the demands of love amid such fearful intellectual bombardment as this, and seeing that you are armed with nothing more than the crude and primitive weapon, love, the invention of which dates back in the past eternity. It is true we are indeed poorly equipped, and we know not how we are going to fare in this fearful struggle, but - and just then a thin spurt of smoke is seen issuing from the ranks of motherhood, and we knew that love, motherhood's weapon spoke, and that its claims, its demands, and its rights, in their threefold unity is speeding its unerring way to the ranks of the foe, bearing the seal, the hallmark, and the mandate of the majesty on high (the majesty of love). Hon. members (jurymen). The question is asked, Who wins? The bar of eternal justice, truth and righteousness awaits your verdict! What say you?

The form of this petition differs from those observed so far on several points. Individually written, it displays a sustained use of rhetoric and figurative language through which several images are evoked. The first part of the petition expresses how the passing of the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act was perceived by those who were to be affected by it, “... an Act, which, hitherto had been illegal and I believe, punished by law, is now legal and supported by law”, and thus it highlights the legal contradictions of the Act. The figurative language used to refer to this Act - the simile “a mysterious creature of ill omen… casting a gloom over …”, the metaphor of “the wild cat of confusion … [which] caused such utter confusion”, the expressions “produces a reverse claim effect upon the past legal law”, “…a queer conglomeration of laws”, “…through an unaccountable way..”, “cannot with any degree of accuracy …” - seem to me foreground the fact that the scientific discourses used to support the passing of the Act (referred to in the second part of the petition) do not rest on a scientific base, but in fact, are indeed “unaccountable”, “queer”, not accurate, and producing “confusion”. The logic of the Act is henceforth deeply questioned from the beginning.

The second part of the petition (from “However this is not the matter on which I wish to write”), allegorically compares the passing of the Act to “a declaration of war between right and wrong”, and those who support the Act and those who oppose it to the army of Intellect and the army of motherhood respectively. The writer directly addresses and

188 interpellates the addressees of the petition - the members of Parliament (“mark well”, “Hon. members (jurymen). The question is asked, who wins?”, “what say you?”) - as well as the Aboriginal mothers (“poor motherhood, how are you going to retain the beauties and glorious possessions of motherhood”). By doing so, Kropinyeri engages directly with the addressees,71 among whom she includes those on behalf of whom she was petitioning. In a parallel way, the “we” of the petition seems to shift from a “we” which includes the parliamentarian addressees as the observers of the passing of the Act, to a “we” which includes only the mothers asking for the repeal of the legislation (“it is true we are indeed poorly equipped and we know how we are going to fare in this fearful struggle”). This shift seems to signal a double positioning of the author, in front of the Parliamentarians and beside the mothers, appealing to the ones and supporting the others.

The petition’s focus on motherhood, “mother's love ... its claims, its rights, its demands”, emphasises an aspect of life that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people share. Its appeal to the members of Parliament to respond to “the bar of eternal justice, truth and righteousness”, calls the attention of those who were responsible for Australian Indigenous policies at the time (i.e. the dominating group) to values which, in their “eternal” aspect, should tend to transcend the “scientific arguments” and “intellectual arguments” of the time - which are questioned, in any case, at the beginning of the petition. The dichotomies Intellect-Love, science-love, well equipped-poorly equipped, reflect contemporary discourses which are relevant to the understanding of the period and share further light on the feelings of Indigenous people, about how they felt they were perceived by non- Indigenous people (and about the awareness of the status they had been conferred) and about how they perceived non-Indigenous people.

Despite the deputation and the petition, the Act remained in force. However, the response to the Act marks an important moment of interaction with the state authorities responsible for the legislation. The significance of that petition has been stressed also by the descendants of those who protested the passing of the Act. Tom Trevorrow, whose brother Bruce Trevorrow was the first Aboriginal Australian to win a Stolen Generation court case, has highlighted how the importance of this petition lies in the fact that it was a petition written by his ancestors “against the government’s creation of an act to take the

71 See Anne Brewster, “Engaging the Public Intimacy of Whiteness: the Indigenous Protest Poetry of Romaine Moreton”, JASAL The Colonial Present, Special Issue (2008): 56-76, for similar direct forms of address in literary works.

189 children from their families, today referred to as the Stolen Generations.” He specified, “the Aboriginal people were supposed to be uneducated and were told what to do and had no rights, they were speaking up their rights in a written petition.”72 [my emphasis]

Kropinyeri’s petition and Trevorrow’s words draw attention to how the petitioners produced a counter-discourse in opposition to the dominant discourses and the policies that stemmed from them. It could be argued that Ellen Kropinyeri’s petition intervened in a dominant and dominating (white) public sphere in order to challenge the domination contract upon which the construction of that public sphere was based and designed. And that it did so in an effort to renegotiate this contract so that (non-white or partly white) maternal and parenting rights, the “sacred dominions of mother’s love”, their children, their rightful “possession” would be respected. Kropinyeri’s petition can also be seen as invoking a counter-public73 within the dominating public sphere, a public that could support legislative transformative changes for those who had been placed in a subaltern position.74

Since the petition was not on the records of the State government, putting the petition on records would have meant recording, registering that Indigenous South Australians were objecting the legislation. The recent re-submission of the 1923 petition is therefore very significant.

On 17 December 2003, Ellen Trevorrow asked in a letter to the then Governor of South Australia, H.E. Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, that the petition presented 80 years earlier by the three Ngarrinjeri elders, among whom her great-great-grandfather William Rankine, “at last in truth and justice be placed on the public record for posterity” [my emphasis].75 This request was accompanied by a commemorative walk in Adelaide and a delegation of Ngarrinjeri elders who re-enacted the presentation of the 1923 petition, which was this time received and acknowledged by the Governor.

The significance of the submission, in Tom Trevorrow’s words, is “to show the State Government that their elders were protesting the removal of children at the time, and it

72 Personal phone conversation with Tom Trevorrow, 6th December 2011. 73 See Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, New York, Zone Books, 2002, esp. Ch. 2 and pp. 121- 122. 74 See Anne Brewster, “Subalternity”, in Brewster, “Engaging the Public Intimacy of Whiteness”, p. 57. 75 Tom Trevorrow, Christine Finnimore, Steven Hemming, George Trevorrow, Matt Rigney, Veronica Brodie and Ellen Trevorrow, They Took Our Land and Then Our Children, Meningie, SA, Ngarrindjeri Lands and Progress Association, 2007.

190 was relevant then and it is still relevant today.”76 The act of remembering this protest highlights the will to remember and commemorate, memorialize official moments of resistance to policies which shaped the identity, the past and the present of many Indigenous Australians. This is another instance – the issue of removing children – which is protested against in terms of demanding contractual rights and insisting on their rights as citizens.

Fig. 6.3. and 6.4. “Three Dusky Deputies” read the caption to the picture above on the left, published on The Register together with the petition and the names and age of the “three ambassadors” from Point McLeay Mission Station petitioning the Governor to repeal the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act, 1923, John Stanley (43), Willy Rankine (61) and Leonard Campbell (47). On the right side, the walk commemorating the presentation of the petition in Adelaide, December 2003 (Courtesy of the Ngarrinjeri Heritage Committee Inc.)77

Memory studies, which have developed productively especially since the 1990s, offer several points of reflection when considering Indigenous petitions in Australia.78 In terms of remembering, Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead note how “as the [20th] century drew to a close, there was an increasing concern with how best to remember the traumatic instances that had punctuated its history (...).”79 In Australia, as the events outlined above suggest, Indigenous people have felt the need to participate in this act of remembering their history, itself punctuated by many traumatic events, and they did so in many ways, including commemorating the presentation of the 1923 petition. The descendants of the

76 Personal phone conversation with Tom Trevorrow, 6th December 2011. 77 The photo on the left side can be viewed on the website SA Journey Of Healing, 2008, http://sajoh.auspics.org.au/petition.php; the photo on the right side features in Trevorrow et al, They Took Our Land, 2007. 78 Michael Rossington and Anne Whitehead (eds.), Theories of Memory: A Reader, Perth, University of Western Australia Press, 2007, esp. pp. 10-13. 79 Ibid., p. 5.

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1923 petitioners, by positioning themselves as remembering subjects and voices, intervene in the social contract, that is, they claim to be part of history – rather than being erased from history. Their act can be interpreted therefore as a collective act of remembering, which tries to share with the larger non-Indigenous public, and to inscribe in the archives, the memory that has been kept alive by them.80

These events invite reflection on the significance of Australian public records: the losses and misplacements therein, and the wish to rectify them. They highlight the desire of Indigenous people to record and echo the search for justice that took place and the significance public records bear for posterity. Further, public commemorative acts being visible spectacles – i.e. interventions in the public sphere – they consolidate the Indigenous position as contracting subjects and as participants in the contracts of the nation and memory of the nation.

I would like to suggest that petitions can have a retrospective commemorative function, that they can be memorials. The term “memorial” itself has several meanings. A memorial can be something that keeps remembrance alive, such as a commemorative monument, ceremony, or speech. It can also be a record, a memoir or, as above, it can be a petition. Some petitions seem to me to synthesise these three connotations of the term: they are pieces of writing with the potential to keep alive the remembrance of what they present and represent; they are a written record in which moments of the past are inscribed; and they are a formal written statement of facts addressed to a representative of authority. At one time, petitions were indeed often called memorials. Petitioners were called memorialists, and their requests brought to the attention and, indeed, to the memory of the addressee(s) the questions they raised. By being published and discussed in newspapers, they came to address a wider audience and a wider public whose attention was called to the issues object of the petition. Today, by being published in anthologies of Australian Aboriginal Literature and Australian Literature,81 petitions continue to call to the memory of a further enlarged public the experiences and protests they record.

80 I intend “collective act of remembering” in the sense proposed by Maurice Halbwachs, as an act supported by a group, as an act taking place within groups limited in space and time and influenced by the dominant thoughts of their societies. Halbwach states, “Toute mémoire collective a pour support un groupe limité dans l’espace et dans le temps” (“Every collective memory requires the support of a group delimited in space and time” (Maurice Halbwach, La Mémoire Collective, Paris, Presse Universitarire de France, 1950, p. 75. See also pp. 70-71). 81 Heiss and Minter, Pen Anthology of Aboriginal Literature; Jose, Pen Anthology of Australian Literature.

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6.3. Contemporary experiences, perspectives and discourses

In this section I would like to discuss a petition I discovered during my archival research at the Public Records Office of Victoria and which will be published for the first time this year.82 Originating in the Victorian Reserve of Lake Tyers in 1931, it offers an example of how petitions embed in their texts not only contemporary experiences and perspectives but also contemporary discourses, concepts and ideas, and Indigenous responses to them.

In many cases, petitioners called attention to the impact on their social group of coercion exercised through legislation. This petition, like others, asks for the reinstatement of a former superintendent.83 It exemplifies an interaction with the pre-existing structures of power in an attempt to maintaining within those structures those individuals who had been able to shift the terms of a domination contract towards more egalitarian conditions. At the same time, this petition illustrates how petitions can simultaneously reflect contemporary experiences, concerns and discourses. By “discourses” I refer broadly to the ideas, beliefs, principles and thoughts that circulated at a certain time and that both informed policies affecting Australian Indigenous people and influenced the language and interaction - observable in petitions - of “dominating” and “dominated” collectivities.

The petition reproduced below was written in 1931 at Lake Tyers, a reserve today known as Bung Yarnda situated in Victoria’s Gippsland region. Established in 1861 by Reverend John Bulmer, missionary of the Church of England, Lake Tyers became a Government Station in 1908. In line with a policy which aimed at reducing the number of reserves, Lake Tyers then became the station where a large number of residents from Ramahyuck, Lake Condah and Coranderrk were relocated after their stations were closed (respectively in 1906, 1919, 1924). Petitioning had been present in all the three latter reserves, especially in Coranderrk (1870s, 1880s)84 and at least eight of the surnames of the ninety-

82 Chiara Gamboz, “Petitions from Indigenous Communities in Australia: Recovering inherited voices and perspectives” in Catriona Elder and Keith Moore (eds.), New Visions New Voices: Australian Studies in the Twenty-first Century, Cambridge Scholars Publishing (in press). 83 See for instance the petitions from Coranderrk for the reinstatement of John Green (Chapter 5 and Appendix, doc. 2-4). Similar petitions requesting the reinstatement of a former superintendent have been submitted also by Indigenous people in America. See for instance the petition from the Shawnee tribe to President Thomas Jefferson requesting that the Quaker Kirk might return soon among them. Kirk had been with the tribe for three years and had been dismissed (“Our very good friend Kirk” in Peter Nabokov (ed.), Native American Testimony, rev. ed. New York, Penguin, 1999, pp. 78-79). 84 An article published on the Gippsland Mercury, 1 May 1874, reproduced Bessie Cameron’s letter to the Secretary of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines “in the name of the Aborigines of Ramahuck”, defending Rev. Hagenauer from recent accusations (van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 189-90);

193 two men and women signatories of the 1931 petition from Lake Tyers appear in an earlier petition from Lake Condah (1907).85 These facts suggest a direct or indirect familiarity of at least part of the community with this medium of protest and negotiation. Two other petitions, written at Lake Tyers in 1913, endorse this view, and offer a beautiful example of inter-racial solidarity.86 The 1931 petition reads as follows:

Lake Tyers Athletic Club

Lake Tyers, 6th June 1931

To Aborigines Board

Victoria

Gentleman

We the undersigned residents of Lake Tyers Aborigines Station, wish to attract your most keen consideration to our appeal on behalf of our humane friend Captain Newman who has resigned from this Station and sadly missed from amongst the sick, on behalf of our most humane friend Captain Newman, we extend our token of appreciation concerning his brief and untiring labour amongst us in sickness, our moral mental, physical, and social conditions, Captain Newman has appointed Patrols

Coranderrk had been the source of many petitions (Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 41-51; Barwick, Rebellion at Coranderrk; van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 130-149, 179-81); from Lake Condah, in 1907, Ernest Mobourne had petitioned the Members of the Cabinet, supported by the whole community, so that the decision to close the mission might be reconsidered (van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 169-72); previously, in 1900, Maggie Mobourne, had presented a letter with a few appended signatures of support to Parliamentarian DN McLeod (Ian Critchett, Untold Stories, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1998, p. 242; van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 166-168; Heiss and Minter, Pen Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, p. 18). 85 I compared the list of signatories reproduced in “Names inscribed on the petition forwarded to the Hon. the Chief Secretary by the aborigines of the Lake Condah Station. July 1907.” - a document found during an archival research at the Public Record Office of Victoria (VPRS 1694/P/0000, Unit 02; Dsc 2: Correspondence - Housing - Lake [Condah?]; Date: 01 Jan 1907 to 01 Jan 1907) - and the list of signatories appended on the petition reproduced here, also at PROV, VPRS 1694/P/0000, Unit 11, Item 7, 6, 5. The surnames shared by both petitions are: Carmichael, Carter, Harrison, Johnson, Mobourne, Mullett, Turner. The name of “W.Wandin” also appears in the 1931 petition, possibly a relative of Wandoon or Robert Wandin, the nephew of William Barak (c.1820s-1903), the Ngurungaeta (chief and spokesperson) of the Wurundjeri people. Many thanks to the staff of PROV and the PROV Koorie Records Unit for publishing the article that brought this petition to my attention (2007, 8-9). A reproduction of the 1907 petition from Lake Condah can be seen in van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 171-172. 86 Victoria Haskins, “‘Give to us the People we would Love to be amongst us’: The Aboriginal Campaign against Caroline Bulmer’s Eviction from Lake Tyers Aboriginal Station, 1913-14,” Provenance: The Journal of Public Records Office Victoria 7, 2008: 53-63. The petitions are reproduced in the Appendix, doc. 12, 13.

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and Committes [committees] to regulate the moral condition of the Station which has never been since the founding of Aborigines Reserve in Victoria to great success In evry Pratrices [every practices, unclear]. Our Football and Cricket competitions in the East Gippsland association, our introduction In the public as sporting people, We beg to state also concerning the founding of the Aborigines Reserve throughout Victoria, Captain Newman excels all managers in his prescriptions concerning the sick and his untiring labour And sleepless nights in attending to the sick we can safely say without hesitation, Captain Newman understood our disposition to the extreme, this humane person Captain Newman in his compassion for the Aborigines (Trained two nurses) for the welfare of the sick; erected a hospital for maternity purposes and other serious illness for the inmates of Lake Tyers to the satisfaction of Doctors Davey our (Government Doctor) We also wish to bring under your keen consideration, the Aborigines Board may search this Island Continent of ours (Australia) to equal Captain Newman but to no effect, Captain Newman has raised us up from our degraded state to what we are today, we were without a word of a doubt, classed as the lowest beings on the scales of humanity, this humane link which has been unlossed, it is our earnest desire if possible in getting Captain Newman reinstated amongst us again, Sir, hoping you will kindly consider our appeal and place same before the Board,

Sir, we will render you our sincere thanks

Lake Tyers

Inmates Aborigines

Lake Tyers87

This petition functions primarily by highlighting the positive contribution of Captain Newman to the community of Lake Tyers. Captain Newman, who managed the station from 1929 to 1931, is remembered also in oral tradition as a good manager who “introduced many economic and material improvements and encouraged the people to

87 Lake Tyers Aborigines to Aborigines Board, Vic, Lake Tyers, 6 June 1931, PROV, Vprs 1694/P/0000, unit 11, (type A1P), items 5-7.

195 direct their internal affairs themselves.”88 The narrative that outlines his work, follows the civilizing principles espoused by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines: the improvement of the “moral[,] mental, physical, and social conditions” of the Aborigines. Although the mental condition is not dealt with specifically, the other conditions are addressed and the way in which they are attended to is telling of both contemporary experiences and contemporary humanitarian and racial discourses. The terms used were indeed part of a circulating discourse, which was not limited to Victoria. A petition from Wanaaring, in the north west of New South Wales, records the same expressions. A white parent explained in the following way the reasons for his request to have the Aboriginal children excluded from the local school: “Principle first, Second I contend morraly mentaly and Phisickelly the blacks are not fit to assoiate [associate] in the Play ground with children from 6 too [to] 8 years of age (…)” [original spelling].89

The petition records contemporary experiences related to Indigenous health and access to medical care as well as experiences of being “introduced” into the public. The numerous occasions in which “the sick” or “sickness” are mentioned work today as a reminder of the poor health conditions Indigenous people were experiencing and that still today remain well below the national benchmarks. The reference to the training of professional personnel and to the erection of facilities to provide for the sick call to mind the difficulties of access to health care experienced by Indigenous Australians. The attention given to sport to enhance the quality of the social and physical aspects of life finds a mention in the “introduction [of the community] in the public as sporting people”. These words, at the same time, reflect the contemporary distance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Australia and illustrate how the moments in which this distance was reduced through public sporting events was felt as a positive achievement.90

Among the Indigenous perspectives portrayed in this petition, the definition of Australia as “this Island Continent of ours” seems to point at how the community felt about their land: not alienated, but still theirs; “ours” as belonging to Indigenous people, or shared by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Further, the repeated presentation of Captain

88 Richard Broome, “Victoria” in Anne McGrath (ed.), Contested Ground, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1995, pp. 142-43; see also Richard Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 2005, pp. 221-228. 89 A. Stevenson to C. Fern, MLA, 4 January 1915, Wanaaring school files, Box 5/18010, NSWSA, quoted in Fletcher, Documents in the History of Aboriginal Education, p. 116. 90 Sport remains today a venue where the accomplishments of Indigenous peoples are celebrated and as suggested by Catriona Elder it can be considered as “a key way in which Indigenous peoples were integrated into the dominant Australian culture.”

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Newman as the community’s “humane friend”, “our most humane friend”, highlights the choice of the petitioners’ decision to emphasise his humanity over his whiteness, or over his “race”, in a context where “race” was still an influential concept.91

Indeed, the end of the petition foregrounds contemporary racial discourses which were based on the belief in inherent racial attributes, the concept of the Great Chain of Being and a philosophy of progress Indigenous people were expected to embrace. The words preceding the final request - “Captain Newman has raised us up from our degraded state to what we are today, we were without a word of a doubt, classed as the lowest beings on the scales of humanity, this humane link which has been unlossed” - are significant in more than one way. Whether they were written by Indigenous and/or non-Indigenous people,92 these lines record the extent of the diffusion and impact of the ideas of the hierarchical ordering of races on a scale of worth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.93 These ideas were indeed widespread. A hundred years before the petition was written, traveller and journalist James Augustus St John reviewed Pictures of Australian (1829) writing in the Westminster Review:

(...) The greater number of those writers who, in their reasonings on human nature, have had occasion to allude to the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, appear to have delighted in representing them as the last link in the chain of humanity.94

In Australia, colonial explorer and imperial administrator George Grey repudiated the many accounts that “most unfairly represented [Australian Indigenous people] as a very inferior race, in fact as one occupying a scale in the creation which nearly places them on a level with the brutes.”95 He considered this as a “firmly rooted” prejudice, one that, as explained by Russel McGregor in his Imagined Destinies (1997), “became more and more firmly entrenched” and came to underpin the doomed race theory, which saw the

91 See among others, Russell McGregor, Imagined Destinies, Melbourne University Press, 1997; David Carter, Dispossession, Dreams and Diversity. Issues in Australian Studies, Sydney, Pearson, 2006, pp. 45- 46. 92 I hedge here only because I do not have much information about the writing process of the petition. 93 Russell McGregor, Imagined Destinies, pp. 1-10. 94Judith Johnston and Monica Anderson, Australia Imagined. Views from the British Periodical Press, 1800– 1900, Perth, University of Western Australia Press, 2005, p. 71. 95 Russell McGregor, Imagined Destinies, p. 10.

197 extinction of Australian Indigenous people as their inevitable destiny.96 In fact, as pointed out by Broome and as the petition records, “the nineteenth century ideas that Aborigines were primitive and genetically inferior still thrived in the 1930s and beyond.”97 However, how did Indigenous Australians respond to these views and to the science of race that had been developing since the eighteenth century?

In this petition the words highlighted above seem to illustrate two points. First, the petitioners refuse to identify with the “classification” of Indigenous Australians as inferior - a classification informed by the widespread contemporary scientific practices of hierarchical ordering (they write in fact, “we were ... classed as ...”, not “we were ...”). Secondly, by asserting that a change occurred in the state of things that had driven that classification (“...Captain Newman has raised us up from our degraded state to what we are today”), the petitioners respond to the civilizing discourse of progress and “uplift” deployed by the dominating collectivity as a justification for their dominating position. Here, the discourse itself is not questioned. However, on one hand, the positive changes brought about by Captain Newman support the community’s request for his return among them and on the other hand, they invite a reassessment of the classification and respond to those who thought Indigenous people were not capable of attaining civilization.

Other examples of responses to widespread public opinion based on hierarchical ordering of races can be observed in the Petition for a Model Aboriginal State, 1927, point 4:

The opinion so generally held that the Australian native is the lowest type of humanity in the world is now found to be quite erroneous. On the contrary he does not belong to any negro race and has been proved to possess great mental powers, ability to quickly learn and can be taught agriculture, engineering, carpentering, &c, while there are already a number of Christian clergy.98

This point of the petition, drafted by a committee composed of eight persons (none of which Indigenous, although David Unaipon features in the committee subscribing the

96 See especially chapter 1, “The creation and annihilation of primitive man.” 97 Richard Broome, “Victoria” in McGrath (ed.), Contested Ground, p. 144. 98 Aborigines Protection League (Native State), “Proposed Aboriginal State”, SROSA, GRG 52/32/4. See Appendix, doc. 15 for full text.

198 petition and its accompanying manifesto),99 tries to respond to the commonly held views. It does so however by using (non- complimentarily) “the negro race” as a counterpoint to affirm the abilities of the “Australian native.” J.C. Chanders, the Secretary of the Aborigines Protection League100 and member of the committee drafting the petition, thought that “when the Petition is presented to Federal Parliament it should have behind it a strong public opinion.” The petition, I suggest, was drafted with this precise consideration of the public opinion in mind as well, a public opinion to mould but also to attract in order to gather support. A public opinion held by a public they had to address by using certain commonly used discourses.

Another example of response to publicly held opinion is to be found in the petition of Creighton Uniapon [sic] and others to the Parliament of South Australia in 1936. The fourth point of the petition refers in fact to the wish to “remove” the “long standing reproach that we [Aborigines in the State of S.A.] are a burden to the state”.101 These examples are further testimonies to the widespread circulation of certain discourses and stereotypes and of the will to change these discourses by engaging with the terms in which they were formulated and with the ideas that underscored them.

Conclusions

In this chapter we have initially seen how petitions were used as instruments to distance Indigenous people from a predominantly white public sphere (be it residential, recreational or educational). Increasingly, “public” came to mean “white public” or “dominating (white) public.” However, we have also seen how Indigenous Australians questioned the actions taken in order to exclude them from the public. They protested about the exclusion of their children from a “public” and compulsory school system, they objected to having to move to reserves in order to provide access to segregated schools (of lower standards) for their children and they highlighted the discrepancy between the British rhetoric of rights

99 The subcommittee was composed as follows: Rev. R.C. Nicholson, J.C. Jennyson, J.Blacket, Dr Basedow, Captain S.A. White, Mrs A.K. Goode, C.E. Taplin, J.C. Genders. See SROSA, GRG 52/32/3. 100 Aborigines Protection League (Native State), “Proposed Aboriginal State”, SROSA, GRG 52/32/4. 101 GRG 52/1/43/31/36.

199 and the Australian rhetoric of fair play on one hand and the discriminations they were subjected to on the other.

They also protested about the legislation which aimed at including their whiter children within the white dominating public on an unequal basis and precluding their parental rights - in Ellen Kropinyeri’s words, especially the “claims, rights and demands” of maternal love. The commemoration of this latter protest shows the will of Indigenous people to make public and record in “public” records their objections to such policies. These acts can be seen as intervening in the white public sphere and contributing to the construction of a collective national memory.

Finally, we have seen how the residents of Lake Tyers Mission Station in Victoria in the early 1930s recorded in their petition how they had been “introduced in the public as sporting people”, therefore in a positive way, and how the sick had been considered and assisted in the care of their health on the station. The sick as well, that is, had been acknowledged as part of a public. The circulation of contemporary racial discourses is recorded too, and the classifications and stereotypes Indigenous people were subjected to are used to highlight their achievements and their desire to remove such stereotypes.

The solidarity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the support of protests against segregated schooling at Batemans’s Bay shows how Indigenous people were indeed part of a public sphere. Their petitions highlight their relation to this public sphere as taxpayers and electors, as native born British subjects (John Quinn); as parents with a history of continuous relation to the land and of contribution to the provision of education for their children and to the erection of the school (T. Campbell); as part of the public to which public and compulsory education should be made accessible (Jane Duren).

In the following chapter, by canvassing petitions from the 1930s to the early 1960s I will show further attempts to raise public awareness and to negotiate an inclusion in a shared public sphere.

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Chapter 7

Appealing to the nation

New forms of Collaboration

In this Chapter I discuss a number of germinal petitions written in the period between the end of the First World War and the early 1960s. This was a time of great national and international change, where pressure groups, whose membership varied, helped raise awareness about the conditions in which Indigenous people were living in Australia. In this period, petitions became one among many ways in which requests for cultural change were put forward and awareness about Indigenous Australians raised. Radio and then television broadcasts and films, letters to the editors, articles published in diverse magazines, statements and resolutions written at meetings of activist organizations, public demonstrations, and also strikes and walk-offs were some of the other ways through which pleas were put forward and appeals were made to an increasingly broad public.1

1 See for instance the radio broadcast by Pearl Gibbs, 8 June 1941, which was “an appeal for her people” describing the “difference between the status of Aborigines and white men” and calling for an “appeal for practical humanity” (reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, doc. 44, pp. 95- 98); the reception of the film shot by Pastor Douglas Nicholls on a tour of the Warburton Ranges, WA, referred to in the article published in Tribune, 1 May 1957, titled “Tears Over Aborigine Film. Petition Launched On Aborigines” (reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, doc. 94, p. 168); the broadcast of King Burraga calling for a corroboree to launch a petition to the King in 1933, included in the documentary Lousy Little Six Pence, 1983, produced by Alec Morgan and Gerry Bostock,

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The first part of this Chapter contextualises petitioning from the late 1920s and 1930s by drawing on Michael Lipski’s theoretical approach to protest. This approach helps to account for the increasing role of Indigenous organisations in organising petitions and in raising awareness of Indigenous issues. Examples of such organisations are the Australian Aborigines’ Progressive Association (AAPA), based in New South Wales and led by Fred Maynard in the mid to late 1920s; the Australian Aborigines League (AAL), based in Melbourne and led by William Cooper from the mid 1930s; the Aborigines’ Progressive Association (APA) led by William Ferguson and Jack Patten in New South Wales from the late 1930s; the Australian-Aboriginal Fellowship (AAF) from 1956 and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) from 1958, the latter two organisations having composite membership. I then discuss in particular the petition addressed to King George V prepared and circulated among Indigenous people in the states and Northern Territory by William Cooper in the early 1930s. I discuss its national scope, its broader Indigenous support base, its reception in the media and its outcome.

The second part of the Chapter focuses on the Yirrkala bark petition presented in 1963 to the House of Representatives by clan representatives of the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. This petition, which protested against the mining agreement reached by the government and Methodist Overseas Mission Board members without consultation with the Yolngu people themselves, has been regarded as having initiated “a national dialogue about Indigenous affairs”2 and as having influenced legislation regarding native title which followed. In this way it can be seen as opening up the potential for a redrafting of what Pateman calls the settler contract in ways that include Indigenous polities as contracting agents.

Both petitions show the active involvement of Indigenous leaders concerned about their people and active in the mobilisation of all the resources they had available in order to achieve recognition of Indigenous Australians, as citizens entitled to rights given to other citizens (Maynard, Cooper) and as Indigenous inhabitants whose proprietary and cultural rights warranted considered (Yolngu clan representatives).

directed by Alec Morgan, accessible in videoclip form on the web, with accompanying notes by Romaine Moreton (Australian Screen Online, Lousy Little Six Pence, National Film and Sound Archive, 2012, http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/lousy-little-sixpence/clip3/?nojs); public demonstrations in the early 1960s (see for instance Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 172-173). 2 AIATSIS, Media Release, “Naming Ceremony Honours an Australian Hero”, 24 Feb 2005, http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/news/docs/2005mr/20050224mr.pdf. The words belong to the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon Dr Brendan Nelson.

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7.1. Petitions from the late 1920s and protest

Michael Lipski’s theorisation of protest as a political resource for relatively powerless groups,3 provides useful insights into the making of petitions by leaders and members of Aboriginal organisations from the late 1920s onwards, but also into Indigenous petitions more broadly. Lipski conceptualises protest activity as “a mode of political action oriented towards objection to one or more policies or conditions, characterised by showmanship or display of an unconventional nature, and undertaken to obtain rewards from political or economic systems while working within the systems [my emphasis].”4 Although petitions are not always of an “unconventional nature”5 and their presentation may not be accompanied by showmanship, they do operate “within the system”, not only from a structural perspective - using established forms of political communication within established channels - but also, generally, from the point of view of the language used for this communication. Aboriginal activist leaders in the 1930s (and also at other times) had in fact to “plug into” a debate, to use Russell McGregor’s words, whose terms and parameters had been firmly established.6

This “plugging into” a debate, or operating “within the system”, can help explain the argumentative strategies used at different historical moments. Indigenous activists in the 1930s had to intervene in a debate which was still pervaded by notions of racial hierarchies. The manifesto of the Aborigines’ Progressive Association, Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights! is illustrative of such a debate.7 The eleven-page Statement of the Case for the Aborigines Progressive Association was circulated at the Day of Mourning protest meeting held on 26 January 1938 at the Australian Hall in Sydney. The protest was collaboratively organised by William Cooper, Jack Patten and William Ferguson and their respective organisations, the AAL and the APA, to mark the different perspectives of Indigenous peoples on the sesquicentenary celebrations held by white Australians. Patten and Ferguson, the authors of the manifesto, opposed racial prejudices by asking the reader

3 Michael Lipsky, “Protest as a Political Resource,”The American Political Science Review 62, no. 4 (1968): 1144-1158. 4 Ibid., p. 1145. 5 I think however at the Yirrkala bark petition, where the distinctiveness of the bark paintings in which it was presented may be considered “unconventional” in its display of a culturally distinctive artwork with particular meanings (see Section 7.3.). 6 Russell McGregor, “Protest and Progress: Aboriginal activism in the 1930s,” Australian Historical Studies 25, no. 101 (1993), p. 558-559. 7 John Patten and William Ferguson, Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights!, Sydney, The Publicist, 1938. Digitised copy available at AIATSIS, http://www1.aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/dom/PDF/m0011348_a.pdf.

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“not to be misled any longer by the superstition that we are a naturally backward and low race. This is a scientific lie, which has helped to push our people down and down into the mire.”8 Like the petitioners from Lake Tyers in 1931, Cooper, Patten and Ferguson responded to notions of innate racial inferiority by exposing them as discursive classifications and by refusing them. On the pages of the Abo Call, a monthly publication for an Indigenous audience, which ran from April to September 1938, they stated: “White men pretend that the Australian Aboriginal is a low type who cannot be bettered. Our reply is, ‘Give us the chance!’ (...) [Aboriginal inequality] is not a matter of race, it is a matter of education and opportunity.”9

These racial terms on which the debate centred were informed by the notion that the Aborigines were “passing away.” In early 1930s Victoria, the “Aboriginal race” was characterised as “a departing race.”10 Newspapers headlines referred to the decline in numbers of Aborigines, in particular those of full descent, and stressed, for example, the passing away of “the last of” a tribe.11 In 1931, the idea of commemorating Barak’s death by erecting a memorial in his honour, was accompanied by an editorial of The Argus which stated: “The aborigines are going. It is good that monuments should be raised while there is yet time.”12 In 1934, the celebration of a century of European settlement in Victoria was accompanied by historical publications which promoted the idea that Aborigines were destined to extinction.13 In the same year, an exhibition of Percy Learson’s paintings was titled “The Last of the Victorian Aborigines” and in 1938 Daisy Bates’ volume The Passing of the Aborigines was published.14 This cultural climate can help contextualise the request for the King’s intervention “to prevent the extinction of the race”, which William Cooper put forward in his petition.

Having briefly overviewed some aspects of the debate in which Indigenous activists were intervening in the 1930s, I will now address another insight offered by Lipski. Protest, he

8 Patten and Ferguson, Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights, p. 11. 9 Abo Call, no. 1, April 1938, p. 2. 10 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 209, 212. 11 Ibid., pp. 209, 210. Broome emphasises the biological definition of race accompanying these claims. 12 “Barak’s People”, Argus, 21 November 1931, quoted in Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 211. 13 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 213-214. 14 Ibid., pp. 212, 214. Adam Shoemaker points out how Daisy Bates’ book was influential and “often considered the crystallisation in print of the doctrine that Aboriginal people were irredeemably primitive and moribund.” (Adam Shoemaker, “Popular Perceptions of an Unpopular People, 1929-1945” in Shoemaker, Black Words, White Page: Aboriginal literature 1929-1988, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1989; electronically available on the ANU website at http://epress.anu.edu.au/bwwp/mobile_devices/ch02.html; quote on p. 6.

204 points out, is a political process in which four different constituencies are manipulated by protest leaders. These are: first, the people constituting the political organization; second, the communication media which can provide public exposure; third, the parties which can have an impact in the political conflict; and fourth, the individuals in the position of granting goals. Lipski’s observations on the tensions arising from the manipulation of these constituencies are relevant in analysing petitions especially from the period 1930- 1980. In fact, in this period not only did political organisations come to have an increasing role in the creation and formulation of petitions,15 but media and third parties contributed more and more to leverage support. Keeping in mind the contributions of these constituencies will be important in better understanding petitions from this period.

Related to this point, is another consideration drawn from Lipski’s theoretical approach to protest: the “activation” of third parties, to which the government is sensitive, so that they might “enter the implicit or explicit bargaining areas in ways favourable to the protesters.”16 The mobilisation of third parties offers in fact a political or “bargaining” resource, which relatively powerless groups need because they do not command other political resources by virtue of status, numbers or cohesion.17 Interestingly, the other way of developing political resources, according to Lipski, is increasing the relative cohesion of groups, or increasing the perception of group solidarity as a precondition to greater cohesion [my emphasis].18 In the decades from the 1930s onwards we witness not only this activation of third parties, but also, through the work of the organisations such as the AAPA, AAL, and APA, it is possible to perceive a growing cohesion and solidarity among Indigenous Australians from different states and areas, which will continue to grow in the following decades and contribute to the formation of a sense of pan-Aboriginality and towards trans-Indigenous alliances.19

Already, from the mid 1920s, the Australian Aborigines’ Progressive Association led by Fred Maynard had started to liaise with northern NSW Indigenous communities and

15 The Australian Fellowship Association (AFA) launched a petition for a referendum for Constitutional changes in 1957 at a meeting held in Sydney, and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) would circulate it between 1958 and 1966. The Aborigines Advancement League Victoria organised the petition to the UN in 1970 (NAA, Series M4251, Item 22 Part 2, Title BC: 4681768). See Appendix, doc. 18, 21. 16 Lipsky, “Protest as Political Resource,” p. 1145. 17 Ibid., p. 1146. 18 Ibid., note 14. 19 For the development of pan-Aboriginality see Brewster, Literary Formations, from p. 2; for a discussion of trans-Indigenous alliances see Svein Jentoft, Henry Minde, and Ragnar Nilsen, Indigenous Peoples: Resource management and Global Rights, 2nd ed., Delft, Eburon, 2005.

205 southern coastal communities20 and had given public exposure to the AAPA’s requests through public appeals to Australian citizens in general. These appeals were based on the AAPA’s resolutions, which, published in The Voice of the North in May, had been sent as a petition to the Premier in June 1927.21 Fred Maynard and Thomas Lacey, the President and Treasurer of the AAPA respectively, had launched an Appeal to Men and Women of Australia, asking their assistance “to obtain simple justice for the aborigines of this State [New South Wales].”22 According to the title of another press article covering the same appeal, the plea was directed “to New South Wales”,23 but the point I would like to stress is that support and endorsement of Indigenous requests was solicited from Australian people in general and from New South Wales residents.

The requests of the AAPA were presented as equitable (“our requests are few and their equity cannot be denied”), just (“we confidently anticipate your kindly endorsement of this just request”), and aimed at obtaining “reasonable opportunity in our own land”.24 These requests had been presented to the State Government and were summed up as “the rights of citizenship for ourselves and our families”25 and specifically, they concerned a request for good land to support their families; the respect of family and parental rights (“that the family life of the aboriginal people shall be held sacred and free from invasion and that their children shall be left in control of their parents”); Governmental care of “the incapables of the Aboriginal Community”; and “educated aborigines” to be put in charge of Aboriginal homes, hostels and reserves as well as of aboriginal affairs (under a Government appointed Chairman).26 The appeal was made to the sense of fair play (“committing our plea for assistance to your characteristic love of fair play”)27 and it made reference to the situation offered to immigrants (“we are only asking to be given the same privileges regarding our family life as are being freely offered to people from other countries”).

20 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 160, 162; Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom, pp. 97, 111. Fred Maynard, leader of the AAPA, was inspired by the black civil rights movements in the United States, by Markus Garvey and the Coloured Progressive Association in particular (Maynard, Fight for Liberty, ch. 3). 21 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 195. 22 “The Aborigines. Appeal to Men and Women of Australia”, The Federal Capital Pioneer Magazine (Canberra), 20 July 1927, p. 22; National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66351160. 23 “Australian Aborigines. Appeal to New South Wales”, Barrier Miner (Broken Hill: 1888-1954), 18 July 1927, p.1. National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45969131. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 “Australian Aborigines. Appeal to New South Wales”, Barrier Miner, 18 July 1927, p.1. 27 “The Aborigines. Appeal to Men and Women of Australia”, The Federal Capital Pioneer Magazine, 20 July 1927, p. 22.

206

This appeal of the AAPA exemplifies the will of its leaders and members to refashion the domination contract imposed upon Indigenous people in New South Wales, which denied them a share in the sovereign power as citizens and the recognition of parental rights and managerial abilities.

Parallel to the requests of civil rights of the AAPA were those put forward by the Australian Aborigines League, formally established in Melbourne by William Cooper in 1936.28 By then, in New South Wales the worst years of the Depression had left many Aboriginal workers unemployed and the denial of social services such as work relief, the dole and family endowments, had heightened the discrimination they experienced and the stressful conditions in which they lived.29 Many were forced by unemployment and lack of assistance to move onto reserves to be issued with meagre rations by the Aborigines Protection Board, but many were also refused such rations because of their lighter skin colour.30 While the increased number of people living on reserves caused overcrowding and insanitary conditions,31 the Aborigines Protection Board sought to amend the current Aborigines Protection Act in order to confine onto reserves “persons of Aboriginal blood, who are now living on stock routes and alongside of towns.”32 It sought to “concentrate” them on reserves and to “maintain a definite control over them, so that they will not be at liberty to leave without permission.”33 The Board obtained these powers in 1936, but had already started to confine Indigenous people on reserves since 1933.34

It was in this climate of increasing economic and social pressures on Indigenous people, and of restriction of their basic liberties, that Cooper founded the AAL and started campaigning for Aboriginal and civil rights.35 The League was officially constituted in

28 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 185, 190 and 185-191; Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004, pp. 11-18; Andrew Markus has observed that there are some doubts about the date of creation of the AAL; he regards May 1935 as the time when Cooper first mentioned himself as Honorary Secretary of the AAL, and 1933 and 1934 as years in which Cooper acted in an individual capacity (see Markus, “William Cooper and the 1937 Petition”, p. 47, note 6). 29 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 179-181. 30 Ibid., p. 185. 31 Ibid., pp. 193-194. 32 APB Report, 1931-1932, p. 2, quoted in Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 195. 33 Ibid. 34 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 197. This policy was implemented unevenly due to lack of funding for its implementation, especially for the necessary creation of new buildings and infrastructure. 35 Attwood and Markus refer to the assertion of Indigeneity which accompanied the their demands as an assertion aimed at buttressing and strengthening their claim to civil rights - rather than aimed at achieving Indigenous rights per se (Thinking Black, p. 14). However, they also observe how they presented themselves as “a distinct group or race of people” who had suffered and was still suffering the effects of colonisation (Ibid, p. 15). For a view that complements theirs, see McGregor, “Progress and Protest”.

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193636 as an association representing Aboriginal people at a national level.37 It rejected the racism and prejudices which belied contemporary policies and discriminatory practices and attitudes towards Aboriginal people. It demanded for Aboriginal Australians the enjoyment of full citizen rights and their inclusion in the Australian community.38 Specifically, it asked for parliamentary representation, Commonwealth control of Aboriginal affairs and a national policy of uplift. It asked for funding to meet short and long term necessities (at that time, the short term necessities included work relief and the dole to the unemployed);39 the ending of discrimination between Aboriginals of full and mixed descent and between Aboriginals and Europeans;40 full citizenship rights to “civilised” Aborigines;41 a legal system recognising tribal laws; granting of land and full access to reserves and educational opportunities at the highest level.42

Before the AAL articulated its programme, however, William Cooper drafted a petition which would encompass the League’s requests. The petitions I have examined so far have requested intervention in local or state issues and had garnered local Indigenous community support. William Cooper’s petition to the King, as we shall see, requested instead a royal intervention which would affect Indigenous Australians at a national level. The issues addressed by Cooper and the AAL were not only local, but broader in scope and came to address the condition of Aboriginal people nationwide. Similarly, Cooper asked for the support not only of the local communities, but also the endorsement of Indigenous Australians in other states.

36 Attwood and Markus observe that before 1936, the group on behalf of which Cooper made representations to government were variously called the Australian Aborigines’ League, the Real Australian Aboriginal Society and the Real Australian Native Society (Thinking Black, p. 11). 37 Also Heather Goodall comments on the AAL national perspective in Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, pp. 185, 187-190. Attwood and Markus comment that the AAL was “the most important of the first crop of Aboriginal political organisations”, and had a broader focus and a longer life than the AAPA, the Native Union and the Aborigines Progressive Association (see Thinking Black, p.1). 38 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 13. 39 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 225. 40 Heather Goodall refers to this request as “the most unequivocal assertion of Aboriginal unity to be expressed at any time throughout the 1930s” (Invasion to Embassy, p. 188). 41 Attwood and Markus explain how this request was informed by the current theory of historical progress, see Thinking Black , p. 13. 42 Markus, “William Cooper and the 1937 Petition to the King,” Aboriginal History 7, no. 1 (1983): 46-60, p. 48.

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7.2. William Cooper’s petition to the King, 1933-1937

The studies of historians Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus have provided significant resources to better understand and contextualise William Cooper’s petition to the King.43 Thanks to the documents they have made readily accessible, it is possible to examine the creation of the petition and its place within a broader campaign for the improvement of the conditions of Aboriginal people in Australia led by William Cooper. While historian Russell McGregor finds Cooper’s petition to the King somewhat “overshadowed” by his campaign for civil rights and “uplift”, Attwood and Markus highlight that “it continued to occupy an important place in Cooper’s mind and in his campaigning.”44 I argue that both his campaigning and the petition are best understood in relation to each other. On one hand, the “metadebate”45 of which the petition was part illuminates the petition’s scope and content, and the petition itself sums up, in my view, the main concern of the campaign.

In this section I will discuss the origin and launch of the petition and the process of collecting signatures from Indigenous people across the country in an attempt to represent Indigenous people nationwide.46 I will also look at instances in which the requests of the petition were presented to the Australian government, in an attempt to have its requests granted by appealing first within a national context before appealing to the British monarch. Finally, I will comment on the outcome of its presentation.

A passage by Cooper in a letter to Rev. Gribble, dated 26 October 1933, makes it possible to understand the genesis of the petition, and the role played by Cooper in organising it: “(...) [I] first Called a meeting with my Native people,” writes Cooper, “to Disgusse [discuss] about arranging a petition to be forwarded to his Majesty King George V, and we unanimously decided to Carrie on with it (...).”47 These words attest to the consultation involved in the petition’s origin. Later, Attwood and Markus suggest, Cooper was assisted

43 Ibid.; Markus, Blood from a Stone: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, rev. ed., 1988; Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights; Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black. 44 See Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 7. 45 I use the term as employed by Daniel Zaret in “Petition and the ‘Invention’ of Public Opinion in the English Revolution,” The American Journal of Sociology, 101, 6, (May 1996), pp. 1497-1555, p. 1508. 46 De Costa, “Identity, Authority”, pp. 678-680. 47 William Cooper to Rev. E. R. B. Gribble, 26 October 1933, in E.R.E. Gribble Papers, AIATSIS, MS 1515/11, reproduced in Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black, p. 37.

209 in drawing up the document by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix, regarded as the person responsible for its wording.48

The petition was launched in Melbourne in mid September 1933. The Melbourne Herald reproduced the petition in an article titled “M.H.R. [Member of the House of Representatives] FOR NATIVES. King To Be Petitioned. UNIQUE MOVE”, remarking the novelty of one of the requests of the petition: “Australia’s native race - the aborigines - is taking steps for the first time in its history to secure from the King representation in the Federal Parliament. This is demanded as a right in a petition which is being circulated for signatures.”49

The newspaper article commented on the role of William Cooper in this endeavour and reported his comment on the aim (of the petition) “to place the aborigines on the same footing as the Maoris [sic] in New Zealand, (…) [where] Parliamentary and Government offices were open to Maoris equally with Europeans.”50 Cooper did in fact draw on the current international situation of other Indigenous peoples to bolster the cause of Indigenous Australians - mainly the Maori in New Zealand as an example of achievement of parliamentary representation, but also the ‘Eskimo’, a “race” whose extinction had been prevented,51 the Fijians, who had now numbered amongst themselves “doctors, lawyers and professional men”52 and Papua New Guinea, where “a sympathetic officer” (Sir Hubert Murray) was appointed to act for the country’s Indigenous people.53

Another contemporary press article titled “ABORIGINES. Seat in Parliament. PETITION BEING CIRCULATED’, published in the [London] Times, also focused on the “submission to the King for a representative of the aborigines to sit in the Federal Parliament.”54 Although it did not reproduce the petition, the article drew attention to the petition’s opening statements on the moral duty and strict injunction contained in the commission to those who came to Australia to adequately care for the original occupants.

48 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 10. 49 The Melbourne Herald, 15 September 1933, paper clipping in Commonwealth of Australia, Attorney- General’s Department File of Papers, 1937, Subject: Australia Aborigines’ League. Petition to His Majesty the King - Representation in Commonwealth Parliament. Also reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 35, doc. 10. 50 Ibid. 51 See William Cooper to Joseph Lyons, 23 October 1933, reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, pp. 36-37: “(…) I would like to draw your attention to the splended [sic] action of a Sister Colony of our Empire, the Governing Powers having seen fit to provide ways and means to preserve the Eskimo race.” 52 Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 154. 53 Ibid., p. 147. 54 Times, 10 Sept 1933, paper clipping in NAA file at supra note 49.

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It also referred to the petition’s statements on the expropriation of Aboriginal land and Aboriginal people’s denial of legal status by the Commonwealth.55

These articles did publicise the petition (and its request of Parliamentary representation) among a white public. However, the signatories of the petition were to be Indigenous signatories only, and this, as Attwood and Markus point out, could be seen as one of the reasons to regard the petition as “an assertion of Aboriginality”.56

In order to gather the endorsement of the signatories of “Aboriginal blood”, Cooper decided to work within the system and asked for permission from the Protection Boards of the five states to circulate the petition. In the letter to Rev. Gribble mentioned earlier, he stated, “my first step was to write to the Aboriginal protection Boards in the five states”, to seek such permission, and he felt that it was the “duty” of Aboriginal people to sign it:

it is the Duty of Every man and women with Aboriginal Blood in them over the age of 20 years to signe the Petition and I hope my people will not fail to signe, and help all they can that we may get improvement in our Conditions (…).57

By seeking permission to collect the signatures, Cooper showed respect for the government’s institutions through his intention not to override them; further, by formalising such permission he would grant a form of protection to the signatories and give them a sense of security. Arthur Burdeau, the League’s honorary president and one of the only two European members of the AAL (the other European member being Helen Baillie),58 after a visit from Cooper in June 1936, stated that the signatures collected for the petition to the King - almost 2,000 signatures - (collected in the period 1933-3559), “ought to be far greater in number but for the fact that certain natives were afraid to sign, notwithstanding that the managers assured them that it was quite allowable. They felt there

55 Times, 10 Sept 1933. 56 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p.9. 57 William Cooper to Rev. Gribble, 26 October 1933, E.R.B. Gribble Papers, AIATSIS, MS 1515/11, reproduced Attwood and Markus, Thinking Blank, p. 37. 58 For Burdeau’s role in the AAL see Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, pp. 11-12; for Helen Bailie’s role, Ibid., pp. 10-11. 59 Markus, “Cooper and 1937 Petition”, to the King”, pp. 50-51.

211 was a catch in it.”60 William Cooper himself, writing to the Member of the House of Representatives H. Makin about the reluctance of the Queensland Board to grant permission to collect signatures, stated that “the whole matter is being held up, as my people do not want to do anything against the Board of Protection, yet are willing to sign so long as it will not offend.”61

In addition to the fears of victimisation, in fact, not all the Protection Boards replied in adequate time or positively to Cooper’s request. In the same letter to Rev. Gribble, Cooper stated that “Queensland refuses”, “west Australia no reply” and “Victoria very stubborn”62; while “South Australia give[s] permission to all Aborigines to sign any petition they wish to” and “New South Wales forwarded a Copy of my letter to the Commonwealth Government for consideration.”63 Cooper considered the replies from the Boards as ‘very disjointed and unsatisfactory” and decided therefore to appeal to the Prime Minister of Australia, Joseph Lyons. Enclosing a copy of the petition in his letter, he communicated to Lyons his appeal for consideration of “our own Race here [in Australia], to prevent their extinction” and the Boards’ replies (or lack thereof) to the requests of permission to gather signatures for the petition.64 Despite the difficulties in gaining institutional support for the collection of signatures - difficulties informed also by the Board’s belief that most Aboriginal people were illiterate and were “unable to sign or understand [the] petition”65 - Cooper and those who were collaborating with him66

60 A. Burdeau to Rev. W. Morley, Association for the Protection of Native Races, 19 June 1936, quoted in Markus, “Cooper and 1937 Petition”, p. 50, note 15. Notwithstanding these fears, 900 signatures were collected from Palm Island, 12 from other parts of Queensland, 9 from the Goulburn Island Mission in the Northern Territory, 500 in Western Australia, 350 in South Australia and less than 100 each in New South Wales and Victoria. (Ibid., pp. 50-51) 61 William Cooper to H. Makin, MHR, 19 March 1934, reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 39. 62 He specified that in Victoria the communication had been forwarded to the manager of Lake Tyers station (William Cooper to Rev. Gribble, 26 Oct 1933, in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 37). 63 William Cooper to Rev. Gribble, 26 October 1933. 64 William Cooper to Joseph Lyons, 23 October 1933, reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, pp. 36-37. 65 See telegram to the Dept of Interior, Canberra, in Commonwealth of Australia, Attorney-General’s Dept, File of Papers, Subject: Australian Aborigines League, Petitiont to His Majesty the King.; see also Markus, Cooper and 1937 Petition”, p. 51, re ideology of paternalism and doubt about the genuine understanding of the petition; re doubt about the possibility that they could be responsible electors. 66 Baillie and Ferguson aided the circulation of the petition in NSW (Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 224) and it is likely that also in other states Cooper was assisted by individual people; Mr Craig aided at Cairns for instance, see Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 38.

212 persevered and gathered 1,800 signatures which he saw as “authorising” him “to plead for justice.”67

This plead for justice, as formulated in the petition to the King, was the following:

PETITION of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Australia to His Majesty, King George V, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and British Dominions beyond the seas, King Defender of the Faith; Emperor of India.

TO THE KING’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, IN COUNCIL.

THE HUMBLE PETITION of the undersigned Aboriginal inhabitants of the Continent of Australia respectfully showeth:

THAT WHEREAS it was not only a moral duty, but a strict injunction, included in the commission issued to those who came to people Australia that the original inhabitants and we their heirs and successors should be adequately cared for.

AND WHEREAS the terms of the commission have not been adhered to in that: (a) Our lands have been expropriated by Your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth. (b) Legal status is denied to us by Your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth.

AND WHEREAS all petitions made on our behalf to Your Majesty’s Government have failed.

YOUR PETITIONERS humbly pray that Your Majesty will intervene on our behalf, and through the instrument of Your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth of Australia: To prevent the extinction of the Aboriginal Race and give better conditions for all, and grant us power to propose a member of parliament in the person of our own Blood

67 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 45; petition to Thomas Paterson doc 27. See supra note 60. See de Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 679 for differences in counted numbers of signatures.

213

or a White man known to have studied our needs and to be in Sympathy with our Race to represent us in the Federal Parliament.

AND YOUR PETITIONERS will ever pray68

Before the petition was eventually presented to the government in August 1937,69 seeking the inclusion of Aboriginal people in an existing monarchical normative order,70 the requests contained in the petition had been presented to the Australian government on several occasions. In January 1935 the calls for federal representation, for a duty of care of the government to prevent the extinction of the race, as well as for land and education were presented by William Cooper and the deputation he led to the Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas Paterson.71 Paterson was sympathetic but explained that Commonwealth jurisdiction over Aboriginal people was limited to those inhabiting the Northern Territory and this posed constitutional difficulties in granting their requests.

The call for “better conditions for all” was reflected in the AAL’s Constitution, forwarded to the Minister of the Interior in February 1936, where “the removal of all disabilities, political, social or economic, now or in the future borne by aboriginals” was advocated as one of the ultimate objects of the League.72 In relation to their legal status, the granting of full citizen rights, “civic, political and economic” was also invoked “so that an aboriginal person shall have the same status as the white person, a maori or a naturalised alien.”73 The “full equality of whites and aboriginals before the law” was also requested.74

Further, with regards to land, in view of the fact that in the 1920s and 1930s many reserves had been revoked or partly leased out,75 Cooper requested that reserves be made

68 This petition appears as document 11 in Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004, pp. 35-36 and as document 73 in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights. 69 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 18. 70 de Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 680. 71 The deputation included Shadrach James, Doug Nicholls, Anna Morgan, and their white collaborators Helen Baillie and Rev. Moreley. See Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, pp. 301-302. 72 William Cooper to Minister for the Interior, 22 Feb 1936, in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 49. 73 William Cooper to New South Wales Premier, Bertram Stevens, 15 Nov 1936, in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, pp. 58-59. 74 William Cooper to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, 16 Jan 1937, in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, pp 64-65. 75 See Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, Ch. 11. She refers to it as “the second dispossession”.

214 inalienable and that assistance be provided in order that they may be developed so as to afford economic independence.76

The Premiers meeting in 1936 and the first national conference of Aboriginal affairs in April 1937 did not fulfil the hopes of Cooper and the AAL. When the petition was presented to the Government in August that year, with the request that it be forwarded to the monarch, the government focused its attention on the point of the petition concerning parliamentary representation at federal level. The Solicitor General was invited by the Department of Interior to provide his advice regarding to the Constitutional position concerning the granting of the request of federal representation.77 He replied by considering Section 51, Section 127 and Section 122 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth in particular, and by referring to Cooper’s letter to the Prime Minister dated 26 October 1937 - where Cooper proposed that any constitutional difficulty could be overcome by legislation.78 The Solicitor General concluded that “the Commonwealth Parliament has no authority to pass legislation to give representation in Parliament to aboriginals who live in the states of the Commonwealth.” However, “representation to Aboriginals in the Northern Territory” could still be considered. The Secretary J. A. Carrodus, in a Memorandum to the Secretary, Prime Minister’s Department, commented that representation at the Federal Parliament “would not have the beneficial results which the petitioners apparently think would accrue from such representation.” He explained that

the Commonwealth Government has jurisdiction only in respect of aboriginals in the Northern Territory and a Federal Member representative of aboriginals could deal only with the natives in that Territory. He would have no control whatever over the aboriginals in the various States. (…) It is considered that nothing would be gained by transmitting the petition to the His Majesty. (…)79

76 William Cooper to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, point 11, in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 66; William Cooper to John Harris, Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, 10 Jan 1937, Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 64. 77 “Representation of Aboriginals in Parliament, Opinion”, File No. 6 of 1938, in National Archives of Australia, Commonwealth of Australia, Attorney-General’s Department, Subject: Australian Aborigines League. Petition to the King - Representation in Commonwealth Parliament in 1937/01191, 78 The repeal of section 51.xxvi and of section 127 were to become the focus of petitions for constitutional change in the late 1950s. See Sue Taffe, “Early petitions”, National Museum of Australia, 2008, http://indigenousrights.net.au/subsection.asp?ssID=24. 79 Memorandum to Secretary, Prime Minister’s Dept, Canberra, supra note 77.

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This last consideration was the one to prevail. The other requests of the petition - to prevent the extinction of the race and for better conditions for all - were deemed by the government to concern issues which were already being addressed.80 Therefore, at the cabinet meeting of 7 February 1938, the government decided that “no action be taken” with regards to the petition and the petition was not transmitted to the King.81

The Times in London had considered the petition “pathetic”, and Broome commented that this view reflected “the AAL’s small voice in the white Imperial and Australian political context.”82 However small, this voice continued to resonate at the Day of Mourning protest, in the pages of the Abo Call and in the manifesto of the AAPA in 1938; it was spread at public meetings and through broadcasted interviews.83 It also probably inspired others in petitioning the King. Towards the end of September 1933, the month when the petition was initially launched, a film recording documents King Burraga calling “a corroboree of all the natives of New South Wales to send a petition to the King in an endeavour to improve our condition. All the black man wants is representation in Federal Parliament. (…) He wants the right to live!”84 Later, in 1946, at a protest meeting in Redfern called by the APA, resolutions were passed calling for “full rights as Australian citizens for aborigines, including direct representation in Parliament.” Failing a direct appeal to the Prime Minister, a petition to the King was envisaged.85

David Unaipon, although disagreeing with the Day of Mourning Protest, advocated “a new programme, by which all the privileges of the dominant race should be given to the

80 Markus, “Cooper and 1937 Petition”, p. 52. See also Attorney General’s Dept, 57/1191, “Representation of Aboriginals in Commonwealth Parliament”, J. McEwen, Minister for the Interior at point no. 6: “With regard to the prevention of the extinction of the race and the provision of better conditions for aboriginals generally, the Commonwealth Government and the various State Governments interested are doing everything possible. It was evident from the discussions that took place at the latest Conference of Commonwealth and State Officers charged with the protection of aboriginals [held at Canberra in April 1937] that all government authorities in Australia fully appreciate their responsibility in connection with the welfare of the aboriginals generally.” (supra note 77) 81 Markus, “Cooper and 1937 Petition”, p. 58. 82 Broome, Aboriginal Victorians, p. 302. 83 See the request on the front page, next to the heading of the newspaper, “We ask for Education, Opportunity, and Full Citizen Rights”. John Patten (ed.), The Australian Abo Call, April-September 1938, Sydney. Mitchell Library, MLMSS 1284/49X. 84In Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 73. He may however been launching Cooper’s petition itself. See Morgan and Bostock, Lousy Little Six Pence. 85 “Aborigines May Petition the King for Citizenship”, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Jan 1946. NLA, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17967375.

216 blacks.” And added, “the time is passed to talk of segregation. Let my people come more fully into the national family.”86

Russell McGregor has highlighted how the 1930s demands by Aboriginal people for inclusion in the white community with full citizenship rights, were radical at the time. He explains that they were premised on the notion that Indigenous people had the capacity or ability to attain civilisation, and were therefore entitled to “take their place in the community” on equal terms with non-Indigenous Australians.87 While McGregor regards these requests as assimilationist in outlook, Attwood and Markus have highlighted the assertions of Indigeneity which accompanied Cooper’s demands and the AAL’s campaign,88 and the assertion of Aboriginality that the petition represents. They highlight the Aboriginality of the signatories and the fact that it called for an Aboriginal representative in Parliament as “a special right, a right for Aborigines on the basis of their being the indigenous people of the country.”89

Another important point they stress is that the campaign of the AAL was not separatist. The League, they observed, “tried to cultivate good relationships with white bodies sympathetic to its cause, and to work with and alongside white organisations devoted to Aboriginal reform.” They mention the Association for the Protection of Native Races in Sydney, the Australian Amelioration Society in Perth, the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society in London as examples, and they emphasise the development of close relationships with the Left, especially in the late 1930s.90 Although William Cooper lamented that some white sympathisers regarded Aboriginal people “as inferior clay”91 and that the approaches of some white groups relied on a call for segregation,92 these new and broader associations that the League sought point towards the development of new forms of collaboration.

These new collaborations aimed at improving the general conditions of Australian Indigenous people within the nation and were part of a protest, informed by the

86 Unaipon’s letter forwarded by Sexton, AFA, to min interior McEwen, reproduced in Age, “Day of Mourning: Aborigines not in Sympathy”, Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 87 87 McGregor, “Protest and Progress”. The expression “to take part in the community” is often used in the writings of Cooper, Patten and Ferguson. 88 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black , pp. 14-15. 89 Ibid., p. 9; see also de Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 678. 90 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black , p. 17. 91 AAL Annual report 1936, PDCFA36/1028 in Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, p. 186. 92 Ibid.

217 manipulation of constituencies highlighted by Lipski, against current practices and legislation. Lipski’s theory of protest as a political process enables us to see these Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaborations as political resources aimed at achieving certain goals.

Aboriginal protest extended to the treatment of other oppressed groups. William Cooper is still remembered by the Jewish community for organising a protest against the treatment of Jewish people in Nazi Germany.93 In December 1938, after the Kristallnacht pogrom, he led a deputation to the German Consulate in Melbourne. Although the deputation was not received, Cooper presented a petition addressed to the German government, in which he strongly protested “on behalf of the aborigines of Australia (…) at the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi Government of Germany” and asked “that this persecution be brought to an end.”94 One of the historians who researched the protest, David Silberklang, points out that the protest was “unusual” precisely because it came “not exactly [from] the power group in the community.”95

It is possible to observe that broader connections were being made, international situations were being considered, and increasingly, public awareness was being raised, nationally and internationally, about the situation of those who did not belong to the dominating group(s). The conditions of coloured and black people in South Africa and in the United States, for example, were also being considered by the Australian government, and likewise, by Indigenous Australians.96 Historians have observed how on one hand assertions of equality in this period aimed at rejecting the widespread concept of “race” as determinant of innate capacities97 and were employed to achieve the removal of discriminatory legislation and the achievement of full citizenship right. On the other hand, assertions of Indigeneity assisted in making stronger claims for active participation in the

93 John Lyons, “Israel honours Aboriginal elder for defying Nazis”, The Australian, 31 Jul 2010. 94 Argus, 7 Dec 1938, “Deputation not admitted”, in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 108, doc. 76. With regards to the commemoration of the protest organised by the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish National Fund of Australia, see “Israel honours Aboriginal elder for defying Nazis”, The Australian, July 31, 2010. 95 Ibid. 96 After the 1937 Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal authorities (Canberra, 21-23 August 1937), official communication took place between the Office of Indian Affairs (US Dept of Interior), PM Lyons, and the Minister of External Affairs, Union of South Africa. See Cooper to Lyons, 26 October 1937, “(…) Frankly we are alarmed at the intention to seek advice from the countries where Negro populations constitute the dark problem for we, notwithstanding all our indignity, are allowed to walk on footpaths, ride in public vehicles and trains and put in many hotels where white men are residing. To add to our sorrows the humiliation of our dark brethren overseas in the curfew and the pass system would be degradation indeed.” See Markus, “Cooper and 1937 Petition”, p. 57. 97 McGregor, “Protest and Progress”, p. 560.

218 public sphere as citizens,98 not only as subjects, and for Parliamentary representation and a participatory voice in the framing of legislation and policies affecting Aboriginal people as a group.

We shall see in the next section how the assertion of the specificity of Indigenous culture will shape the structure and conceptualisation of the bark petition presented to the Parliament in the early 1960s. This petition expressed, as did Cooper’s, the desire to participate in governmental decisions affecting Indigenous people.

7.3. “Not an ordinary petition”99: The Yirrkala Bark Petition(s)

From the three decades that followed the period of Cooper’s campaign I have chosen to discuss the bark petition presented to the House of Representatives in Canberra in 1963 to protest against the excision of reserve lands at Yirrkala. This petition represents a high profile document - now on public display at the Parliament House in Canberra, near the Australian Constitution and the Magna Carta100 and in the vicinity of a later bark petition from Yirrkala presented in 1968. The 1963 petition was instrumental in starting a process of direct negotiations with the Commonwealth Government which ultimately led to the recognition of land rights in the Northern Territory101 and it testifies to the specificity of

98 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, p. 14. 99 Galarrwuy Yunupingu, “Indigenous Art in the Olympic Age” in Art and Australia 35, no. 1 (1998): 64-67, quote on p. 65, referring to the Yirrkala bark petition, Yirritija panel, 28 August 1963. 100 Janien Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory: De-centering the Centre (An analysis of visual strategies in the art of Robert Smithson, Alfredo Jaar and the Bark Petitions of Yirrkala), Doctoral Dissertation, Canberra, The Australian National University, Institute of the Arts, 1999, p. 87. 101 Howard Morphy, “‘Now you understand’: An Analysis of the Way Yolngu Have Used Sacred Knowledge to Retain their Autonomy”, in Nicholas Peterson and Marcia Langton (eds.), Aborigines, Land and Land Rights, Canberra, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1983, pp. 115-116. Although Morphy stated that “it is impossible to assess at this stage the significance of the Yirrkala bark petition in the movement towards Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory”, he seems to suggest in the remaining of the same paragraph and in the following, that it was indeed an important precedent, which gathered national attention and which introduced sacred paintings as forms of evidence of title to land; he also stresses how the petition was part of a process of recognition of Yolngu culture and their rights by Europeans. Wandjuk Marika, one of the artists involved in the creation of the bark petition and main intermediary between the concerned clan elders on one side and missionaries and government officers on the other, also reflects on the petition as a step in a process which led to the 1976 Northern Territory Land Rights legislation (See Wandjuk Marika: Life Story. As told to Jennifer Isaacs, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1995, pp. 98, 100, 106, 108). De Costa also relates the petition to further developments towards the attainment of land rights: “Indeed, the petition gave the Yolngu the political momentum as well as the national network of support that allowed them to begin the

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Yolngu culture and to the claims of the peoples from Yirrkala, in north-east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. The requests presented in this petition were framed, both literally and metaphorically, within this specificity.

Apart from its political and cultural significance, the legal dimension of the petition is also relevant to this dissertation. It asked in fact for recognition of the Yolngu pre-existing legal system and by doing so, it resisted the logic of the settler contract which denied this recognition. The petition introduced sacred clan designs as forms of title to land102 and as a form of mediation between two law systems.103 The Yolngu sacred designs were presented with the aim of explaining to Europeans the deep spiritual connection of Yolngu people to specific areas of their land and their ensuing rights and responsibilities.104 Galarrwuy Yunupingu, one of the artists involved in the creation of the petition (and later on, of the Barunga statement produced in 1988), explains: “(…) the bark petition we presented to parliament was not just a series of pictures, but represented the title to our country under our law.

My discussion of the Yirrkala bark petition draws attention to the resistance of the petitioners, and of their supporters, to the settler expropriation contract manifest in the excision of reserve land on the Gove Peninsula, in north-east Arnhem Land.105 By insisting that “cognizance be taken” of Yolngu societies - of their legal and spiritual systems, their history and relation to the land, their cultures and languages - Yolngu political existence was stated and affirmed. Also the coercive and exclusionary nature of the domination contract is shown as being contested by the petition’s typed text, which put forward requests for respect of the livelihood and independence of the Yolngu and demands for consultation. Moreover, the analysis of the collectively produced bark petition (and of the Yirrkala church panels) will further the discussion of collaborative authorship.

first legal action for land rights in Australian history, in 1968.” See De Costa, “Identity, Auhtority”, pp. 689- 690. 102 Yunupingu, “Art in the Olympic Age”; Howard Morphy, “‘Now you understand’”; Howard Morphy, “Title to their Land”, in Quadrant 22, no. 9 (1978), pp. 36-39; Native Title: Yirrkala Bark Paintings, Museum of Contemporary Art, exhibition curated by Djon Mundine, 1997, referred to in Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, pp. 59, 64; Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 63, 73. Judith Ryan, Spirit in the Land: Bark Paintings from Arnhem Land, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, 1990, p. 4. 103 See note above and the text of the brochure of the exhibition curated by Djon Mundine, partly reproduced in Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 64. 104 For the spiritual meaning of the designs see for instance Edgar Wells, Reward and Punishment in Arnhem Land, 1962-63, Canberra, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1982; Ryan, Spirit in the Land. 105 I here draw on Pateman’s definition of the settler’s expropriation contract. See Chapter 2, Section 2.1.2., pp. 45-47.

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These petitions are in fact evidence of collaborations between Indigenous and non- Indigenous people and among Indigenous peoples themselves. The belief in the importance and necessity of consultation with the Yolngu people held by Edgar Wells, the Superintendent of Yirrkala, and his encouragement of traditional art production - marketed thanks to Douglas Tiffin among others; the support of Parliamentarians such as Kim Beazley Snr and Gordon Bryant; and the cohesion generated among different Yolngu clans working together at producing political artworks,106 were all instrumental in strengthening the position of the Yolngu people.

The significance and impact of the petition was heightened by the national and international attention it received within the context of the proposed excision of reserve land at Yirrkala for mining purposes. This publicity played a relevant role in fostering sensitivity to issues concerning Indigenous Australians among a wider audience.107 The petition became symbolic of a request for recognition and of a widespread interest in the roles and significance of traditional forms of Indigenous art and sacred design. In this the petition represents a dialogue, initiated by Indigenous people, about Indigenous sovereignty and about Indigenous and non-Indigenous co-habitation which, in effect, redraws the parameters of the settler contract.

By the time the petition was presented, political and cultural debates in Australia had been influenced, from the 1940s onwards, by the decolonising and independence movements which had taken place in South and South-east Asia and Africa.108 The formation of the League of Nations and of the United Nations following the first and second world conflicts, and the development of laws enshrining universal human rights, in particular after the Second World War, were providing international standards for politicians to consider (and for indigenous peoples to appeal to).109

I will now succinctly address the broader international, national and local context in which the petition was created. In Australia, the 1950s saw an increased collaboration of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in furthering Indigenous rights. In 1951 the

106 See Wells, Reward and Punishment. 107 For national and international attention see Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 100; De Costa suggests that it developed a national network of support for the first land right claim (“Identity, Authority”, p. 690) 108 Anne Brewster, Literary Formations: postcolonialism, nationalism, globalism, Carlton South, Vic., Melbourne University Press, 1995, p. 5. 109 De Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 680. The ILO Conventions provided another venue which set “an international standard for the treatment of Indigenous peoples”. See Smoke Signals, in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aborigial Rights, p. 178.

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Council for Aboriginal Rights was established to safeguard human rights especially in the Northern Territory;110 and in 1956 the Australian-Aboriginal Fellowship (AAF) was established with a composite membership of Indigenous and non-Indigenous members to achieve social and legislative reforms on a national level. In 1957, in a move which can be seen as a continuation of Cooper’s work, the AAF launched a petition to call for a referendum to amend the Constitution so that the Commonwealth government could have direct responsibility for Aboriginal affairs.111 In the same year, it publicly screened a film made during a tour on the Warburton Ranges in Western Australia which made public the living conditions of the Aboriginal people there.112 In 1958 the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines (FCAA) - which from 1964 onwards was titled Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) - was formed to unite existing state organizations in order to achieve equal citizenship rights, equal standards of living, equal pay, free and compulsory education for “detribalized aborigines”, and “absolute retention of all remaining native reserves”.113

The Northern Territory - under South Australian administration from 1864 and under Commonwealth control since 1911 - because of the nature of its climate and soil, had not experienced an intense degree of settlement.114 These conditions had allowed the reservation of larger tracts of land for Indigenous people and the continuation, in certain areas, of traditional lifestyles and languages.115 The Yirrkala mission, located in north-east Arnhem Land, had been established at the end of 1934 by the Methodist Overseas Missionary Board. Rev. Chaseling, appointed as Superintendent at Yirrkala, had encouraged the production of bark paintings and had started sending them to museums in southern Australian cities.116 Rev. Wells, who was to be appointed Superintendent at Yirrkala in 1962, and Douglas Tuffin - whom Judith Ryan refers to as an “art enthusiast”,

110 Peter Read, “Northern Territory”, in Ann McGrath (ed.), Contested Ground, McGrath, Ann (ed.), Contested Ground, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1995, pp. 269-305; quote on p. 291. 111 See Appendix, doc. 18. Among the members of the AAF were Doug Nicholls and Bill Onus who had previously collaborated with William Cooper, who had passed away in 1941. 112 Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, p. 94. 113 It also aimed “to press for greater Commonwealth involvement in Aboriginal affairs and to work for the removal of discriminatory state legislation”, Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp.176- 177. 114 Peter Read, “Northern Territory” in Contested Ground, pp. 270-271. 115 Ibid., p. 269, 276; the continuation of Indigenous languages is noticeable for instance in Wandjuk Marika’s emphasis on translation, in Galarrwuy Yunupingu’s stressing that they have another language, in the use of their own language by artists of the Northern Territory, and the emphasis on original placenames (Marika, Life Story; Yunupingu, “Art in the Olympic Age”; 1968 Yirrkala petition). 116 Morphy, “’Now You Understand’”, p. 113.

222 who “consulted with and nurtured artists in the manner of current art advisers”117 - continued to encourage the production of bark paintings as a way to preserve and cultivate Yolngu traditional culture, to provide financial rewards for the artists and to afford moments of socialisation and exchange of opinion between clan members and different clan groups.118

In order to contextualise the creation of the petition, in the next subsection I will briefly outline moments of official communication, between Yolngu peoples and missionaries and government officials, and the process of valorisation of Yolngu art, which preceded the creation of the petition. These precedents, as well as the interactions and bark petitions that were to follow, testify to the agency of the petitioners in their attempts to resist expropriation and to protect their land and sacred places, their societal system and culture from mining activities.

7.3. 1. Precedents of assertions of Yolngu cultural and proprietary rights119

In response to threats posed by mining activities to the land, before the creation of the bark petitions, Yolngu120 leaders asserted the significance of their land to their culture, spirituality and livelihood in letters, as well as in paintings with profound spiritual and legal meanings. In the period leading up to the 1960s, the practice of producing bark paintings, which reproduced clan designs and ancestral stories, fostered non-Indigenous people’s interest in and furthered their understanding of Yolngu culture.121

When Sir Robert Gordon Menzies announced the granting of leases to mine in the Gove peninsula on 19 February 1963, the announcement was followed by “early signs of

117 Ryan, Spirit in the Land, p. 18. 118 Wells, Reward and Punishment, pp. 14-15, 17-18. 119 I use the term “proprietary” in light of the use by some courts of the connotations of terms such as “occupancy” and “possession” on one hand to refer to “unenforceable rights”, and terms such as “fee simple” or “proprietary” to refer to “proprietary interests protected by law” under English law of real property. See John Hookey, “The Gove Land Rights Case: A Judicial Dispensation for the Taking of Aboriginal Lands in Australia?,”Federal Law Review 5 (1972-1973): 85-114, p. 99. 120 The term Yolngu literally means “we the people” and it is used by Aboriginal people of eastern Arnhem Land to refer to themselves collectively. See Ryan, Spirit in Land, p. 22 and Wandjuk Marika, Life Story. 121 See Morphy, “Now You Understand”, p. 114 on motivation towards understanding, necessity to believe Aboriginal culture has things of value before learning about its significance; Ryan, “Evolution of a Market for Paintings on Bark” in Spirit in the Land, pp. 14-21.

223 protest”.122 Yolngu leaders addressed the Superintendent of the mission, Edgar Wells, and Douglas Tuffin, in letters they dictated to Yolngu adults who could write in English. These letters contained unequivocal assertions of proprietorship of the lands threatened by the mining lease: Mawalan, who, in Wells’ words, was “the highest paid artist at Yirrkala and perhaps the most important clan leader”, stated “Yirrkala belong to Yulnu”;123 Mawalan’s son, Wandjuk Marika, on behalf of Mawalan and eleven other leaders, wrote “this is our countries (…) Caledon Bay and Trial Bay. And Gindall Bay. And Blue Mud Bay. Because we have sacred places around that places. (…)”;124 Mawalan specified “this is the laws we put forever. So Wandjuk well - put up a notice one near the old Church and near the beach and one Cape Arnhem and one for Melville Bay and one for Bremer Island.”125

These letters specify the significance of certain locations in relation to their importance and sacredness, and their relevance from the point of view of providing “bush yam” or hunting grounds. Further, they emphasise the desire of the Yolngu not to be moved from the land “(…) because there is the very import[ant] place we don’t [want] to be pushing us we were keeping on staying here.”126 Naritjin,127 in a letter to the Director of the Welfare Department, H.C. Giese, mentioned also the notion of belonging to the land and his preoccupation with having his children belong to the country: “We want you to help us belong to this country Yirrkala, please Mr. Giese? Because the Mining Company will be here soon. (…) These maining [sic] people will chasing us to other places, we don’t like that. We want Yirrk. open country. So we may go hunting for most. … Our children are in school. They will grow up belong to this country. (…) We going to ask you for this country Yirrkala. (…).”128 As specified by Wells, protecting or failing to protect the country had spiritual and social implications which would affect previous and following generations. People wondered where the spirit of the dead would go “if the traditional

122 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 70. 123 Mawalan to Wells and Tuffin, n.d., reproduced in Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 70. His words were written by Jalalingba. 124 G. Wandjuk to Wells, March 16, 1963, reproduced in Wells, Reward and Punishment, pp. 70-71. 125 Mawalan to Wells and Tuffin, n.d., reproduced in Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 71. 126 Mawalan to Wells and Tuffin, n.d., reproduced in Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 70. 127 Naritjin Maimoru (also spelled Narijin, and Maymuru) was an accomplished artist and traditional elder and leader. Schwarz spells his name as Narritjin Maymuru. See for instance Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 77. 128 Naritjin to H.E. Giese, Welfare Branch, reproduced in Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 71.

224 spirit home is violated” and where “the spirit of the unborn” would have “their waiting place for the next generation”.129

Later in May, after Wells informed the Yolngu people that 140 sq miles of reserve land had been gazetted and alienated,130 Mawalan and Mungarrawuy approached the Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck and the aforementioned Director of the Welfare Department, Mr Harry E. Giese, for compensation for the community for the “working” of the “Country”. They showed awareness of the financial profits the mining companies would obtain from the land, and they proposed forms of compensation “so we can exchange to make us level between you and we natives.” During the war they had experienced similar exchanges (“you can do the same things as we can get from the airforce During the war (…)”131) and the request “to make us level” suggests therefore a sense of the standing of the Yirrkala community and its desire to be considered on equal terms and recognised as equals with non-Indigenous people. They convey or express also their property rights.

While the Yolngu used letters in their efforts to claim and maintain ownership of the tracts of land threatened by the granting of mining leases in the Gove Peninsula, another form of communication was being prepared. In February, following Menzies’ announcement that mining would be allowed in the area, “Naritjin (…) first suggested an ‘Aboriginal ‘painting or something’” for the new church building.132 Wells recalls,

Once the idea was suggested it quickly took hold, and I was quickly called into conference with them. (…) The first suggestion of some token form of Aboriginal art finding a place in the new church building arose from meeting the traditional elders in discussions concerning Aboriginal art forms associated with differences of clan membership to specific designs.133

129 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 65. 130 Ibid., p. 58. Wells read to the community the Proclamation published in the Government Gazette on May 7, 1963. 131 Mawalan and Mungarawuy to Paul Halsuck and H.E. Giese, Yirrkala, 20 May 1963, reproduced in Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 72. For accounts of treatment of Aborigines as equals during the war time, see also Peter Read, “Northern Territory”, pp. 281-283. 132 The building of a new mission church, a new bulk store and technical school were all part of the efforts to make Yirrkala difficult to move. See Wells, Reward and Punishment , p. 58 133 Ibid.

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Wells seems to suggest that the church panels that were to result from these first discussions and propositions, were an artistic expression connected to the desire to perpetuate “the myths and legends” recorded in the land endangered by the mining activities: “What the senior men of the Aboriginal tribes concerned had accomplished was for these particular people the first representational structure of internalised myth in what they thought of as a permanent form [my emphasis].”134

The stability and concreteness afforded by art to their systems of knowledge and spirituality offered a means of perpetuating their law, their social order and their connection to the land.135 The individual artists who worked at producing the church panels described to Ann Wells their artwork, the land it portrayed (with its tribal and language group boundaries) and the Creation Stories it narrated.136 Their artwork “reinforced”, in Rev. Wells’ words, “a tribal and fundamental resistance to alien alteration of boundaries.”137 And he added, “ideally, the art boards represent a statement of land claims by the Aborigine elders concerning the areas displayed.”138 This land claim, further, articulated the identification of the people with the land: “primarily, the art work was a statement of claim acknowledging personal Aboriginal identity with the areas depicted on the board.”139

It can be argued therefore that these are the terms which the Yolgnu decided to use in order to present their political subjectivity to the balanda. These terms enabled them to claim ownership and authority as contestants intervening in the social/settler contract, and to position their culture and belief system as valid and authoritative. In fact, as pointed out by Schwarz, painting was used as a means to establish political authority and a dialogue with outsiders;140 Mundine also reflects on the use of painting as means of cross-cultural communication.141

134 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 59. 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid., p. 60; Ann Wells, This Their Dreaming, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1971. 137 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 60. 138 Ibid., p. 61. For instance, the Report of the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Grievances of the Yirrkala Aborigines, 1963, was to find a connection between the painted church panels and a hill held as sacred by them. See Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 77. 139 Ibid., p. 59. 140 Ibid., p. 63. 141 Mundine, Native Title: Yirrkala Bark Paintings, supra note 102.

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The process of creating what are often referred to as the Yirrkala church panels - which Wells refers above as the art boards142 - offers a glimpse into how the paintings of the bark petitions were probably created:

(…) during the actual work on the art boards all of which was done inside the church building itself, leaders of the clans represented on the boards were in close association and in a type of concentrated fellowship in work; sometimes, three or four men worked on separate sections. The most senior of the respective clan artists worked in harmony to place the symbols of their personal ancestors in a pattern mutually agreed upon as being the correct relationship to one another.143

Wells’ recollection is valuable also because it provides a view of a form of collective authorship, in which “a pattern commonly agreed upon”, was realized in harmony and in a joint effort within a particular place. This form of authorship provides a space for the articulation and expression of both the individuality of the artists and their traditionally inherited clan associations, and for the clan relationships to each other and to the land, and the system of law and spirituality associated with it.

According to Schwarz the placement of the art boards in the church, itself a colonial institution, represented a public assertion of “several aspects of Yolngu authority, ideology, and spirituality.”144 In the presence in the church of both Yolngu paintings and Christian themes painted by Yolngu people, “both harbouring strong didactic and narrative qualities”, he sees reflected both “a disruption to colonial imposition” and “a desire to bridge cultures”. He elaborates on this desire as “an effort on the part of two cultures to bridge gaps in understanding which was based on mutual respect for difference.”145

He regards the presentation of the two painted church panels, each 12 feet by 4 feet, representing Yolngu Creation stories depicted by artists belonging to Dhuwa and Yirritja clans respectively, as a precedent for the presentation of the Yirrkala bark petitions to Parliament, in that both paintings represented a form of petition or claim and both were to

142 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 59. 143 Ibid. 144 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 77. 145 Ibid., p. 76.

227 be placed in the most prestigious, authoritative and powerful institutions in the settler state.146 Thus both can be seen as asserting a strategic advocatory voice into the social/settler contract from which they had been excluded.

This was not the first time in which art was being used in interactions of a political nature with non-Indigenous people. In 1957 at Elcho Island, Galiwinku, in north-east Arnhem Land, carved and painted sacred objects belonging to different clans were erected in a public space alongside the church.147 According to Berndt, the public display of these ceremonial ranga, or sacred objects, had two aims. On one hand it aimed at refashioning some traditional Indigenous institutions in accord with the changes introduced by mission life and European values and practices; on the other, it sought to strengthen the position of Yolngu clans in their negotiations with Europeans, by creating “a wider basis of alliance” or a “united front” among the clans and by extending the leaders’ responsibilities from a clan level to a regional or community level.148 Theorising the Elcho Island movement through Lipski’s description of protest, it is possible to argue that in trying to increase the relative cohesion of Yolngu clans, or the perception of their solidarity, the leaders of the adjustment movement, as referred to by Berndt, were seeking to develop another political resource. This could be deployed in interactions within Yolngu society - among Yolngu clans - as well as in interactions with non-Yolngu people and the Federal government.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Elcho Island display of sacred objects was controversial within Yolngu clans,149 Morphy argues that it was an act of assertion of Yolngu cultural values:

146 Ibid., p. 65, 77. Schwarz uses the term “claim” to denote absence of “an external political process”, and “petition” to mark its presence. James Sheehan defines “a claim” in the following terms: “A claim is neither a request nor a demand. (…) [it suggests] an appeal to some standards of justice, some sort of right” and can be backed by the use of force. (see James Sheehan, “The problem of Sovereignty in European History,” American Historical Review 111, no.1 (Feb 2006), pp. 3-4.) 147 Morphy, “Now You Understand”, pp. 110-111. 148 R.M. Berndt, An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land, Paris, Mouton, 1962, pp. 73-74, referred to in Morphy, “’Now You Understand’”, pp. 110-111. 149 Wandjuk Marika for instance, recalls how his father Mawalan objected strongly to the movement. He recounts “And then they went to Elcho and they setting up the big meeting there and they make all the things, all the sacred objects to display and put it for the public (to see). And my father was there and he said to me, ‘I am going to talk to them, OK, what the news?’ he asked them, ‘What the news?’ and he said, ‘I’m keeping the Law, I’m not going to destroy because I have a son to teach the mother story, the painting and sacred ceremony and sacred object - all my own ceremony (…)” (Wandjuk Marika, Life Story, p. 82).

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The release of knowledge to Europeans, the giving and display of sacred objects and paintings can all be understood at one level as political actions which involved an assertion of the values of Aboriginal land and culture and which attempted to get Europeans to negotiate on the basis of those values. The effect at the individual level was to bind certain Europeans to Aboriginal groups in respect of those values. A further effect was the use of those Europeans as intermediaries in the communication of those values to wider society. At a wider level it introduced Aboriginal symbols into European discourse.

Effectively, that is, a new political resource centred on Yolngu values was being created for negotiations with non-Indigenous people. The language of art, the assertion of Yolngu cultural identity and their relation to land were all integral aspects of this resource,150 through which new forms of cultural and political intercourse could be negotiated or “contracted”. Ravi de Costa perceptively comments on the aims and effects of employing this resource:

Yolngu leaders saw actual and imminent change and sought to employ their culture as a resource in the struggle to maintain their autonomy. In this way, Yolngu were setting out to refashion white sensibilities and understandings of value and principle by introducing an ethic of cultural respect through the transaction of cultural materials.151

In a broader context, Judith Ryan too has commented that “the release of knowledge to Europeans and the making of paintings in which this knowledge was encoded asserted the values of Yolngu culture and the Yolngu clans’ inalienable rights in land.”152 Discussing the commissioning of bark paintings at Yirrkala since the mid-1930s, she sees the decision of Wonggu - a Djapu artist and leader of the Yolngu groups who had gathered around the Yirrkala mission - to teach anthropologist Donald Thomson and Rev. Wilbur Chaseling about his culture, as an “act of faith on Wonggu’s part [which] opened a dialogue between

150 I here borrow the expression “the language of art” from Judith Ryan’s insightful passage, which I reproduced below. 151 De Costa, “Identity, Authority”, pp. 686-687. 152 Judith Ryan, Spirit in Land, p. 22.

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Yolngu and balanda153 - on Aboriginal terms - which has continued ever since, often in the persuasive language of art.”154

7.3. 2. Bridging different scripts and languages, cultures and laws

This section addresses the different components of the Yirrkala bark petition. I start by discussing its form and the signatories and artists involved in its endorsement and creation. I then move onto consider the visual and textual scripts and languages of the petition and the collaboration that enabled the realisation of both. Extending the discussion so far conducted, I propose to view the petition as an effective means of cross-cultural communication which, though local in scope, had national resonance and significance.

Although the 1963 Yirrkala bark petition is often referred to in the singular, the first bark petition received at Parliament House on 14 August 1963 (see Fig. 7.1.) was followed by two other petitions. A copy of the petition on paper, dated 23 August 1963, included the names of and thumb prints in red ink representing the identity of 35 Yolngu endorsing “the word to Canberra.”155 A second bark petition was acknowledged on 28 August 1963 (see Fig. 7.2.), and is the one most often represented.156 The two bark petitions, characterised as Dhuwa and Yirritija respectively, following the moiety divisions of Yolngu society with which the Yolngu clans identify,157 are generally considered one petition, a set or pair of bark paintings.158 In Western terms, Schwarz suggests it could be regarded as a diptych or,

153 Balanda is a term derived from “Hollanders”, Dutch, introduced by the Macassans. It is used to refer to non-Yolngu people. See Ryan, Spirit in Land, p. 7. 154 Ibid. 155 See Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 96, note 6; Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 84. Wells records how the signing by thumbprints was witnessed by a missionary and that providing thumbprints was a practice that had been adopted locally for managing Commonwealth Bank Accounts for those who could not sign their names. He considers the thumbprints as another form of signature or symbol, “a move from the clan representative symbol to the symbol of the thumbprint.” 156 Schawrz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 96, note 6. 157 Ryan, Spirit in Land; Yunupingu states “Each [of the 13 clans of the Gove Peninsula] is independent and proud; each is bound to the others through the moieties of the Yirritija and Dua.” (Galarrwuy Yunupingu, “Tradition, Truth and Tomorrow”, The Monthly, Dec 2008-Jan 2009, http://www.themonthly.com.au/yunupingu). 158 See for instance Merryn Gates Services for Arts, et al., “Bark petitions: Indigenous art and reform for the rights of Indigenous Australians”, Australian Government, http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian- story/bark-petitions-indigenous-art, 2009.

230 if the thumbprints on the paper petition are considered, a triptych.159 I have decided accordingly to refer to the 1963 bark panels and the thumbprints sheets as one petition because they conceptually represent one single effort, the typed text on paper, glued in the centre of the bark, is the same, and they are supported by the same signatories: Millirpum, Djalalingba, Daymbalipu, Dhayila, Dundiwuy, Dhuygala, Raiyin, Manunu, Larrakan, Wulanybuma, Wawunymarra [Wali Wunugmurra?], Nyabilingu. Importantly, Wandjuk Marika (involved in the production of the petition), Galarrwuy Yunupingu (whose father contributed to the painting of the petition) and Wali Wunugmurra (one of the signatories of the petition), also refer to it in the singular.160 However, it is important to acknowledge the specificity of each component of this particular petition.

First, I will consider the signatories of this petition. Wali Wunungmurra, one of the signatories, (his name having possibly been misread as Wawunymarra), states that they were “twelve representatives of all the clan groups of Yirrkala.”161 Heading the list of the signatories was Millirpum [sic], leader of the Rirratjingu clan, who was to become the central figure in the first court case to claim native title, Milirrpum and Others v Nabalco Pty Ltd and Commonwealth of Australia, known as the Gove land rights case, 1971.162 Although the claimants were unsuccessful on that occasion, the litigation led to the first recognition, by an Australian higher court, of Aboriginal law, of the validity of oral evidence to establish property rights and of the ritual and economic use of land on the part of the claimants. The Woodward Royal Commission and the Aboriginal Lands Rights Act 1976, as well the overruling of Milirrpum v Nabalco by the High Court of Australia in Mabo v Queensland (no.2), 1992 were to follow and lead to the Native Title Act, 1993.163

Djalalingba (also spelled Jalalingba164) had been active in voicing the leaders’ concerns for the land by writing to Edgar Wells, the Superintendent of Yirrkala, and later by

159 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 96, note 7; p. 62: “The designs, whether abstract or figurative, are the ultimate reference point in any Yolngu relationship concerning land or people. They are the property of particular clan members through birthright and are protected from other clan members (and non-clan people) by the equivalent of copyright laws.” 160 Wandjuk Life Story; Yunupingu, “Arts in the Olympic Age”. 161 Wali Wunugmurra, “Journey goes full circle from Bark Petition to Blue Mud Bay”, article published on the ABC website, updated Sept 4, 2008, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-14/journey-goes-full-circle- from-bark-petition-to/475920. 162 Preliminary hearings had started in 1968 as Mathaman v Nabalco. Mathaman unfortunately passed away, and the legal case continued with Milirrpum as principal plaintiff. 163 See Marika’s accounts of some of these events in Wandjuk Marika: Life Story, pp. 104-108; Wali Wunugmurra, “Journey Goes Full Circle”, section “Legal fight begins.” 164 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 70.

231 communicating with Gordon Bryant.165 Daymbalipu Mununggurr (1934-1994), head of the Djapu clan, was also among the plaintiffs of Milirrpum v Nabalco and represented on that occasion also the members of the clans indicated in the preamble of the 1963 petition.166 Hailed as a hero at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Studies (AIATSIS), of which he was a long-standing member, he became “the first Yolngu teacher to have his own classroom, and a major figure in the development of bilingual education in Australia.”167 In the 1970s he contributed to the recording and preservation of Yolngu ceremonies.168 Dundiwuy, if Dundiwuy Wanambi, was the artist of the Marakulu clan who would paint the 1968 petition (see Fig. 7.3.), which featured the major ancestral spirit Wuyal and asked the Government to retain the original name of Nhumbuluy for the mining city of Gove. (see Fig. 7.3).169 Wali Wunungmurra (Wawunymarra) became Chairman of the Northern Land Council, established in 1973 to represent Aboriginal landowners and Aboriginal people in the Top End of the Northern Territory.170 In 2008, in the context of the Blue Mud Bay Case, he saw the long awaited recognition, by the high Court of Australia, of exclusive rights regarding commercial and recreational fishing in tidal waters overlying Aboriginal land.171

While I wasn’t able to find information on the remaining signatories (Dhayila, Dhuygala, Raiyin, Manunu, Larrakan, Wulanybuma and Nyabilingu), the information above testifies to the representativeness and commitment of the signatories to the principles outlined and depicted in the petition. Their continuing efforts to achieve acknowledgement of proprietary rights, cultural specificity and right to consultation are evident.

I suggest considering as signatories not only the twelve clan representatives above mentioned, but also the artists who collaborated in the painting of the stringy-bark panels. The painted designs (figurative and non-figurative) are in fact symbols which represent

165 Ibid., pp. 66, 70, 84. 166 See Milirrpum and Others v Nabalco Pty Ltd and Commonwealth of Australia, Supreme Court of the Northern territory. Amended statement of claim, 16 March 1970, § 128. The clans he represented were the Marrakuli, Galpu, Munyuku, Ngamil, Wangurri, Djambarrpuyngu, Manggalili, Dhawangu, Warramirri, Madarrpa clans. Only the Munyuku clan in the statement of claim and the WagarrwanaImirri in the petition’s preamble differ. 167 AIATSIS, Media Release, “Naming Ceremony Honours an Australian Hero”, 24 Feb 2005. http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/news/docs/2005mr/20050224mr.pdf. 168 Ibid. He authored several books on Djapu language, dances and traditions. 169 See the text of the petition on Merryn Gates, “Bark Petitions”, supra note 158. The bark petition representing Wuyal is being exhibited at Parliament House near the two bark panels of the 1963 petition. 170 Ibid. With regards to the Northern Land Council, its establishment and responsibilities, see the Northern Land Council website, http://www.nlc.org.au/html/abt_menu.html. 171 Wali Wunugmurra, “Journey goes full circle”, supra note, 153.

232 their identities in a way similar to - and more profound than - a signature.172 They also represent the identity and interrelatedness of their respective clans, the land they belong to, and the Ancestor Spirits who shaped the land, created its living beings and gave them a law to guide them.173 Although the identity of the “four ‘old men’ all over thirty”174 who painted the bark panels has not been specified, Schwarz suggests that they are five, the same leaders who had earlier written to Edgar Wells to protect from trespasses the areas of Melville Bay, Cape Arnhem, Caledon Bay, and Bremer Island: the late Mawalan Marika and Wandjuk Marika (father and son, leaders of the Rirratjingu clan), Munggarawuy Yunupingu (father of James Galarrwuy Yunupingu, of the Gumatj clan), Jurriny and Narritjin Maymoru.175

The attribution of the designs to the artists - who were also senior clan leaders and distinguished as artists176 - is only partially complete but provisionally it is as follows. The sacred goannas, or djanda, which feature, painted in yellow, in an alternating pattern next to red bandicoots in the first bark panel, have been attributed to Wandjuk Marika and occur frequently in both his paintings and in those of his father Mawalan, in association with the location of Yalangbara (Port Bradshaw) and with artists of Rirratjingu clan of the Dhuwa moiety. Schwarz explains, “The almond shaped eyes, banding of neck and tail, thick tails and necks, the shape of the mouth and clearly delineated joints are characteristically similar to Wandjuk’s style, although his goannas appear exclusively in black.”177 The black scallop shapes bordering the sides of the bark petition also frequently occur in Wandjuk Marika’s paintings, in association with goannas and sand dunes at Yalangbara, or as storm clouds hovering over Jalangbara, the Thunderman.178 The motif of

172 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 55, “The painting was executed by Yolngu clan leaders and high- -profile clan members and represents clan designs that, amongst other things, function as icons if personal identity and as title deeds to tracts of land.” At p. 67, “Yolngu artists are entitled to paint only the country and icons with which theay are inherently associated through birthright or initiation (...)”. At p. 61: “At the core of Yolngu art is the use of geometric background patterns that identify different places and correspond to specific clans with intrinsic ties to particular tracts of ground.” The right to paint a clan design is inherited in a patrilinear way and is protected by a sort of copyright.”; Ryan, Spirit in the Land, “the ground of a Yolngu painting is articulated into ritually repeated symbols which are evidence of the artist’s clan identity” (p. 22). Discussing the Aboriginal Memorial Schwarz states: “the clan designs can be read as signatures that endorse the project (...), (p. 99, note 58). Wells also refers to “the clan representative symbols” as “the signatures on the bark painting.” (Reward and Punishment, p. 85). 173 Judith Ryan, Spirit in the Land, p. 22. 174 In Djalaligba’s words. Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 68; Wells, Reward and Punishment p. 84. 175 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, pp. 68-72. The role of Jurriny however has not been substantiated by Schwarz or others, to my knowledge. 176 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p.100, note 70. 177 Ibid., p. 70. Morphy also states, “the goannas were I am sure painted by Wandjuk.” (Morphy, personal communication with Schwarz, quoted in Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 70.) 178 Ibid., p. 69

233 the yukuwa, or yam plant, at the base of the bark petition has been attributed to Narritjin Maymoru, who, although belonging to the Yirritija moiety, could have been permitted to paint the motif on the predominantly Dhuwa painting as the motif belonged to his mother’s country.179

On the bark petition received on August 28, the possums and the guwak, or night bird, are also attributed to Narritjin.180 On the same panel, the two wet season snakes and the triangular designs associated with the Yirritjia moiety and with wet season clouds (and sandhills) have been attributed to Munggarawuy Yunupingu.181 The dugongs, characteristically Yirritija, could have been painted by either Mungarrawuy or Watjung, both artists belonging to Gumatj clan of the Yirritja moiety, who are mentioned in a report to Parliament as having supervised the painting of the bark petition.182

I would also consider as signatories of the 1963 petition the 35 Yolngu who endorsed it by sending their thumb prints in its support. Thumb prints were being used locally as proofs of identity in the management of Commonwealth bank accounts on the part of those who could not sign their names183 and they were to be used by the Larrakia people in a petition to Queen Elizabeth in 1972.184 The copy of the petition which included the thumb prints was sent to the Parliament following a motion by Paul Hasluck, Minister for the Territories, to reject the bark petition. He questioned the representativeness of the signatories viewing them as “not in a position to speak for the whole community”, or, as summarised by Wells, “too young to be representative of a society where old men were known to be in a position of authority.”185 The motion was objected to by Gordon Bryant, who circulated a statement defending the representativeness of the signatories and referred to a telegram received by Djalalingba, one of the signatories himself, regarding the signatories and artists involved. Rev. Wells, on his part, commented that “the young people in Aboriginal society joined hands with the traditional elders (…) thus, those who

179 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 70. 180 Ibid., p. 62. 181 Ibid., p. 71 182 Jeremy Long, unpublished Report to Parliament, 1988, housed in the Parliamentary Art Collection, quoted in Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 68. 183 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 85. 184 Larrakia Petition, 1972, NAA, A2354, 1973/86, on display at the permanent exhibition “Memory of a Nation” at the National Archives of Australia. Text reproduced in Appendix, doc. 22. 185 Statement by Leave, The Minister of Territories, Hansard, 20 August 1963, referred to in Wells, Reward and Punishment, pp. 83-84.

234 were able to write their names could quite properly represent the older, non-literate section of the community.”186 Kim Beazley Snr moved that the petition be printed and tabled.187

This episode points to an important aspect of Indigenous/non-Indigenous collaboration. The presence within the (dominating) government of persons who would represent Indigenous (minority) interests was important in achieving the formal acceptance of the petition and in providing support for the views it contained. The fact that following petitions from Yirrkala have not been formally recognised (the bark petitions handed to John Howard in 1998 and to Kevin Rudd in 2008, for instance),188 begs the question of whether at the time of their presentation there wasn’t enough support within the government or whether the political climate was generally not favourable or inclined towards recognition of the requests presented.

Continuing the discussion of Indigenous/non-Indigenous collaboration, Gordon Bryant, Labour MP and vice-President of FCAATSI,189 and Kim Beazley snr, MHR, played important roles. Beazley is credited with having suggested the idea of sending a petition to the government during a visit to Yirrkala in July 1963 with Bryant. He (and possibly Bryant) provided the preamble and outline for the petition,190 and during the Yirrkala Committee of Inquiry into the Grievances of the Yirrkala people (which followed the presentation of the petition), Beazley commented that advising someone was, in fact, not illegal.191

When public notices of further acquisition of reserve land were published in newspapers and neither the Superintendent of Yirrkala nor its people were notified, Bryant contacted Djalalingba asking him if they wanted to be represented by him in a legal protest against such acquisitions. Djalalingba replied to his telegram by stating “Dear Mr. Bryant, we want you Mr Bryant to help us get back our country of Yirrkala and Melville Bay. You can

186 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 81 187 House of Representatives, Debates, 14 August 1963, p. 81, House of Representatives, Debates, 28 August, 1963, p. 561. 188 Marryn Gates, “Bark Petitions”, supra note 158. 189 He was Senior Vice-President of FCAA from 1957 to 1973 and President of the Victorian Branch of the Aborigines Advancement League from 1957 to 1964. Both organisations were leading organisations at the time (see the Collaborating for Indigenous Rights website, “Gordon Bryant”, National Museum of Australia, 2008, http://indigenousrights.net.au/person.asp?pID=994) 190 Wells suggests that the “wording of the petition” was left by the parliamentarians from Canberra” (Reward and Punishment, 66). This would imply that the wording was the collaborative work of both Beazley and Bryant, or possibly, of a discussion with the representatives of the clans as well, with which Beazley and Bryant spent time and were instructed by. 191 Beazley to Giese, quoted in Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 100.

235 act for us for land title. Yours faithfully, Djalalingba.”192 Later, he was joined by all those who were to sign their names on the bark petition in endorsing Bryant as their representative:

Dr Mr. Bryant,

We the undersigned people of the tribes living at Yirrkala district ask you to help us to keep our hunting land which we believe we will lose when land which is our place of living is handed to the companies for mining. We are hurt that the Government told us nothing of this before it took place. We do not believe that your Government would treat white people this way. We believe our occupancy of this land was lawful. We believe that our age old occupancy of this land gives us rights which should not be brushed aside. We are afraid of the fate of the Larrakeah people a few years ago will be our fate in a few years if we lose our rights here.

We ask you for action to help us,

Yours sincerely,

Djalalingba, Dhuygala, Wulanybuma, Diambalipu, Raiyn, Wawunymarra, Djayla, Manuna, Nyabilingu, Dundywuy, Larrakan, Milirrpun193

As pointed out by Wells, this letter presents parallels with the typed text of the bark petition,194 especially in its reference to the lack of communication with the residents of Yirrkala regarding the excision of reserve land (point 3 of the petition); in its indication of the land to be handed to the mining companies as “our hunting ground”, “our living place” (point 1, 4 and 5 of the petition) and in the reference to the fate of the Larrakeah (also spelled Larrakia) people, resident in Darwin. However, the letter also refers to the clear perception that the treatment they have been accorded by the government is different to that which white people would have received; they also refer to the “age old” and “lawful” occupancy of the land which in itself entails “rights that cannot be brushed aside”. Therefore, although the typed text of the petition itself does not explicitly refer to land rights,195 this letter shows how they were being conceptualised (and implied in the

192 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 66 193 Ibid. 194 Wells writes: “Djalalingba also had some friends of his attach their signatures to a joint appeal to Mr Bryant to act on their behalf and in doing so relied rather heavily on the text of the wording left at Yirrkala in the care of the Aborigines by the parliamentarians from Canberra when a petition to Canberra was first suggested.” (Ibid.) 195 See Appendix, doc. 19.

236 petition).196 It also shows a clear understanding of the value of having somebody representing their interests within Parliament, within the dominating institution where decisions were taken and legislation made (an understanding shown also by Cooper’s petition). Their letter legitimises the representativeness offered by Bryant in writing and exemplifies the awareness of the resourceful role which third parties can play in the objection to policies and conditions.197

Also, the fact that this letter was written in English only, whereas the petition’s typed text appeared in both English (at the top) and Gumatji (at the bottom), suggests that the petition’s written text functioned as a further cultural statement198 addressed to the government, asking for recognition also of the existence of their own spoken language as integral to their identity and history.

The painting surrounding the typed text in English and Gumatji also deserves close attention. “Painting”, in Wandjuk Marika’s words, “is very important. It’s the design or symbol, power of the land.” It is learned in an educational process intimately connected to a gradual accrual of knowledge of the land, of its resources and “special places”.199 It is not merely decorative, but has didactic and narrative functions. It is writing. Marika recounts: “I learnt Yolngu writing, my own designs, drawing on the rock or on the sand and then putting in the hatching.” He recalls his father’s words of instruction, uttered when at fifteen he started painting on bark, “(…) Most important is the line. Most important is the animal you draw.” And he adds, “He still talks to me today, how to record, and put the line straight and true [my emphasis].”200 These memories bring to the fore the connection between painting and recording, another function usually attributed to writing. Galarrwuy Yunupingu, referring to the painting of the Barunga Statement, 1988, which requested a treaty between the government and Indigenous people in 1988 (see Fig. 7.4.), states that “our form of writing, writing for land, is in the form of painting.”201 Rev. Wells too refers

196 See also Julie Fenwick, ‘Worrying About Our Land’: Conceptualising Land Rights 1963-1971, Monash Publications in History: 36, 2001. Fenwick argues that the text of the petition did not refer explicitly to “land rights” because the concept was only at its inception. 197 I here draw again on Lipski’s definition of protest activity, see section 7.1. 198 I borrow the expression “cultural statement” from the comments on the 1963 bark petition by Mal Brough MP, see note 202. 199 Marika, Life Story, p.110. 200 Ibid. 201 Galarrwuy Yunupingu, “Indigenous Art in the Olympic Age” in Art and Australia, vol. 35, no.1, 1998, p. 65.

237 to painting as “their writing”202 and the former Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough also pointed out that the bark petition was “put (…) in their own terms, with painting (…) [it was] an Indigenous cultural statement of connection to country, (…) it’s Aboriginal people’s language, their written text, their identity and their right to this country and their rights to each other [my emphasis].”203

Painting has also been related to the sacred and the political. It has been compared to “sacred scripts” by Jennifer Isaac, who has edited Wandjuk Marika’s life story in the late 1980s. The paintings’ nature of sacred scripts derives from the fact that they are “documents which detail the spiritual origins of mankind, the creatures of the earth and the physical forms of nature.”204 Galarrwuy Yunupingu, whose father contributed to the paintings on the 1963 petition refers to the ancestral connection of painting and land as marking their presence: “The designs we produced [on the bark petition] were given to us thousands of years before white judges came to this country to tell us we never really existed.”205

Galarrwuy Yunupingu emphasises the political nature of painting, stating that “our painting has paralleled our political struggles to maintain our culture and our rights to land.” He refers to the bark petition as “the most striking example of this link between painting and politics” and explains how, when their land in Northeast Arnhem Land was being threatened with “indiscriminate destruction”, they convened a cross-cultural dialogue which asserted their cultural and political presence by presenting the 1963 bark petition:

We tried to speak to non-Aboriginal people about what they were trying to do, but who would listen? Very few white people have ever tried to learn our language, and English is incapable of describing our relationship to the land of our Ancestors. We decided then to try to explain it in a way we hoped non-Aboriginal people would understand: through pictures. On 28 August 1963 we presented a petition to the Australian Parliament. It was not an ordinary petition; it was presented as a bark painting and showed the clan designs of

202 Wells, Reward and Punishment, p. 60. 203 Mal Brough, in “The Bark Petition”, National Sound and Film Archive, Talk Back Classroom, Forum on Indigenous representation, held at National Museum of Australia, 2007, http://dl.nfsa.gov.au/module/1560/. 204 Jennifer Isaac, in Wandjuk Marika: Life Story, p. 110. 205 Yunupingu, “Indigenous Art in the Olympic Age”, p. 65.

238

all the areas that were threatened by the mining. It showed, in ways a coloured piece of bunting could never do, the ancient rights and responsibilities we have to our country. It showed that we were not people who could be painted out of the picture, or left at the edges of history. (…) We are painting, as we have always done, to demonstrate our continuing link with our country and the rights and responsibilities we have to it. We paint to show the rest of the world that we own this country and that the land owns us. Our painting is a political act.206

In this light, it is possible to agree with Schwarz in considering the paintings on the bark petition as petitions in themselves. Schwarz argues that the paintings on both panels (and on the 1968 petition), could be considered as petitions “in their own right”, as “Aboriginal land claims rooted in ancestral connections.” However, in regard to her conceptualisation of the written text in English as a translation of the Yolngu visual text intended for the non-Yolngu addressees, 207 I would propose considering Galarrwuy Yunupingu’s words on the painting of the Barunga statement. He states that “our painting for the land and the words that express it in English speak equally” and that “they cannot be differentiated”; paintings, however, “have a meaning of their own that cannot be compromised.”208 If we extend this concept to the paintings on the bark panels, we can observe that both the paintings and the written text (in English and Gumatji) “speak equally”, each a text in its own right, each a text in its own different way.

The combined use of different languages (visual and artistic based in Yolngu traditional culture and spiritual connection to land; in the introduced Roman alphabetical writing in both English and Gumatji) heightened the significance of the petition and acknowledged the existence, value and specificity of each one of these languages. Their co-existing presence in the petition shows acknowledgment of both the traditional and colonial circumstances which lay behind the very existence itself of the petition. Ravi de Costa has related “the blending of traditional and colonial representations” to an “indigenization” of the petitionary form,209 and to the use of “traditional cultures” as “imaginative political resources (…) that could be drawn in ways that gave coherence and power to the claims

206 Yunupingu, “Indigenous Art in the Olympic Age”, pp. 65-66. 207 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, pp. 55-56. 208 Yunupingu, “Art in the Olympic Age”, p. 65. 209 De Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 690

239 being made and that influenced much broader communities including non-Indigenous people.”210

The juxtaposition of these languages has been considered both as disruptive and as mediatory. Judith Ryan highlights the disruptive nature of the use of bark painting in the petition: “Significantly, Yolngu leaders chose to make their protest in absolute symbols of Yolngu political power - clan designs on bark. They effectively introduced a wild card into the official system of negotiation. The two pieces of stringy-bark stood outside the terminology of legal parliamentary discourse.”211 They called therefore for recognition of that different terminology and of the values that lay behind it. Schwarz also sees the petition as challenging the colonial hierarchy of the time.212

The mediatory nature of the “juxtaposition of pictorial text and written text” is seen by Schwarz as a reflection of “a desire to provide a dialectical construct” calling the viewers to negotiate conceptual spaces between the two forms of text.213 It is also viewed as “an attempt to mediate between the different systems of law (Yolngu and Anglo-Australian), by bringing into focus different concepts of law and of land-ownership.”214 Similar is the view of the government website “Documenting a Democracy”, which describes the petition as “the first document bridging Commonwealth law as it then stood, and Indigenous laws of the land.”215

This petition has provided therefore a visible sign of Yolngu geopolitical existence. This sign was deployed in opposition to the expropriation of reserve land - in reaction to the settler expropriation contract outlined by Carole Pateman - and in opposition to the exclusionary and coercive nature of the domination contract in its specific demand for consultation and in its opposition to decisions taken without consultation nor consideration. It also prepares the ground or anticipates a new relationality between Yolngu/balanda.

The inter-clan and intra-clan (Dhuwa and Yirritija) collaborations and Indigenous/non- Indigenous collaborations that took place in the creation of the petition testify to the

210 De Costa, “Identity, Authority”, p. 689. 211 Ryan, Spirit in the Land, pp. 22-23. 212 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 82. 213 Ibid., 81. 214 Ibid., p. 55. 215 Lenore Coltheart, (curator), “Yirrkala Bark petition 1963”, Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-104.html.

240 positive accomplishment of these collaborations in achieving common goals. Contextualising them within preceding and following instances of protest against excision of land in north-east Arnhem Land allows us to see the representativeness of all those involved in the production of the petition. The collaborative authorship which these collaborations produced - in the form of the painted designs, in the composition of the written text in English, and of the text in Gumatji - indicate that the end-result of each of these collaborations could retain its integrity and meaning(s) and that different (textual, cultural, legal) traditions could coexist. This also could be seen as a process of redrawing social contractual parameters.

Although mining activities continued after the petition was presented, a Committee of Inquiry into the Grievances of the Yirrkala people was held. Its recommendations were not implemented, but after the destruction of a sacred place at Yirrkala, another petition was sent to the government in 1968 and the case was brought to court. The Gove land rights case was unsuccessful but it led to the Woodward commission into land rights and eventually to the 1976 Northern Territory Land Rights legislation.

Conclusions

This chapter has outlined salient moments of petitioning in the 20th century. While Cooper’s petition had a national scope and had received the support of Indigenous people nation-wide, the Yirrkala bark petition had a local scope and was endorsed by Yolngu clan representatives but was to have national implications and receive national and international publicity. Briefly, I also mentioned the petition of the AAPA for citizenship rights, which by appealing to the “men and women of Australia” asked a broader non-Indigenous public to endorse their requests and enter into a contractual dialogue with Indigenous people about issues of concern to them.

The examined petitions entered the public sphere at very different times. In the late 1920s and in the 1930s racial discrimination was still pervasive but the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association and the Australian Aborigines League asserted their political agency, campaigning for citizenship rights and the removal of discriminatory legislation,

241 for reserve lands to be made inalienable and for the recognition of parental rights. A growing number of non-Indigenous organisations also pressed for reforms. In the 1960s, the valorisation of bark paintings from north-east Arnhem Land had favoured the appreciation and knowledge of Yolngu culture, increasingly recorded through the collaboration of Yolngu informants and anthropologists.

Practices of cultural transactions and exchanges, and of “release of knowledge” about Yolngu society and culture to non-Indigenous people, instantiated new forms of cultural and political interactions, which were based upon the assertion of traditional Indigenous cultures and identities. They were part of a process of drawing balanda, non-Indigenous people, into a dialogue where the geopolitical frame of the settler/domination contract could be renegotiated on the basis of recognition, awareness and understanding of the society which pre-existed the settler/domination contract.

This dialogue took place within the broader international context of decolonisation, the codification of universal human rights and the inception of identity politics. Assimilation however was still advocated by the Australian government and decisions affecting Indigenous people were still made without consultation. The Yirrkala bark petition sought therefore Yolngu inclusion in a normative order where representation (in the form of consultation) would guarantee the respect of the “needs and interests”216 of the Yolngu. I argue that Cooper’s petition, and the campaigns of the AAPA, AAL and APA, similarly sought Indigenous inclusion in a normative order where discrimination would be removed, through legislative changes, through direct parliamentarian representation (Cooper’s petition) and through the achievement of the same legal status as settler-Australians and newly arrived immigrants.

The innovation of the Yirrkala bark petition rested in its unconventional format, where clan designs painted on the stringy-bark with pigments taken from sacred places, strongly asserted geopolitical connection to the land that was being threatened by mining activities and called for recognition of the society and people that lived on it.

From a methodological perspective, the discussion of these petitions highlighted the following points. The textual aspect of a petition can be illuminated by an analysis of the campaigns of which the petition was part of (eg. Cooper’s campaign) and by an analysis of

216 Yirrkala Bark Petition, point 6, see Appendix, doc. 19.

242 the debates in which it intervened. The examination of the interactions between the petitioners and the petitioned authorities (or their representatives at different levels), which occurred before/after the presentation of the petition (eg. interactions at Yirrkala), also assist in achieving a better understanding of its scope and content.

As the cases of Cooper’s and the Yirrkala bark petition demonstrate, Indigenous/non- Indigenous collaborations involved in drafting the text of petitions do not necessarily de- authenticate the petitions themselves. The representativeness of Indigenous wishes in both petitions is clear in the convergence of the intent of the petitioners and that of those who advised on the best wording to use in order to maximise the chances of obtaining redress. The continuing efforts of Indigenous petitioners to achieve the granting of the petitions’ requests also testify to the important role these petitions played in the process of Indigenous people contracting political subjectivity. Innovatively, in the Yirrkala bark petition, the political and cultural identity of the petitioners was clearly (and proudly) presented to the government in Yolngu cultural terms, asserting proprietary rights (in response to an expropriation contract) and asserting the authority of Yolngu culture and law (in response to coercive assimilation).

We have also seen that collaborations - both inter-clan and intra-clan and Indigenous/non- Indigenous - were used as political resources. A growing cohesion among Indigenous people themselves also enabled the making of the Barunga statement (1988), where the paintings, as described by Galarrwuy Yunupingu, testify to the coming together of different peoples towards the achievement of one goal: “The dot-style painting of Central Australia and the cross-hatching paintings of Northeast Arnhem Land show that Aboriginal people of different countries, speaking different languages, can unite in the same struggle.”217 This struggle was the struggle in effect of Aboriginal people to work as a political collective in order to redraft the settler contract and produce an Indigenous- designed contract which articulated an Indigenous jurisdictional imaginary and asserted Indigenous geopolitical autonomy.

We have also seen how public opinion was becoming another political resource which was being increasingly mobilised through the use of mass media and campaigning. Public opinion was sought to support the bid for constitutional changes (FCAA, AAF) in a growing Aboriginal civil rights movement and to support calls for the respect of

217 Schwarz, Beyond Familiar Territory, p. 83.

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Indigenous cultures. Oodgeroo Noonuccal, for instance, in a speech launching the FCAA petition for constitutional changes in 1962, opposed integration to assimilation, asking for “respect of the Aboriginal’s way of life”, for “identity” and “pride”, for the “culture” and “language” of Aboriginal people, for their “desire to be Aboriginals” and their desire to avoid assimilation which defined as a “swallowing up by a majority people of a minority people.”218 In her poetry too (“Assimilation-No!”, “Integration-Yes!”)219 she conveyed her petition to an increasingly vast audience. Her desire for recognition and integration in the polity as distinct and autonomous people can be seen as voicing a parallel desire to that of the Yolngu people.

218 Oodgeroo Noonuccal, “Speech launching the Petition of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement”, in Anita Heiss and Peter Minter (eds.), Macquarie Pen Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2008, pp. 40-41. 219 Ibid, pp. 44-45.

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Fig. 7.1. Yirrkala artists, Dhuwa moiety, Yirrkala Bark Petition 14.8.1963, 46.9 x21cm, natural ochres on bark, ink on paper, House of Representatives, Canberra.

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Fig. 7.2. Yirrkala artists, Yirritja moiety, Yirrkala Bark Petition 28.8.1963, 46.9 x21cm, natural ochres on bark, ink on paper, House of Representatives, Canberra.

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Fig. 7.3. Wuyal, or Honey Man, ancestor being of the Dhuwa clans, is represented in the 1968 Bark Petition painted by Durndiwuy Wanambi. Yirrkala Bark Petition, 1968, by Dundiwuy Wanambi, Yirrkala Community. Original Document of the House of Representatives.

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Fig. 7.4. Barunga Statement, 1988, YUNUPINGU, Galarrwuy, RUBUNTJA, Wenten, JAMPIJINPA, Lindsay Turner, JAPANANGKA, Dennis Williams, MARAWILI, Bakulangay, MARAWILI, Djambawa, MARAWILI, Marrirra, NGURRUWUTHUN, Djewiny, reproduced with the permission of the Northern and Central Land Councils. Gifts Collection, courtesy of Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra, A.C.T.

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Chapter 8

Discussion and Conclusions

In this final Chapter, I will summarise my findings and propose some reflections on the scholarly work within which this dissertation is situated. At the beginning of the dissertation I have drawn attention to the need, highlighted by Penny van Toorn, for a postcolonial history of Aboriginal writings which accommodates modes of collaborative or mediated writings and the concomitant need to conceive a theory of collaborative authorship. In the course of this dissertation, focusing on the genre of petitioning, where instances of collaborative authorship can be found, I have tried to delineate some elements that can be considered in the development of such a theory.

First, I have addressed the specificity of the genre of petition writing. By drawing on previous research on petitions, I have highlighted how it is a genre aimed at achieving redress of grievances; a genre which allowed the disenfranchised and unrepresented a minimal form of citizenship and participation in political life; a genre of protest with great transformative potential which was often used in radical, extra-parliamentary politics; a genre where the narratives framing the request can retain fragments or traces of historical and life narratives; a genre invoking, constituting and reinforcing the authority of public opinion; a genre based on both the right of freedom of expression and the right to fair hearing and consideration.

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In Australia, collaborative (but also individual) Indigenous authorship in petition writing was employed in particular socio-political contexts. In order to consider these contexts, I have located petition writing within a broad overarching theoretical framework which takes into account the relations of domination and expropriation instantiated by the settler and (racialised) group domination contract theorised by Pateman and Mills. Conceptualised within this framework, Indigenous authorship in petitions can be seen as instantiating negotiations aimed at changing, re-negotiating and re-shaping the settler domination contract. It can be argued that these forms of authorship emerged precisely in order to enter into the contract1 and become a recognised and acknowledged contracting party. Drawing on Rousseau, I have also highlighted how Indigenous people had been largely excluded from active participation in the body politic - an exclusion to which petitioners bore witness and opposed.

In order to become part of the body politic and acknowledged contracting parties, Indigenous petitioners had to establish a voice and a political identity that was visible and recognisable. How was this voice articulated and how did Indigenous political identities (individual and collective) become visible and recognisable? In Chapter 3 I have discussed how a collective Indigenous voice was initially articulated in an oral form, which survives in transcripts left by those who recorded it. An early example of an oral negotiation of a “compact”, or agreement, was that between the Tasmanian Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson and Governor Arthur recorded in the 1846 petition to the Queen from Flinders Island and later mentioned by Robinson himself.2 Other examples of oral petitions discussed in Chapter 3 were those requests for land recorded by local representatives of the colonial authorities and missionaries - such as those documented by Francis Tuckfield in the 1840s, by the Guardian of the Aborigines in Victoria, William Thomas, in 1859, and by local police officer Martin Brennan in the Braidwood goldfields, east of Canberra in 1873.

These early requests, mediated in writing, acknowledged the setter expropriation contract (“My country all you gone. The white men have stolen it.”3; “Our hunting is objected to on

1 I owe this insight to my Supervisor, Anne Brewster. 2 Reynolds, History of Tasmania, p. 78. 3 Words recorded by Francis Tuckfield, The Journal of Francis Tuckfield, LaTrobe Library, MSS 655, p. 176, quoted in Reynolds, Dispossession, p. 84.

250 his land”)4 but simultaneously demanded recognition of the petitioners’ presence and acknowledgment of their rights (the delegation led by Jack Bawn and Alick to police officer Brennan stated: “we want to get some land which we can call our own in reality, where we can settle down, and which the old people can call their home (…) we think the blacks are entitled to live in their own country”).5 This petition indicates the Aboriginal people’s strong sense of their own autonomy and entitlement as a people and their ownership of and right to occupy their territories – what we would today recognise as sovereignty. Later petitions show expressive similarities and continuity of similar requests. These early oral petitions for land were put forward with a desire to provide for a people who were being collectively represented. They were initial forms of participation in the changed political circumstances brought about by colonisation and they sought to initiate a process of change.

In order to conceptualise the moment of inscription of the petitioner’s voice in petition writing, I have examined several case studies. In Chapter 3 and 4 I have focussed on the writing process which leads to the textual production of collaboratively produced petitions (dictated or drafted collaboratively, or based on an exchange of information between petitioners and those who recorded their views). I have highlighted some constitutive elements of this process: the initiative in petitioning; the physical proximity of petitioners and scribes during the writing of the text; the way in which functional assistance is provided - whether the “express ideas” and the “peculiar modes of expression” (or expressive style) of the petitioners are retained or not.6 In line with previous scholars, I have considered previous and successive writings of the petitioners and existing accounts of how the writing process took place. I have also remarked the nature of the genre itself, which promotes a strategic form of writing. I have drawn attention also to the tension existing between the peculiarity of the petitioners’ expressions and the formal framework of the petitionary form, which has a long and established tradition.

I have suggested that we consider positively the collaboration involved in petition writing as a means of overcoming technical difficulties in establishing an official (written) dialogue with colonial and imperial authorities. I have proposed therefore that we view

4 Deputation of Jack Bawn and Alick to police officer Martin Brennan, Braidwood goldfields, 1873. Martin Brennan, Reminiscences of the Gold Fields, Sydney, 1907, pp. 213-14, quoted in Goodall, “Land in our own country”, p. 5; see Chapter 3, pp. 60-61. 5 Ibid. 6 The quotes are from the letter from Joseph Milligan to Robert Clark, Flinders Island, 17 Feb 1846, reproduced in Chapter 3, p. 77.

251 instances of collaboration not as invalidating a priori the content of the petition and the voices therein inscribed, but in fact, as often enabling the expression of such voices.

I have observed how exchange of information was at the base of the recording of Wevar’s thoughts on the white system of justice in 1842, Perth; exchange of information was also central to the textual production of Georgy’s petition for protection from the Native Police, in southern Queensland in 1863, a petition whose text, we have seen, was the product of a strategical reworking of several narrations of the same event. A similar “sense of exchanging”, or sharing, “experiences”, can be found also in later Indigenous life writings.7 Collaboration was, and is, therefore important, in enabling Indigenous textual productions in English in several cases.

The petitions of Tommy Dower for land and for fair play discussed in Chapter 4, have provided a contrastive example of how collaboration can take place, with a distancing of the voices of the scribes conveying the request of the petitioners - through the use of the personal pronouns we (the writers) and they (the petitioners) - (“Petition of various Aboriginals for Grant of Land” to Governor Frederick Broome, 1886), or with a verbatim transcription of the petitioner’s request (“Tommy Dower’s Petition” published in The West Australian, 21 March 1893).

The petition of Tommy King in October 1890, published in The Australian Advertiser on the eve of Proclamation Day - a founding moment for the colony of West Australia - represented the presence, in Albany, of those who had been excluded from the celebration for the new constitution and independence of the colony. It constituted an appeal to the Governor, the representative of the Queen, and to a wider public, to consider the experiences of dispossession and deprivation of means of traditional sustenance suffered by Indigenous people. The petition from Tommy Dower for just treatment and fair play in 1893, published verbatim in The West Australian, similarly claimed a subject position of enunciation, a speaking position which engaged with the authorities of the time demanding that they provide for the Indigenous people living in the vicinity of Perth.

In Chapter 5 and 6, I have conceptualised petition writing and reading in relation to the place where petitions were penned, namely, sites such as the penal system, mission stations and reserves, and civic and rural communities. While in the penal system

7 Brewster, Literary Formations, p. 53.

252 petitioning was used principally to ask for remission of sentences, on mission stations and reserves it was used to participate in the body politic as it was locally constituted: to affect the choice of the superintendents and the management of the reserves; to appeal for the preservation itself of the reserves; and to affect legislation.

In relation to petitions from reserves, I have discussed two petitions from Coranderrk against oppressive legislation. Freedom on equal basis with white people is there invoked forcefully by a collective monologic voice that belongs to the spokesperson for the community, William Barak, and is written down thanks to intergenerational collaboration.8 The petitioner’s voice addresses the readers deploying an empowering interrogative mode that is to be found in other petitions, as well as in some contemporary Indigenous protest literature.

The 1881 petition for land from Maloga mission exemplified the relevance, in petition reading, of considering carefully the original composition of a petition in light of contemporary records. This can aid an understanding of the language and expressions used in the petition and the dominant ideology of the political culture in which petitions were strategically deployed. The petition helped us to see that, when the participation of the petitioners in the writing of the petition is unclear, the central request of a petition (in this case, reservation of land) should be considered as expressing the petitioners’ wishes. Their voice, that is, is present more in the request itself than in the precise words that present it.

In discussing civil and rural areas as places were petitions were written, I have highlighted how the instrument of petitioning was used in some areas by non-Indigenous people to press for segregation and/or relocation of Indigenous communities. Therefore, petitioning may have come to the attention of some Indigenous people precisely as an instrument of political pressure used against them. However, segregation and relocation were opposed by Indigenous parents and communities through petitions, and some non-Indigenous people endorsed and supported these objections. I suggest that both the petitioners’ protests and these acts of inter-racial solidarity should be remembered as a significant part of Australian Indigenous political history and Australian history in general.

8 For reference to the concepts of monologic voice and interrogative mode, see Ferguson, “Rhetorics of Judicial Opinion”, pp. 5-9 and 9-11 respectively; for reference to intergenerational collaboration in petition writing, see van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, pp. 146-147, 150.

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In petitions requesting access to public education in New South Wales, from 1902 to the mid 1920s, the voices of Indigenous parents appealed for equality with white people (at Breeza, in 1902); to the fact that they shared in the obligations of a social contract and that therefore they should be entitled to its benefits (by positioning themselves as taxpayers and electors - such as John Quinn at Bellata, in 1916; or, as Mr Campbell at Huskisson, in 1922, by drawing attention to the fact that his family had contributed to the erection of the school and had paid for his children’s education). They positioned themselves as “some of the oldest inhabitants” of the local area (Mr Campbell), or as sharing in the privilege of being “native born British subjects” (John Quinn) and they showed awareness of the racialised contract which underlyed school segregation (“my child has been deprived of education, and the only reason is she is the offspring of coloured parents”; “the public school master … refusing to educate my children as they are a shade on the coloured side”; “the Quadroon and Half-caste children of Bateman’s Bay (…) it is months and months since these children were at school”; “(…) even the reserve where the coloured race were bred and born the white race are trying to have them turned off to another piece of land” - John Quinn, 1916; Mr Campbell, 1922; Jane Duren, 1926 respectively).9 They highlighted the discrepancy between a rhetoric of rights and the practices which denied Indigenous peoples those rights.

In the petition from Ellen Kropinyeri urging repeal of the South Australian legislation passed in 1923, which legalised the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, it was possible to discern an individual voice speaking and pleading for a collectivity of mothers. This voice powerfully questioned the logic underlying the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act and the scientific and intellectual discourses which sustained it. The public commemoration of this petition in 2003 in Adelaide, organised by descendants of the members of the deputation that delivered the petition, calls to mind the significance of remembering this and other Indigenous protests against oppressive legislation for contemporary Indigenous people. This commemoration contributes to and renegotiates the constitution of a memory of the nation by honouring those who opposed such legislation and fought for just treatment.

Another recent event is pertinent to a discussion of how petitions can play an important role in the ways Indigenous people renegotiate the past through commemoration. In

9 See Chapter 6, Section 6.1.2. Public venues: Petitioning for access to education.

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January 2010, during his visit to Sydney, Prince William was presented with two Indigenous petitions: one asked for the return of the skull of Pemulwuy, a “brave and independent” Dharug warrior who had led the resistance to British colonisation in the area of Sydney and was killed in 1802.10 The other petition was a copy of William Cooper’s petition to the King organised in the 1933, submitted in 1937 to be forwarded to King Georg V, but that had never been forwarded to the monarch.11 These petitions, and the act of presenting Prince William with Cooper’s petition, draw attention to Indigenous people’s wish to rectify the omissions of the past, to pay tribute to those who fought in order to obtain a just inclusion of Indigenous people in Australian society. They also call attention to the present situation of Indigenous people in Australian society.

The 1931 petition for the reinstatement of Captain Newman as superintendent at Lake Tyers, Victoria, offered another example of how petitions can record in their text contemporary discourses and experiences. In particular, it showed the widespread impact of discourses on race and the ordering of races in the Great Chain of Being; it recorded the experiences of illness and difficulties of access to medical care of the community residing on the government run station; and it portrayed positively the “introduction in the public [of the local Indigenous community] as sporting people.”12 Here, the voices of the petitioners represented a reaction and response to publicly held views, and in presenting their request, the petitioners shared their lived experience with their addressee.

In Chapter 7 I have theorised Indigenous petition writing in the period 1920-1980 by referring to Michael Lipski’s theory of protest as a political process, where protest leaders are seen as mobilizing and creating political resources to support their aims. I have pointed out how, operating from within a system, Indigenous activists such as Maynard, Cooper, Patterson and Ferguson were trying to mobilize support and create new political resources, new intra-Indigenous cohesion and also inter-racial cohesion and support. I have discussed in particular Cooper’s request for Indigenous representation in Parliament, in an effort to negotiate better conditions and the granting of citizenship rights and removal of all social, economical and political disabilities affecting Indigenous Australians. I have also observed

10 The quote “brave and independent” is from a letter from Governor King to Sir Joseph Bank in London, accompanying the beheaded head of Pemulwuy; quoted in Marcia Langton, “They Made a Solitude and called it peace”, in Perkins and Langton, First Australians, pp. 33-34. 11 Louise Hall and Jessica Mahar, “How Willie Wombat Charmed the Block,” Sydney Morning Herald, January 20, 2010, referred to in Curthoys and Mitchell, “‘Bring This Paper to the Governor’”, p. 182. 12 Petition of Lake Tyers Inmates Aborigines to Aborigines Board Victoria, Lake Tyers, 6 June 1931, see Chapter 6, Section 6.3., pp. 194-195 and note 89.

255 how, since the late 1920s the scope of Indigenous petitions widens, as do also requests for support, which reach beyond the borders of local communities; they appeal to the citizens of NSW and Australia (Maynard) and they appeal to Indigenous people across Australia (Cooper, Patten, Ferguson). I discussed the greater appeal of petitions to public opinion, especially in widely organised petition campaigns such as those promoted by Fred Maynard and the APA in the late 1920s and by William Cooper and the AAL in the 1930s.

I have also observed how the petitions from Yirrkala appealed to national and international public opinion, and how support was mobilised in an effort to protect Yolngu land in the Northern Territory in the 1960s. The Yirrkala bark petition has provided a high profile case where the writing process involved different Indigenous and non-Indigenous textual traditions: an Indigenous form of writing (traditional paintings with deep religious and legal meanings which demonstrated their political relationships to land) and alphabetical text in English and Gumadji. We have also observed how the collaborations involved in the preparation and presentation of the petition were guided by a common intent, and how the figurative design on bark was commonly agreed upon by the distinguished artists and Yolngu clan leaders who realised it in an effort to protect their lands.

In relation to literature, I have found several elements that are used both in petitions and in certain works of contemporary Indigenous Australian protest literature and life writings. These elements are: the use of emotive language to encourage the reader to sympathise or empathise with the conditions described by the writer; the use of logic and reasoned argumentation; an interrogative mode which empowers the questioner, shapes the case which is being made and is sustained by an assertive tone; a mode of personal address which draws the reader in an imagined physical proximity of the petitioner; the response to and critique of discourses and stereotypes generated by the dominating society.

Both petitions and literature can interpellate, appeal to and shape public opinion. In invoking and convening a public sphere they can open up transformative spaces. Within these discursive spaces, both petitions and literature appeal to reason, emotion and imagination - they appeal to their audience’s affective responses and enable imagining the world through different (reasoned) perspectives. They do so, certainly, in different creative and genre-specific ways, because they are entrenched in different traditions.

Inflecting petition reading with insights drawn from postcolonial studies, I have found that “the empire” (the colonised people of Australia) was “writing back” also in these

256 petitions.13 In framing their requests, petitioners often appropriated the introduced language (English) and form (the petitionary genre), to resist the settler expropriation and domination contract; to resist the stereotypes and dominating discourses which regarded them as unequal and inferior; to request that they become part of the body politic and to assert their autonomy and their rights as contracting citizens in their own territories; and to enter and shape a more inclusive, just and respectful public sphere. They requested a space (land) where their society could live; they protested legislation and practices which denied them freedoms and rights and a legal status which were enjoyed by white people. Petitions acted as counterpoint to the discourses and structural and legislative apparatus upon which the domination contract was based.

Certain characteristics of postcolonial literature can be seen in petitions submitted by Indigenous Australians to the government. For example, drawing on the definition of postcolonial literature by Elleke Boehmer, elements to be found in both texts are the scrutiny of the colonial relationship, the resistance to colonial perspectives and assumptions, the reshaping of dominant meanings and discourses buttressing colonization, the expression of the experience of the colonized, with its marks of cultural exclusion and division, the dimension of postcoloniality where “colonized people seek to take their place (…) as historical subjects.”14 Drawing on what Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith and Helen Tiffin defined as the distinctive characteristics or “commonalities” that inform postcolonial literatures proposed, we can see that also petitions share an emergence “from out of the experience of colonisation” and a textual “assertion” accomplished “by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power” and “by emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre.”15

Although not always successful, Indigenous petitions represented important moments of protest and negotiation. Spivak has defined “the institution of the law” and “ideological and scientific production” as the “textual ingredients” involved in the “constitution of the Other of Europe.”16 In Indigenous Australian petitions it is possible to observe both these

13 I’m here conflating and drawing a parallel to Stokes, “Citizenship and Aboriginality”, p. 165 and Ashcroft, Griffith and Tiffin, Empire Writes Back , p. 32. 14 See Elleke Boehmer’s definition of postcolonial literature in Elleke Boehmer, Colonial & Postcolonial Literature, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 3. 15 Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back, New York, Routledge, 2002, p. 2. 16Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak”, in Marxism and Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson ad Lawrence Grossberg, Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1988, quote on p. 280.

257 textual ingredients - in that they are recorded and referred to - and the response or reaction they instigated in the petitioners - who ask that these “ingredients”, based on domination, be changed.

In this response, as in other responses to colonial or dominating discourses17 we can see that the subaltern can speak and has indeed spoken. If we consider the right of freedom of expression in petitions as accompanied by a right to fair consideration, the question is not so much whether the subaltern can speak, but whether the non-subaltern can listen; whether the dominating society is willing to listen, to give fair consideration and recognition to the justness of the requests of the petitioners. We could wonder whether it is willing to consider ways in which fair and just measures can be implemented to achieve the corrective justice that Charles Mills proposes in his theorisation of the race contract and the group domination contract, and thus, to honour the principle of a just social contract.

Petitions are a textual practice that has opened up a space for resistance to and contestation of colonial power and discourses. Petitions disrupt the monologism and logocentrism of colonial discourse and practices,18 and the mono-directionality of law-making, by interjecting speech acts of negotiation, and at the same time, of “abrogation” or contestation of imposed legislation and dominating discourses.19

In relation to contemporary Indigenous literature, a characteristic that some petitions seem to share with contemporary literary works is a testimonial or witnessing impulse. In the 1970s and 1980s, Indigenous life stories gathered momentum in the Australian literary scene.20 They were defined by Rubi Langford Ginibi as “probably the only information that a lot of students get that puts the Aboriginal point of view.”21 Sally Morgan’s My Place, moreover, has been considered as performing “a significant act of cultural brokerage” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the public sphere.22 Petitions, whose aspect of recording fragmentary life narratives had been highlighted by

17 Ellen Kropinyeri’s respose to the scientific and intellectual arguments of the early 1920s is an appropriate example. 18 I broadly draw the notion of disruption of monologism and logocentrism of “the texts of the empire” from the article by Simon Ryan, “A word with the Natives: Dialogic Encounters in Journals of Australian Exploration”, Australian and New Zealand Studies in Canada, 8 (1992), esp. pp. 72, 80. 19 I draw the notion of abrogation from Ashcroft et al, Empire Writes Back, pp. 37-39. 20 Anne Brewster, Literary Formations, p. 41; 21 Ruby Langford Ginibi, “Koori Dubays” in Spender (ed.) Heroines, Ringwood, Penguin, 1991, p. 129, quoted in Brewster, Literary Formations, p. 55. 22 T. Donaldson, “Australian Tales of Mistery and Miscegenation,” Meanjin 51, p. 350, quoted in Brewster, Literary Formations, p. 41.

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Penny van Toorn,23 encapsulate small récits, brief acts of story-telling. Their narrative mode is at times a mode of recollection,24 which can be moving and which can become other significant “acts of cultural brokerage” by offering insights into different perspectives.

From a methodological perspective, we can also find in Indigenous life writings acts of mediation and collaboration.25 These are: the polyvocal nature of some life stories; the risk of “displacing Indigenous voices”;26 practices of distancing the speaking voices of editors and authors;27 practices of retrieving the “sub-text” in original manuscripts of collaboratively edited works; editorial practices based on face-to-face collaboration; practices of giving decisional control over the final version of the text to the authors.28 These aspects of collaboration in life writings can be seen as being anticipated in petition writings since at least the mid-1840s.

At this point, I would like to extend the reflection on the notion of testimony in petitions. Shoshana Felman, among others, argues that “testimony is the literary - or discursive - mode par excellence of our times” and that “our era can be defined as the age of testimony.”29 She quotes Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, who stated “If the Greeks invented tragedy, the Romans the epistle, and the Renaissance the sonnet, our generation invented a new literature, that of testimony.”30 Felman sees the centrality of testimony in our contemporary society as addressing a sense of crisis about the issue of

23 van Toorn, “Indigenous Australian Life Writings”. 24 I’m here drawing a parallel between the narrative mode of recollection highlighted by Anne Brewster in Alice Nannup’s narrative in When the Pelican Laughed, and I borrow the term small récits, which Anne Brewster adopted in opposition to the “grand narratives” of postcolonial studies, in the sense of “small historically specific discussions” that “avoid subsuming difference in a pluralist model.” (see Brewster, Literary Formations, p. 55 and 22 respectively). I use the term also in its literal sense. 25 See for instance, among others, Jennifer Jones, Black Writers White Editors, especially the section “Questioning Collaboration”, pp. 206-236 (Jennifer Jones, Black Writers White Editors, North Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009); Paul Eggert, “Ideological Innocence: Editing in Australia,” Meridian 5, no. 2 (1986); Jackie Huggins and Isabel Tarrago, “Questions of Collaboration,” Hecate XVI, I-II (1990). 26 Jones, Black Writers, pp. 223-224. 27 Margaret Somerville, “Life (Hi)story Writing: the relation between Talk and text,” Australian Feminist Studies 12, 1990, p. 40; see for instance the collaborations of Wandjuk Marika and Jennifer Isaacs in Wandjuk Marika: Life Story, or of Paddy Roe and Stephen Muecke in Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley (1983) and of Krim Benterrak, Muecke and Roe in Reading the Country (first published in 1984). 28 Van Toorn, “Indigenous Australian life writings”, p. 17-19 29 Shoshana Felman, “Education, and Crisis, or the Vicissitudes of Teaching,” in Trauma: Explorations in Memory, ed. by Cathy Caruth, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1995, p. 17. 30 Elie Wiesel, Dimensions of the Holocaust, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1977, p. 9, quoted in Felman, “Education and Crisis”, p. 17.

259 truth, and defines three mutually interacting and coexisting dimensions in testimony: its historical, clinical and poetical dimensions.31

These insights are relevant to a concluding discussion of petitions in this dissertation. Felman highlights the fact that testimony is addressed to others.32 Petitions, as well as literary works, share this fundamental dimension of being overtly and directly addressed to others. She identifies the essence of testimony as being “historical; its function as that of recording events and reporting the facts of a historical occurrence.”33 Discussing Albert Camus’s “narrator-doctor-witness” in The Plague, she observes that the function of testimony is to “bear witness”, and that the act of writing, “the act of making the artistic statement of the novel” itself is “presented as an act of bearing witness to the trauma of survival.” And then she questions: “is the testimony (…) a simple medium of historical transmission, or is it (…) the unsuspected medium of healing?”34

If we adopt her thoughts on testimony in relation to the inclusion of Indigenous petitions in a contemporary Australian national literature anthology and to discussions of petitions in recent literary histories, it is possible to argue that the inclusion of a non-literary genre in the corpus of nationally significant literary works, testifies to a testimonial impulse towards the recording of the voices of those who, perhaps, did not have the luxury of writing in a literary genre. They testify also, to a “healing” dimension, that this witnessing can bring about.

On the poetic dimension of testimonies, Felman suggests that,

The holocaust testimonies in themselves are definitely, at least on their manifest level, as foreign to ‘poetry’ as anything can be, both in their substance and in their intent. Yet many of them attain, surprisingly, in the very structure of their occurrence, the dimension of discovery and advent inherent to the literary speech act, and the power of significance and impact of a true event of language - an event which can unwittingly resemble a poetic, or literary act.35

31 Felman, “Education and Crisis”, p. 45 32 Ibid., p. 14. 33 Ibid., p. 19. 34 Ibid., p. 20. 35 Ibid., p. 45.

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In light of her observations, I would propose that also some petitions do “unwittingly”, almost despite themselves, inadvertedly, attain a poetic dimension. I think for instance to the petitions from Coranderrk for freedom, but also to petitions from mothers asking to be reunited to their children.36 They engage in a dialogic process which testifies to the humanity of the petitioners and to their striving to reshape the inegalitarian terms of the contracts that had been imposed upon their lives.

Conclusions

This dissertation has offered pathways to understanding petitions’ specificity, to observing the expressive possibilities they offered, and the negotiations they enabled. Through these negotiations, which contemporary Indigenous literature continues in its aspects of social and political engagement, Indigenous petitioners tried to resist the contracts that were being imposed upon them and that denied them a position as contracting parties.

I have viewed petition writing within a concept of writing used as “means of communication to enter in a relationship with someone.”37 The textual space of the examined petitions empowered the petitioners by giving them a voice. By proposing a positive and informed view of collaboration in petition writing, I have proposed to not discard this voice, even when this is mediated in writing - through inter-racial, intergenerational, intra- and inter-clan collaborations - or when mediated in painting. In the petitions here examined, this voice points at legislative ambiguities and shows inconsistencies between a rhetoric of rights, equality, fair play of the dominating society on the one hand, and the reality of denial of rights, equality and fair and just treament of those belonging to the dominated society on the other.

36 See Appendix, doc. 5-7. 37 Marchesini, in his work Il Bisogno della scrittura (The Need of Writing), conceives writing as “scrittura in quanto mezzo per comunicare – per entrare in relazione conqualcuno o qualcosa – a tutti i livelli” (“a means to communicate - to enter in a relationship with someone or something - at all levels”, my transl.), Marchesini, Il Bisogno della scrittura, Bari, Laterza, 1992, p. viii.

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When petitions were published in the Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature in 2009, Peter Craven could have been seen as crying, “they have done violence to literature” - rephrasing Stéphane Mallarmé at the introduction of free verse in French poetry.38 However, I would suggest that at least some Indigenous petitions share the historical, clinical and poetic dimensions of testimonies outlined by Shoshana Felman. I would also suggest that, by being willing to listen to the voices articulated in these petitions, great insight can be gained into the circumstances from which they were speaking and into the corrective justice that could be implemented in order to give “fair right of consideration” to the perspectives they presented.

38Mallarmé announced at the Oxford University the introduction of free verse in French poetry in the following way: “I am bringing news (…) they have done violence to verse.” Quoted in Shoshana Felman, “Education and Crisis, or the Vicissitudes of Teaching”, in Cathy Caruth, Trauma. Explorations in Memory, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1995, pp. 26-27.

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Appendix

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1. Petition of Jonathan Goggey, an Aboriginal, of the colony [of New South Wales] praying for redress, reporting his ejectment from certain lands, addressed to the Governor General, 18 November 1857.

The petition of Jonathan Goggey, an Aboriginal, of the colony praying for redress, reporting his ejectment from certain lands -

Humbly Sheweth

That Petitioner’s father resided at Holdsworthy [sic] near Liverpool, on a Plot of Land, Known as Captain William’s Grant, for upwards of twenty-one years.

That a Person in the name of John Rowley had turned him off the Said land without showing just claim.

Petitioner therefore a Supplicant at the Hands of your Excellency, requireth that divine prerogation to be executed, which alone [might?] stoppeth the Other and the Petitioner will in duty Bound

Ever pray

Jonathan Goggey

George’s Hall

Near Liverpool

PS it may be as well to state that the land in question is subject to no personal claim, having been originally granted to Captain Williams.1

1 Jonathan Goggey’s petition to Governor General, 18 November 1857, SRNSW, NRS 7933, Dept of Lands and Public Works, Correspondence: letters received 1856-1866, 57/4196, [5/3581], identified by Terry Kass, consultant historian and researcher in Lands Department history, reproduced in Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, pp. 58-59.

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2. Petition from William Barak and others to Chief Secretary J.A. Macpherson, Coranderrk, 20 October 1875, about their wish to remain at Coranderrk and to have Mr Green reappointed as manager of the Station.

Coranderrk

Oct 20th 1875

(the day the Month we had a Meeting here)

I William Barak

Remember of Coranderrk

I would if you be so kind to help us for we are in trouble and I will Name the Names of those who are willing to live and die here these are them that agree to stop

[first column] Harry, Bobby Wandon, Johnny Webster, Jemmy Webster, Dick, Peter Hunter, Tommy Banfield, Samson Barber, Tommy Dunolly, George, Edward, Johnny Terrick, Tommy Farmer, Johnny Charles, [second column] Willie Barker, Willie Buskumbe, Martin Simpson, Johnny Phillip, Tommy Avoca, Tommy Were, Jemmy Barker, Willie Tulgium, Tommy Hanet, Jemmy Race all present

We want a man whom God chosen to lay the foundation of Coranderrk Station for he it is appointed us to the living God and that’s Mr Green for if it wasn’t for him we what a been all dead and that’s all we require Just now& many the Lord bless you Sir and give you good knowledge

I remain you

Kind Friend

William Barak2

2 PROV, VA 475, Chief Secretary’s Dept, VPRS 3991, Inward Registered Correspondence II, Unit 834, 75/12439, reproduced in Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, p. 135. Van Toorn notes how the petition was “sent to local judge and parliamentarian George Harker, who forwarded it to Chief Secretary Macpherson with a covering letter supporting the men’s wish to remain at Coranderrk.” (ibid, p. 134)

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3. Petition from William Barak and others presented to the Board appointed to inquire into Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, 5 September 1881.

The only complaint we have is this, we all wish Mr. Green back here in Mr. Strickland’s position.

Mr. Strickland is not a fit man here in regard to work and also to the sick people; he has no idea of tilling the ground or making any improvements on the station, or doing any good for the welfare of the black there; no potatoes or hay here on the station, and the station ought (to) keep itself in meat but it does not; we all have to buy meat.

When Mr. Green was here he used to be doing what Mr. Strickland is doing now, that is, he used to preach the gospel and also do the farming work, and also do what Mr. Capt. Page is doing now as inspector, and made a good improvement; and now it takes three men and there is no improvement.

If Mr. Green had the use of the money what is laid now since he left, there would (be) something what the station would be able to pay back. We are all sure if we had Mr. Green back the station would self-support itself. No wonder the visitors that come here and go away and say the station ought to be sold, when we won’t be allowed to clear the ground; the Central Board, and the manager too, are only leaving this open for to give room to the white people to have something to say about it.

The only thing we wish is Mr. Green removed back here, and then they will see that (the) station will (be) improved better, and will also see that those who speak against us will see we have a head manager of us. So that (is) all we all have to say.

These are the names of our men what are agreeable and hope to be carried out -- Wm. Barak, Thos. Banfield [Bamfield], Dick Richard, Thos. Avoca, Terrick Johnny, Thos. Gillman, Lankey, Willie Hamilton, Alick Campbell, Thos. Dunolly, Martin Simpson, Alfred Morgan, H. Harmony, R. Wandon, J. Briggs.3

3 William Barak et al. to E.H. Cameron, “Minutes of evidence taken before the board appointed to inquire into the condition of the Aboriginal station at Coranderrk”, p. 60, in Victoria Legislative Assembly, Votes and Proceedings, 1882-83, vol. 2; reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, doc. 10, p. 46; see also doc. 11, pp. 46-47. My subdivision into paragraphs.

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4. William Barak and others presented to the Board appointed to inquire into Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, to be no longer under the authority of the Board and the current Inspector, and for the reinstatement of Mr John Green as manager, Coranderrk, 16 November 1881.

Coranderrk Station, November 16th 1881

Sir,

We want the Board and the Inspector, Captain Page, to be no longer over us. We want only one man here, and that is Mr. John Green, and the station to be under the Chief Secretary; then we will show the country that the station could self-support itself.

These are the names of those that wish this to be done.

[first column] Wm. Barak X, Thos. Mickie X, Dick Richard X, Thos. Avoca X, Thos. Gilman X, Johnny Terrick X, Lankey X, Spider X, M. Simpson, H. Harmoney, Alfred Morgan, Robert Wandon, [second column] Alick Campbell X, Thos Dunolly, Alfred Davis, Willie Parker, Willie Hamilton X, Johnny Charles, Jemima Wandon, Emma Campbell X, Jenny Campbell, Lizzy Charles X, Eliza Mickie X, Roy X, [third column] Ellen Richard X, Harriett X, Annie Hamilton X, Mary X, Jessie Dunolly, Louisa Hunter X, Dina Hunter, Caroline Morgan X, Maggie Harmoney, Lizzie Davis, Metild Simpson X, [fourth column] Edith Brangy, Mary Ann McClennan, Bella Lee, Alice Grant, Thomas Dick, William Edmond, Alexander Briggs, Abel Terrick, Finnemore Jackson, Joseph Hunter, Johon Patterson4

4 PROV, VA 475 Chief Secretary Dept, VPRS 1226 Supplementary Inward Registered Correspondence, Unit 4, Y6176, “Minutes of evidence taken before the board appointed to enquire into the condition of the Aboriginal station at Coranderrk”, p. 98.

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5. Margaret Harrison, née Margaret Green, to Captain Page, Secretary of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, Ebenezer, 9 April 1884, asking to be reunited with her remaining two children, residing at Lake Condah.

Dear Sir,

Please would you kindly allow me to have my two girls with me here as one of them died & I have not see her before she died and should like the other two to be with me to comfort me.

Please do not disappoint me for my heart is breaking to have them with me. Please to send them up here as I shall not leave this station

Please to ask Mr Stähle to let them come

I am yours obedient

Servant

Margaret Harrison P.S. let me know5

6. Margaret Harrison, to the Governor of Victoria, Ebenezer, 11 April 1891.

To the Governor please sir if you can do some kiness[.] I have a got a girl send away from the Station up to Correnderrke Station[.] I would like to get her back[.] Sir I am not very strong myself[.] I am very sickly[.] I would like to her back from that Station and I shall be very thankfull[.]

I am yours

most obedient

servant

Margaret Harrison6

5 Margaret Harrison to Captain Page, Ebenezer, 9 April 1884, NAA, B313/1, 122, reproduced in Elizabeth Nelson, Sandra Smith and Patricia Grimshaw (eds.), Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, 1867-1926, Melbourne, University of Melbourne, 2002, p. 30. Earlier in September 1883 Margaret Harrison had requested Captain Page to let her have her children with her; they had been moved to Lake Condah by Rev. Stähle, who considered her “a bad mother”. When seriously ill, Margaret also requested Carl Kramer, missionary at Ebenezer, to write to Stähle to the same effect but the Board for the Protection of Aborigines refused her request. In early April 1884, however, one of her daughters, Edith Taylor, died. Upon this event and Margaret’s letter, Rev. Stähle wrote to Captain Page stating that “under the present circumstances I do not wish to object to Margaret Harrison getting them [her children]” (Ibid., pp. 29-30). 6 Margaret Harrison to Governor of Victoria, Ebenezer, 11 April 1891, PROV, VPRS 3992/PO, unit 406, item R4320. After Margaret’s daughters Alice and Julia joined their mother at Ebenezer, Julia died in June 1885 aged 11, and Alice was moved to live at Coranderrk by the Board in 1890. This letter, which asks for

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7. Alice Murray to Captain Page, Secretary, BPA, Birregurra, 5 January 1879, praying for a pass to go and see her son at Coranderrk.

Please Mr Bedge (Page) send me a pass as I want to see Pompy at Coronderrich and his mother very sorry want to see you & hope you will see me down there & his mother awful sorry for her son[;] tell Grandmother I could not get away & my sister helen[;] please I am coming down if I can & Mr Bedge please send me a pass

I remain

yours respectfully

Alice Murray

pompy mother

love to my son

I awfuly

anxious

to see

him

Alice Murray7

her return at Ebenezer, was referred to the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, which refused the request on the grounds that Rev. Bogisch “reported that he did not believe Alice wanted to return to Ebenezer.” (Nelson et al, Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, p. 31). 7 Alice Murray to Captain Page, Birregurra, 5 January 1879, NAA, B313/1, 189, reproduced in Nelson et al., Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, p. 26.

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8. W. Bray to Protector of Aboriginals, Alice Springs, April 1941, stating that they do not want their children removed from them and their country and protesting any forcible removal.

Protector Aboriginals Alice Springs

Central Australia NT.

April 1941

Dear Sir

I myself, and my wife, both half castes we understand, do not want any of our children removed, out of this Central Australia their country.

It would not be fair to us, the loss of them. Also not fair to them the loss of their parents, causing crying and fretting.

We parents, born Arltunga Goldfields, children also, except one, he being the eldest Norman. He born Deep Well, part of the east-west running James Range.

As we were all born here in Central Australia, we don’t know any other parts, and don’t want to.

Will you please place this Protest, as we do not understand any forcible removal, of any of us, from this Central Australia, out birthright country.

Yours truly W Bray

W.BRAY = His Signature8

8 W. Bray to Protector of Aboriginals, April 1941, reproduced in Rowena MacDonald, Between two worlds: the Commonwealth government and the removal of Aboriginal children of part descent in the Northern Territory: an Australian Archives exhibition, Alice Springs, IAD Press, 1995, p. 47.

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9. William Cooper to J.M.Chanter, MLA, 11 November 1887 requesting a grant of land.

I most respectfully beg to state that I shall feel deeply obliged if you will be good enough to use your influence toward securing a piece of land for me. I am anxious to get a home and make some provisions for my wife and daughter & as I am an honest and hard-working man, the land will be applied to a legitimate use. I want a grant of land that I can call my own so long as I and my family live and yet without the power of being able to do away with the land.

Farming barely sufficient to maintain my family decently I find it therefore impossible to pay for a selection. I shall be perfectly satisfied with 100 acres adjoining the Maloga Aboriginal Reserve if possible. I do trust you will be successful in securing this small portion of a vast territory that is ours by Divine right. We know that grants of land have been made to Aborigines in other parts of N.S.W. and that they have been abused but as there have been no grants made to our tribe I beg you to give us a trial.

Hoping to get a favourable reply.9

9 Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence, 1/2667, Archives Office of New South Wales; reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, doc. 17, p. 53.

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10. William Adams, Robert Wanganeen and Henry Angic to the Commissioner of Public Works, South Australia, 19 February 1894.

A few weeks ago when the village settlements scheme was being discussed in town[,] Point Pearce was mentioned as a likely spot for a settlement by some of the members of the unemployed and by one member of the Government. Considering that there are from eighty to ninety souls on the Station to feed, clothe, and shelter, the action proposed by the unemployed and one of the members of the Government was little less than inhuman. We, as children of the original owners of the land, presume that we have a right to be considered in the disposal of the land. It was after years of hard labour and self-sacrifice that has made Point Pearce what it is. Besides, what gain would it be to turn a lot of people off to put another on? We consider that the land on Point Pearce is now being put to its best use. It would be impossible for the land to hold any more than at the present time. As it is we are only deriving from the land a mere existence. Compare the land that is on Point Pearce to the millions of acres that are in South Australia; why it is only about the size of a threepenny bit. We are, sir, on behalf of the residents of the Point Pearce Mission Station.

P.S. How is it we are not allowed to vote? As law-abiding and peaceful subjects of the British Crown we don’t see any reasons why we should not be allowed to vote, as we are made subjects to the laws in South Australia we deem it only fair and just that we should be allowed to have a voice in the framing of those laws.10

10 Register (Adelaide), 21 February 1894; reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, doc. 22, pp. 55-56.

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11. Petition from the Narrinjeri tribe and leaders of the Campbell clan, to the Premier of South Australia to have the Point Macleay Mission taken over by the Government, as reproduced in The Advertiser, 12 April 1907.

The Premier has received the following petition from 18 aborigines of the Point Macleay Mission Station: - We, the undersigned Naranjeries tribe, and leaders of the Campbell clan, beg to request your Government to take over the work at Point Macleay, and to carry it on as the Government of Victoria carry on the blacks’ station at Korundurk [Coranderrk], in the State. At present the true aborigines of the lakes get little or no benefit from the mission. All the money your Government give us is spent on white officers and the half-white population of the place. The real blacks do not get the value of £ 50 a year out of it all. Of course, the mission does a great lot of preaching and praying, but we old natives of the soil would do with less of that and more of food, clothes, and Better tents. In fact, we are too badly dressed to attend the church, and too ill-fed to think much about praying. But we do pray you to take over the place; we may then be better off. We can’t be worse off.

We are, dear sir, yours (signed on behalf of the clan) - real aborigines - P. Campbell, J. Unaipon, L. Campbell, Stonewell F. Blackmoor, A. Blackmoor, W. Newland, F. Waster, A. Harding, G. Harris, N. Pearcis, W. Campbell, J. Lock, E. Rankine, P. Williams, F. Blackmoor, G. Seymour, A. Karloan.11

11 Among the petitioners, Leonard Campbell, accompanied by Willy Rankine and John Stanley, would later present the petition written by Ellen Kropinyeri for repeal of the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act, 1923 at The Register on 20 December 1923. Expressions such as the “true” or “real aborigines”, “the real blacks”, “we old natives of the soil” stress the indigeneity of the petitioners.

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12. John McDougall and others to the Members of the Aboriginal Board, Lake Tyers Mission Stn, n.d., received 18 August 1913, asking that the Mrs Bulmer and her daughter be allowed to remain on the Station.

Lake Tyers Mission Stn

To the Members of the Aboriginal Board

Sirs

We the undersigned of / Lake Tyers Mission station, amongst whom the late Revd John Bulmer labored and spent his life[,] wish to / respectfully place this petition before your committee for conderation, and ask for a kindly hearing of the same. We will try and make ourselves understood. It is on behalf of Mrs Bulmer and Miss Ethel Bulmer [underlined as in the original, possibly by the recipient] that we are concerned about. The late Revd John Bulmer spent his life time amongst us and / to him, and Mrs Bulmer assisted by the Church / Missionary association, a home at Lake Tyers was / founded here for the few natives now living / and also through the teaching received, that many / were led to lead better lives. Now our / beloved minister, friend, adviser, and father has gone / to his well earned rest, and for him all eartlhy / cares are ended, and we now miss his familiar / face among us. For over (50) fifty years he / laboured among the natives, and we will probably / never get another to spend a life of self- sacrifice / as he did. What we wish for and our petition / [following page] Would the Aboriginal Board give their / consent, and allow Mrs Bulmer if she wished, to spend / her remaining years here at Lake Tyers, and also that / Miss Ethel Bulmer be allowed to live with her and / cary on the work in which she assisted her late / fath er, conducting Sunday school, and services occasionally. Yesterday Sunday there was / neither Sunday school or Church, and if this is / what is before us, then it is a poor outlook for the / children and younger ones growing up. We / would pray that you will give our petition every / consideration, and trusting to have made ourselves / understood, we the people of Lake Tyers are

Your most respectfully

(1) John McDougall Bella Mc Dougall (Mrs) 11 (2) William Johnson Maggie Johnson (Mrs) 12 3 [illigible name] Login Alice Login (Mrs) 13 4 Charlie Green Lydia Green (Mrs) 14 5 Andrew Chaser Catherine Chase (Mrs) 15 6 Bertie Stephen Polly Stephen (Mrs) 16

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7 Edward Foster Rose Foster (Mrs) 17 8 Isaac jennings Lizzie Jennings (Mrs) 18 9 Hector Bull Fanny Bull (Mrs) 19 10 Jacob Harrison Martha Scott (Mrs) 20 Thomas Scott [following page]

21 Bruggin Scott Sarah Scott (Mrs) 46 22 James O’ Rourke Eliza O’Rourke (Mrs) 47 23 Neddy Moffatt Florence Moffatt (Mrs) 48 24 Collin Hood Ellen Hood (Mrs) 49 25 Cecilia Johnson Robert Johnson 50 26 [signature above on both spaces] [as for Mrs Johnson on 25/26] 51 27 H. W. Hayes C Hayes (Mrs) 52 28 W Hayes E. Barrett 29 A Cooper 30 W Cooper 31 David Mullett Maud Mullett (Mrs) 32 W Edwards E. Edwards (Mrs)12 33 J Mullett

[the numbers on the first column continue up to 45, with no further signatures next to the numbers]

12 John McDougall and others to the Members of the Aboriginal Board, Lake Tyers Mission Stn, n.d., received by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines on 18 August 1913, VPRS 1694/P/0 Unit 6, Petition 18/8/1913.

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Fig. A1. John McDougall and others to the Members of the Aboriginal Board, Lake Tyers Mission Stn, n.d., received by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines on 18 August 1913, page 1. Courtesy of Public Records Office of Victoria.

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Fig. A2. John McDougall and others to the Members of the Aboriginal Board, Lake Tyers Mission Stn, n.d., received 18 August 1913, page 2.

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13. Petition from Aborigines of Lake Tyers to the Governor of Victoria, 9 September 1913, asking that the Mrs Bulmer and her daughter be allowed to remain on the Station.

Sep. 9. 1913

Petation [Petition] From Lake Tyers Mission / To the Governor of Victoria

Sir as a Body of People who are very / few and also who are being kept by the / Government we beg for you to help us on / And Also to give to us the People we would / Love to be amongst us those who we are / Asking for are Mrs Bulmer and her Daughter / Miss Ethel Bulmer[.] Mrs Bulmer has been amongst / Us over 30 40 [as corrected on the original] years and has been like a / Mother to us [.] She was with Mr John Bulmer / when our Parents were young and in their / wild State[,] now their [there] is some of them alive / hear [here] who don’t want Mrs Bulmer to / go away from them [.] Their [there] is some of us who are young / and who have been Cared for by Mrs Bulmer / and also her daughter we have been brought / up with the Bulmer Family and it will / be very hard for them to be sent away [.] Miss / Bulmer is a good Christian Woman and a good / Help to our Children as for Mrs Bulmer / we all want her to Live the Rest of her / Life with us those of us who have a family / We know the help Mrs Bulmer and Miss Ethel / has given in the time of Sickness / not only when they had the Station but after / Mr Bulmer had handed it to the Present Manager / And his wife although Mrs Bulmer has nothing / to do with the Mission She still Looks / after us in the time of trouble in the / way of a mother she Loves the Blacks / and we love her we do beg to have her and / her daughter with us not only for our Selves / but for the sake of our Children as Miss / Bulmer at Present is the Children’s Sunday School / Teacher [.] we have sent in one Patation [petition] but / We heard no more about it so we have / Made up our minds to see you’r / Honour the Governor of Victoria as we know / you will help us and see that we are / treated in the Proper way the Station is / a Place that want to be seen into by / some one who will look into things and they / will know we hope and Belive [believe] this / Petation will be Carred through for us [.]

By Your Honour we Remain your Humble

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Servants Aboriginals of Lake Tyers

Those in Favour of the Bulmer Family / To live and to Help us in our Life / of Living and the Saving of the Children from the Gambling going on at the Station at Present

Names [first column] John McDougall, William Johnson, Thomas Scott, Robert Johnson, Jack Hood, Hector Bull, Jacob Harrison, William Hayes, C.A. Login, Charlie Green, Adam Cooper, Richard Cooper, Ned Moffatt, Lawrence Moffatt, W. Bull, Braggin Scott, William Edwards, Beit Stephenson, Andrew Chase, Isaac Jennings, Edward Foster, Collin Hood, Harry Hayes, Corney Edwards, James O Rourke, Bertie Stephen, Charles Wright, Names [second column] Florence Moffatt, Sarah Scott, Lizzie Jennings, Elsie Barrett, Nellie Blair, Catherine Chase, Helen Hoods, Ada Harrison, Lydia Green, Alice Login, Annie Harrison, Maud Login, Maggie Johnson, Fanny Bull, Polly Stephen, Eliza Edwards, Willie Edwards, Martha Scott, Rose Foster, Isabella O’Rourke, Eliza O’Rourke, Caroline Hayes, Cecilia Johnson. [50 signatures]

J.P. Pepper, Half Cast Cunninghame / who has Relations on Lake Tyers / Knowing what the People want and / Acting as Leader of this Petation [petition] / My siginitures [sic] Percy Pepper

Witness Julia Thorpe G.O.R.13

13 VPRS, 1694/P/0, Unit 12, File N8364, pp. 534-532.

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Fig. A3. Aborigines of Lake Tyers to the Governor of Victoria, 9 September 1913, page 1. Courtesy of Public Records Office of Victoria.

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Fig. A4. Aborigines of Lake Tyers to the Governor of Victoria, 9 September 1913, page 2.

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14. Appeal of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association to Men and Women of Australia, The Federal Capital Pioneer Magazine, 20 July 1927.

THE ABORIGINES. Appeal To Men and Women of Australia

The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association have [has] issued an appeal in which their only request is the rights of citizenship for themselves and their families.

"We implore your generous assistance in our effort to obtain simple justice for the aboriginals of this State. Our requests are few and their equity cannot be denied. We are only asking for citizen rights as set out in the following request made to the State Government, viz.:

"(a) That all capable aboriginals shall be given in fee simple sufficient good land to maintain a family.

"(b) That the family life of the aboriginal people shall be held sacred and free from invasion and that the children shall be left in the control of their parents.

"(c) That the incapables of the aboriginal community (the direct liability of the Government consequent upon neglect in the past) be properly cared for in suitable homes on reserves, the full expense of such establishments to be borne by the Government.

"(d) That the supervision of all such aboriginal homes, hostels, or reserves be entrusted to the educated aboriginals possessing the requisite ability for such management.

"(e) That the control of aboriginal affairs, apart from common law rights, shall be vested in a board of management comprised of capable educated aboriginals under a chairman to be appointed by the Government.

"We confidently anticipate your kindly endorsement of this just request, feeling sure that it is your desire to give our people and their children every reasonable opportunity in our own land. We are only asking to be given the same privileges regarding our family life as are being freely offered to people from other countries.

"Committing our plea for assistance to your characteristic love of fair play, we are."

The appeal is signed by F. G. Maynard, president, and T. Lacey, hon. treasurer.14

14 The Federal Capital Pioneer Magazine (Canberra), 20 July 1927, p. 22. This appeal was reproduced also in the article “Australian Aborigines. Appeal to New South Wales,” Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), 18 July 1927, with some minor differences (semi-colon instead of full-stop at the end of each point of the appeal;

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Fig. A5. Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, “Appeal to Men and Women of Australia”, Federal Capital Pioneer Magazine, 20 July 1927.

“namely” instead of “viz.” in the first paragraph of the appeal; no quotation marks marking the appeal) and with the following opening and closing lines: “Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association has issued the following appeal to the men and women of. New South Wales”; “The appeal, which concludes: ‘Our only, request is the rights of citizenship for ourselves and our families’ is signed by F. G. Maynard, president; and T. Lacey, Hon. Treasurer, of the association.” Both articles available on Trove, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66351160 and http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45969131.

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15. Petition for a Model Aboriginal State, addressed to the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, received 20th October 1927, ordered to be printed 11 November 1927.

To the Honorable the Speaker and the Honorable the Members of the House of Representatives of the Commonweatlh Parliament of Australia, in Parliament assembled -

The Humble Petition of the undersigned residents within the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully sheweth: -

THAT WHEREAS: -

1. It was not only a moral duty, but also a strict injunction included in the Commission issued to those who came to people Australia that the original occupants should be cared for. 2. The Aboriginal races are most fast dying out because: - (a) Our well-meant and costly experiments in their interests have not been sufficiently on the right lines. (b) There have been cases of individual cruelty and oppression which it has been practically impossible for the Government to deal with. (c) Owing to domestic preoccupation so many citizens of Australia have overlooked the claims of the native races and not realized what the alienation of their hunting grounds meant to them. (d) The self-sacrificing efforts of missionaries who have done inestimable work have been necessarily limited. 3. In their wild state the natives for centuries have been nomads and hunters but since white occupation their position has become serious, and with the increased pastoral occupation following the construction of railways their already greatly depleted sources of food supplies will be further diminished. 4. The opinion so generally held that the Australian native is the lowest type of humanity in the world is now found to be quite erroneous. On the contrary he does not belong to any negro race and has been proved to possess great mental powers, ability to quickly learn, and can be taught agriculture, engineering, carpentering, &c., while there are already a number of native Christian clergy. 5. If we regard the native races as our spiritual equals, if we recognize their rights and do not treat them merely as chattels, if we assist them to accommodate their methods to new

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conditions, if we return to them areas of country on which they may work out their own salvation safeguarded form the envious eyes of encroaching white population, we shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that even at the eleventh hour we have endeavoured to redeem any neglect, indifference or maladministration in the past and to do substantial justice. And the aboriginal will pay us back. We shall assuredly find that we have races of people who will be of immense help in developing our empty Northern Estate particularly the more torrid zones. And we shall find that, relieved of so much attention to material affairs, the self-sacrificing spiritual work of missionaries will be greatly accelerated.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honorable House -

1. (a) Will cause to be constituted a model Aboriginal State to be ultimately managed by a native tribunal as far as possible according to their own laws and customs but prohibiting cannibalism and cruel rites. In the meantime such assistance, as may be necessary, to be given, the greatest care being exercised that only those of the highest ability and the very fullest sympathy should be selected for this work. Provision to be made that ultimately the Government may be conducted by aborigines, and that it would be possible at some future time that the Administrator himself could be a native. (b) The Constitution to prohibit, under a very severe penalty, any persons, other than aborigines, except Federal Government officials and duly authorized missionaries, teachers and agricultural instructors from entering this State. (c) The governing tribunal to decide the extent to which control shall be exercised over such natives still in their wild condition as are within the State. (d) No native to be detained in the State against his will but upon his leaving any land allotted to him to revert to the Crown. (e) The State to have representation in the Federal Parliament on the lines (in a modified form at first) of the Maoris in New Zealand. (f) That every assistance be given to the governing tribunal for the rigorous medical control and treatment of contagious diseases, especially venereal and tubercular.

Among the many full-blooded aboriginals competent to assist in founding the proposed State may be mentioned Rev. Jas Noble and Mr David Unaipon, who is at present engaged in anthropological work at the Adelaide University.

It is noted that no attempt should be made to force any natives into the proposed State, the nucleus of which to be those tribes now occupying the country to be transferred. If these new plans are found to be on the right lines, it will be, no doubt, advisable later on to create one or more other Native States.

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2. (a) That, with regard to aborigines who come in contact with white people, the regulations and supervision should be tightened up so as to prevent to a greater extent the blighting influence of immoral Europeans and others. (b) That natives who have no regular approved employment or are hangers on to the fringe of civilization should be removed far away from possible contaminating contacts. (c) That annual returns should be required from all persons who have or have had during the past year Aborigines in their employ. And, as in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Signatures Addresses (Town and State)

Fig. A6. Petition for a Model Aboriginal State, Canberra, Government Printer, 1927, SROWA, Cons. 1496, item 1927/709.

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16. Petition from Aborigines in the State of South Australia, residents at Point McLeay Mission Station, to the Members of the House of Assembly, 23 March 1936, for a better system of management to control the affairs of the Aborigines.

To the Honorable the Members of the House of Assembly in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned Aborigines in the State of South Australia

Humble showeth

That

As residents of the Point McLeay Mission Station, we earnestly desire to bring before the Government the urgent need there is for a better System of management to control the affairs of the Aborigines, [punctuation as in the original]

At Present the control of the Aborigines is in the hands of a chief Protector who is clothed with authority by Parliament to Perform his duties, which dates back to the early days of colonisation.

And therefore as residents of Point McLaey we would like to impress upon the Government the urgent need for a change of Policy to be introduced in the administration, by the appointment of one Aborigines Protection Board, which we consider would be beneficial especially in regards to the necessities and requirements of the Aborigines, not only on this Station but throughout the whole State of South Australia, and it is also evident, that it would greatly assist the Government in carrying out its obligations to a Subject race.

And as residents of the Point McLeay Mission Station we respectfully advance the following reasons for the appointment of an Aborigines Protection Board.

(1) The cheif [sic] Protector in the early days controled [sic], and dealt with natives who were in a Primitive condition whose needs were few but with the advance of civilisation conditions and circumstances have so changed that it is imperative for the older order to Pass away. And as residents of Point McLeay we are convinced through wisdom derived from the changes and trials of life, that the Present System

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of control which [h]as grown up in the State through a course of years, has now become inefficient and obsolete. (2) It is obvious that a great change [h]as taken place here at Point McLeay, in the early days when this Mission was first established, it was controled [sic] by a christian body of men, who were wholly interested in the welfare of the Aborigines, and much of the needs and requirements of the Aborigines were met by this controling [sic] body, and the Superintendent in those days Secured outside employment for the young and other able-bodied Aborigines of this Station, such as road work and clearing and other vocations, then there was the wool-washing industry which was carried on successfully under the Supervisions of the Aborigines Freinds [sic] Association. But today the Situation has entirely changed that it is imperative that some new method be exercised to cope with the necessary requirements of the Aborigines at the Present time. There is a Population of 353 Aborigines on this Station and with the Pressure of other duties and the constant demands that are made to the Aboriginals Department for assistance and other things that are necessary for life, it is no easy matter to comply, and satisfy the needs of the People and so we urge that an Aborigines Protection Board be appointed so as to deal effectively with the Situation. (3) An Aborigines Protection Board would be beneficial in assisting the Government in any scheme as regard the Social education and development of the Aborigines, and especially the train[in]g of the rising generation in some definite avocation which would give them a better chance in the general life of the community So that eventually they may be able to take their Stand among the civilised People (4) We consider that our welfare would be much better advanced by a board than by any one Person acting as cheif [sic] Protector and we feel sure that the outlook of the Aborigines in the future would completely change if some new method were introduced which would aim to give us a better Place in the community as workers, instead of being condemned to idleness as is in the case under the Present System While taking the blame for many failures in the Past we can honestly say that the lack of success in making good in fishing, trapping and other vocations has arisen to a considerable extent for the want of Proper assistance and Supervisions by the authority and so we feel Sure that under a board of expert minds a new era would

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come by which the long Standing reproach that we are a burden to the State might be removed.

It is well known that Point McLeay and Point Pearce [h]as an overcrowded population of about 696 inhabitants, without taking into account the Aborigines scattered throughout the whole State of South Australia, and the necessary requirements for their Subsistence, and the care of the Sick and indigent, the aged and infirm, and especially the question of employment for the many young men, and other able-bodied Aborigines on this Station should receive more serious consideration, these and many other questions press upon the Aboriginals Department and cannot be dealt with adequately, and so we urge that the responsibility of such work, for promoting the welfare of the Aborigines be transferred to a an Aborigines Protection Board, for the cause of justice and better treatment of the Aborigines in the future.

Your petitioners therefore

humbly pray that your Honourable House will provide

for an Aborigines Protection Board

And your Petitioners, as in duty

bound, will ever pray.

Creighton Uniapon. Point McLeay Mission Station Labourer Con. Gollan G. Seymour E.N. Kropinyeri W. Rankine H. Ulingbo Jacob Harris

[Signatures on the following page, first column] NAMES Percy Rigney (Snr), Mrs Bessie H. Rigney, Percy Rigney Jnr, Daphne Rigney, X Fred M Hughes, Geoffrey Carter Jnr, Gef Carter, H A M Hughes, W M Tripp [first letter of surname unclear], E Dodd, Edward Rigney, Dan Gollan, Grace Gollan, Spencer Rigney, Dulcie Wilson, Ronald Rigney, Seth Dodd, V D Long, C O. Wilson, C. Rigney, W. Rigney, A. Rigney, C.J. Wilson, A. Wilson, O Kartinyeri, V. Rigney, Thelma Kartinyeri, A. Kartinyeri, R. Kartinyeri, E. Gaebson, Effie Jackson, Gordon W. Rigney, Joyce Rigney, Frank Lovegrove (jnr), Edna Rigney,

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[second column] A Rankine, B Karpany, N. O. Loughlin, K A Rankine, A.J.Rankine, M Kantance [forth letter of surname unclear], I Mack, K.M. Rankine, Myrtle Gollan, Fred Gollan, J. Kelly, H Rankine, [two unclear signatures], G Wilson, G. C. Gollan, Fanny Rigney, P. Carter, G. Campbell, R Wilson, A Karpeny, R. Dodd, F. Dodd, I Uniapon, Mrs Rampany, L. Wilson, Mrs L Wilson, L Wassa, T. Unaipon, Amy Walker, Len Gollan, Ella Sumner, Wiltshire Sumner, Martha Wilson, [third column] John Wilson Jnr, Harry Carter, Rodije Alberks, J Sumner, D Sumner, A Sumner, W Gollan, D. Lampard, H. I Sumner, Mrs H.V. Sumner, H.V. Rigney, M B Kartinyeri, R Carter, Tom Nittoon, W Wassa, L Harris, Nancy Harris, R. Harris, C. M Gollan, M S. Gollan, I Campbell, M Campbell, W Butcher, O Hewitt, M. A. Cameron, A Cameron, J Kartinyeri, Mrs Kartinyeri [punctuation as on the original]15

Fig. A7. Petition from the residents at Point McLeay Mission Station, S.A., to the Members of the House of Assembly, 23 March 1936, for a better system of management, page 1.

15 Creighton Uniapon, E.N. Kroninyeri, H. Ulingbo, G. Seymour, W. Rankine, Jacob Harris and others, Point McLeay Mission Station, to the Members of the House of Assembly, 23 March 1936, SRSA, GRG52/1/43/31/36.

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17. Aborigines May Petition King For Citizenship, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 January 1946.

Aborigines May Petition King For Citizenship

Full rights as Australian citizens for aborigines, including direct representation in Parliament, were demanded by resolutions carried at a protest meeting of aborigines and supporters in The Boot Trades Hall, Redfern, last night.

The meeting, called by the Aborigines' Progressive Association, also demanded a gaol sentence for an Oodnadatta station manager who was recently fined £ 135 on seven charges of assaulting aborigines by confining them in chains.

Magna Carta and the Commonwealth Constitution were quoted by Mr J B Steel member of the Committee for Aboriginal Citizenship and secretary of the Howard Reform league in declaring that aborigines were entitled to the rights which the meeting was demanding.

He urged a direct appeal to the Prime Minister Mr Chifley and failing a satisfactory reply a petition to the King through the Duke of Gloucester.

Motions incorporating this course of action were carried on the motion of Mr B Groves, an aboriginal ex-Serviceman.16

16 “Aborigines May Petition King For Citizenship”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 January 1946, p. 3, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17967375.

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Fig. A8. “Aborigines May Petition King For Citizenship”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 January 1946.

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18. Petition for Constitutional amendment from the electors of New South Wales to the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives, launched by the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship.

ABORIGINAL-AUSTRALIAN FELLOWSHIP ______14 Lupin Ave. Herne Bay, NSW GPO Box 3193 Sydney Tel BU6001

Patrons: Dame Mary Gilmore, Eric Baume, Esq., G. O’Grady, Esq. President: Herbert S. Groves, J.P., former Aboriginal Representative, Aborigines Welfare Board Vice-Presidents: Mrs. Pearl Gibbs, N.S.W. Aboriginal Representative, Aborigines Welfare Board The Rev. W.A. Clint, Director of Co-operatives, Australian Board of Missions T. Duncan, Esq. Honorary Secretary: Mrs I. Mcllraith

PETITION TO THE HONORABLE THE SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED

THE HUMBLE PETITION of the Electors of the State of New South Wales respectfully sheweth - The Aboriginal Residents of Australia suffer from disabilities political, social and economic, and that these in important respects are not remediable without Amendment of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, and that Aborigines are entitled to human rights equally with other Australians -

YOUR PETITIONERS THEREFORE HUMBLY PRAY THAT the Government of the Commonwealth bring down a Constitution Alteration Bill in the Parliament of the Commonwealth, and submit the Bill when passed to a Referendum of the people, each at the earliest practicable date, so as to: (1) Delete the words underlined in Section 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution of the Commonwealth (other than “the Aboriginal race in any State”) which gives power to the Parliament of the Commonwealth to make laws to respect to “the people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws”, and (2) Delete Section 127 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth which reads, “In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State, or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted”.

AND your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.17

17 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, MS9377, State Library of Victoria, reproduced under the title “Petition, Aboriginal Australian Fellowship, 1957” in Sue Taffe, “Collaborating for

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Fig. A9. Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, Petition for Constitutional amendment, 1957.

Indigenous Rights”, National Museum of Australia, 2008, http://indigenousrights.net.au/document.asp?iID=1042.

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19. Yirrkala Bark petition, praying “that no arrangements be entered into with any company which will destroy the livelihood and independence of the Yirrkala people”, presented to the House of Representatives, Canberra, 14 and 28 August 1963.

The Humble Petition of the Undersigned aboriginal people of Yirrkala, being members of the Balamumu, Narrkala, Gapiny, Miliwurrwurr people and Djapu, Mangalili, Madarrpa, Magarrwanalinirri, Gumaitj, Djamparrpuynu, Marrakulu, Galpu, Dhalnayu, Wangurri, Warramirri, Maymil, Rirritjinu, tribes, respectfully sheweth

1. That nearly 500 people of the above tribes are residents of the land excised from the Aboriginal Reserve in Arnhem Land. 2. That the procedures of the excision of this land and the fate of the people on it were never explained to them beforehand, and were kept secret from them. 3. That when Welfare Officers and Government officials came to inform them of decisions taken without them and against them, they did not undertake to convey to the Government in Canberra the views and feelings of the Yirrkala aboriginal people. 4. That the land in question has been hunting and food gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial; we were all born here. 5. That places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land, especially Melville Bay. 6. That the people of this area fear that their needs and interests will be completely ignored as they have been ignored in the past, and they fear that the fate which has overtaken the Larrakeah tribe will overtake them. 7. And they humbly pray that the honourable the House of Representatives will appoint a Committee, accompanied by competent interpreters, to hear the views of the Yirrkala people before permitting the excision of this land. 8. And they humbly pray that no arrangements be entered into with any company which will destroy the livelihood and independence of the Yirrkala people. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray God to help you and us. (English translation)18

18 Yirrkala Bark Petition, August 1963, as reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 202-203.

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Bukudjulni gonga’yurri napurrunha Yirrkalalili yulnunha malanha Balamumu, Narrkala, Gapiny, Miliwurrwurr, nanapurru dhuwala mala, ga Djapu, Mangalili, Madarrpa, Magarrwanalmirri, Djambarrpuynu, Marrkulu, Gumaitj, Galpu, Dhaluangu, Wangurri, Warramirri, Naymil, Riritjingu malamanapanmirri djal dhunapa.

1. Dhuwala yolnu mala galki, 500 nhina ga dhiyala wanganura. Dhuwala wanga Arnhem Land yurru djaw’yunna naburrungala.

2. Dhuwala wanga djaw’yunna ga nhaltjana yurru yolnunundja dhiyala wanga nura nhaltjanna dhu dharrpanna yolnu walandja yakana lakarama madayangumuna.

3. Dhuwala nunhi Welfare Officers ga Government bungawa lakarama yolnuwa malanuwa nhaltjarra nhuma gana wanganaminha yaka nula napurrungu lakarama, walala yaka lakarama, walala yaka lakarama Governmentgala nunhala Canberra nhaltjanna napurru ga guyana yolnuyu Yirrkala.

4. Dhuwala wanga napurrunyu balanu larrunarawu napurrungu nathawu, guyawu, miyapunuwu, maypalwu nunhi napurru gana nhinana bitjarrayi nathilimirri, napurru dhawalguyanana dhiyala wanganura.

5. Dhuwala wanga yurru dharrpalnha yurru yolnuwalandja malawala, ga dharrpalnha dhuwala bala yolnuwuyndja nhinanharawu Melville Baythurru wanga balandayu djaw’yun nyumukunin.

6. Dhuwala yolnundja mala yurru nhamana balandawunu nha mulkurru nhama yurru moma ga daranun yalalanumirrinha nhaltjanna dhu napurru bitjarra nhakuna Larrakeahyu momara walalanguwuy wanga.

7. Nuli dhu bungawayu House of Representatives djaw’yun yulnuwala nathili yurru nha dhu lakarama interpreteryu bungawawala yolnu matha, yurru nha dhu djaw’yun wangandja.

8. Nunhiyina dhu marrlayun marrama’ndja nhinanharawu yolnuwu marrnamathinyarawu.

Dhuwala napurru yolnu mala yurru liyamirriyama bitjan bili marr yurru napurru nha gonga’yunna wagarr’yu.19

19 Yirrkala Bark petition to the House of Representatives, Canberra, 13 and 28 August 1963, sa reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, pp. 202-203.

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20. Letter from Nepanunna requesting Government control of the mission, 17 November 1966.

Nepabunna, Via Copley, 17.11.[19]66

Dear Sir, This is a request from the undersigned people of Nepabunna for the Government of South Australia to take over this establishment. The land on which the Nepabunna Mission stands was given to the Elders of our people by the late Mr Thomas who at that stage owned Balcanoona Station. At no stage was this land given to UAM [United Aborigines Mission]. This is our land and we want the Government to come in and take over control of it from the present authorities. We would like a church authority left here to act purely as spiritual leaders, but we want the rest of our land to be run by the Government. Over the years there has been a severe lack of water at Nepabunna, there is also a shortage of rainwater tanks on the houses. The only time that water is really pumped is when someone is coming to visit and “when the people go back the water goes back”. The bores as such are not deep enough to cater for the needs of our people, our supply at present is insufficient and inadequate. There have been no housing improvements carried out over the years, and our abodes are totally inadequate for the conditions of extreme heat and cold which are experienced in this area. The houses are, with the exception of four, are [sic] only three rooms and so overcrowding occures [sic] in many instances. Our houses lack facilities. There are no cupboards or sinks and we wash in tin troughs. The bathroom and laundry are combined and our coppers are situated outside. In many instances we have no guttering and there are no verandahs on any of the houses. We have no proper fences around our homes and when we have asked for improvements they have not been carried out as requested by us. We pay rent for our houses but we do not know where the rent goes to or what it is used for. For many months now the truck has been out of action an so no rubbish has been collected from our yards. It is a hard task for mothers to handle this work when father is away. When we buy from the store we receive no receipts for our money and the only fresh vegetables that we are able to buy are potatoes and onions. As many of us have growing children we feel that they need such things. Our language has been suppressed while we are at the store.

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Our friends are hunted off the mission almost as soon as they arrive and when we come back from Copley we are “smelt” for signs of drink. Sir, we want a say in the running of our own community, we want our own council. It is time that the authorities stopped treating us as like people with no brains or abilities. We were brought up amongst white people long before the missionaries ever arrived and it is time we had our say in the way we want to live. We want to be treated like human beings and not like some wild person. WE WANT THE FREEDOM THAT WE ARE ENTITLED TO BY LAW. Even tobacco has not been sold at the store since the Hathaways took over, and today it is brought in almost as though it were illegal. When our people are out of work no effort is made to find them work. If the Government will not take over then we will be forced to leave Nepabunna, as we will find it impossible to live on as we are at the moment. We haves [sic] stood this state of affairs too long and it is time that something was done. We appeal to you Sir in your capacity to help our cause NOW. We want action immediately, not in the future BUT NOW.

Yours in trust [35 signatures]20

20 As reproduced in Jack Davis, Stephen Muecke, Mudrooroo Narogin and Adam Shoemaker (eds.), Paperbark. A Collection of Black Australian Writings, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1990, pp. 55-56. The SROSA file GRG 52/1/1964/208 provides some insight into the history of the mission and responses to the petition.

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21. Aborigines Advancement League Victoria to UN, Secretary General, 23 July 1970.

Aborigines Advancement League Victoria

The Secretary General

United Nations

United Nations Building

New York City

NEW YORK, USA

July 23rd, 1970

Sir,

Since the 1957 I.L.O. Convention, all countries in the world with the exception of one, have ratified the resolution that land and /or just compensation be given back or paid to indigenous people who have a valid right to the land.

The one power that has deemed it unnecessary to recognize land rights, is the Australian Federal Government. Which it has done in two arenas.

Firstly in Australia against Aborigines. Secondly in Papua New Guinea.

My prime concern is the Aborigines, because the Federal Government is attempting to defraud us of our inalienable right to the land by granting it to us piecemeal eg: landleasing. This means that the Government still has control of the land and can defer the other important issue, which is compensation. The Aborigines of Alaska who number 80,000 have received from the U.S. Government 690 million dollars plus 2 million square acres. The Aborigine of Australia who numbers 140,000 have received nothing.

On behalf of the Aborigine people of Australia, I am urgently pleading to the United Nations to intercede on our behalf. It is vitally essential that the Australian Government be subjected to outside pressure re: Aborigine land rights.

The Australian society generally speaking is an affluent one, when one considers that only 11% of the people exist below the breadline (semi poverty), yet the Aborigine who makes up only 1% of the entire population, have a poverty ratio 95%.

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Our infant mortality rate is as high as 260 out of every 1000.

Leprosy is at epidemic proportions in North West Australia.

We are a dispossessed people.

Dispossessed of our land, our dignity, our culture, our human rights, and in many instances, our right to live.

We want unconditional right to our land.

We want just compensation for the land stolen from us.

We have been neglected by the Australian people.

The Australian Government have allowed us to rat.

This is not an individual plea. It is backed by Aborigine people from every State of Australia. Aborigine organisations have also given their support. They are as follows: -

The Victorian Tribal Council

The Queensland Tribal Council

The New South Wales Tribal Council

The Western Australian Tribal Council

The National Tribal Council

The “Koorier” (Newspaper)

“Smoke Signals” (a journal)

“Action for Land Rights” (a national

organisation)

“Abschol” (a national organisation)

These are but a few of the organisations that are concerned with the dispossession of the Australian Aborigine and we call upon the United Nations to ensure justice for the Australian Aborigine.

Bruce B McGuinness [signature Bruce Bill McGuinness]

DIRECTOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE21

21 NAA, Series M4251,Item 22 Part 2, BC: 4681768.

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Fig. A.10. Aborigines Advancement League Victoria, Petition to the UN, 23 July 1970. Courtesy of National Archives of Australia.

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22. “Gwalka Daraniki! This is our Land!”, Petition of the Larrakia people to Queen Elizabeth II, 17 October 1972.

Gwalka Daraniki! This is our Land!

The British settlers took our land. No treaties were signed with the tribes. Today we are REFUGEES.

Refugees in the country of our ancestors. We live in REFUGEES CAMPS - without land, without employment, without justice.

The British Crown signed TREATIES with the Maoris in New Zealand and the Indians in North America.

We appeal to the Queen to help us, the Aboriginal people of Australia.

We need land rights and political representation now.22

22 The Larrakia Petition, as reproduced in Jahanna Parker, Memory of a Nation, Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia, 2007, pp. 32-33.

304

305

306

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