Australia Day, 26 January, is the anniversary of the arrival of the British fleet and the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove by its commander Captain Arthur Phillip, in 1788.

For many Australians, this is the day that Australia as they know it was founded. However, many Indigenous Australians feel differently.  To them, 26 January is not a date to celebrate, rather it is the date when the invasion of their country, massacre of their people and the destruction of their lives started. Many call it Invasion Day or Survival Day, and take part in protest marches on this day. They would like to move Australia Day to a date when all citizens of Australia can enjoy it. In the video below, produced in January 2016, several Aboriginal Australians explain how they feel about Australia Day:
 
Read an article explaining why the author thinks Australia Day should be moved.

Task

1. Do you think Australia Day should be moved? Why/why not?
2. Does the country where you live have a national day? Why is this day celebrated?
3. Are people of all backgrounds and cultures included in your national day? Why/ why not?
4. Are national days a good idea or do they create situations where people can feel excluded?
5. Are there other ways to celebrate a country that are more inclusive?

Write an essay where you discuss arguments for and against having a National Day, and consider the issues that may arise from it.

To work in more depth with Aboriginal history, click on the links to the pages below. You can also read through these pages to gain an overview of the historical background for the protests against Australia Day.

• European arrival
• Terra Nullius
• Frontier wars
• Stolen generations
• Further work on this topic (Stan Grant´s speech, Australian lamb advert)

European Arrival

While Australia Day marks the arrival of the British ships under Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788, this was not the first time the British had come to Australia. In 1768, the HMB Endeavour set sail from Plymouth, England under the command of Captain James Cook. The ship’s company of 94 men were instructed to make for Tahiti, where they would observe and record the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. However, Cook also carried instructions from the Admiralty ordering him to explore the Southern Ocean in search of Terra Australis incognita – the unknown southern land.

The Endeavour entered the South Pacific via Cape Horn, reaching Tahiti in April 1769 where the crew observed the transit of Venus on 3 June. Cook’s instructions next took him south, where he was to determine the existence of a southern continent.

The Endeavour circumnavigated and mapped New Zealand before travelling west, where on 19 April 1770 Cook spotted and claimed the east coast of Australia for the Crown. He named it New South Wales. On 22 April he made his first recorded direct observation of Aboriginal Australians, writing in his journal that they “were so near the Shore as to distinguish several people upon the Sea beach they appear’d to be of a very dark or black colour but whether this was the real colour of their skins or the clothes they might have on I know not.”

The Endeavour followed the coastline northward, landing on 29 April in Botany Bay, named after the expedition’s naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, who collected plants there.  Continuing north, the Endeavour charted a dangerous course through the Great Barrier Reef, where on 11 June it ran aground. The Endeavour eventually limped to shore, where she underwent repairs in the Endeavour River. Cook rounded Cape York in August 1770 before making for the Dutch East Indies. The Endeavour and its crew finally reached England on 13 July 1771, having been away for almost three years.

Cook undertook two further voyages in 1772-75 and 1776-79, circumnavigating the globe and mapping much of the Pacific. While exploring the Hawaiian archipelago in 1779, Cook was killed by locals during a disagreement about the theft of a small boat.

Source: Adapted from Australian Gepgraphic.
 
Task

Look at the complete article in the link – notice that it says Cook “discovered” Australia in the first line – does that seem at all odd to you? What does it  mean “to discover” a country?
Can you discover a country when there are already people living there, or is your discovery an invasion of their land?
 
Painting from: http://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/first-contact/

Read this short article about the history of Aboriginal people in the Sydney area and their first experiences with the British. As you read, note down the impressions the British had of the Aboriginal people and culture they met. What were they actually observing that they did not realize or recognize? Why do you think that was?

Further work

Read about Bennelong, an Aboriginal man who was captured by the British to teach them about local customs and language. He later became the first Aboriginal man to visit England and return to Australia.

His second wife, Boorong, also acted as a translator for the British, but in the end, she preferred to live her life in her own culture.

Terra Nullius

The map below shows Australia divided into Indigenous language groups. As you can see, Australia was not unpopulated in 1788. Nobody knows the exact population, but it is estimated that over 750 000 people lived there when the British arrived.
 
To have a closer look at the map, you can use the magnifying glass function here. (NB: This map has been found to contain some inaccuracies in border lines, and has missed or incorrectly placed some groups. AIATSIS has published a disclaimer that you can read in the link above).

In 1770, when Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay, he claimed possession of the East Coast of Australia for Britain under the doctrine of terra nullius (“nobody’s land”).

According to the international law of Europe in the late 18th century, there were only three ways that Britain could take possession of another country:

• If the country was uninhabited, Britain could claim and settle that country. In this case, it could claim ownership of the land.
• If the country was already inhabited, Britain could ask for permission from the Indigenous people to use some of their land. In this case, Britain could purchase land for its own use but it could not steal the land of the Indigenous people.
• If the country was inhabited, Britain could take over the country by invasion and conquest- in other words, defeat that country in war. However, even after winning a war, Britain would have to respect the rights of Indigenous people.

(From sources at RacismNoWay)

Task

Discuss

1. Why do you think Cook declared the land “terra nullius” even though he had seen Aboriginal people there?
2. Which attitudes towards Indigenous peoples are shown by his declaration of terra nullius? Have similar situations happened with Indigenous peoples in other countries? What do you know about them?
3. Do you think similar things could happen now? Why/why not?

Terra Nullius was overturned on 3 June 1992. A small group led by Eddie Mabo fought a legal battle against the state for over ten years over land rights. The High Court decreed that Indigenous people had ownership of the land long before European settlement and that therefore Terra Nullius was void. After the court’s decision, in 1993, the federal parliament passed the Native Title Act.

Australia's Land Rights: The Mabo Decision and Native Title

For more about Mabo and the law case

Further work

As the Europeans arrived, Aboriginal people were moved away from their ancestral land. They were mixed with people from different areas and language groups. Many were sent to live in reservations (called “missions”), such as the Yarrabah mission just south of Cairns in northern Queensland. Read more about the history of this mission.

Frontier Wars

As the European settlers arrived in greater numbers in Australia, they expanded their territory by taking land from the Aboriginal people. The Frontier Wars lasted from the time of the first settlements into the first half of the 20th century. Exactly how many people died is unknown, but estimates range from between 20,000 and 60,000 Aboriginal people and 2,000 and 5,000 Europeans.

YouTube: The Frontier Wars: Australia´s forgotten conflicts

There is ongoing research to map the massacres of Aboriginal people. New stories and new areas are still being uncovered, and the map is being regularly updated. See the different conflicts that have been recorded and the number of fatalities.

You can find an article and a summary of the map here.

There are many stories from all over Australia of Indigenous groups who resisted the settlers. One such group were the Kalkadoon of northern Queensland. They fought hard against the settlers, culminating in the massacre at Battle Mountain in 1884. The Kalkadoon charged down the hill on the settlers, with approximately 200 men dying under the settlers´musket fire.  It is estimated that altogether 900 Kalkadoon lost their lives during the years of the European settlement.

Read about the Kalkadoon, their culture, their resistance to the Europeans and the massacre at Battle Mountain.

The last documented massacre in Australia was the Coniston Massacre in 1928. You can read about what happened, and see interviews with two of the survivors.

Task

Either

Find out more about the Kalkadoon of northern Queensland, using the link above, or an Aboriginal nation in another area of Australia. Make a short presentation about their history before and after the European settlers arrived. Discuss the effects of European settlement on the Aboriginal nation you have chosen.

or

Look at the map of the Frontier Wars. Choose one area of Australia and find out how the Aboriginal people there were affected by arrival of the Europeans.

Further work

Read about the work involved in mapping the massacres of the Frontier Wars.

The Stolen Generations

The Aborigines Protection Board oversaw the mass dislocation of Aboriginal people. In 1869, the state of Victoria passed the Aborigines Protection Act, allowing the government to remove Indigenous children from their families and place them in reformatories or boarding schools (a reformatory is modern day youth detention centre) . In 1905, Western Australia passed the Aborigines Act, establishing a Chief Protector to be the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children under the age of 16. In New South Wales, the Director of Native Welfare was the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children, regardless of whether their parents were living or not, up until 1965.

All other states in Australia quickly followed suit, enacting laws that gave a Chief Protector the authority to control nearly every aspect of Aboriginal life, including whom they could marry and where they could live and work. Aboriginal girls were sent far away from home to be trained for domestic service. The Aborigines Protection Board could take Aboriginal children from their families, without parental consent and without a court order.

The removal of children remained legal for about a century, until the last state repealed it in 1969. It is not known precisely how many Aboriginal children were taken away between 1909 and 1969. Poor record keeping, the loss of records and changes to departmental structures have made it almost impossible to trace many connections.

Almost every Aboriginal family has been affected in some way by the policies of child removal.

(Source: Adapted from Cultural Survival)

Stolen Generations – Rabbit Proof Fence

Rabbit Proof Fence is a good film to show classes learning about the Stolen Generations. Below are some resources that could be used when working with this topic and film. 

Rabbit Proof Fence is a film set in Western Australia about the removal of three girls from their families to a mission school at Moore River Native Settlement. It is based on the book of the true story, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, written by Doris Pilkington, the daughter of Molly, one of three girls who have a central role in the film. The film shows the capture of the girls, their life at the mission, and their escape and journey home along the rabbit proof fence. It portrays the trauma of the forced removal of aboriginal children, the ideology behind the missions and the attitudes of non-Indigenous Australians towards aboriginal people. The film can also give an introduction to aboriginal languages, culture, lifestyle, belief-systems and tracking skills.

Online resources and tasks for the film

This website contains information and links that are suitable for advanced pupils. It discusses the history of the mission, Chief Protector A.O. Neville´s beliefs and role, and gives  direct quotations from some of those who experienced being taken away from their homes. It also relates the treatment of Aboriginal Australians to that of Native Americans (there are some discussion tasks at the end that I am less happy with, as I think they are poorly worded and lead pupils´answers in a certain direction. However, they may give ideas as to other tasks that could be used in class).

This resource is suitable for intermediate pupils. It is made up of worksheets (the student copies are at the end of the document) that the pupils answer as they are watching the film. It also has introductory activities and a plot summary.

This link is to a unit lesson plan for Australian pupils learning about Aboriginal Rights in year 6 (10-11 years old). There are worksheets for Rabbit Proof Fence, but also a lot of other useful sources for working with this topic (including songs, speeches, etc.).

Extra materials

An interview with Everlyn Sampi, who played Molly

Everlyn Sampi´s life has not been that of many child stars. Why is that? This article could open discussions into the condition of Aboriginal people in Australia in modern times.

Behind the scenes video about the making of the film (44 min).

Molly Kelly´s obituary

Molly Kelly died in 2004, aged 87. She was sent back to Moore River for a second time in 1940. This time she was sent there with her daughters – 4 year old Doris (who later wrote the book) and 18 month old Annabelle. She escaped for a second time and carried Annabelle back home along the fence.

The problem of rabbits in Australia

The rabbit proof fence was meant to stop the spread of rabbits into Western Australia. Rabbits are not native to Australia and were introduced in 1859 for hunting. Within 50 years they had spread across the country, causing great damage to flora and fauna.

As you can see from this video (from National Museum of Australia, Canberra), the fence didn´t have any great effect.

You can read more about the spread of the rabbits and the problems they caused on the museum website.

Further activities

Stan Grant´s Speech (2015)

Stan Grant, an Australian journalist, made an important speech about the situation for Aboriginal people in Australia. Before listening, review your knowledge of rhetorical devices (or look here and here if you haven´t covered them in class).
Stan Grant starts off by referring to Adam Goodes and his experience of racism. Goodes is an Australian rules football player who came in the media spotlight in 2013, when he reacted to a supporter calling him an “ape” during a game.

Listen to Grant´s speech below.
 
Task

1. Which points is he making about the situation of Aboriginal people?
2. Which rhetorical devices is he using in his speech?

Australian Lamb

An advertisement for Australian lamb was released January 2017. Although many people from all backgrounds liked it, it also caused some controversy.

The Cope Street Collective, a Sydney based group of Aboriginal scriptwriters and actors, made a parody of the advert.
 
Task

1. What do you think is the message of the real Australian Lamb advertisement? Why do you think Aboriginal people might react negatively to it?
2. Why do you think the Cope Street Collective decided to make a parody of this advertisement? Do you think they are successful in getting their message across?