Petitioning for Land: The Petitions of First Peoples of Modern British Colonies 9781350010680, 9781350010710, 9781350010703

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Petitioning: Challenging Colonial Power
2. Petitioning for Land
3. Treatises and Petitions
4. Challenging Treatises
5. Contemporary Petitioning
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Petitioning for Land

Petitioning for Land The Petitions of First Peoples of Modern British Colonies Karen O'Brien

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbur y Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Karen O'Brien, 2019 Karen O'Brien has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: Yirrkala Bark Petition, 1963. (© AIATSIS Collection) All rights reser ved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbur y Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Librar y. A catalog record for this book is available from the Librar y of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-1068-0 PB: 978-1-3501-6354-6 ePDF: 978-1-3500-1070-3 eBook: 978-1-3500-1069-7 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Ser vices, Chennai, India

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Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Petitioning: Challenging Colonial Power 2 Petitioning for Land 3 Treatises and Petitions 4 Challenging Treatises 5 Contemporary Petitioning Notes Bibliography Index

vi 1 9 47 91 107 149 163 202 214

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the University of Sydney, School of Social and Political Sciences and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for its support. The Australia Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions provided a grant for which I’m most grateful. Researchers, Susanne and Anastasia, provided assistance, for which I am very thankful.

Introduction

First Nations challenged British colonial authority from the earliest days of colonisation through the act of petitioning. In an analysis of these First Nations petitions, this book follows a process of negotiation and diplomacy and offers a comparative First Nations geopolitical account of the Yuin, Yorta Yorta, Kulin and Yolgnu of Australia, the petitions of First Nations Americans, such as the Cherokee, the Moqui, Maumee and the Pequot. It investigates a range of legal challenges that were presented in the petitions of the Métis people, the plain and wood Cree, Salteaux, Blackfeet and Piegan of the First Nations of Canada. It considers the petitions of the Māori of New Zealand and reflects on the petitioning requests for adherence to Nunuku’s law of non-violence that was initiated by the elders of the Moriori people of Rekohu. First Nations American women of Boston, such as Mary Sampson and Nuthcuncom, voice their concerns through their petitions that were presented in 1675. They communicate the struggle of the social conditions that First Nations women faced in the aftermath of colonial violence. Even in such hostile social conditions, First Nations petitioners were consistent in the pursuit of self-government. Such was the case with First Australian, Creighton Uniapon, who, centuries later, in his petition, drew attention to the dire circumstances of inequality that existed in his community and subsequently petitioned for a change of policy at Point Macleay Mission. Likewise did petitioner, William Bray, of Alice Springs, who formally insisted on his right to remain on Country, was critical of authority and asserted his disapproval of the ‘Training of Children Act’ of 1923 which sought to remove children from the family home to be ‘trained’ as servants. Similarly, the petition of the ‘Women of Broome’ lobbied to prevent the removal of their children and formally requested redress against the domestic servitude imposed on their children by the Training of Children Act, 1923. Further petitions that show how, during colonisation, First Nations were forced to conform to the legal and moral values of colonial rule are examined in the paragraphs that follow. The redress of grievances and petitions for justice were comparable in the newly established British colonies of Canada, Australia,

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Petitioning for Land

New Zealand and America where the application of English common law was indiscriminate. First Nations American petitions were presented in the first decades of the seventeenth century, while the petitions of the other British colonies were presented a century or more later when the socio-legal implications of British colonisation were enforced. Colonial British rule was imposed by means of local officers and administration. It was simultaneously resisted but also utilised as a measure of redress and negotiation by First Peoples who were often forced into conflict during the annexure of their land for the purposes of economic expansion. The specifics of their petitions comprise evidence of their commitment, their resilience and the level of emotional investment that was indispensable to the confrontation of such violent oppression. This is primarily a socio-legal study of First Peoples’ reactions to the imposition of colonial intrusion and acts of law. It charts the progression of a continuous line of questioning of the imposed asymmetry of power relations in an interrogation of the enforced conditions of inequality that was articulated by the means of petitioning. It contributes to knowledge of the presentation of equal standing in colonial interactions and establishes how colonial relations were consistently negotiated through an Australian interstate examination of the range of petitioning, with a thematic investigation of child removal, the conditions of pseudo-slavery, the dislocation of First Nations from traditional lands and First Nations land rights. The imposition of colonial excise of land for economic expansion is clearly opposed and such opposition is imparted in the writing of the petitions. The colonial approach to land ownership bears little comparison to either First Nations philosophies of prior land ownership or their interpretations of the ongoing efficient management of First Nations land. In response to settler methods, First Nations petitioners opposed the colonially ascribed identity. They rejected the blood quantum perception of race that was inherent in the ideology of slavery. The book explores a great number of cases in which First Nations American petitions communicated their opposition to the Eurocentric colonial interpretations of First Nations identity and way of life and voiced their opposition to colonial impingement in their petitions. These petitions are the subject of an intensive investigation below. An extensive geographical and chronological span reflects the uneven patterns of colonial establishment. An expansive chronological timeframe is necessary so as to take into account the range of land-focused petitions across the longue durée. As a result of the divergence in colonial expansion, together with the First Nations response in petitioning to avert colonial economic expansion, an

Introduction

3

expansive periodisation incorporates an exploration of the early petitions of First Nations America of the seventeenth century throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the First Nations of Australia, Canada and New Zealand to the continuing petitioning for redress of grievance of contemporary society. For First Nations, the loss of land and independence was at stake. Petitioners expressed their objections to the colonial bid to ensure their domination most vociferously. They objected strongly to the methods of colonisation in petitions. An examination of the conditions in which treaties were initiated offers a perspective of the early events that were encountered by First Nations of America, Canada and New Zealand. Treaty-making is compared with the situation encountered by First Australians where no treaties were enacted. The act of treaty-making, where the motivating force for the treaty is initiated from above, is unlike that of the petition, as a ‘tool of resistance’ which is driven from below at grass roots level imparting First Nations community interests. While also providing an account of the experiences of agreement-making, First Nations petitions register very early experiences of colonisation. Treaties, however, are examined here as ‘tools of colonisation’, that is they represent the top-down approach of successive colonial governments to secure a non-violent, passive acceptance of the excise of First Nations land. British colonisers failed to recognise the violence that they initiated to secure economic expansion, and misrepresented their violent incursion as a ‘peaceful’ cooperation between settler and First Peoples and simultaneously pursued a policy of aggression to acquire traditional lands for the purposes of economic expansion. First Nations land ownership and culture were at stake. A qualitative investigation of more than 300 petitions pertaining to land ownership reveals an extensive body of formal requests that petition for the recognition of First Peoples’ prior ownership of land. The book constitutes an archive conscious, document-driven, First Nations account of petitioning. Through a combination of historical and socio-legal methodologies and a qualitative chronological evaluation of petitioning, this book sets out a socio-legal thematic framework of requests and appeals for the legal recognition of prior land ownership across a broad comparative area in a geopolitical assessment of petitioning in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and America. Petitions stand apart from other primary colonial sources of information in that they contain the actual voices and narratives of First Nations petitioners. They form significant political, legal and historical documentation of First Peoples’ resistance to colonial dominance and First Nations appeals and requests against land excise. Here, numerous case

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Petitioning for Land

studies of petitions amplify, clarify and contextualise the subject matter of First Nations petitions where appellants speak directly through the petitions to the governing body. Their thoughts and narratives are explored in a telling of events just as they appear written in the petition and in a way that sheds light on First Peoples’ aspirations and achievements. Petitions put across the general attitudes and situations of appellants from early colonisation to contemporary society and elucidate their experiences against a background of colonial government at the time that it was happening. The petitions impart first-hand knowledge of how First Nations question the logics of colonial legitimacy. Here, they communicate their concerns for their children, matters about family life, political negotiation, land reclamation and give in-depth insight into their concerns. They tell of a sense of belonging and kinship and speak straightforwardly about their struggles under colonial rule. The thematic exploration of petitions with regard to land, the textual content of petitions and the resistance, hardship, change and continuity of culture is represented. An historiography of petitions and treaties forms a contextual background and extensive research is undertaken of such primary source materials as manuscripts of petitions, letters requesting assistance, statements of intent, court documents against mistreatment, manuscript diaries that record instances of violence, records of parliamentary discussion concerning petitions, treaty documents concerning land, scholarly sources and dissertations about treaties and petitions, discussions of acts of parliament, federal acts, First Australian Native Title land claims, paintings denoting prior land ownership, commemorative exhibitions such as Coranderrk, newspapers and media statements about First Australians, official statements, First Australian bark petitions, heads of agreement, and of ‘popular’ and legal landmark petitions such as the Yirrkala petitions and Cherokee petitions. These are the documents that register a range of strategic communication, negotiation, persuasion and intervention elicited by First Peoples in the pursuit of autonomy and legal justice. This comparative geopolitical interpretation of petitioning occupies an historiographical gap in the socio-legal understanding of colonisation. There is currently no published work that investigates a comparative interpretation of the narrative that was recorded first-hand in petitions. No inquiry offers an assessment of the outcomes gained by petitioning against the attainments of treaty-making. This study fills the gap and will contribute to knowledge of the extreme conditions of survival and continuity of First Nations culture that is recorded in the petitions from the perspective of those who experienced colonial

Introduction

5

violence. Where current scholarship concentrates predominantly on settlerled institutional studies, this study looks into the First Peoples’ perspectives, requests and appeals for social justice that were necessary for the survival of First Nations. It highlights that knowledge about the cohesive mechanisms that bind First Nations kinship networks are essential to family and kinship networks and have been an essential feature of the attempt to overcome the intersecting matrices of oppression in daily life. This study of petitioning, therefore, provides a useful instrument for questioning colonial socio-legal contexts. The book perceives colonisation as a continuous and ongoing process rather than a single, foundational event where the act of petitioning itself interrupts colonial dominance and asserts alternative modes of First Nations existence. Here, during a period of social and political transformation, it offers insights into the quest for self-sustenance and selfdetermination and charts the attempts to survive conditions in the aftermath of violence imposed on First Nations and their elimination from their traditional forms of land control and sustenance. The book discloses how petitioners successfully interrupt and interrogate the burden of agricultural colonisation and dietary control and explores how, through petitioning, they questioned the imposition of colonial disbarment from the land management foundations that were essential to the long-term economic viability of the land. The Moqui petition imparts seasonal, geological and irrigation intelligence about traditional land patterns and its effective management. The petitions reveal how First Nations were denied such practice of the land management skills that had evolved over centuries to assist in maintaining a living from the land. In an investigation of the major changes that were precipitated by petitioning, attention is placed on some key extended case studies of resistance to settler violence. The book follows a transition from violent confrontation to diplomacy as a First Nations stratagem by which to create immediate and vital change in their daily struggle and sets out the experiences of the desperate circumstances they faced. Set out below are the details of the tactics of survival that were put in place to enable First Nations to overcome the limitations of colonial oppression in the short term, all the while creating legal benchmarks to make sure that their efforts to ensure that positive political change would frame the standard for future generations to follow. Chapter 1, ‘Petitioning and challenging colonial power’, offers a comparative account of the early First Peoples’ petitions that formed a challenge to colonial power. When violent resistance failed, First Nations turned to diplomacy and initiated the process of petitioning to ensure their survival in the short term. In

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Petitioning for Land

doing so it relates the details of how they set down the foundations for future political recognition. The act of petitioning itself validates the persistence of First Australian communities in their rejection of colonial power. Petitions fulfilled the means by which they might assert their rights. Chapter 1 offers an interpretation of early-to-mid nineteenth-century intercultural relations. It examines First Australian resistance and the arising violent reaction to colonial dominance in New South Wales from 1792 to 1809. It investigates the petitioning that facilitated improvement of the conditions of hardship that colonial ascendancy imposed and explores the formal requests that were made for essential provisions. It explores petitions in opposition to colonial violence and petitions questioning the quality of life on reserves. It investigates petitions for legislative reform and finds that First Australians share common ground with early First Nations Americans, through their expressions of anguish in the earliest of petitions they refer to hardship, loss and through the petition they set out the details of how they negotiated the means to survive, often with success. Chapter 2, ‘Petitioning for land’, offers an investigation of First Australian petitioning within the context of land rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It presents an overview of current scholarly interpretation of the subject of petitioning. It demonstrates how, through the process of petitioning, a negation of colonial authority was possible – while still working within the imposed legal confines of a colonial society. It investigates land rights, resistance and petitioning and the quest for the return to self-sufficiency of pre-colonial eras. It considers the petitions that requested the recognition of First Australian citizenship, petitions to the commonwealth and parliament, petitions for recognition of prior land ownership, and petitions to establish reconciliation and justice. It explores the issues that were first initiated by First Australian petitioners. These matters were brought to light more widely and would later develop into more extensive campaigns in the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 discloses how such petitions as these attracted greater community support and how they came to be more generally upheld throughout Australia and in numerous former British colonies. Chapter 3, ‘Treatises and Petitions’, forms a comparative perspective of the early colonial circumstances encountered by First Nations of America, Canada and New Zealand in comparison with that of First Australians. In North America, the coloniser did not observe the agreements made in treaties. Petitions, however, indicate a long history of political action. Petitioning by First Nations of North America occurred within the British Empire but was later directed towards the

Introduction

7

international community. Chapter 3 examines the struggle to control land and reserves and draws attention to how First Nations brought about resistance to injustice. It explores the premise that treatises were instigated primarily to quell the force of First Nations retaliations and were instigated so as to reach an agreement of peace between participants with conflicting interests. Treaties examined here represent the top-down approach taken by colonial governments to secure a non-violent response to land excise and to ensure what they perceived as ‘peaceful’ cooperation between settler and First People to allow for successful colonisation, unlike petitions, which were driven by First Nations interests. This chapter explores the context of the observance of the treaties that proved to be the last resort for First Nations who conformed with them only so as to ensure their survival in the aftermath of settler aggression that was attempting to take over ownership of their land and resources. Treaties ensured the compliance in the process of subjugation. Chapter 4, ‘First Nations American petitioning’, looks into the challenge presented to colonialist power and injustice. Although chronologically disparate and in some cases separated by more than a century, First Nations American petitioning bears much in common with First Australian petitioning for land rights. Petitioning for recognition of prior land ownership was a prominent feature of First Nations American petitions. This chapter demonstrates how they explicitly protested against land dispossession and consistently rejected forced removal from traditional land. Contrary to the United States Supremacy Clause, Article 6, ‘all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme law of the land’, petitions serve to record the failure of negotiated treaties to protect First Nations constitutional rights. Numerous accounts of Cherokee petitioning and letter writing that unambiguously expressed their dissatisfaction to colonial powers and government officials and petitions against treaties and forced removal are examined here. An exploration of First Nations Americans removal from traditional land reveals that many First Nations Americans were involved in enforced removal. For example, the SenecaCayuga Nation, Wyandotte Nation and Delaware Nation challenged government policies prior to the Indian Removal Act and before the Cherokee occurrence of the removal known widely as the ‘Trail of Tears’. This chapter explores those petitions that were presented in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and investigates petitions that recorded matters of encroachment, dispossession and rights. A focus is offered here on the Moqui petition in retaining land rights. It follows how the portioning of communal land into parcels and the imposition

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Petitioning for Land

of ‘severalty’ of the Dawes Act of 1887 was successfully resisted by the Moqui petition. Within the current historiographical investigation of First Nations American petitioning, it considers the petitions of First Nations Americans that refer to Eurocentric ascribed identity and the petitions that were critical of the definitions and conditions of enslavement. Finally, it explores the groundwork laid by such petitions in defining contemporary forms of First Nations identity and land rights. Chapter 5, ‘Contemporary Petitioning’, explores the contemporary celebration of petitions as profound statements of consequence to First Australian political activism. It explores the petitions that have recorded the challenge to dominant Australian discourse and draws out the requirements of citizenship and the need to remove discriminatory legislation from the Australian Constitution. It offers an interpretation of how First Australians created a space for dialogue through a renegotiation of dominant procedures, and how, through petitioning, they sought to achieve citizenship parity with non-First Australians. The ongoing First Australian struggle to realise constitutional amendment continues. It is summarised in ‘The Uluru Statement’ which constitutes a departure from the tendency to ignore or misunderstand the multiple and layered meanings contained in First Australian bark petitions and other valuable statements of political engagement. It explores the process of agreement-making in New Zealand, the contours of ongoing agreement-making in Canada and the concerns of the 2017 Huron-Robinson treaty. It contextualises the 2017 Cherokee court ruling within an established broader context of petitioning and identifies and particularises an ongoing struggle for broad constitutional amendment where the outcomes of local agreement-making are superseded by the more rigid federal schemes that seek a bureaucratic and final ‘resolution’ to the conditions caused by colonisation and where unsympathetic federal policy is peddled in land lease and buy-back schemes. Land lease schemes are proposed in place of an ongoing process of agreement-making with the recognition of the need to consider the application of ‘living documents’ to the ever-changing circumstances of First Peoples and that allow for change within contemporary notions of First Nations identity and prior land ownership rights. Living documents are suggested to more realistically address the complications imposed by a colonised society and to better address the ongoing trans-generational trauma imposed by colonial government.

1

Petitioning: Challenging Colonial Power

First Australian negotiating for rights First Australian petitions are the symbolic representation of the unacceptable position of First Australians in Australian society. They are evidence that the petitioners were negotiators and upward influencers par excellence. When violent resistance failed, they turned to diplomacy and petitioning to ensure their survival in the short term. In the long term, they set down the foundations for future political recognition. The very act of petitioning itself validates the persistence of First Australian communities to reject colonial power and serves to assert their rights. Through an examination of the act of petitioning, this book presents a comparative account and an assessment of the ways in which petitioners instigated, set in motion and subsequently brought about transformation in the most oppressive conditions. In drawing attention to First Nations petitioning as a basis for questioning the imposition of colonisation and a record of colonial history, it questions the perception of petitions as merely an endorsement of colonisation. The practice of petitioning examined below sets out the social circumstances of the petitioners and the day-to-day circumstances of the petitioners that demonstrate the ways in which the act of petitioning alleviated hardship to change for the better their conditions sufficiently to enable their survival. It is fair to say that the act of petitioning precipitated many major legal landmarks such as the Native Title Act 1993 and alteration of the Australian Constitution.1 In an extensive document-driven archival and comparative study of petitions, and a study of corresponding documents such as media accounts, gazettes, letters and the contents of journals, this investigation reveals the extent of national First Australian political participation. This book shows how, through the act of petitioning, First Peoples included themselves in a process of negotiation, communicate their concerns about their collective prospects

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and assert the right to manage their own affairs. They demonstrate resilience, authority, agency and lay out the initial groundwork for self-determined futures. In examining First Australian petitioning as an activity of political and social authority, it is suggested here that petitioning be regarded not merely in a limited mode, that is as an attempt to overturn and invalidate the newly formed system of government, but as the means by which to establish a self-determined position in a newly imposed social order and as an important and effective avenue of negotiation and influence within what was a newly founded system of European law. The presence of petitions, especially the early petitions, supports a position of First Peoples’ bargaining initiative and, in some cases, the petitions make evident the opportunities that were seized as a means of upward influencing to establish status, ensure well-being and to ensure security of position within disorder. The Western law tradition has established distinct hierarchies between colonisers and First Peoples and has extended a situation of inequality throughout the centuries. It has been argued that this long-standing asymmetry of power is being increasingly challenged from the ground by First Nation peoples.2 The incidence of petitioning and the continuum of petitioning against unequal power relations continues in contemporary society and it is clear that many First Nations people engage with the law as a form of empowerment and resistance and where First Nations groups continue to make claims to land and land rights and often incorporating First Nations understandings of legality.3 Petitioning is an ancient fundamental right where, traditionally, individuals, groups or a person representing the aggrieved interest group presented petitions to royalty and to the House of Commons. First Australians quickly learnt the value of pursuing this legal option, having petitioned numerous authorities continuously since colonisation. Some of the earliest First Australian petitions were presented to various authorities in New South Wales between 1800 and 1831. Petitions have also been presented to the Parliament of Australia for redress of grievances and as a request for action. In most cases in the early modern context, petitions demonstrate a request for legal redress and social justice.4 However, preliminary studies of First Australian petitioning in each Australian state suggest that there was strong political enterprise through petitioning.5 The interest in research on the extent of petitioning in the European setting is not yet reflected in the Australian context.6 Instances of petitioning in early colonisation of New South Wales reflect a communal voice and the petitioning that took place during this time was mostly

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11

a collaborative textual practice. The New South Wales Legislative Council of 1824 was established to function as a committee that would receive the requests and grievances of the recently colonised population. Between the years 1856 and 1869, the legislative council and legislative assembly constituted the newly formed Parliament of New South Wales received more than 100 petitions yearly, with the number of petitions being between 143 to more than 400.7 No petitions were received by First Australians in the records of the upper and lower house during the periods 1824–1856 and 1856–1869. During the early colonial period, significant violence and conflict occurred between 1790 and 1810. Although martial law was in place during 1824, the communal voice of First Australians was expressed in a combined and collaborative textual production of the petition. The clerical assistance enabled the conventions of petition writing, and the documents produced by this collaboration expressed an embodiment of First Australians’ rejection of the dominant culture. In terms of embodiment, letters, journals, gazettes and, later, newspapers contain expressions of First Australian political request and constitute evidence and autonomy. First Australian petitions were presented to the New South Wales Supreme Court. Petitioning provided a direct means of placing concerns before a legislative body where petitioners were able to legally request outcomes such as opposition to removal, to complain about unjust working conditions, to communicate details of violent behaviour and to attempt to change unjust living conditions. They might request for a change in the law, an administrative concern or redress of grievance. Importantly, they form a valuable account of the experiences of First Australians, who are often underrepresented in colonial primary sources of evidence. Often, First Australian campaigners utilised petitions as a means of countering colonial control. Buchanan and Darian‐Smith claim that centring First Peoples’ legal resistance to dominant power structures holds potential to ‘inadvertently reproduce the power relations and hierarchies that constitute and characterize those orders in the first place’.8 It was certainly evangelical conquests that influenced divine rights, human rights and the ideological perspectives that were brought to bear on First Nations and influenced the human rights development.9 First Nations rights were also influenced by the Eurocentric perceptions of the colonisers of the new world. Such imaginings were created most predominantly by ideas about natural law that has resulted in an understanding of such principles as ‘doctrines’ of discovery.10 Historians of intellectual history question the accuracy of an understanding of the awareness of the process as a legal ‘doctrine’. This

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interpretation of the past as an outcome of indoctrination has ramifications concerning the accuracy of historical interpretation and requires further research. Historians propose that the dispossession of indigenous peoples took place in many different forms beyond the law and that ‘legal histories turn dispossession into a legal “event”, abstracting it from reality’.11 Further, historians also propose that natural law was not merely a formal or institutional system of law, but contend that it was more broadly understood as ‘a philosophy or, more accurately, a mentality’.12 Mentalities such as these, it is argued, not only influenced the formal legal system but they also reflected Europeans’ thinking more generally about their relations to each other and to the wider world.13

Petitioning and landmark decisions With the advent of Native Title land rights and the introduction of Mabo and Wik, among other landmark decisions, it is important to establish new understandings of First Australian activism. This book allows an accurate understanding of the full scope of Australia’s political past and draws attention to the practice of First Australian petitioning as an instrument for First Australian questioning of the socio-legal implications of Australia’s colonial dominance. Described as a popular form of political participation in Australia, original petitions are an accessible primary resource containing details about the development of Australian society.14 Petitions are a manifestation of informal politics. They incorporate the practice of ordinary citizens in influencing government decision-making. Although First Australians were not formally recognised as citizens until 1967, they voiced their opinions nevertheless through the right to petition. Since 2008 there have been 140 petitions presented to parliament annually. In spite of the long and varied history of petitioning in Australia, the field remains under-explored.15 Throughout their overlapping histories, First Nations peoples across the world have consistently contested colonial control.16 Attention in this chapter is directed towards early petitions which were presented to the newly established authorities in Australia and comparisons are made with the early petitions of the United States, some of which were presented as early as 1675. It considers petitions of the period from 1770 to 1822 in the Australian context, particularly those presented in Sydney. This chapter examines petitioning as a means by which First Australians and First Nations Americans sought to survive the severe social conditions

Petitioning: Challenging Colonial Power

13

that were imposed by colonial powers. Petitions offered some hope by which they might alleviate and better such inhumane conditions in the short term. With regard to matters of central importance to the lives of the petitioners, the outline for somewhat more substantial later political achievements was originated with the act of petitioning. These petitions relate to requests for humane conditions and often for consideration of the basic requirements of social justice. Chapter 1 shows how early petitions of First Australians often arose out of desperate social conditions. These petitions are full of requests that concern needs that are basic for human survival, such as shoes, blankets, food, shelter and warmth. As the following discussion will show, this is also the situation with early American petitions, in particular the petitions that were presented to the committee of the Massachusetts court regarding the appeals of the wives of First Nations American captives and their children. Similarly, in the Australian context of the petition presented to Lake Tyres, First Australian petitions request their appeals for appropriate governance and humane conduct in colonial relations. There were a number of outbreaks of violence during the early years of colonisation and the notes of the colonial secretary confirm that such First Australian violence was most often met with an armed response.17 Petitions indicate that First Australian proclamations were frequently taken into account during certain processes of decision-making in 1814. Similarly, an annual assembly of senior law people of Parramatta in 1817, who were referred to as ‘chiefs and tribes’ and early records of the period, confirms that there were attacks by the local Indigenous population which took place in collusion with settler against settler in 1802, for example. Occasionally, the records demonstrate that some First Australians helped to track the so-called ‘hostile’ natives. The petitions give explanations of the motives for such hostility. It was during this time that relationships between the intruders and the local Indigenous population were being closely negotiated, and also during this period of the intercultural dialogue the hierarchies of power were still under negotiation. During this period a great number of petitions demonstrating a clearly defined place within this power structure were lodged. It was these petitions that demonstrated that First Australians felt that they had some measure of political power, and it was this that enabled them to operate so successfully within the structure. According to Elias, the structure of violence control at the individual and state level is linked. Superiority attained by violent means to control the behaviour of others has not yet been thoroughly explored.18 The following investigation of

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state control of First Australian peoples and their petitioning action against it contributes to the broader narrative of past and present cross-cultural, social and political understanding. A socio-legal exploration of the efforts of First Australian communities to resist state control draws attention to petitioning enterprise and redefines the First Australian struggle for rights within the broader historical narrative and against contemporary notions of justice and injustice. This book extends this interpretation to offer a comparative account of petitioning. It is suggested that ‘there has been very little written about petitions in the Australian political science arena’.19 Australian parliamentary petitions have been described as an untapped source and ‘as an important and underutilised primary historical resource’. The survival of manuscript records and the uneven geographical and chronological distribution of petitions and manuscript sources are surmounted to place petitions into a broad geographical context and to set out a comparative account of the social and political driving force behind First Australian petitions in comparative context with First Nations American petitions. This study sees treaties as a top-down arrangement to control land, resources and people. There has been some research into First Nations communities, political expression and political mobilisation.20 For example, one study includes a campaign of First Australian letter writing and subsequent petition to the Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines in 1913.21 The absence of research into the world of First Australian petitions and the constant quest for self-determined results indicate a strong need for extensive comparative study.22 The following account offers an interpretation of petitioning and communicates the measures that were enacted to alleviate the social conditions imposed by colonisation. More particularly, it is a confirmation of the concerted efforts made by petitioners to restore the status quo and to reclaim colonised land. As a manifestation of informal politics, petitions incorporate the practice of ordinary citizens in influencing government decision‐making. Traditionally, individuals, groups or a person representing the aggrieved group presented petitions to royalty and to the House of Commons. First Australians quickly learnt the value of pursuing this legal option, having petitioned to bring about transformation in their affairs since the early days of colonisation. Some of the earliest First Australian petitions were presented in New South Wales between 1800 and 1831.23 Described as a popular form of political participation in Australia, original petitions are an accessible primary resource containing details about the

Petitioning: Challenging Colonial Power

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development of Australian society.24 Although First Australians were not formally recognised as citizens until 1967, they continuously voiced their opinions and proposed to claim their rights often through the petition. Such petitions provided a way forward and laid the foundation for the groundbreaking transformation which came later. The way we interpret petitions is crucial to realising the full meaning that is inherent in the act of petitioning. Acknowledgement of such meaning is vital. In the process of reordering petitions to take account of the narration of First Australian political engagement, it is possible to shift the emphasis from failure to overturn colonialism, to a more accurate reading of the articulation of legal and political self-determination and rights as well as the ongoing struggle against colonial imposition. Recent research has effectively examined settler sovereignty, settler law and imperialism.25 According to de Costa, appellants have received worldwide attention through petitioning. He explains, ‘Every petition is an interaction of the identity of the petitioner and the authority being petitioned and provide the opportunity for the presentation of a moral order.’26 In addition, First Australian scholars are in favour of employing decolonising processes to better recognise alternative discourses.27 Moreover, First Australian narratives and decolonisation processes are also strongly advocated in studies of crime and justice.28 Without a doubt, petitions are an invaluable record of First Australian long‐standing efforts to achieve social justice. They represent an important resource containing details of First Australian peoples’ interests and form a record of their political requests and offer a social, historical and political account of their lived realities. First Peoples bring about change through petitioning. Petitions are the means by which they negotiate and influence their standing in the colonial domain. Their petitions impart a position of autonomy and often include a statement that reflects a position of entitlement and formalise a record of their tangible right to ownership of land. In this sense they bring about change in their political circumstances and are the means by which self-determined knowledge of identity and political voice are expressed. Within a First Australian petition strategic argument is conveyed and contemporary political ideas formed. Petitions as documentary evidence hold textual information and most importantly they symbolise texts of political negotiation, narratives of history, documents of law, and are significant as documents of self-representation in pursuit of selfdetermination in the colonised realm. The usefulness of petitions lies in their wide‐ranging and close narration of First Australian political events. They are often presented in response to

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state administrative control of First Australian communities, and they are an important record of the culmination of campaigns of political dispute. Petitioning campaigns bring to light episodes of cross‐cultural collaboration on issues of land and governance.29 The social activity and direct action that is necessary in the preparation of a petition, as well as the enactment involved in the process of presenting the petition itself, is a complex multipart expression of ongoing First Australian resistance to the outcomes of colonisation. Early First Australian writing is recognised as a ‘tool of resistance’. In Writing Never Arrives Naked (2006), Penny van Toorn examined the 1846 petition to the Queen from Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and petitions from Coranderrk and Lake Condah in colonial Victoria.30 Petition writing embodies traditional Indigenous authority structures, signatories belonging to different kinship groups, age groups, and gender and a strategic ‘performance of subordination’ is extant in petition writing.31 However, caution is required in the reading of the documents so that the voice that is present in the petition does not imply that there has been acceptance of colonial domination.32 Petitioning sometimes entails the presence of an authority that can act on the petitioner’s behalf. Bennelong’s letter, written in 1796, demonstrates such an involvement in a ‘complex cultural and socio-political dynamics’.33 His petitioning demonstrates a ‘struggle to negotiate a position in two social orders simultaneously’.34 In a letter to Mr and Mrs Phillips, Bennelong, in symbolic recognition of authority, requested ‘two pairs of shoes, two pairs of stockings and some handkerchiefs’. He later traded the items of clothing.35 A significant number of similar requests took the form of petitions. Some of these were presented during the early interval of 1825–1831 in New South Wales and a number of these earlier petitions are explored below.

First Peoples resistance and violence The settler’s perspective has dominated research on First Australian violent resistance to colonial dominance. However, petitioning provided an alternative means of strategic communication and liaison. It is clear from the petitions that First Australians took a strong stance in negotiating for the reclamation of land. Through petitioning, they sought to sustain culture and strengthen their communities and to hold on to the valuable attributes of cohesion that defined their kinship group. The act of petitioning reasserted the claim to cultural rights.

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Through petitioning, First Australians make a claim to their rights to land, they affirm a right to equality and call for legal recognition as citizens. Research into the early American context reveals that diplomacy as resistance is important and that there are numerous comparative accounts of negotiation and diplomacy in American colonial relations.36 The circumstances of negotiation and diplomacy that were undertaken for survival of the community are comparable to that of First Australians. Such circumstances are presented in an investigation of the relationship that existed between the Blackfoot and frontiersman during the decade prior to the massacre of Amskapi Pikuni in 1870 in early America.37 In examining the massacre against the backdrop of a history of Blackfoot-American relations, Tovias concentrates on the prevalence of Blackfoot diplomacy as resistance in the years leading up to the Baker massacre. Tovias draws attention to Blackfoot intervention within a complex political environment; the misrepresentation of victimhood dominates scholarly consideration of the massacre of Amskapi Pikuni.38 Tovias demonstrates how Blackfoot leaders could no longer amalgamate to survive through peaceful interactions with non-indigenous Americans and, as with Reece’s First Australian analysis, proposes that violent resistance was always the last resort to ensure their survival. Tovias writes about the alliance made in the fur trade which eventually led to the signing of a treaty between the Blackfoot and the United States in 1855. The treaty brought together twenty-six principal leaders and chiefs, who each signed the treaty at Judith River in 1855. Those who signed included leaders of the Blackfoot, Atséna, Salish, Pend d’Oreilles, Kootenays and Nez Percés, with approximately 3500 Native Americans present. According to Tovias, ‘For these leaders, it was their boldest diplomatic undertaking: they promised to live in perpetual peace with the Americans and with other signatories to the treaty.’39 Peace was short lived, as in the years which followed the American Civil War in 1864, the US army generals procured land and took revenge against the Blackfoot for what they perceived as ‘stealing’ horses. To the Blackfoot, horse stealing was not perceived as theft but was regarded by them as one means of compensation for the loss of land, the loss of lives from disease and malnutrition forced on them by excise of their land. A double standard was enforced whereby the Blackfoot were punished for crimes of theft, but settler Americans were free to murder Blackfoot. Events such as Baker massacre exacerbated traditional revenge mechanisms and so broke the foundations of the treaty. Baker’s attack and massacre of the Pikuni did not break with the methods of diplomacy as many

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leaders refused to use revenge as a response to violence; placing their needs for survival as their priority, they continued to implement diplomatic negotiations with First Nations Americans.40 Diplomatic negotiation as a form of political mobilisation against colonial rule is an important form of non-violent resistance that is prominent in the First Australian context. This is especially the case through the procedure of petitioning. Diplomacy as resistance in the understandings of the Pikuni massacre shares aims with the experiences of First Australians in the early colonial period. The complexity of relations and the process of negotiation that involved the family, community, colonial secretary and the details of which are recorded in numerous petitions and letters relate to the petitions. One such example of the complexity of interpersonal relations is considered in the short case study in connection with the First Australian resistance leader, Musquito, that follows below.

‘Mischief and depredations’: The Story of Musquito Musquito was also known as Mosquito, Musquetta, Bush Muschetta and Muskito. He was an infamous First Australian resistance leader who was executed in retribution for his role in acts of violent retaliation against settlers in Van Diemen’s Land. He was first captured in 1805, and imprisoned in Norfolk Island for the instigation of raids against settlers in the Hawkesbury and Georges River regions in the colony of New South Wales.41 After completing a nine-year prison sentence, in 1814, Musquito was exiled to what was then Port Dalrymple, now Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land, where he remained until his execution in 1825.42 Musquito engaged in the violent conflict that erupted in Tasmania between First Australians and British colonists and settlers between the 1820 and 1932 and played an influential role in the onslaught of the ‘Black War’. It is important to note that the actions of Musquito have been exaggerated in scholarly investigation.43 Parry suggests that the part that Musquito played in the conflict is distorted in scholarly debate by colonial historians. His influence over First Australians of Tasmania to engage in violent reprisal is significantly exaggerated.44 Prior to Musquito’s exile, it was noted in the correspondences and extracts of the Supreme Court documents that First Australians had petitioned for Musquito’s return to New South Wales. Musquito’s initial imprisonment is

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discussed in the orderly book of the Supreme Court, which refers to the specific First Australian communities of Darug, Dharawal, Eora and Cadigal and in and around the regions of the Hawkesbury and Georges River which were presumed to have been the cause of violence ‘mischief ’ and ‘depredations’ – a term used widely in the correspondence of the time as a cover term for any First Australian violations of settler law.45 In this document, Musquito is named as a leader of violent uprisings. It is made clear that his proposed apprehension would bring peace to the region. In exchange for their freedom, First Australian resistance fighters were enlisted by magistrate Samuel Marsden to capture Musquito. They hoped that capturing Musquito would bring peace to the region and that the harsh winter in the Hawksbury region, combined with the unrelenting New South Wales, will end the strife.46 Collaboration such as this, between First Australians, settlers and law enforcement representatives, demonstrates that the First Australian communities were not unilateral in their decision-making and indicates that their diplomacies varied. The Sydney Gazette gives details of Musquito’s handover to the authorities by the community. In a report that proclaims their complicity with the local authorities: ‘We are happy to add, that they fulfilled their promise, and the above culprit was last night lodged in Parramatta jail.’47 Musquito was arrested on 6 July 1805 and given over to the legal authorities along with First Australian named Bulldog aged sixteen years. On 5 August 1805, the Sydney Gazette similarly reported that Musquito and Bulldog attempted to set fire to Parramatta jail with the sole ambition of the destruction of ‘white’ people. The Sydney Gazette gave an account of the arson attack and confirmed that Bulldog and Musquito intended to ‘destroy every white man within it’.48 They also attempted to escape but the report added that a white prisoner informed a prison officer of their attempt to escape.49 Such resistance as Musquito offered had little in common with the diplomatic politeness shown by Bennelong, who on 5 May 1805 took a more conciliatory approach to achieve a short-term outcome. His courtesy, diplomacy and brevity were noted; he was referred to as being ‘very polite begs a little and departs’.50 On 10 August 1805, Governor King wrote of the apprehension of Musquito and ‘another man’ (presumably Bulldog) to Captain John Piper, Lieutenant Governor of Norfolk Island. In his statement, he claims that the First Australian community had denounced the two men as ringleaders in an outpouring of violence; and as a result of their most recent attacks, they were required to stay on Norfolk Island and were required to work for food and lodging.51 At the

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Hawkesbury River, within a context of extreme violence, on 22 August 1805, Musquito and Bulldog were sent as prisoners to Norfolk Island on board a ship HMS buffalo. The manuscript states the following: The two natives Bulldog and Mosquito having been given by the other natives as principles in their late outrages are sent to Norfolk Island where they are to be kept, and if they can be brought Labour will learn their food – but as they not must not be left to starve to want for subsistence – they are to be victualled from the stores.52

On 17 August 1814, Colonial Secretary John Thomas Campbell wrote to Lieutenant Governor Davey regarding a group of First Australians who petitioned the government via a mediator to return a First Australian prisoner from Tasmania.53 The prisoner was Musquito. The colonial secretary in Sydney received a petition by ‘some of the Natives of the district’ for the return of an Aboriginal prisoner called Musquito who had been banished to Norfolk Island by the former governor.54 The addressee is ordered to return this man to the Sydney region where provisions have been made for his release. The colonial secretary writes of a man named Philip, who claims to be brother to Musquito and who is very active in trying to affect Musquito’s release. Governor Davey is alerted to the possibility of Philip paying him a visit to continue his petitioning. The petition on Philip’s behalf records the details below: Sir, Application having been made by some of the Natives of the District on behalf of a Native formerly banished from this by the late Governor King to Norfolk Island and who was lately removed from thence to Port [Dabrymple] [sic]on the final evacuation of that Island, soliciting that He might be returned to his Native Place, His Excellency has been pleased to accede to said solicitation and I have it now in Command to request that you will give Order for the said Native being embarked for this by the earliest opportunity. He is called Mosquito, and a Native called Philip proceed by this occasion (the Kangaroo) who says he is brother to Mosquito and who is very solicitous for the return of his brother, will probably wait upon you on behalf of Mosquito.55

The petitions that were arranged by Mosquito’s brother, Philip, are validation enough of the tenacity of First Australians in pursuing the return of their relatives and indicative of the value they placed on kinship cohesion and personal freedom.56 Philip’s petitioning is an example of petitioning as an act of diplomacy, especially since he was petitioning for his brother to be released, after he had been found guilty of violent crimes against settlers and their property.

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While there is no record about the realisation of the aims of this petition the events which followed are extensively investigated in the book by Powell, who claims that Governor Macquarie of New South Wales authorised for Musquito to be returned to Sydney. Powell in examining the letters between Macquarie and Musquito’s brother Philip in 1814 claims that Philip requested that his brother be returned to his home in Sydney after his lengthy stay in the Norfolk Island prison.57 Governor Macquarie granted Philip’s request for the return of Musquito, and said that the request was granted on the grounds of ‘compassion or good behaviour in the colony’.58 However, the request never came to fruition and Musquito was later exiled to Van Diemen’s Land.59 Philip had written to Macquarie twice to request the return of his brother.60 Philip wrote to Macquarie for a second time in 1816 requesting that his brother be returned from Van Diemen’s Land, but as was the case with Philip’s first letter for repatriation, his request for Musquito’s return was not granted.61 While Govenor Macquarie did send a letter in 1814 to Lieutenant Govenor Davey of Tasmania, giving permission for Musquito to return to Sydney, the letter was not implemented and Mosquito remained in Tasmania until his execution.62 Despite the negative outcome of the efforts made by Philip and other First Australians for the return of Musquito, the petition and letters by Philip ensured diplomatic persuasion sufficient to enlist the support of government representatives and draw attention to the fact that First Australians were most active in petitioning the government to retain their presence on Country.

Interstate petitioning for social justice Petitioning activity in the various states of Australia was concomitant with the early establishment of the colonies. Frontier violence was universal in that such violence occurred in each state in the beginning years of their colonial histories. The full extent of the damage inflicted on First Australians is enumerated in research undertaken by Ryan. Through the investigation of historical sources such as colonial newspapers and First Australian oral accounts, Ryan mapped specific instances of violence against First Australians between 1788 and 1872. Ryan’s team discovered at least 150 massacres that were committed against First Australians and 6 massacres that were committed against settlers during the frontier wars across Australia.63

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While the initial years of invasion and colonisation reveal a violent history, it is important to note that as time progressed, First Australians moved from acts of violent retaliation and resistance to petitioning and acts of diplomacy, and operating within the colonial political and legal system. The transition from violent means to petitioning is evident in the following sections, which present instances of a shift to non-violent resistance as a means to safeguard their survival.

Violence between British colonisers and First Australians from NSW 1792 to 1809 Between the years from 1770 to 1809 there were more than 100 acts of violence involving First Australians and British colonisers.64 During the period between the years 1792 and 1809, violent opposition to occupation extended across a broad geographical area in the colony of New South Wales. It is not possible to know how many First Australians lost their lives while protecting themselves and their lands from settler encroachment. Reynolds estimates that at least 20,000 First Australians died as a result of settler conflict.65 Violent resistance in Parramatta extended to numerous satellite settlements in the Darug land which stretched from Parramatta to the base of the Blue Mountains. In 1794, the battle for contested territory progressed beyond the Hawkesbury River and included the Gundungurra of the Blue Mountains and comprised the Darkinjung and Dharawal communities to the south. As a rule, treaties have not been implemented in Australia, but there is an occasional reference to them in manuscripts and private letters when they were proposed to prevent violent opposition from First Australians to colonial occupation. In manuscript letters written by James Simpson, commissioner of Hobart Town, on 3 September 1835, a treaty referred to as a ‘Treaty with the Natives’ was proposed to prevent bloodshed: Six miles up the Eastern River at the head of Port Philip, there is an encampment of persons in connection with Mr. Fawkner – squatter named Aitkins. I think it would be as well to offer them our assistance in negotiating a treaty with the natives, on the condition of non-interference on their part – Mr. Batman from the instructions of his brother is an advocate for using force or instigating the natives to molest them – I have written to him strongly dissuading him from this.66

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Later that same year, on 6 June 1835, a treaty, referred to variously as the Batman Treaty, the Dutigullar Treaty or the Melbourne Deed, was drawn up at Port Phillip where the Dutigullar community was said to have given over tracts of land to John Batman ‘to occupy and possess’ in return for ‘twenty pair of blankets, thirty tomahawks, one hundred knives, scissors, thirty looking glasses, two hundred handkerchiefs, one hundred pounds of flour and six shirts’.67 Batman was denounced by the artist John Glover as a ‘rogue, thief, cheat and liar, a murderer of blacks and the vilest man I have ever known’.68

Petitioning for provisions In their petitions, aggrieved First Australians, having been pushed off their land, sought to disclose the intimate elements of their destitution and sought to achieve the means for their survival. Their petitions so often request such basic provisions as food, clothing, shelter and protection from violence through the authorities as an alternative means to overcome the adversity of colonial imposition. In the absence of access to land rights, First Australian petitioners were no longer able to hunt for the skins to keep warm and petitions for blankets were formulated.69 In the early nineteenth century, First Australians were granted an annual supply of blankets, by the colonial secretary, which varied between 7 and 360 depending on the district and the size of the population.70 The donation of blankets came from the government and was announced via a circular letter and notice.71 The act of petitioning requires the symbolic recognition of an authority that can act on the petitioner’s behalf. An early example is that of Bennelong’s letter, written in 1796. It demonstrates involvement in what Penny van Toorn refers to as a ‘complex cultural and socio-political dynamics’72 that demonstrates a ‘struggle to negotiate a position in two social orders simultaneously’.73 In a letter to Mr and Mrs Phillips, Bennelong requested ‘two pairs of shoes, two pairs of stockings and some handkerchiefs’. He later traded the items of clothing.74 A significant number of similar requests took the form of petitions. Some of these were presented during the early interval of 1825–1831 and continued later into the century in New South Wales and are the subject of discussion below. One such appeal was made through the petition of John Connell to Captain Dumaresq, which stressed that Bolgobrough, chief of Botany Bay, was to come to Sydney to receive the apportioned blanket donations. John Connell undertook a

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range of measures to bring about relief from the cold for local First Australians. The petition explained that the ‘tribe are come to Sydney for his Excellency General Darling’s benevolent donation of blankets for the ensuing winter’.75 This petition offers the particulars of day-to-day existence of the local communities and the need for blankets is telling of the effects that colonising traditional land imposed and impeded their ability to survive the severe weather conditions. First Australians enlisted assistance for blankets and clothing to overcome such hardship. Colonial Secretary John Piper, on behalf of the Cadigal First Australians, petitioned the ‘Governor of New South Wales’, John Thomas Campbell, in July 1822. Cadigal petitioners requested that the governor provide them with supplies from the local store in Point Piper.76 The petition expresses the details of the dire circumstances they encountered. The community experienced a particularly harsh winter season, and suffered from the cold and hunger. They complained of lack of food and told of the fear that they hold for their survival and that they do not have the basic necessities to survive through the winter. The petition specifies the extent of their suffering from cold, hunger and lack of shelter as follows: Petitioners have no other residence but their native woods near Sydney, and at this malevolent season of the year are almost in a state of nudity, suffering Cold and hunger in the extreme. In order to supplicate your Excellency for relief, they solicited a white man to put their unfortunate situation in writing for your Excellency’s humane consideration. Your Excellency has extended your benevolence to several of their suffering brethren they humbly request that Excellency will allow them some sort of Covering from His Majesty’s Store and Petitioners will ever pray.77

The petition below reveals that First Australians sought mediation by enlisting the support of local notables to alleviate adversity. The petition below clearly reflects First Australian intervention and demonstrates the ways in which they use their influence to improve their status. Each person is named and their requirements voiced. John Piper forwarded the petition to the governor who assisted First Australians to put their requests in writing. Similarly, John MacArthur, who was a figure of mediation between the government and local First Australians, petitioned the government as the information below will establish: Having had permission from his Excellency the governor to mark out a small piece of land the John MacArthur whereon his present residence stands as also a piece of land to be assigned to some black natives who wish to reside on it onto the protection of Mr McArthur was inconsequence ordained.78

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The act of petitioning constituted a formidable tool of negotiation in repossessing land. Such events were not enacted from compassion but to prevent violent reprisal. John Hawdon presented a petition to colonial official Macaulay Pipe on 4 September 1832, requesting a reward for his servants and blankets as a gift to the local community, not out of compassion but to ensure safety from violent payback. The petitioner describes a dangerous situation in a remote region with the authority of the settler government under threat by marauding pirates.79 The petition requested that blankets be given to the Marooga community as a reward after they helped him ‘with great bravery’ to assist in taking the pirates captive, stating ‘should you think the conduct of my men on this occasion worthy of notice, may I take the liberty of requesting you to lay the case before His Excellency the Governor that such indulgence as may be considered’.80 The petition underlines the necessity for keeping on good terms with the First Australian community and explains benefits to be achieved from utilising the blankets to keep intercultural association on good terms, more particularly as he was occupying an area densely populated by First Australians.81 Owing to their geographical knowledge and supremacy through sheer numbers, First Australians were in a strong position of power. Petitioner Hawdon recognised their powerful stake holding in the region. The petition demonstrates that to prevent confrontation he must now negotiate the use of this land with the local First Australian community. However, such petitions were the exception and not the norm. Within this context, petitions indicate cooperation and negotiation and demonstrate elements of First Australian autonomy and power within the confines of the early colonial relationships. Working within the colonial structure, First Australian petitioners vigorously recreate and aim to reform their social standing to achieve a level of self-determination. In this respect, colonial officials were often obliged to carefully navigate their interactions and relationships with local First Australians. On 21 March 1818, in a letter by Colonial Secretary John Thomas Campbell to Lieutenant Governor Sorell of Van Diemen’s Land, Campbell mentions that he has taken a young First Australian woman by the name of ‘Mary’ prisoner until a man called Michael Howe is apprehended who defied settler law.82 The letter discusses a petition regarding the retention of a First Australian girl and companion of Michael Howe, a Sydney settler who requested provisions for a First Australian girl named Mary who was in his care.83 It is clear that Mary was held as bait, the aim of which was to capture Howe in the words ‘a native woman is retained until Michael Howe is apprehended’.84

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A petition of ‘Captain Chief of the Caddie Tribe’ requested boats so that the Captain might make a living in ‘an upright manner’ and described his circumstance as ‘been chiefly employed by the inhabitants of Pitt Town but their being no employment for him at the present moment is under the necessity of obtaining a very scanty livelihood in the best manner in an honest manner’. The petition is supported by ‘Land and House holders of the District of Pitt Town’ who ‘recommend him’ and offers details of having known him from childhood.85 Early colonial petitions express adversity and were a potential means of overcoming hardship. In petitioning colonial authorities for provisions such as food, clothing and blankets, they exemplify a level of negotiation and diplomacy. They tell of the often coercive and manipulative methods of colonial authority that was disguised as charity; but in reality, charity was only provided as a measure to prevent violent reprisal against the colonisers who were gradually inhabiting First Australian territory. Missionary, William Watson, writing from the Apsley Mission in 1849, petitioned about the existing legislation regarding carrying of firearms and raises the issue of legislation against violence. Watson mediated on behalf of First Australians under his protection. He proposed that once people live together, they interconnect and states that in such conditions responsibilities under the law arise. Watson’s petition shows concern for the deficiency in legal protection and indicates that this situation posed considerable challenges for colonial rule. The petition called for legislation in protection of First Australians from other armed Frist Australians: Sir, I do myself the honour to enquire of you within the uncivilised Aboriginal Natives are allowed to carry fire arms [sic]. It appears to be a general opinion that the Magistrates have no authority to interfere in any quarrels among the Aborigines however murderous may be the issue. It has just been reported to me on good authority that two Aboriginal Natives, while engaged in the peaceable occupation of fishing, within a few miles of this place were barbarously murdered by a number of Aboriginal Natives well provided with fire arms [sic] and ammunition, and whose professed intention it is to destroy many of the Aboriginal Natives of this neighbourhood. One consequence of this inroad of armed number [sic] of Natives into this neighbourhood is that two Aboriginal men belonging to my establishment are compelled to flee for their lives and we have to take their two Christian wives and four children into our own habitation for protection. I am well aware that there are many who say ‘let them kill and destroy each other as fast as they please the sooner they are all gone the better’.

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But there will be something follow on the track. God will make inquisition for blood, and he will also punish.86

Petition from New South Wales to prevent a death sentence A petition signed by 6500 people made requests to convert a sentence of death to an undisclosed sentence of reduced severity. The petitions called for legislative change and signify the existence of occasional but widespread, grass-roots action for a widespread, grass-roots action to show compassion. First Australian Alfred Alexander was one of three men facing execution. The petitioners requested that the sentence be issued for the crime of ‘rape’.87 The petition explained that similar judgements in England refrained from issuing the death sentence, and requested compassion and leniency in the case due to what the petitioners described as the young age and ‘extreme ignorance’ of the perpetrators.88 On the surface, the petitions show how a community drew together in support of a First Australian. On a deeper, humanitarian level, it sets out the circumstances and appeals to the authorities to change the punitive harshness of a legislative system which is resolved to prosecute him. Petitioning such as this is significant in that it reflects humanitarian concern through petitioning on behalf of First Australians, indicating complexity in relationships between First Australians and the broader community. The petitioners claim that ‘Alfred is deemed to be extremely ignorant’ and pronounced that ‘Alexander Metcalfe and Charles Wilkinson are deemed too young to be sentenced to die at 14 years of age.’89

Tasmania There is much scholarly deliberation about the level of violence concerning First Australians in Tasmania. Research on the subject of frontier violence which focuses on the experiences of Tasmanian First Australians has typically characterised it as genocide, arguing that the Tasmanian government of the 1820s and 1830s implemented genocidal policies to combat First Australian resistance to colonisation.90 Frontier violence for both settlers and First Australians was responsible for deaths at a ratio of approximately one settler to four First Australians, and such violence led to many of the settler population

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demanding the extermination of or expulsion of First Australians to protect the livelihoods of the settler population.91 Colonial authority forced out the remaining First Australians to Flinders Island. The perspective of ‘genocide’ is strongly refuted because the interpretation of First Australian Tasmanians as victims of genocide has led to the notion that Tasmanian First Australians are extinct. Pallawah Jim Everett argues strongly against the notion.92 Similarly, First Australian Tasmanian Ricky Maynard in his work in the photography collections entitled ‘The Moonbird People’ and ‘Portrait of a Distant Land’ demonstrates a distinctive continuity in practice and in First Tasmanian culture.93 In investigating the Black War massacres which occurred in the Meander River region of Tasmania, in June 1827, there is significant evidence to suggest that the massacres are an example of colonial structural violence, as they were an organised process by colonial authorities to dispossess the Pallittorre of their land and to make way for colonial expansion and end First Australian violent retaliation.94 Ryan claims that the Meander River massacres were sanctioned by the local and imperial authorities, and links Tasmanian Governor George Arthur to the implementation of the massacre strategy, as a way to destroy the Pallittorre peoples’ attempts of resistance.

Petitions opposed to colonial violence First Australian experiences of violence have been well documented in literature of resistance, and this is most evident in research concerning experiences of First Australians of Tasmania in the early years of colonisation.95 However, there is scant attention to how First Australians used petitions as a condemnation of such violence or of how Tasmanian First Australians presented diplomatic resistance to violent treatment through the act of petitioning. Anderson and Davis focus on the 1847 petition created by First Australian residents of the Flinders Island Wybalenna settlement.96 The Wybalenna residents presented the petition to Queen Victoria’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, which requested that her Majesty not allow for an unpopular administrator to return to the settlement.97 As argued by Anderson and Davis: ‘The petitioners sought the dismissal of Dr Henry Jeanneret, superintendent of Aboriginals on Flinders Island, due to his behaviour and his arbitrary use of power.’98 Anderson argues that the Wybalenna petition establishes First Australian self-representation and constitutes a political and cultural rejection of the violence of the Tasmanian colonial government.99

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The petition was addressed to Queen Victoria in 1846 by First Australians living on Flinders Island. Excerpts from the petition are set out below: 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. 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. … we did not want to fight the Soldiers but he made us go to fight. … 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.100

According to Anderson, the quest for self-determination is highlighted in the political position of rejection of colonial dominance and a strong sense of self is reflected in the petition. Throughout the petition, the writers refer to themselves as ‘free inhabitants of Van Diemen’s land’ and argue that their use of violent resistance prior to their exile to Flinders Island was one of self-defence.101 Anderson highlights the significance of the petition in that it was created by survivors of the frontier violence in Tasmania and in exile to Flinders Island, where they faced harsh and oppressive living conditions which added to the violent death toll.102 The significance of this petition is that it is the earliest known First Australian petition in which the assistance of a member of the British monarchy is called upon and it established a precedent for the petitioning of monarchs in further First Australian political mobilisation.103 Petitioning British monarchs became a popular political manoeuvre of First Australians, primarily in the twentieth century, to gain recognition for the brutality directed against them and the acknowledgement that prior to settlement First Australians were free people, and an example is the petition written by William Cooper to King George V in 1938. While not all petitions to monarchs were successful, the Wybalenna petition resulted in the colonial secretary commencing an investigation into the conditions of Wybalenna, which led to the dismissal of Dr Jeanneret as the

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Superintendent of Aboriginals on Flinders Island, and proved to be a successful outcome for the petitioners.104

Victoria In the process of colonial development, Victoria’s founding for pastoral purposes was ‘fast, transformative [and] swallowed up most of arable Victoria by 1850’.105 By 1853, in one generation of colonial expansion, there was an estimated 80 per cent decline in the First Australian population. The damage was caused by disease, infertility from malnutrition and conflict between First Australians and the occupying population.106 Those First Australians who survived disease, conflict and mass pastoralist expansion and diseases were pushed to the outskirts of the newly founded colony away from the newly founded towns and in the city of Melbourne.107 In Victoria, in the mid-1850s, the Board for the Protection of Aborigines was established. It had the power to directly intervene in First Australian life and could put in force the relocation of First Australians to reserves.108

Petitioning from reserves Reserves were established in each colony in the nineteenth century and were a product of the New South Wales Land Act (1842), which allowed Crown land to be reserved for the use of First Australians. In 1850, in the newly established colony of New South Wales, thirty-five reserves were created. Whether the reserves of land being set aside came about as a result of petitioning or arose out of pressure from humanitarians is indeterminable. Initially in New South Wales and Victoria, there was no government or missionary control over the First Australians residing in the reserves. In 1850, when Victoria separated from New South Wales and became a self-governing colony, reserves were then created. In 1860, the Victorian reserve and rations system was established, including, reserves, camping places and ration depots managed by honorary correspondents, under the supervision of appointed reserve managers and correspondents and those who oversaw expenditure. Between 1850 and 1856 in the newly established colony of Victoria, five missions and two government stations were allotted. The petition of William Ridley, minister of the gospel to the New South Wales Legislative Council to the legislative council in 1854, expressed concern about the conditions that First Australians experienced and

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asked that the ‘effect of European settlement on aborigines, and the needs of aboriginals in reserves’ be considered. 109 It is important to note that not all First Australians lived on the reserves and, according to the census of 1877, 581 out of 1067 First Australians in Victoria chose to live outside the confines of reserves. From the mid-nineteenth century, the government of each colony shifted to one of paternalism in the approach to First Australians and reserves. In Victoria, this shift was effectively enacted in the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic) which highlights the new era or paternalism enshrined in law. The Act was overlooked by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines and essentially gave them power over First Australians, which included but was not limited to control of employment contracts, wages, caring for children and place of residence. The letters written by First Australian women from mission stations contain the details of the effects of the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic), and record details of their anguish and communication with the Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines.110 Petitions, letters and memorials commonly reflect First Australian protest against the removal of children that was initiated under the paternalistic policies of the board. Their petitions and requests draw attention to how First Australian women strategically engaged with the Board of Protection of Aborigines. As a strategic means to ensure that they could have access to their children, they complied by acting in ways that the board might find acceptable. In this sense, First Australian women engaged with, navigated and appealed to colonial authority with the purpose of achieving a clearly defined outcome, namely, access to their children. The Kulin people of Coranderrk mission reserve in Victoria were avid petitioners. In 1886, they petitioned the Victorian Government Board for the Protection of Aborigines to question the arbitrary laws introduced by the board, for the removal of First Australians that were deemed to be ‘half-castes’. Their 1886 petition, which rejected the forced removal of their people, set down the following entitlement: We should be free like the White Population there is only few Blacks now rem[a]ining in Victoria, we are all dying away now and we Blacks of Aboriginal Blood, wish to have now freedom for all our life time ...’ and asked the question: ‘Why does the Board seek in these latter days more stronger authority over us Aborigines than it has yet been?111

In spite of assiduous activism, the requests set out by the Kulin peoples’ petition were not granted by the board. Such disregard meant the destruction of the

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Kulin community and resulted in the removal of First Australians who were not, according to the blood quantum evaluation of cultural belonging, considered to be ‘full-bloods’. Naturally, such an evaluation of First Australian identity and understanding of belonging was at odds with the strong bonds of kinship that existed in First Australian communities, one that continues to the present.112 The paternalist approach of the nineteenth century shifted to fit the colonial objectives of assimilation. In the early twentieth century, this shift is reflected in the petitioning and letter writing of First Australians who spoke out against the policy objectives of child removal from First Australian families. The objection to child removal is reflected in the memorial of Kate Mullett of Coranderrk, written to the chief secretary of Murray of the Victorian Board of Protection of Aborigines, 1 July 1912. Kate asks that the chief secretary return her two daughters to her care as they had been sent away and that she fears for their whereabouts and safety.113 The correspondence between Chief Secretary Murray and Mr Ditchburn confirms that the two girls were considered to be neglected children under the Children’s Court at Cunninghame on the January 1912. Mr Ditchburn, the Victorian Secretary of the Board of Protection of Aborigines, in his letter claimed that in ‘view of the facts submitted to the Court and the history of the parents, it would be inadvisable to comply with this request’.114 Despite the negative outcome, Kate continued to petition the colonial authorities in request of the return of her children. Kate wrote to Mr Ditchburn, on 10 March 1914, requesting that her letters and petitions be placed before the board for their consideration. Kate requested that the board return her two daughters to her. Kate explained that her condition had improved and that she was at the time living in ‘Coranderrk where I am well able to look after them; also I have so many little children I would like their help; they were promised to me as soon as I got a home’.115 Mr Ditchburn’s response was negative and affirmed ‘no promise has been made to return the two girls to your care, and, that, as it is considered desirable they should learn to earn their living outside the stations, your request to have them returned to you cannot be granted’.116

Hardship The petitions demonstrate consistency in the complaints of the hardship that was caused by destitution, sickness and poverty. First Australians of Victoria petitioned colonial authorities in times of hardship in request of the simplest

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basics of daily existence. The petition of First Australian woman, Annie Manton of Coranderrk, tells of sickness and death and the requests for clothing indicate poverty. Sent to Mrs Anne Bon on 20 March 1917, the memorial requested that Mrs Bon send Annie two sets of black clothes for the mourning of her sister Maryann’s daughter who passed away from whooping cough.117 The petition of Bessy Cameron, of the Lake Tyers Station, is an attempt to alleviate the conditions of hardship. The petition sent to Captain Page, the Secretary of the Victorian Board of Aborigines on 15 May 1884, requests that she be allowed to remain at Lake Tyers. Bessy explains that she and her family had tried living on her husband’s earnings but all the wages go to food, leaving the family in financial hardship. She explained her husband’s plans to move in search of work, and requested that she and her children be allowed to remain on the station in his absence. The petitioner states the following request: ‘I hope you will allow us to stay on this station, children & myself wandering about without a home.’118

Western Australia Colonisation of Western Australia led to violent conflict over land and resource between settlers and First Australians.119 Colonial violence was the ‘strongest recurring theme in the history of Aboriginal–European relations’ in Western Australia and First Australians of Western Australia violently opposed colonial expansion and control.120 There was a mass imprisonment of First Australian men at Rottnest Island and 400 men died between 1841 and 1922. The closure of the penal institution in 1922 reflects such conditions.121 The Noongar people in the Sawn River Colony of the south-west region of Western Australia were hunted down, massacred, sexually violated and enslaved by settlers.122 First Australian resistance in Western Australia was represented by Jandamarra, who, like Musquito, led a long and effective resistance campaign against settlers in the region.123 On 30 July 1898, First Australian, G. Daly, (no full name is given) from the Beagle Bay mission in Western Australia, requested that the Chief Protector of Aborigines send the First Australians of Beagle Bay their annual supply of blankets.124 Requests in the form of letters from First Australians to the Chief Protector were commonly sent in regard to elderly First Australians who were experiencing hardship due to old age, illness and disability, and the letters commonly requested that the state send blankets. First Australian man, J. Nairn, and his two sons, who were unnamed, from a Western Australian Station in

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Byro, sent a petition which requested that Chief Protector provide assistance in the form of blankets and supplies in the care of a First Australian elder named Yallajarra and others who were identified as being ‘old and infirm natives’.125 Similarly, a letter by JSW Parker, asked the Chief Protector to provide relief for elderly and specified a First Australian man named Cobelcoot, who was in need of blankets for the impending winter.126 These letters draw attention to how First Australians ensured their survival even though they were forced to plead for basic necessities owing to the severity of the policies of the Department of Aborigines and Chief Protector. Oppositions to the child removal schemes of the 1905 Act are detailed in a petition sent by First Australian women in Broome.127 The petitioners described themselves as the ‘Half-caste women of Broome’, and sent a petition in 1934, to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Status and Conditions in Western Australia. Protestors petitioned for female protectors, work, family, and marriage autonomy, and state protection for their families against the threat of the child removal policies of the 1905 Act. The petitioners questioned having to send their children away to be educated and asked, ‘Would you like to think that when you send your children to school that you would never see them again?’128 The 1905 Aborigines Act gave the Chief Protector additional power for approving mixed-race marriages linked to the policy directions taken by the Western Australian government to use the anti-interracial marriage clauses in the 1905 Act to promote ‘biological absorption’.129 Such legislation in Western Australia represents the institutionalisation of racial ‘purity’ where policies aimed to maintain First Australian racial ‘purity’ through the forced marital union of First Australian women with men of European descent, in an attempt to ‘absorb’ aboriginality.130 Chief Protectors and the Western Australian state government in general viewed mixed relationships, especially men of Asian descent, as the biggest threat to racial segregation, and the ‘Aboriginal problem’ in the government’s attempts absorb any race that was not Anglo-Celtic.131 First Australians aimed to transcend these limitations. An appellant named Abdullah from Marble Bar in Western Australia requested the Chief Protector’s permission to legally marry a First Australian woman. However, it is unclear whether Abdullah’s request was approved or denied.132 How Jow Chin and his partner, from Derby, Western Australia, requested permission to legally marry an unnamed First Australian women that he had been living with for four years.133

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Through petitioning, First Australians opposed the initiatives taken by the Western Australian state government to control their individual freedom. Their letters and petitions enhance an understanding of how First Australians challenged colonial legal authority. Such memorials and letters serve to underline that the right to marry was a cause of concern for the Department of Aborigines, and that First Australians and the means by which their partners challenged the view by petitioning the department to request a legal union.

South Australia In 1834, the British statute allowed the establishment of the colony of South Australia. South Australia was not a penal colony, as the land of South Australia was sold to free settlers. This of course did not change the fate of First Australians who were expelled from their lands by incomers. In some cases, First South Australians used the British political system to obtain plots of land for farming and residence. Such tact is most evident in the titles to land for agricultural ventures that were granted by the colonial authorities of the Colony of South Australia. The granting of these titles allowed First Australians to maintain their basic survival through a sedentary agricultural existence.134 First Australians encountered violent oppression and structural injustices in the early years of settlement. In acknowledging the reality for First Australians of Tasmania, Governor George Arthur of Van Diemen’s Land asked the colonial secretary of South Australia, Robert Gouger, in January 1835, to reach an agreement with First Australians of the new South Australian colony so that they did not meet the same fate as those in Tasmania.135 Governor George Arthur stated: ‘On the first occupation of the colony, it was a great oversight that a treaty was not, at that time, made with the Natives, and such compensation given to the Chiefs, as they would have deemed a fair equivalent for what they had surrendered.’136 In 1839, land cession treaties were ignored by the new governor of South Australia, Robert Gouger; Governor of Tasmania, George Gawler and South Australian Protector of Aborigines, Matthew Moorhouse.137 Instead, the South Australian policy for First Australian land use and access, like that of the colonies of Queensland and New South Wales, was to follow a paternalistic approach to dealings with First Australians.138

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Petitions challenging life on reserves First Australians petitioned to oppose the highly guarded way of life on reserves and missions and sought to maintain their cultural traditions. Documents and reports from the Poonindie Mission indicate that First Australian residents would continuously break out to join Barngalla-Nauo fringe camps in nearby towns. By rejecting the reserve’s rules, First Australians defied the restrictions imposed on their lives, and once they left the confines of the mission, took back control of their lives. Once outside the boundaries of the mission, they immediately re-established the traditional practices of hunting and food preparation, and the traditional elements of cultural coherence were reasserted and strengthened.139 In defiance of colonial authorities, First Australians of the Poonindie Mission survived the conditions of the mission by leaving it, and in doing so offered a challenge to colonial dominance and confirmed success in their endeavours to maintain their traditional practices. Some petitions wryly comment on the over-emphasis of religious practices and fall just short of levelling double standards. On 12 April 1907, one such petition was presented by the Ngarrindjeri community who described themselves as ‘leaders of the Campbell clan’. The petitioners request that the Premier of South Australia have the Point Macleay Mission taken over by the government: We, the undersigned Naranjeries [sic] 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.140

Petitioners, in their requests for more efficient station management, took a more persuasive approach in a petition led by Labourer Creighton Uniapon. This petition called for a change of ‘policy’ was presented by First South Australian residents at Point McLeay Mission Station, to the Members of the House of

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Assembly on 23 March 1936. It proposed a change of management of First South Australian affairs from one person to a board and did not appeal to sentiment or human compassion but invoked practical and more equitable solutions to improve the conditions of those who lived on the station.141 The petitioners are clear in their requests that they are ‘subject’ to a government and aimed to convince the House that it would be good practice to carry out its ‘obligations’ to a subject population. The petition appeals to the sentiments of a work ethic and aims to convince the House that a more proficient system of management might increase production and reduce the ‘burden’ of financial responsibility for the maintenance of the residents: 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 …. we urge that the responsibility for promoting the welfare of the Aborigines be transferred to an Aborigines Protection Board, for the cause of justice and better treatment of the Aborigines in the future.142

Opposing enforced removal A petition of W. Bray and his wife that was written to the Protector of Aboriginals, Alice Springs, in April 1941, claimed continuity in living on Country and protested against taking away their children, insisted on staying on Country and opposed forcible removal: 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 eastwest 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, our birthright country.143

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Petitions to ascertain legislative reform As with the petition presented by the ‘Half-caste women of Broome’, a memorial that was featured in The Register, exemplifies First South Australian opposition to colonial rule and registers the petitioners’ requests to reform the oppressive laws which aimed to take away their children. First Australian opposition to laws concerning child removal was recorded in a petition on 21 December 1923, which complained against the legislative reform of the Aborigines (Training of Children) Act 1923, legalising removal of children from their parents.144 The Act granted authority to the Protector of Aborigines to be the legal guardian of First Australian children until adulthood (eighteen years of age for men and twenty-one for women), and for the Protector to be responsible for their ‘training’.145 The Act allowed early training of young children to fulfil their roles in a trade or domestic work.146 In response to the Act, a petition written by Leonard Campbell, from the Point McLeay Mission was sent to the Parliament of South Australia on 16 December and protested legalisation of the Act. The memorial states the following: 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.147

The petitioners affirm the irreplaceable role of parenting and articulate the importance of the care that can only be offered through a mother’s love and the right to love their own children and express their resistance thus in the following statement: ‘The army of motherhood has taken up their position in opposition to the Bill.’148

Queensland In 1861, colonisation took place on four different frontiers, namely the pastoral industry of North Queensland, large areas of the cape York peninsula that become a frontier for European and Chinese gold miners the rainforests of northeastern Queensland that were exploited for their timber and exploitation of First Australian labour and knowledge for pearling and Bêche-de-mer industries.149 During early colonisation, First Australian Queenslanders experienced extreme frontier violence and had no protection under British law. First

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Australians of southern Queensland experienced violence through the rapid pastoral expansion in the 1860s.150 The Queensland government’s policy towards expansion tolerated settler attacks on First Australians and the violent techniques of native police. In Queensland, the native police were made up of units of First Australian troops who were under the command of colonial authorities. Native police were deployed to forcibly remove First Australians from their ancestral land to make way for pastoral expansion, and their duties consisted of First Australian ‘deprivations’, that is, intimidating First Australians into submission under colonial rules and laws and acts of punitive force to protect settlers from instances of theft and violence.151 Loos suggests that the deployment of First Australian troops to aid in settler and pastoral expansion is partially attributed to the success of colonisation of Queensland and the violent resistance against settler encroachment and dispossession, which followed.152 Previous research into colonial violence in Queensland obscures the violent actions taken by ‘the average settler’, through a focus on the actions taken by native police. Moore explains that the facts surrounding the role of settlers ‘has been obscured deliberately, as there can be little doubt that they killed as many Aborigines as did the Native Police’.153 First Australians in Queensland died from frontier violence in large numbers as in regions across Australia, with evidence that First Australians were commonly shot and probably poisoned by settlers, and inadvertently killed by introduced diseases and environmental changes. These acts were typically committed by settlers.154 First Australians in Queensland opposed the settler violence and the colonial government’s police force in numerous acts of violent resistance. While consisting of violent force, Reynolds and Loos highlight that such violence was commonly against property and businesses and not against people.155 First Australians raided settler homes, stations, farms and stores for looting, as well as the damaging of livestock and crops.156 Such strategic acts as these were intended to drive the settlers away from First Australian land, and suggest that while there is a strong claim to violent resistance, the situation was more nuanced than a simplistic perspective that perceives violence only against settlers themselves.157 According to Loos, the damaging and looting of First Australian property were not always acts of physical violence, but more commonly done out of necessity where traditional equipment, such as spears, nets and traps, were confiscated or destroyed by native police making it difficult to maintain survival from traditional practises, and what was perceived as ‘looting’ therefore became essential to acquiring food for survival.158

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Opposition to unjust working conditions First Australian labour was a necessary component of the expansion of the Queensland colony, which became enshrined in legislation after the withdrawal from convict labour, proving to be a cost-effective measure for production and work in missions, stations and reserves.159 While this legislation attempted to deny First Australians their autonomy and legalised the indentured slavery of First Australians, there are several cases of First Australians refusing to go along with the laws and restrictions put in place by Queensland colonial authorities.160 A petition sent to the Governor of Queensland in 1874, from residents in Mackay, requested that the Colony of Queensland enquire into the treatment of First Australians who they believed were treated unjustly by their employers. The petitioners wanted the government to enable policies and practices to protect First Australians from labour abuses, and reflected the fears typical of times that First Australians were ‘doomed to early extinction’.161 The Queensland Legislative committee requested that Queensland Commissioners create a report in response to the questions opened up in the petition, particularly on the topic of employment. The report was given to the Queensland Governor on 30 April 1874 and argued that while there were cases of First Australians being unfairly treated by their employers, the report reiterates that First Australians were treated with ‘kindness and forbearance’, and that settlers and colonial officials in Queensland have persistently attempted to ‘improve their condition’.162 The report acknowledged that First Australian suffering was caused by the impact of British colonisation. The report claims: It cannot be denied that the settlement of Europeans (whether unavoidably or not is little to the purpose) has been the source of great evil to the Aborigines, and that those tribes have suffered least which have had the least intercourse with our countrymen.163

The overall all tone of the response to the petition was that of paternalism and protectionism. It explained that if the colonial officials were to be of assistance to First Australians, provisions must be put in place to ensure their protection.

Opposition to removal First Australians in the states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia voiced their opposition to forced removal of their children in letters and

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petitions. The Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 impacted on First Australian wage and labour rights and removed the basic freedoms of movement, personal property and custody of their children. The Act limited First Australian freedom through placing them on reserves if they did effectively work at their stations. Blake argues that First Australian ‘employees were ever conscious of the possibility of deportation’ and that the threat of deportation was an essential factor ‘in maintaining a servile Aboriginal labour force in Queensland’.164 While First Australians experienced violence, exploitation and forced labour at the hand of their ‘employers’ on working stations, many chose to remain in these forms of indentured labour so that they were not removed to reserves. This is because stations allowed for more personal freedom, as First Australians were able to live with their families and remain close to their ancestral lands and kinship groups.165 First Australians who were forcibly removed often fought against the conditions that they faced and made consistent attempts to run away from reserves.166 Departure from enforced labour was a way that First Australians also competed against in situations where they were forced into labour. A letter by a captain of a fishing boat was sent to the Colonial Chief Secretary on 22 April 1892, when discussing First Australian forced labour. The letter mentions the captain’s dissatisfaction with First Australian ‘workers’ who would commonly ‘clear out for good once docked near their homes’.167 The writer describes the inconvenience of this issue, while failing to acknowledge that his ‘workers’ were mostly likely forced or tricked into working and absconded because they were not paid for their labour. First Australians in Queensland in the nineteenth century resisted child removal ‘in a spirited and sustained manner’.168 As was common in other states during the late nineteenth century, First Australian children who were labelled as ‘half-caste’ were at risk of being removed from their families, and taken to institutionalised training reserves for domestic and physical labour. First Australians resisted attempts by the governments to remove their children, by ‘escape into the Queensland bush when the police came with a removal order’.169 In 1908, when the Queensland Chief Protector of Aborigines, Howard, ordered that two boys from the Womblebank Station in Queensland’s north-west region be removed from their family and taken to Barambah, a report claimed that the boys had escaped the authorities when they and their families ‘absconded into the bush and [could] not be found’.170 In this way, First Australians rejected colonial dominance by opting out of the brutal systematic oppression they faced and removed themselves from paternalistic control to

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return to the community and thus recreated the bonds of social cohesion in spite of colonial oppression.

First Nations American petitions Early petitions of hardship, loss and endurance First Nations Americans similarly sought relief from the devastation of the conflict and violence of colonisation which occurred across America from early colonisation in 1607.171 Violent oppression continued throughout the centuries and there were continuous massacres across America from 1832 until 1911. Such oppression occurred beyond 1969 when First Nations Americans were declared citizens of the United States, which was some two years later than First Australians were declared citizens of Australia. Faced with the devastation of the conflict, early First Nations American petitions communicate petitioners’ attempts to achieve social justice. As with the conflict that occurred in early Australia, it was the families that bore the brunt of conflict in early colonial America. Women, children and the especially the elderly endured significant destitution as a result of the fighting that took place. The wives, sons, daughters and parents of those that were imprisoned or killed endured near starvation. Early petitions offer a window into the private lives of the petitioners and in the petitions they disclose their requests for relief from poverty and disclose directly the ways in which they exercised choice and requested to be incarcerated with their loved ones. In their petitions they express the ways in which they experienced dislocation from family members and communities and the personal cost of the conflict. The petition explains that several young women, some of whom are pregnant, preferred imprisonment with their husbands rather than cope with conditions outside of the prison. The petitioners are individually named, referred to as Sara, Nuthcuncom, Hannah and Mary. Their request to be imprisoned with their loved ones is presented in a memorandum of the court. However, other petitioners exercise their choice, however limited, to remain outside of the confines of the prison and choose to face whatever hardships await them. On 5 November 1675, contained in the memorandum of committee of the General court in Boston regarding the wives and children of Indian captives is a petition that concerns the social hardship inflicted on the petitioners. William

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Hawthorne, Humphrey Davis and John Wayte write to the Massachusetts court regarding the imprisonment and the captivity of family members during what is described as the great Swamp fight. The request was made by nine First Nations American women in Boston. The document brings to light the dire social conditions that First Nations women faced in the aftermath of the violence during colonisation. The petitions describe the circumstances experienced by the families of those involved in the conflict and who have been imprisoned. The dispersal of the community and the violent conditions that they endured are implied in the document. Several women, made requests to be housed with their partners. For example, ‘Sara, the wife of the Great David with one child at her back, David being to be sent away, she is willing to go with her husband. Another woman referred to as “Nuthcuncom, a young squaw”, is described as “the wife of the young man whose father was shot to death at Marlborough and is in prison” and Mary, the wife of Sampson who went to the Great Swamp to the Indians at hilling time last.’ A similar state of affairs affected the elderly. For example, ‘Great David’s mother’ is widowed and has nobody to care for her; she is described as being widowed and elderly ‘she hath no husband, very old’. According to the petition, the family of the imprisoned ‘Great David’ was dependent on him for support. She confirms that her sister and her children are dependent on him and she requested to be with her husband ‘Great David’s own Sister with a little child, her husband Umphry being in prison, she is willing to go with her husband.’ Other women preferred not to be imprisoned with their husbands. One such opinion is expressed by another elderly woman: ‘The squaw or wife of Will Hawkins, not willing to go with her husband, being an old woman.’ This was not the case for another woman described as ‘The wife of Jeffery, an old man, crooked’ who in her petition requests to be lodged in prison with him. The petition states her request thus: She thinks he is in prison. She hath with her one daughter about 10 or 12 years old. She is willing to go with her husband.’ Women are described in the petition as wives or squaws. In a situation of abandonment, the court refers to ‘Sara, the squaw or wife of Niehneminet who went away last winter in the fall of the year from her and got another squaw, this Sarah hath a child.’ A similar fate fell to Hannah, ‘the wife of Nececoughocott that went to the French two years since and hath another squaw. She hath 2 children, one of ten years old and one of two years.’ Those women who wished to be imprisoned so that they could be with their husbands were allowed to do so. The outcome of

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the petition was positive and their requests were met. An endorsement of their wishes is recorded as follows: The Magistrates think meet that such of the above said women that shall voluntarily choose to go with their husbands shall have liberties so to do and be accordingly sent along with them with their children and that the rest shall presently be sent down to Brewster Island, till farther order be taken. The Magistrates have passed this; their brethren the Deputies hereto consenting.172

The petition is an important exemplification of the insufficiently recognised emotional experiences of the petitioners, especially female petitioners. The petition records information of the everyday challenges they faced, the broader social conditions of violent colonisation as well as the difficulties and hardship experienced by First Nations families as a result of death, imprisonment or some other loss of loved ones. The petition, most importantly, records the success story of the requests and ‘liberties’ of the women, whose political voice is discernible in the process of making these requests, and expressed their hope that they might be reunited with their loved ones, whatever further adversities they might encounter in the future.

Continuity and cultural cohesion The discussion of First Peoples’ petitioning above demonstrates the importance of ensuring cultural cohesion through family and kinship connection as well a determination to establish continuity through the attempts to go on living on Country. Petitions demonstrate political representation, autonomy and they present a means for strategic communication and negotiation that appeal directly to common humanity in pursuit of social justice. The petitions show that they were not simply instruments of political negotiation but were crucial in the short term to survival as well as setting out the earliest drive for constitutional change. They were instigated to draw attention to inequity and injustice and were often the last resort for many First Australians suffering from the hardship that colonisation imposed. An appellant’s petition often meant the difference between life and death. Petitions were instrumental in alleviating hardship and they set the tone for ongoing resistance and prompted the reclamation of lost status. In some cases, petitions had the power to improve the daily lives of the petitioners. Although petitions requesting blankets or a change may not, on the surface appear to be particularly significant they are an important contribution to the articulation

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of First Australian rights and resistance to colonisation. In some cases, those petitions requesting minor incremental change in the long run made a significant contribution to those petitions that achieved a more substantial change. At the very least, the minor petitions are the constant reminders of First Australia’s denunciation of colonisation. Further research that draws attention to the contents of those petitions containing details of real‐world objectives has the potential to add to First Australian narratives and might provide a fresh perspective on the lived realities of First Australians. Moreover, such research of petitioning might contribute to the comparative context of First Nations rights engagement, and political organisation, which provides the broad international context for theorising and contextualising petitioning as resistance to colonial rule. To this end, further research of such petitions appears in the chapters below.

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Historiography of First Australian petitioning Petitions and land rights The following chapter considers a First Australian negation of colonial authority through petitioning within the context of land rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also presents an overview of current scholarly interpretation of the subject of petitioning. It demonstrates how, through the process of petitioning, while still working within the imposed legal confines of colonial society, there were continued attempts by First Australians to achieve land rights and social justice. In exploring the social, legal and political mobilisation of First Australians, this chapter will provide a context for First Australian petitioning which occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It will identify and explore the broader social context of petitions such as the Coranderrk and Yirrkala petitions, the activisms of the Aboriginal Advancement League and the 1972 petition to Princess Margaret by the Larrakia peoples of the Northern Territory. Prior to focusing on the petitions however, this chapter sets out a historiographical perspective of nineteenthand twentieth-century resistance, activism and petitioning undertaken by First Australians. There is limited research on the role of petitioning in First Australian political mobilisation and action.1 Given the lack of investigation into petitions, the following chapter reviews research of petitioning that confirms Corbett’s opinion that petitions are an ‘important and underutilised primary historical resource’ for Australian political science research.2 In researching the context of First Australian petitioning, the following discussion draws attention to the social circumstances of First Australians and their resistance and intervention. It explores the means by which First Australians registered their disapproval and claimed their rights and contributes a further understanding of the social dimension of First Australian political engagement.

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There is much research that considers First Australian violent resistance. However, physical resistance does not make up the full picture of the First Australian mobilisation against oppression that has taken place consistently throughout Australia since early colonisation. Where scholarly attention has converged on resistance, it is restricted to violence. Belmessous argues that historians have tended to focus on resistance in the form of physical resistance against and in retaliation to frontier violence.3 While Belmessous acknowledges that violence was a way that dispossession was challenged, she also argues that there is a need to address other forms of First Australian refusal to accept authority which has been ignored, such as First Australians resistance through law prior to the twenty-first century.4 There is an abundance of literature concerning forceful physical resistance, particularly that of settler violence against First Australians.5 However, there is limited specific investigation of how First Australians made use of the British political system of petitioning to achieve their aims.6 While literature which focuses on physical resistance dismantles the false, yet commonly presented, account of the proposed ‘passive victim’ narrative of First Australians experiences of colonisation, the focus on physical resistance created a new narrative of a ‘violent frontier’ where First Australians were portrayed as waging a war of violent resistance against colonisers.7 The occurrence of First Australian frontier violence is often exaggerated, and taken outside of context where First Australians are perceived as enacting violence for the sake of violence, or retaliating violently, rather than the reality that is so often presented in petitions, that is one of protecting themselves from intruder violence.8 Such distorted representations as these have contributed to racial stereotypes which perceive violence as an inherent component of First Australian identity.9 While this presumably was not the intention of authors who focus on frontier violence, it is clear that there is a need for a fresh approach to First Australian resistance to invasion which does not solely explore violent resistance but which also charts the history of non-violent resistance made by First Australians against dispossession.10 There is significant information which emphasises how First Australians employed peaceful strategies of resistance, collective deployment and which incorporated the British political system and established practical mechanisms for political mobilisation and diplomacy at the grass-roots level. Belmessous’s Native Claims: Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500-1920 emphasises that there is a long history of First Australian legal resistance and explains how legal forms of resistance have not been discussed until recently.11

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A cogent proposition concerns ‘whether in North or South America, Africa or Australasia, indigenous peoples made claims to territory and forced Europeans to make rival claims, from the moment European expansion commenced in the fifteenth century through to the final great expansion of the nineteenth century’.12 Belmessous draws attention to the difficulties of recognising that throughout the years, First Australians made land claims over their reserves through legal resistance and proposes the set of circumstances of the Kulin people of Victoria, who, in the late nineteenth century, engaged in letter writing and drafted petitions for the land rights over the reserve they had been residing in for multiple generations. However, what Belmessous means by legal resistance, is not solely First Australians’ use of formal legal institutions such as the courts, but also calls for more extensive research of legal resistance that were made through writing, statements, oral negotiations, letters and petitions. It is accurate to say that First Australian legal claims were also not solely addressed to high-up officials such as prime ministers, but were correspondingly presented to a variety of colonial representatives such as ‘military officers, administrators, and priests’ and that such claims represent important markers of First Australian legal challenge to colonialism.13 Such an approach is presented in this study of petitioning. There is value in acknowledging how First Australians used formal legal systems to achieve self-determination. However, such evidence is lacking as there is minor historical information that acknowledges the circumstances of First Australians’ involvement in legal practices and systems.14 Research which provides an example of how First Australians resorted to the law as a form of political and legal rejection includes Auty’s Black Glass, which examines court files from the Western Australian Courts of Native Affairs, prior to the court’s abolition in 1954.15 In analysing legal documents from the court, Auty argues that the documents highlight the importance of understanding that First Australians commonly chose to engage in legal processes by being passively non-compliant due to the oppressive, ambiguous and exclusionary legal practices that they faced. Auty’s research demonstrates the ways in which First Australians engaged with legal practices by employing the strategy of silence that was used as a communication block, which Auty argues is an example of First Australian resistance in legal matters.16 Auty’s research offers insights into the strategic use of silence as a tool of resistance and suggests that there is a tendency to assume that such silence is transparent; however, this is too simplistic an assumption as First Australian narratives ‘involve silence, opacity, resistance and

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gratuitous concurrence’.17 Auty argues that the documents analysed are a part of the larger use of First Australian silence as agency and a form of resistance.18 Though there are some minor accounts that consider First Australian agency, there is limited investigation of the role of petitioning as a form of political, socio-legal and cultural resistance that focuses on First Australian resistance since colonisation. Markus’s books Blood from a Stone and William Cooper and the 1937 Petition to the King examine the role of First Australian petitioning in political and legal change and refers to how Joti-Jota leader William Cooper, from the Murray and Goulburn Rivers district and an honorary secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League, through a series of letter writing and petitioning of politicians, prime ministers and King George V, asked for the establishment of better living conditions, legal recognition and land for First Australians.19 Markus acknowledges that there has been little investigation into how First Australians operated within the British political system to establish land access and land titles. In focusing on the involvement of William Cooper, Markus highlights that Cooper’s petitions commonly aimed to address First Australian requests for formal legal rights as well as First Australian representation in federal parliament, so that First Australian needs for civil and political equality and equal rights to land could be addressed. The requests for formal legal rights can be seen in the letters and petitions written by Cooper, especially in the petition intended for King George V which requested that a First Australian member to parliament be appointed to represent them.20 A minor study that examines First Australian petitions from the twentieth century, and primarily focuses on the 1923 petition by Ellen Kropinyeri in response to the Parliament of South Australia Act which allowed for the legalised separation of First Australian children from their families, and the 1931 Lake Tyers petition.21 Gamboz examines the process of writing petitions that First Australians went through when creating them, including the discursive elements of the petitions. Gamboz notes that in the petition by Ellen Kropinyeri ‘the dichotomies – intellect/love, science/love, well equipped/poorly equipped – reflect contemporary discourses relevant to an understanding of the period and illuminate how Indigenous peoples felt they were perceived by non-Indigenous people and how they themselves perceived non-Indigenous people’.22 Gamboz argues that First Australian petitions provide evidence of the ways in which First Australians interacted with governments and provide an ‘example of not only contemporary experiences and perspectives but also contemporary discourses, concepts and ideas, and Indigenous responses to them are embedded in the text

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of petitions’.23 As such, the study of petitions provides valuable information on First Australian experiences, concerns, and aspirations which would perhaps not be possible to understand otherwise, as they have traditionally been left out of written archives.24 The petitions investigated in this study finds that there was a discernible shift in the content of petitioning in the twentieth century to a situation of greater political representation. Petitions demonstrate this move widely and a large number of them address the circumstances on reserves and political mobilisation. One such petition, that was lodged in 1931, concerns the Lake Tyers Mission in seeking to prevent the removal of the station manager, Captain Newman. The petition is different in presentation to other petitions as signatories have arranged their signatures of support in a spiral pattern. Regardless of its animated presentation, the petition was ineffective in counteracting the removal of the station manager.25 Nevertheless the petition stands as a representation of political social action. Brigg and Maddison, in focusing on the Yirrkala bark petition in 1963 by the Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land, argue that petitions, such as the Yirrkala petition, are a reflection of First Australian assertion to achieve justice. In the example of the Yirrkala bark petition, the petitioners requested that their views be heard before mining leases were granted to the bauxite mining company for the use of land for mineral extraction.26 The petition made a case for the rights to land that was required for mining, and it was inherent in the claim that the land was rightfully theirs since ‘time immemorial’.27 The importance of the two bark petitions lay in the fact that they were written in both English and Gurnatj languages and that the unique artwork surrounding the petition make it the first of ‘traditional documents to be recognised by the Commonwealth Parliament and thus represent the earliest signs of the recognition of Indigenous rights and title under Australian law’.28 In this sense, First Australians have consistently fought for land rights and justice, and have done so in innovative and creative ways which challenge the perceived legitimacy of the settler state.29 Petitions have been a legitimate form of First Australian resistance and political mobilisation especially the petition of Coranderrk.30 They do not exclusively focus on petitions but highlight key moments in the history of First Australian political resistance such as ‘the Gurindji walk-off, the Tent Embassy, the Treaty 1988 campaign, the Barunga statement, the Mabo case, Camp Sovereignty’.31 However, petitions are significant in that they represent the negotiation of First Australian place within Australia as well as the means by which they presented

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their culture and set down in writing their claims and their rights. Petitions also signify the First Australian desire to negotiate, to persuade and to appeal and in this way coalesce with the ways of settler society to argue against the subjugation of their people and are the means by which they established the call for change.32 While several authors consider petitions as a First Australian means of achieving self-determination, such studies are often confined to examination of a single petition. Haskins’s article details the role of letter writing in attaining positive outcomes for First Australian petitioners and considers the petition presented by First Australians in 1913 to the Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines in a campaign to ask for a missionary’s widow of Lake Tyers Mission to remain on the station with them after her husband’s death.33 More recently, Ellingford’s research considers the effectiveness of petitioning to parliament in relation to Victoria between 1996 and 2006, and argues that ‘petitioning remains a popular method of presenting a wide range of views to the Victorian Parliament’.34 However, the research undertaken by Haskins does not consider the broader purpose of petitions of First Australians either in the modern context or in the historical context. There are few examinations of the role of petitioning in the historical context of First Australians. There is, however, a broad body of research focused on petitions made by other First Nations peoples which will be discussed further here which highlights the significance of petitions as a form of political protest and mobilisation in commonwealth countries in a broader and comparative context.35 As suggested above, the examination of First Australian petitioning since colonisation offers the means to be aware of First Australian political mobilisation as well as be a factor in a multifaceted understanding of First Australian resistance. Previous examinations of resistance have largely overlooked First Australian petitioning. As Corbett states most accurately, they do indeed remain an underutilised resource in the quest to attain social, political and cultural justice. The value of focusing on petitions is made clear in the account of scholarly understandings of petitions discussed above, where it is suggested that a focus on petitioning might provide a closer understanding of First Australian perspectives; draw attention to the active efforts of First Australians in nonviolent political resistance; and draw attention to the numerous ways in which First Australians quickly adapted to combine their own culture with the ways of settler society to effect change.36 In addition, an inquiry into petitions as a research resource offers a nuanced account of the differences and similarities within the sphere of First Australian petitioning. Although First Australian

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petitioning was a common mechanism for socio-legal, political and cultural resistance, petitions show that many of the commonalities stop there. For example, one First Australian kinship group living on a reserve or mission may have been petitioning for land rights, while another may have petitioned for the ability to hunt and fish outside of reserves to maintain their cultural identity. Such an acknowledgement helps develop a better understanding of difference and serves to dismantle and demystify notions of political social action as a single homogenous assemblage. The discussion below constitutes two components: first, an analysis of scholarly literature and, secondly, an analysis of petitioning from various sources that offers an interpretation of First Australian petitioning and resistance for justice and land rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The petitions that are appraised below highlight First Australian experiences with discriminatory policy, land access and land rights. A common theme throughout ascertains that there were concerns about the lack of legal recognition in First Australian ownership of land. In bringing scholarly literature together, this discussion underlines a measure of the oppressive and discriminatory factors that motivated a number of First Australians to engage with petitioning. It emphasises the unwavering attempts of many petitioners in their concerted efforts to influence representatives of the British political system as a way to address the many issues that arose from their oppression as a result of colonisation.

Nineteenth-century petitioning Land By the nineteenth century, First Australians had adopted the practice of petitioning as a means to establish equality. Unfortunately, petitioning as a form of non-violent, political opposition is not foremost in scholarly research of nineteenth-century First Australian resistance. The limited scholarly literature which discusses nineteenth-century petitioning by First Australians concerning the specific social, cultural and economic contexts by which such petitioning came about is discussed below. The paternalistic policies and laws made autonomy problematic for First Australians who were forced to reside on reserves or missions ran by nonindigenous officials, whose aim was to control all aspects of their lives. Throughout the mid-nineteenth century, petitioning was rigorously pursued

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as a formidable means for change to tyrannical policies and practices. First Australians universally petitioned for land and self-sufficiency. Underlying each petition was evidence of poor social conditions. Each petition traversed across a number of issues. A number of them registered their dissatisfaction about the arrangements that were put in place to access their homeland and resources, the separation of families and children as well as the violent treatment of First Australians by state authorities and members of settler society. The petition itself registered dissatisfaction and articulated a broad range of complaints. There were many that asked for an unpopular or callous administrator to be removed from a reserve. Others asked to be granted land rights, autonomy or access to traditional land. In the case of Coranderrk discussed below, First Australians living on Coranderrk reserve had previously held control while the petition of the Kulin people contains the details of their attempts to protect and maintain established levels of independence. These circumstances differed from those of other First Australian petitioners who petitioned for land rights. Petitions ranged across a spectrum of requests, many encompassed requests for land access and the means to become self-sufficient. The underlying conditions that lay behind divergence in First Australian petitioning are explored more thoroughly below.

Self-sufficiency in the nineteenth century A key element of nineteenth-century protectionism concerned the setting up of reserves and missions, which operated in each state or colony by the end of the nineteenth century. Each was responsible for housing First Australians in that region. First Australians were often forced to reside in them. Sometimes, First Australians preferred to live on a reserve or mission so that basic needs such as food, security and shelter could be met. A common bond united First Australian petitioners in petitioning for rights to land and independence. The desire for autonomy is plainly detailed in the requests outlined in the petition. The act of petitioning itself offered a means of expressing discontent to an appropriate authority and the protestations against the many and various limitations that they faced under the ‘protectionist’ policy. Petitions for better conditions were often presented. The petitions that were presented most regularly concerned the request to form First Australian reserves and missions. In many cases, First Australians desired the ability to be self-reliant. First Australians made use of petitioning as a way to request land for their ability

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to become self-sufficient. Goodall and Cadzow discuss cases of First Australian petitioning presented to members of the New South Wales government in the nineteenth century, in demand of land tenure over small parts of their traditional lands.37 They take into consideration the petitioning made by the Yuin people of the mid-south coast in the 1960s; petitioning by Gandangara people in the Burragorang valley in the 1870s from Sydney’s west and petitioning by First Australian communities of Braidwood and Yass.38 They maintain that such petitions share commonality in that ‘all wanted land in perpetuity, as an inalienable freehold tenure’.39 The objectives of such petitioning was to become self-sufficient, whether that be through traditional hunting practices or to establish themselves in the new economy.40 Scholarly literature brings to light numerous instances of First Australian petitions which requested land access for the purpose of becoming self-sufficient. This petition below sets out an argument of First Australian ‘divine’ right to land and requests a grant of land for farming. It was prepared by William Cooper and presented to J. M. Chanter, MLA, on 11 November 1887: 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 NSW 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.41

Atkinson discusses the petitioning by the Yorta Yorta people of the Maloga Mission on the Murray River of New South Wales in 1881 and argues that the petition is a case in point of First Australian petitioning for the purpose of achieving self-sufficiency through farming and gaining access to traditional lands.42 The petition was presented to the governor of New South Wales and requested that land be set aside for the Yorta Yorta people so that they could support themselves through industry and the cultivation of livestock.43 The petition claimed that ‘natives in other colonies have proved capable of supporting themselves, where suitable land has been reserved for them’, and they wished to be

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given the same opportunity.44 Attkinson contends that this petition is significant because the petition makes a case for the connection that the Yorta Yorta people have with their traditional lands. It corroborates that ‘aspirations for the return of traditional lands have always been at the forefront of Yorta Yorta thinking’.45 As stated in the petition: ‘All the land within our boundaries has been taken possession of by the government and white settlers.’46 Attwood’s examination of the petitioning of the Maloga Mission confirms that the significance of the petition lies in the demands of the Yorta Yorta people for freehold title over land, which could be passed down through generations, giving the Yorta Yorta people protection across generations.47 This petition achieved a successful outcome as the New South Wales government granted 1800 acres of land to the Yorta Yorta people in the establishment of the Cumeroogunga* reserve.48 However, as was the fate of Coranderrk, Cumeroogunga came under attack by the government and board, and the reserve was eventually dismantled.49 Belmessous contends that First Australians exercised their right to petitioning as a form of opposition to the excision of land, which culminated in increased tension over land rights claims in South Australia.50 Tensions existed between settlers and First Australians as settlers desired agricultural expansion on land set aside for First Australian missions. Belmessous focuses on the petitioning by First Australian residents of the Point Macleay Mission. In 1872, First Australian residents of the Point Macleay Mission formed an organisation called the Aborigines’ Friends Association and petitioned to the Commissioner of Crown lands and Governor James Fergusson, in the hope of increasing the station’s land to fit the needs of the increasing population of the mission and to meet the agricultural objectives of the First Australian residents.51 Belmessous considers the expression of direct political action of the mission’s residents, drawing attention to the agency that such engagement enacted in establishing the essentials for survival. In this respect, it may be argued that Point Macleay Mission petitioning represents a milestone in First Australian assertion of land rights as well as for land utilisation in South Australia. The petition is, according to Belmoussas, the first known of its kind in South Australia.52 The study establishes that the petition was successful, as the South Australian government ‘granted a new license for the land requested at Point Macleay in July 1872’.53 The petitions discussed above indicate continuity in the actions of First Australians in gaining legal recognition in ownership of land. They confirm the objective of gaining self-reliance or recognition as traditional owners to the land. Such petitioning for social action indicates a repudiation of the confines of the protectionist policies that First Australians were forced to endure during the

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nineteenth century. Some petitions chronicle First Australian resistance against the inequality they faced on reserves and missions and confirm the objective of petitioning to gain independence from settler authority. Yet not all reserves were regarded by First Australians as empty of freedom and autonomy. Coranderrk was initially established solely as a place for First Australian self-determination.54 Furphy, Nanni and James examine the history of political action and the significance of petitioning by First Australian residents of the Coranderrk Station reserve in Victoria. Coranderrk was formally established in 1863, under the direction of John Greene, the general inspector for the Central Board for the Aborigines and preacher, and his wife Mary Smith Benton Green.55 Green was officially regarded as the manager of Coranderrk Station and held authority over the First Australian residents, yet was, as well, a strong advocate for selfdetermination and was known as one who respected the Kulin Families who first established Coranderrk and supported their attempts to govern themselves wherever possible.56 Over the years, Coranderrk prospered as a self-sufficient station, in which First Australian residents had established a thriving economy through the success of hops farming that resulted in high profits in Victorian hops production.57 However, this level of independence and success was looked down upon by the central board which eventually dismissed Green for his approach to running Coranderrk. The board overtook the running of the station and eventually sold off part of the land.58 It is well established that the foundation for the board’s approach to Coranderrk came from the demands of pastoralists to make the land at Coranderrk available for pastoralist expansion, as it was seen as prime agricultural land.59 The Kulin offered resistance by petitioning and called for Green’s reinstatement. They requested that they be granted security of tenure so that Coranderrk Station remains in their possession.60 Attwood focuses on the resistance of First Australians at Coranderrk and explains that in order to retain their autonomy, and to reject the dismissal of Greene, a highly sophisticated campaign of resistance was led by the Kulin people and William Barak during the 1870s and 1880s.61 This included using the British political system to lobby for their land, methods of which included petitioning to the public and government officials and letter writing to journalists, the board, politicians and humanitarians.62 However, Coranderrk continued as a reserve until its closure in 1924, after which the remaining Kulin community were relocated to the Lake Tyers reserve.63 Although the petitioning and activism that were undertaken to oppose the board’s decisions and oppressive treatment were unsuccessful,

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the Coranderrk petitions are significant in that the expression of solidarity they represent strengthens the realisation that First Australians have fought continuously for access to their traditional lands and land rights since European colonisation, and the political expression they articulate further highlights the fact that First Australians, such as the Kulin people, continually asserted their traditional ownership of and rights to land. As is argued by Attwood, the people of Coranderrk ‘claimed rights to land and compensation on the historical basis of their prior ownership and subsequent dispossession’.64 The success of the Coranderrk struggle also lies in the fact that it was one of the first long-standing campaigns of resistance by First Australians. The circumstances concerning Coranderrk provide an important example of First Australian petitioning to reclaim traditional land and offer a case in point of the self-improving goals of self-sufficiency and land rights. Similar circumstances of First Australian resistance to settler encroachment emerge in the instances of petitioning to acquire formal rights to land and are the subject of further discussion below. First Australians effectively petitioned for land, land rights and justice on the Georges River area of Sydney. A petition written by Jonathon Goggey in 1857, to the governor of New South Wales, protested against a neighbour’s encroachment onto the land that he and his family had resided on for three generations.65 The petition documents his resistance to colonial dominance by seeking justice through the restoration of his homeland in the colony of New South Wales. His petition sought redress for the injustice of being expelled from his land of origin. Goggey and his people lived on a 100-acre block of land at the junction of Harris and Williams’ creek, in an area known as Voyagers Point near Holsworthy, in the South Western Sydney region of New South Wales.66 On the other side of Williams’s creek lived John Rowley who wished to expand his successful shipmaking business and land holdings onto the land that Goggey and his people resided on.67 His petition appears below: That the 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.68

In the petition, Goggey set out in clear terms the extent to which he and his people claimed that the land was their own. The petition contained details of the lengthy period during which he and his family had resided there and

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claimed formal legal rights in the form of long tenure recognition.69 Goodall and Cadzow allow that similar claims must have taken place. They state that prior to the introduction of legislation which allowed for the reservation of Crown land to First Australians in 1850, similar demands for land tenure recognition ‘must have been a commonly expressed Aboriginal concern, but it was rarely recorded’.70 In addition, they argue that Goggey’s petitioning and resistance to settler expansion may well have been successful in that there are no records that indicate that Rowley had later obtained the land or made improvements to it.71 In a petition of William Adams, Robert Wanganeen and Henry Angic to the commissioner of Public Works, South Australia, 19 February 1894, the petitioners refer to themselves as ‘original owners of the land’ and accordingly claim rights of an early claim to what is now native title. The petitioners outline the details of the hard work and labour of their seniors and claim that they have developed the land to its best advantage: 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 StationP.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.72

First Australian petitioning in the early to mid-twentieth century First Australian petitioning for land access and self-sufficiency in the nineteenth century set in motion First Australian resistance in the twentieth century. There

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is a documented increase in First Australian resistance through petitioning and a more determined approach to obtain formal land rights and recognition as citizens. Scholarly undertaking which focuses on First Australian petitioning in the twentieth century tends to emphasise that resistance stems from three main issues, that is land rights, unfair treatment stemming from policy and the lack of legal recognition. Petitions demonstrate that there are divergent ways of resisting authority and numerous models of resistance that do not necessarily fit within these broad categories as the petitions of First Australians make evident.

First Australian petitioning for residence on reserves The powerful assimilation policy was responsible for the broad scattering of First Australian families. It was damaging to the cultural and kinship ties that bound First Australians. It was detrimental to the daily existence of residents of First Australians and especially those who were removed from Lake Tyers Station owing to their physical appearance. Those who were affected registered their discontent in writing and some were occasionally successful in their petitions. David Mullet’s persistent request was that he be authorised to reside on Lake Tyers to join the rest of his extended family. He described himself as ‘a returned service man of four years’. The pass to Lake Tyers he requested was ‘on behalf of my girls growing up and grandchildren’. He stated a readiness to comply with the ‘rules and regulations’ but the note ‘cannot grant’ was written on the letter. A further note expressed that because they were ‘light half caste’ it was ‘undesirable’ and ‘in their best interests that they should be reared in a white community’.73 The Connolly, Green and Thorpe families found themselves in similar circumstances and wrote regularly, requesting assistance from the chief secretary A. E. Lind, who noted the following: When inspecting Lake Tyers [I] noticed two particularly light colored families, Connolly and Green. These families were promised that sympathetic consideration would be given to boarding out the Children through the Children’s Welfare Dept. if the families left the station. It was felt that in the best interests of the children concerned they should not be allowed to continue in the atmosphere of an aboriginal station as the children in question might easily merge in the white population.74

They were referred to as ‘a light coloured family’ who were ‘required to leave the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Station as they were not eligible for assistance under

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the Aborigines Act’.75 A. E. Lind of Chief Secretary’s Department also wrote that ‘neither Connolly or green proved effective workmen in the past’. The families were transferred out of Lake Tyers and offered ‘rations’ assistance for a ‘limited time’.76 Subsequently, persistent petitioning and written requests were made for assistance to relieve the hardship that such forced expulsion from Lake Tyers had brought to bear on the families. Numerous correspondences summarising loneliness and social dislocation were presented. One such case was that of Billy Russell who requested that his relatives might move from Lake Tyers to live with him to live at Coranderrk Station. The request was refused though it was suggested that he might move to Lake Tyers where it was suggested ‘he would probably be happier among friends and relatives’.77 The petitions tell of much hardship concerning the inadequate methods of distribution of rations. Petitioners were required to request basic ‘rations’ to ensure their survival. Captain Harrison and his wife at Antwerp Reserve wrote to Mr Parker at the Board for Protection of Aborigines in March 1938, making numerous requests for rations and blankets, calico, flannel, flannelette dress material, needles, towels and boots and food.78 In 1950, even making a claim for maternity allowance was made difficult. Winifred Terrick’s claim for maternity allowance was scrutinised according to racially ascribed notions of identity and payment required answering hostile questions. The written notes speak of an imposed conformity, for example: ‘is the claimant a half-caste, [does she] realise the value of money and put it to good use, [is she] endeavouring to comply with normal Australian standards of living and behaviour, [has she] attained a standard of intelligence and development rendering her suitable to receive the benefit’.79

Land rights, petitioning and resistance The denial of access to land that began with Australia’s colonisation and extended to the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries until the Mabo judgement in 1992 is linked to the legal fiction that arose from the notion of terra nullius.80 Since colonisation, terra nullius has been used to deny First Australians any legal capability over land claims and ownership of their ancestral lands, as they were seen as legally non-existent people under the doctrine.81 However, it must also be noted that many academics criticise claims that First Australian dispossession was influenced by the legal fiction of terra nullius and argue that ‘legal histories turn dispossession into a legal event, abstracting it from reality’.82

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First Australian resistance and political mobilisation in the twentieth century commonly centred on desires for formal land and property rights. McGrath however argues that an emphasis on land fails to capture the full picture of the effects of colonisation and the reasons behind First Australian resistance.83 McGrath sees resistance as central to the experiences of loss of personal freedom, residence and movement, policy and social constraints and the Christianising and ‘civilising’ mission.84 Although here it is also maintained that land is an important aspect of First Australian experience, there are other components that are entwined with issues surrounding land and that cannot be separated from it. One case in point, McGrath reasons, is that government theories of racial superiority were intertwined with the conflict and dispossession of land that it must be recognised that land only makes up part of the story of colonisation, and is therefore no more than one chapter of the story of First Australian resistance.85 McGrath confirms that First Australian petitions did not solely reflect land rights objectives in the twentieth century. There is substantiation here in that First Australians petitioned to reject notions of racial superiority. Rejection of white supremacy is evident in the petitioning of William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ league for the objective of universal human rights. Cooper in 1938 spoke out against the atrocities committed by the Nazi German government towards the Jewish people, and argued that ‘while we are all indignant over Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, we are getting the same treatment here and we would like this fact duly considered’.86 Such a statement is significant in that at the time, it was rare for any global political authority to speak out against Germany, and such parallels between the state-sanctioned treatment of Jewish people and that of First Nations people were not drawn or accepted until recently. Although the German consulate (of which Cooper and the league presented their petition against Germany’s treatment of their Jewish people) rejected their petition, this petition was significant. It was considered to be ‘a brave act recognised 70 years later when a ceremony in Israel commemorated William Cooper and those Indigenous Australians with him who spoke out in the name of universal rights’.87 Although it is clear that First Australian petitions were focused on more than land rights, the notion that land was not at the centre of First Australian resistance and political mobilisation is debatable. For example, Behrendt and Watson see land as being central to First Australian political mobilisation in the twentieth century. Behrendt and Watson, in questioning the contribution that native title legislation had on First Australian rights post Mabo decision,

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discuss the efforts of First Australian activists in the early twentieth century and acknowledge the role that William Cooper played in drawing attention to land rights issues faced by First Australians. They argue that Cooper, through his numerous petitions and letters to government officials and key political figures, requested that land be returned to First Australians so that they could become self-reliant and not under the control of state.88 Behrendt and Watson argue that allowing First Australian land access and ownership was central to dismantling the structures that were put in place and that stand in the way of First Australians’ rights and freedoms.89 It is important to note, however, that First Australian activism for land rights existed prior to the twentieth century. For example, Attwood and Markus and Anderson and Davis draw attention to the petition drafted by William Cooper* to the governor of New South Wales in 1887, which argued for the First Australian rights to their traditional lands.90As highlighted by Attwood and Markus who present a collection of the documents written and contributed by William Cooper, Cooper stated in the 1887 Maloga petition that ‘those among us, who so desire, should be granted sections of land not less than 100 acres per family in fee simple or else at a small nominal rental annually, with the option of purchases at such prices as shall be deemed reasonable for them under the circumstances, always bearing in mind that the Aborigines were the former occupiers of the land’.91 In view of the centrality of land to First Australian interests it might be argued that land was central to First Australian political objectives and petitioning for land rights is a reflection of the ongoing continuum of social, legal and political struggle against colonial dominance and against the appropriation of First Australian land.

Petitioning for citizenship rights First Australian political organisation, and legal and political recognition First Australian petitioners began to protest for equality and recognition as citizens of Australia. First Australians were not recognised as citizens prior to the 1967 referendum. In the 1920s, First Australians rejected the imposition of classifications that denied them land rights and equality of basic civil rights. First Australians rejected this inequality through the use of petitions requesting formal recognition and rights, as well as a desire for self-determination.92

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There is a common misconception that the demands for equal citizenship in the form of civil and political rights developed in First Australian activism after the 1950s, and such examples usually focus on the petitioning and protest surrounding the 1967 referendum and the freedom rides which resulted in the recognition of First Australian citizenship in the Australian Constitution after the referendum. However, First Australian requests for equal rights and representation have in reality existed prior to these iconic examples of First Australian resistance, and possibly prior to any documented evidence of such resistance. The following section refers to scholarly debate and literature about First Australian petitioning for equal rights and recognition of formal civil and political rights. First, land rights cannot be separated from First Australian resistance for equal citizenship rights and political recognition. As argued by Foley and Anderson, First Australian resistance and political mobilisation since colonisation have centred (in some way or another) around land.93 This should not come as a surprise considering the connection First Australians share with country since time immeasurable.* Foley and Anderson concentrate on twentieth-century land rights in Australia, First Australian petitioning and resistance in the early twentieth century as reflecting a ‘civil rights and equal citizenship stage’ of First Australian activism for land rights.94 It might be said that prior to the twentieth century, mobilisation for land was primarily focused around meeting basic needs in adoption of a sedentary and agriculture existence, as was achieved by settler society in the initial years of colonisation.95 However, in the twentieth century, the desire for First Australians to obtain land access shifted slightly to achieve formal land rights. As such, Foley and Anderson see First Australian campaigning for land rights as being in a constant process of transition, which reflects the needs of First Australians at a given time or place. A petition concerning the implementation of a ‘Model Aboriginal State’ was addressed to the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, where it was received on 20 October 1927. The petition lays out the details of oppression and the fact that hunting lands have been denied and convey that their land has been taken and that they are suffering from encroachment on their homeland. They outright reject the opinion of them as inferior and put forward the view that their rights be recognised. Excerpts from the petitioners’ request for a separate First Australian state are set out below: The Aboriginal races are most fast dying out. There have been cases of individual cruelty and oppression which it has been practically impossible for the

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Government to deal with. The self-sacrificing efforts of missionaries who have done inestimable work have been necessarily limited. 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. 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. And has been proved to possess great mental powers, ability to quickly learn, and can be taught agriculture, engineering, carpentering, &c.,

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honourable House – 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. 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. The State to have representation in the Federal Parliament on the lines (in a modified form at first) of the Maoris in New Zealand. 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. 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. 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.

The characteristics of First Australian petitioning and resistance to oppressive policy that took place in the early twentieth century have become well known largely through the efforts of political organisations such as the Australian Aborigines’ League and the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, who were paramount in First Australian refusal to accept inequality and resorted to petitioning to protest against such gross unfairness. William Cooper petitioned on behalf of the Australian Aborigines’ League and employed petitioning as a method of political mobilisation against the oppressive policies, laws and social structures that were first established in early colonisation and which continued to deny rights to First Australians in the early twentieth century.96 The league stated that ‘the ultimate objective of the league shall be the conservation of special features of Aboriginal culture and the removal of all disabilities, political, social or economic, now or in the future borne by aboriginals and to secure their uplift to the full culture of the British

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race.’97 Attwood argues that the Australian Aborigines’ League ‘was the most important of the Aboriginal political organisations in established in Australia in the interwar period’.98 A primary reason of stems from the tireless activism by William Cooper and the league in establishing mainstream First Australian rejection to the inequality, and bringing the demand for equal civil, land and citizenship rights into the public agenda. Cooper was an avid petitioner, who had successfully petitioned as a method of resistance from the late eighteenth century for land use, land access and recognition of citizenship. In William Cooper and the 1937 Petition to the King, where Cooper states that ‘the original inhabitants and their heirs and successors should be adequately cared for’, he maintains that ‘legal status is denied to us by Your Majesty’s Governments’.99 This is evident in the petition itself, where it is explained that ‘all petitions made on our behalf to Your Majesty’s Governments have failed’. Cooper had tirelessly tried to achieve equality through petitioning the Australian parliament but was ignored. The petition to the king was a last resort for First Australian direct action. Markus also draws on the comment made by Cooper, where he claimed that ‘if we cannot get full justice in Australia, we must ask the King. Some tell us that the King has no power now in these things, but we shall try anyway.’ Despite the petition receiving near 1,800 signatures, from all states in Australia, the petition failed to make it to the king, and was instead held by the parliament.100 Despite Cooper’s unsuccessful attempt to attain justice, Markus argues that the petition was highly significant as it highlights that despite the lack of concrete results, First Australians actively sought to have their voices heard and continuously protested against injustice.101 Cooper’s first petition to the king led him to send another petition requesting First Australian representation. In 1938, Cooper in representing the league petitioned King George V in the request that he use his power as king to grant First Australians the right to representation in the federal parliament.102 Cooper requested that the representative be either ‘one of our own blood or by a white man known to have studied our needs and to be in sympathy with our race’.103 Cooper’s petition to the king is one of the first documented examples of First Australians advocating for formal political representation but, as is demonstrated above, early petitioning might be considered within the broader area of political action and occurred much earlier. The petition organised by the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association was highly significant in First Australian political mobilisation in the early twentieth century for land and civil and political rights. The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association was established in 1924 under the leadership

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of Fred Maynard and Tom Lacey. It aimed to establish land and citizenship rights, preservation of First Australian culture and rallied against policies of First Australian child removal on the basis of their supposed ‘half-caste’ status.104 Maynard maintains that the history of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association has been ignored in accounts of First Australian political mobilisation and resistance and significance, and emphasises research produced by Heather Goodall, which finds that the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association drafted letters and petitioned the Aborigines Protection Board and the New South Wales state government in demand of equality.105 Goodall’s research uncovered that the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association petitioned at all political levels, including the premier of New South Wales, Prime Minister Stanley Bruce as well as King George V, asking for him to intervene in the Australian government’s treatment of First Australians.106 Maynard argues that the significance of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association was in that the organisation initiated a united front between First Australians and organisations and brought mainstream media and public attention to the inequality faced by First Australians in the early twentieth century.107

Petitions to attain citizenship The act of petitioning was relevant to calls for inclusive measures and petitions were a dominant form of support in the requests for recognition of citizenship for First Australians. A petition by the Committee for Aboriginal Citizenship to the New South Wales Premier requested a call for compassionate action: ‘in the name of humanity, that your government will immediately grant full citizenship rights to the aborigines of New South Wales’.108 The appellants appealed for ‘the reconstruction of citizenship rights should include the restructure of the Aboriginal Protection Board (APB), that a First Australian woman be appointed to represent women on the board, a First Australian be appointed a representative of the trade union movement’; and that ‘a representative of the aborigines elected by the aborigines themselves’ be appointed to the APB’.109 This petition involved other parties on 15, 18, 19 and 29 October 1938, each petition being sent to the New South Wales Premier.110 The requests presented by members of the committee were followed by a petition, which stated that ‘the members of the above committee respectfully request that you grant full citizenship rights to the aborigines of this state’. The petition was replicated and communicated by multiple petitioners, separately, as copies were signed and sent by committee members on 9, 10, 23, 25 and 29 August 1938.

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The memorial letter which features in the newspaper ‘The Australian Abo Call’ on 19 July 1938 stated that ‘we are not savages, sinners, and criminals. We do not need anthropologists, clergymen and police! Give us equality of treatment and opportunity with all other Australians!’111 The memorial letter to members of parliament explained that members of the Aboriginal Progressive Association wanted new laws and changes to legislation to bring First Australians equal rights. The memorialists requested that equal rights to citizenship be granted by parliament, to include social and workplace privileges equal to that of the rest of society. The petitioners requested that the government implement a plan for First Australian land settlement, where First Australians who desire to own property are assisted to do so. The memorialists appealed for equal rights to education, scholarships to assist in First Australian advancement, that First Australians be employed in service work, and that an ‘Aborigines Administration Board’ be set up with relevant First Australian expertise on issues of health, education and land settlement.112 The unity between the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association and the Australian Aborigines’ League is made clear in the ‘Day of Mourning’ petition of 1938, created and prepared to coincide with the 150th year of Australian colonisation by British invaders.113 The ‘Day of Mourning and Protest’ sought recognition of First Australian Citizenship and British occupation of First Australian traditional lands and encompassed demands for land and civil and political rights. The advertised resolution presented prior to the ‘Day of Mourning’ stated the following: We, representing the Aborigines of Australia, assembled in conference at the Australian Hall, Sydney, on the 26th day of January, 1938, this being the 150th Anniversary of the Whiteman’s seizure of our country, hereby make protest against the callous treatment of our people by the whitemen during the past 150 years, and we appeal to the Australian nation of today to make new laws for the education and care of Aborigines, we ask for a new policy which will raise our people to full citizen status and equality within the community.114

According to Behrendt and Watson, the demand for land rights was central to the ‘Day of Mourning’. Behrendt and Watson maintain that land was then, as it is now, central to the process involved in addressing First Australian legal, cultural and political objectives throughout the twentieth century.115 A main objective set by the Aborigines Progressive Association in the ‘Day of Mourning’ protest in 1938 related to the right to establish land settlement programmes so that First Australians could become self-sufficient.116 Although the activism of

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Cooper and Maynard in conjunction with the Australian Aborigines’ League and the Aborigines Progressive Association were not successful in establishing such objectives within the span of their lifetimes, it is accurate to confirm, as Behrendt and Watson submit, that the efforts first undertaken by Cooper and Maynard to establish land rights for First Australians ‘remained at the heart of the Aboriginal political agenda, a legacy that shaped the contemporary land rights movement’.117 In recognising the efforts of both organisations, Foley and Anderson suggest that the approaches of both organisations are tied to the broader context of land and civil and political rights movements taken up by First Nations people in their resistance to colonialism.118 In one example of the ways in which First Australians were influenced by overseas movements to resist colonialism, Foley and Anderson suggest that the civil rights stage of the Australian land rights movement was inspired by the international black-consciousness activism set up by Sydney-based organisation such as the Coloured Progressive Association that had been developed by West Indian and African-American sailors and in 1907 and 1908 of which Fred Maynard had been a member.119 Foley and Anderson contend that the beginning of the civil rights movement that took place across America was influential on First Australian activism for land rights through the establishment of the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association and later the Australian Aborigines League.120

First Australian petitioning in the mid to late-twentieth century In reviewing scholarly debate on the question of First Australian petitioning for land and land access and rights in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, in the second half of the twentieth century, there has been much attention paid to petitions for civil and political rights and on the petitioning which occurred prior to the 1967 referendum. The decade from 1957 to 1967 marks a ten-year period of resistance and political action that took place for constitutional change via a referendum. In the long run, the petitioning that was undertaken by First Australians and organisations such as the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement can be considered to be successful in that the 1967 referendum resulted in a landslide ‘yes’ vote with 90.77 per cent of the population voting for constitutional amendments to section 51 and to repeal section 127 of the Australian Constitution. As such, this period of petitioning was effective in mobilising support for First Australian civil rights, especially in the lead up to the 1967 Referendum.

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Research of petitioning in the lead up to the referendum has tended to focus on petitioning by the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement, which later became the Federal Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advancement.121 From 1957 to 1967, both organisations petitioned the federal government for a referendum and constitutional change.122 Faith Bandler proposed that the aims of the organisations concerned amendments of the Australian Constitution to allow for the federal government to hold legislative power over First Australians, instead of state governments, and proposed to improve the standard of living for First Australians through wage equality, access to equal education, housing and food and to establish land rights.123 First Australians wanted the federal government to hold the power to make laws in relation to First Australians, as it was believed that this would better reduce First Australian inequality that existed under state law. State governments had the power to make laws for First Australians and laws differed from state to state, which meant that First Australians across Australia had varied legal rights. First Australian activists believed that if the federal government held legislative power over First Australians, it would create equal rights for First Australians in each state and contribute to addressing First Australian disadvantage. The Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship Petition was presented to the House of Representatives on 14 May 1957, followed a year later by the 1958 petition by Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement.124 Both petitions maintained that disadvantage faced by First Australians ‘are not remediable without Amendment of the Constitution of the Commonwealth, and that Aborigines are entitled to human rights equally with other Australians’.125 The petitions asked for a national referendum so that section 51 be amended and that section 127 of the constitution be repealed.126 Although these petitions were initially unsuccessful, they deserve special recognition as it was the driving force behind these petitions that propelled a tireless process of decade-long political action to achieve a referendum and the push for constitutional change which eventually led to the referendum in 1967. Attwood and Markus, in their book entitled The 1967 Referendum: Race, power and the Australian Constitution, provide a comprehensive summary of the petition and an account of the activism taken by First Australians and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement, in the lead up to the 1967 referendum. In particular, Attwood and Markus highlight the significance of the 1962 petitions campaign as part of ‘a comprehensive Action Programme’ which once again attempted to establish constitutional change.127 The aims of the federal council

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at this time were to bring public attention to the legal discrimination faced by First Australians and to persuade the public to fight for the reform of Aboriginal affairs.128 The petitioning was undertaken by First Australian council members and activists, such as Joe McGinness, the Aboriginal secretary of the Cairns Aboriginal and Islander Advancement League, as well as Doug Nicholls, Kath Walker, Bert Groves, Bill Onus and Chicka Dixon, along with non-indigenous allies.129 The petition gathered around ‘103,000 signatures in 94 separate petitions’, which were sent to federal parliament on a consistent basis until 1965, when Prime Minister Robert Menzies began plans for a referendum which would ‘include a proposal to repeal section 127 though not one to amend section 51 (xxvi)’.130 However, Menzies later considered the amendment to section 51. It is argued by Attwood and Markus that Menzies’s decision to consider the repeal of section 51 was based on the successful activism of by the Student Action for Aborigines’ who, through their ‘Freedom Ride’, protest across New South Wales, effectively exposed First Australian racial discrimination and their denial of civil and political rights.131 By 1966, with the takeover of Harold Holt’s Labour Government, the referendum had been put forth and included the amendment of section 51 and the removal of section 127. The 1967 referendum meant that First Australians were counted in the census, therefore providing them with equal voting rights.132 The 1962 petition can then be seen as successful in that each of the terms framed in the petition was met. At this point, it is important to emphasise that the petitioning and direct action of First Australians to achieve the outcomes of a referendum and citizenship rights were not solely based on a desire to become an Australian ‘citizen’, but was rather part of the larger picture of First Australians asserting their rights to secure recognition for their place in Australia and for formal legal rights and protection as citizens. In this respect, First Australian petitioning and the activism that took place to achieve change through the process of petitioning throughout the ten years leading to the 1967 Referendum involved more than the goal of gaining equal citizenship, but was rather a part of the larger picture of First Australian desire to gain equal access to education, housing and wage equality, land rights and recognition. Many First Australians and organisations such as the Student Action for Aborigines, Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship and the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement, which later became the Federal Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advancement, believed that the removal of state government control and power over First Australians would ultimately result in further access to equality by First

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Australians, and as such equal rights and land rights activism was intertwined in the lead up to the referendum. Goodall claims that the activism of the referendum was as much about citizenship as it was about land rights, and claims that this is evident in that First Australians’ desires for recognition of their relationship with land has almost always been included in the list of demands in successive struggles between First Australian activists and the state.133 In addition, Behrendt argues that early advocates for citizenship rights for First Australians ‘understood that land was the key to providing Aboriginal people with the capacity to be self-sustaining and to make decisions about their lives for themselves’.134 It is certainly the case that during the ten-year period of activism and petitioning for the referendum, that subsequent petitioning and activism by First Australians was taking place which demanded land rights. In one particular example, Eggerking emphasises that in the Yirrkala bark petition in 1963, and the Gurinji demands for equal rights in the form of civil and political rights and land rights in 1966 represent the connection between demands for civil and political rights and First Australian petitioning and activism for land rights.135 As such, Eggerking argues that since colonisation, the common goal of First Australian political action has been to attain ‘recognition of their prior relationship with the land’, and that although the priorities and demands established in political resistance through petitioning have changed over time, the desire for land has remained constant.136 Exemplary of petitioning for land rights are those petitions and letter from complainants in Queensland. Letters requesting the return of ‘tribal lands’ in North Queensland were written on 10 August 1965, and were published in the newspaper, The Australian. Stephen Giblet, of Lockhart River mission North Queensland, wrote the following: My people and I ask the government to give us back the Crown land we are living on now, an Aboriginal reserve around Lockhart and Claudie Rivers. Captain Cook took this land for the British king a long time ago: the Government got it from our great-great-grandfathers and paid them nothing. My people want to own our own land so that we can live there without fear that someone will force us to move. We want land to sell or guarantee for bank loans when we need money to start in business or educate our children. We want to live like white people and to have a good future, but we have nothing to start with. The Government says we should assimilate. All right, we are willing but give us our land back first so we can do it in our own ways.137

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The much celebrated 1963 Yirrkala bark petition is a prime and representative case in point of the ways in which First Australian social organisation and petitioning performed a twofold function in that it galvanised further support for First Australian land rights and precipitated far-reaching and significant landmark legal decisions. For this reason, it is considered more substantially in contemporary context in later chapters.138 The Gurindji strike is an example of the interconnectedness of First Australian petitioning and social action for land rights. The strike was brought on by the wish for formal wage equality and land rights to their traditional lands. As highlighted by Ward, in August 1966, the Gurindji people of Kalkarindji in the Northern Territory on the Wave Hill Cattle Station went on strike in demand of equal wages and the return of a fraction of their traditional lands.139 Approximately two hundred First Australian workers and their families walked off the station in resistance to the unequal pay and poor living conditions provided by the station.140 Behrendt contends that the Gurindji state that the strike contributed to attracting recognition for the wage inequality problem experienced by First Australians and the need for formal land rights.141 The Gurindji people delivered a successful campaign of resistance against the oppressive experiences on the station and their demand for land rights, which is evident in 1975 when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam granted the Gurindji leasehold title over 3,238 square kilometres of Wave Hill Station.142 The Larrakia petitions are an example of what Eggerking sees as First Australian resistance and political action for recognition of the ongoing relationship that First Australians had with the land prior to colonisation, which is evident in the first sentence of the petition, which stated ‘Gwalwa Daraniki’ which translates to ‘our land’ in the Larrakia language.143 In March 1972, the first petition was a petition drafted by the Larrakia people from the Kulaluk of the Northern Territory, and was sent to the McMahon Coalition government in the demand that the federal government establish a ‘commission for the negotiation of a treaty’, between First Australians and the state; however this attempt was unsuccessful.144 In comparison, Auguste emphasises that unlike First Nations groups in the United States, New Zealand and Canada, First Australians were not granted the same opportunity for a treaty of recognition of original inhabitants of the land between them and settler governments.145 The First Australian experience saw claims for treaty-making that ‘emerged two hundred years after the colonisation of the country’.146 Although Auguste’s assertion may be accurate in that the

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Larrakia petition is the first formal claim for a treaty, it is necessary to point out at this point that the Larrakia petition was not the first petition in which such demands were made. First Australians had advocated previously for recognition of prior land ownership in the form of treaty. Read, Meyers and Reece explain that in 1969, prior to the Larrakia petition, Jack Davis, the president of the Western Australian Aboriginal Association, wished to establish a treaty which recognises First Australians as the original owners of Australia in a letter sent to Jack Horner, the secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.147 Davis’s letter proposed the need for compensation for the history of denial of Aboriginal land rights and a treaty to be signed by federal leaders and each leader of First Australian kinship groups over land rights and access.148 However, Horner dismissed the claim and offered that the proposal for a treaty was ‘rather unreal at present’.149 The next Larrakia petition consisted of 1,000 signatures by the Larrakia people and demanded the establishment of formal land rights and recognition of First Australian connection to land.150 The petition was intended to be given to Princess Margaret on her October 1972 trip to Darwin in the hope that it could be delivered to Queen Elizabeth II. However, the Larrakia people were stopped by police barriers when they attempted to meet Princess Margaret.151 The petition was then passed on to Aboriginal Government House and was later ‘stamped by the private secretary’s office at Buckingham Palace on 3 November 1972’.152 The second Larrakia petition stated the following: 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 REFUGEE CAMPS without land, without employment, without justice.153

The petition ended with the following and explicit demand ‘we need land rights and political representation now.’154

Petitioning the Commonwealth: Recognition of prior land ownership, reconciliation, justice and constitutional change Throughout the twentieth century there was an increasing number of Commonwealth petitions and parliamentary debates concerning the poor conditions experienced by First Australians. The petitions reiterated the themes of

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previous decades, that is conditions of hardship, the need for self-determination and land rights and petitions often appeared within the broader context of land rights and human rights. One petition that summarised such conditions as the result of racial discrimination was presented to the Senate and described as the ‘Conditions of the Aborigines of Australia’. The petition, which was presented on Thursday, 30 November 1933, referred to the ‘native races’ in a procedural text, in a petition, ‘concerning the conditions of the aborigines of Australia, and suggesting measures for their amelioration, from religious organisations and was headed by a religious leader the Lord Bishop of Adelaide, Dr. Spence’.155 A petition requesting the removal of the Commonwealth Constitution Section 127 was presented by Senator Cohen presented a petition on Tuesday, 9 April 1963 from ‘51 citizens of Queensland praying that Parliament to take early action to remove the Commonwealth Constitution section 127 and the words in section 51 which discriminate against aboriginal people’.156 On Wednesday, 4 November 1970, a petition which was circulated in Queensland was presented by Senator Georges. It records the thoughts and experiences of the petitioners in some detail. It is rhetorical in tone and is underscored with indignation at their enforced removal from their homelands. It identifies several issues concerning First Australian oppression, equality of pay conditions and the denial of human rights as an outcome of the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders’ Affairs Act 1965. The following statement in the petition interrogates the conditions imposed on First Australians by the Act: Would you want the government to have these powers over you? Transfer from one to another part of Queensland against your will? Refuse to let you travel away from your home? control how you spend your money? Set your wages by government regulation instead by industrial award or agreement. Could you feed and clothe a family as aborigines of reserves are expected to do on wages ranging from $10-$25 a week. Put you under a form of house arrest for an unlimited period of time without trial. It is your punishment if you attempt to leave escape from a reserve. Fair to vary any lawful instruction of the manager. Our eyes, negligence or careless at work. This is, of course, at the discretion or interpretation of the manager of a reserve. It is the opinion of those responsible for circulating this petition that the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders’ Affairs Act 1965 oppresses the Aboriginals of Queensland and that it is a denial of human rights. They demand that the Act be abolished. This is the purpose of our amendment.157

Further petitions concerning land rights were presented and devised by petitioners who complained that the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Bill 1976 ‘does not satisfy the Aboriginal needs for land in the Northern Territory’

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and called for its amendment. It proposed the removal of all powers to pass land rights legislation from the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, with regard to sacred sites and wildlife and wished to remove the ‘artificial barriers to traditional owners’. The petition was presented on 8 September 1977 and was prepared by 81 petitioners: Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should: Extend the freeze on European claims to the unalienated Crown lands of the Northern Territory until 12 months after the passage of the Bill; and to provide for speedy lodging and hearing of Aboriginal claims. The hearing of Aboriginal claims has been postponed as a result of Government decisions. Aboriginals should not be penalised; amend the Bill to ensure: The removal of all powers to pass land rights legislation from the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, particularly its control over sacred sites, entry permits, seas adjoining Aboriginal land, wildlife and rights of Aboriginals to enter pastoral stations. The control by Aborigines of all roads passing through Aboriginal lands. The restoration of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner’s powers to hear claims based on need as well as traditional claims lodged by Aborigines. The restoration of all powers vested in Land Councils and the Land Commissioner in the 1 975 Land Rights Bill. A provision that any Government decision to over-ride Aboriginal objections to mining on the basis of national interest be itself reviewed by both Houses of Parliament. A provision that land-owning groups of Aborigines may apply to form separate trusts if they wish. The removal of artificial barriers to traditional owners imposed by the Territory borders on all tribes so affected.158

The conditions of hardship that First Australians experienced were presented in the context of land rights in a petition which called the Senate’s attention to a ‘Matter of Urgency’ and relayed in a speech to rectify the conditions that were experienced by First Australians in Victoria: I rise to support the motion because of the appalling conditions imposed on Aboriginal people in Victoria. In 1971 the census showed that there were 6371 Aboriginal people in Victoria as against 31,932 in Queensland. The Aboriginals in Victoria now estimate that they have about 10,000 people in that State. That still is a small number of people when compared with a State like Queensland which now has over 40 000 Aboriginal citizens. Because there is only a small number in Victoria one would think that the problems there would have been solved but let us look at the expertise and lack of supervision by this Federal Government. The Aboriginal section is run by 4 white men. No Aboriginals are employed. At Cummeragunja on the Murray River. Huts built of canvas and galvanised

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iron on the river banks are what Aborigines live in in many places. There is no sewerage, no power and the water comes from the river, or three or four families are jammed into a small house which was built for one small family. Down at Morwell in Victoria an old lady was put out of her house because 5 neighbours took up a petition. There was a court order and she was ejected. The National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, resigned some weeks ago. No election has been held in Victoria to fill the vacancy. Nobody will give the Aboriginal people information. They are bamboozled over rents. They are told they owe money which they are sure they have paid. They are refused evidence and information on the matter. They and their ancestors have been here for 70 000 years. As Victorian Aborigines say: ‘Being black means saying you are sorry’. This Federal Government has done nothing to rectify this shameful situation.159

In the wake of the determination of the Federal Court of Australia’s determination of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth), numerous petitions followed seeking land-related agreements. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) (ALRA) was the first major land rights legislation in Australia, and provided for statutory titles granted on the basis of Aboriginal customary land tenure systems and procedures relating to use and access of Aboriginal land. The Act sets out the processes for negotiation of exploration and mining agreements as well as other activities that might occur on Aboriginal land by governments or developers. State land rights legislation in South Australia (Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act 1981 (SA), Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984 (SA)), New South Wales (Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW)), Queensland (Aboriginal Land Act 1991 (Qld), Torres Strait Islander Land Act 1991 (Qld)), and Tasmania (Aboriginal Lands Act 1995 (Tas)) similarly provided for grants of land and procedures relating to access to and use of land. On 8 September 1977, a petition of eighty-one First Australian citizens was presented to the Senate requesting legal ownership of land. It interrogated the decision to mine for uranium without permission. The petition was clear in its intention of establishing First Australians as the original inhabitants and drew attention to the lack of financial compensation or mineral royalty paid to them. In the petition outlined below, the petitioners contend that mining of the land was fraudulent and that European-forced occupation of the land was responsible for loss of lives and the conditions of poverty they faced: Australia and its land was taken from the original inhabitants, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, by Europeans without any compensation and mineral royalty; that tens of thousands of our people were killed by guns and

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Petitioning for Land poison and by whitemens diseases; that the present Government is largely responsible because they and their predecessors have held office in this country for a far longer period than any Labor Party Government; that though there may be more Coloured People in countries such as Africa, India and other places, this land in this country is still ours because not one cent has been paid for one foot of land which for the past 188 years has been, and still is, being withheld by fraud; that the decision to mine uranium has been taken by the Government without any consultation with the Aboriginal people and that uranium will be exported and probably will be responsible for causing the loss of many lives in other countries; that this Government and many of its predecessors have been responsible for inflicting poverty, not only on Australian Aborigines but they have contributed also to death and poverty of indigenous people in other Asian countries and in the Pacific. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should take all possible steps to alter current policies to compensate Aborigines for deaths inflicted on us and for the loss of our lands.160

Land rights were further pursued in a petition to prevent the projected repeal by the Queensland state government of the Aborigines Act 1971–1979 and the Torres Strait Islander Act 1971–1979. The petitioners stated that they required land rights and self-determination: The projected repeal by the Queensland State Government of the Aborigines Act 1971-1979 and the Torres Strait Islander Act 1971-1979 will almost certainly lead to the degazettal of all Aboriginal reserves in Queensland, as happened with Aurukun and Mornington Island. That, if the Aboriginal communities from these reserves are placed under similar shire council legislation on fifty year leases, they will be exposed to serious encroachment on their land by mining and tourist interests. That, on past evidence, these interests will clearly have the full backing of the Queensland Government and the rights of Aboriginal people to land rights and self-management will not be granted by that Government. That the Commonwealth Government has the constitutional power to legislate and acquire land for Aboriginal people since the amendments to the Constitution in 1967, but it is your Petitioners’ sincere belief that it has already failed in its duty before the people of Aurukun and Mornington Island. That the Aboriginal people of Queensland have stated that they want land rights and self-management. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should make use of its constitutional and legislative powers to grant full land rights and self-management to the Aboriginal people of Queensland.161

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The Barunga petition The 1988 petition contained promise of a treaty within the Barunga Statement [Art and Life] and called for ‘full civil, economic, social and cultural rights’. The then prime minister, Bob Hawke responded and proposed to ‘conclude a treaty between Aboriginal and other Australians by 1990’ but the assurance was never accomplished. It proposed freedom and self-determination within the context of economic, social and cultural rights and in accordance with the universal declaration of human rights: We, the Indigenous owners and occupiers of Australia, call on the Australian Government and people to recognise our rights: to self-determination and self-management, including the freedom to pursue our own economic, social, religious and cultural development; to permanent control and enjoyment of our ancestral lands; to compensation for the loss of use of our lands, there having been no extinction of original title; to protection of and control of access to our sacred sites, sacred objects, artefacts, designs, knowledge and works of art; to the return of the remains of our ancestors for burial in accordance with our traditions; to respect for and promotion of our Aboriginal identity, including the cultural linguistic, religious and historical aspects, and including the right to be educated in our own languages and in our own culture and history; in accordance with the universal declaration of human rights, the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, the international covenant on civil and political rights, and the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, rights to life, liberty, security of person, food, clothing, housing, medical care, education and employment opportunities, necessary social services and other basic rights.162

We call on the Commonwealth to pass laws providing: A national elected Aboriginal and Islander organisation to oversee Aboriginal and Islander affairs; A national system of land rights; A police and justice system which recognises our customary laws and frees us from discrimination and any activity which may threaten our identity or security, interfere with our freedom of expression or association, or otherwise prevent our full enjoyment and exercise of universally recognised human rights and fundamental freedoms. We call on the Australian Government to support Aborigines in the development of an international declaration of principles for indigenous rights, leading to an international covenant. And we call on the Commonwealth Parliament to negotiate with us a Treaty recognising our prior ownership, continued occupation and sovereignty and affirming our human rights and freedom.

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A petition by First Australians of the Northern Territory on 30 November 1989 voiced disapproval to the House of Representative about the destruction of sacred sites in the Northern Territory caused by mineral development. The petitioners request that parliament ‘act immediately to return the area known as Kakadu Stage 3, including the conservation zone, to its rightful owners under the Land Rights (N.T.) Act (Claim Registration No 111)’. The petitioners wished for the Sacred Sites Protection Act (1989) to be overturned in the claim and that the Act unjustly favours the interests of the Northern Territory Minister for Lands and allows for mineral development to ‘proceed on sacred sites without the permission of the custodians of those sites’.163 A petition rejecting the inquiry into First Australian housing was presented to the House of Representatives on 17 October 1991 because it failed to address the key issues. Though it addressed housing it was primarily aimed at ensuring proper consultation would take place and be centred on the prevention of unfair Queensland legislation. It was rejected by First Australian Queenslanders owing to the lack of consultation with them and for failing to consult the established First Australian networks. The petitioners requested that ‘Federal Parliament will intervene on our behalf to prevent the state government from passing legislation through this Report at the Queensland Parliament sitting.’ The petitioners claimed the that terms of reference were unsatisfactory for not addressing the vital issue of tenant ownership and lack of incentive for self-determination and contended that ‘not enough time was given for the communities to study the recommendations of the infrastructure on Aboriginal housing as addressed by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’.164

Eva Valley Statement When in 1992 the High Court of Australia in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) recognised native title as a form of customary title arising from traditional laws and customs that pre-existed and, under certain conditions, survived British sovereignty, the Commonwealth Parliament enacted the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (the NTA) with the avowed aim of recognising and protecting native title rights while ensuring a workable, secure and effective system of dealing with First Australian issues concerning land. It undertook to resolve the retrospective effects of native title which had the potential of invalidating certain land titles including pastoral leases. In response to the High Court’s decision in Wik

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which held that indigenous rights to land could co-exist with certain property rights, controversial amendments to the Native Title Act were passed in 1998. While the amendments generally worked to limit the scope of native title, other amendments emphasised a process of agreement-making over litigation as the preferred method of resolving a wide range of native title issues. Especially important in this context are the sections of the Native Title Act 1993 that provide for provisions relating to Consent Determinations, Indigenous Land Use Agreements and Future Act agreements.165 In the first week of August 1993, in recognition of traditional rights and interests, more than four hundred indigenous people from around Australia gathered at Eva Valley, near Katherine in the Northern Territory. The meeting was called in response to concerns about Commonwealth proposals for legislation on native title in the wake of the Mabo decision (3 June 1992). The participants insisted on a national standard of rights to be given to all Aborigines and issued the Eva Valley Statement. In a Statement of Intention, the petitioners insist that any proposed legislation should advance Aboriginal rights to land, and that the government should only move on the issue with the full support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It stated the following claims: The Commonwealth take full control of native title issues to the exclusion of the States and Territories to ensure a national standard for all Aboriginal peoples; the Commonwealth honour its obligations under international human rights instruments and international law; and the Commonwealth agree to a negotiating process to achieve a lasting settlement recognising and addressing historical truths regarding the impact of dispossession, marginalisation, destabilisation and disadvantage. The Statement set out principles under which the Commonwealth should take actions in response to the Mabo decision and nominated a representative body to put forward the Indigenous position on these matters.166

Lack of representation and proper funding were outlined as prominent issues and were presented in subsequent petitions. On Monday, 4 November 1996, petitioners requested that parliament consider the funding request to support Munjuwa multi-services for First Australian communities.167 Similar petitions were presented on Monday, 19 February 1997 concerning ‘a lack of genuine representation by community representatives petitioners therefore ask the House to investigate these problems and put in place measures to ensure that people at the grass-roots level receive the help, support and opportunities that they should have, but are not currently receiving’.168

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Recognition of prior land ownership, reconciliation and justice Matters concerning recognition of prior land ownership, reconciliation and justice were presented more often in First Australian petitions. One such petition of thirty-one signatories appealing for ‘meaningful and just’ reconciliation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the broader community was presented to the Senate on Tuesday, 3 March 1998. Senator Calvert explicitly supported the following request for an apology, compensation, consultation and recognition of prior ownership of land: I support the process of Aboriginal Reconciliation and therefore request that the Senate: Support the historic Mabo and Wik decisions to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a right to use their traditional lands under Native Title by upholding the Native Title Act; Acknowledge that the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, land and communities was wrong, apologise and fully respond to the continuing consequences through reparation and compensation; Fully implement recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; Formulate through consultation with the people a new preamble to the Federal Constitution and those of the States which recognises the prior ownership and occupation of the land by indigenous Australians; and vote to change the date of Australia Day to a date which all Australians can celebrate.169

Twenty-first century petitioning The issues that were first initiated by First Australian petitioners and brought to light more widely became better known and developed into more substantial campaigns in the twenty-first century. The petitions continued to attract public support and were broadly upheld throughout Australia. Campaigns around the broader concerns of reconciliation, Indigenous health, youth suicide, education, housing and land rights became more commonplace and were received by Commonwealth and State Parliament in traditional ritual smoking ceremonies. The House of Representatives received a petition by 110 First Australians on 26 February 2001, which requested that the government work to ‘implement reconciliation with the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and social justice for all Australians in 2000 the year of jubilee and reconciliation’. The petitioners

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argue that laws in Australia are hindering reconciliation, and argue against laws which they see as human rights violations: crime and punishment laws, such as Mandatory Sentencing; and land rights legislation. The petitioners request that the government allow for a ‘fair trial in their own languages’ and question the overrepresentation of First Australians in prison. In relation to land rights, the petitioners argue that First Australians have yet to be recognised as having rights to land and they call on the Australian government to take action against these injustices.170 Throughout the twenty-first century, First Australians petitioned consistently for independence. Such petitions addressed the call for a treaty or recognition of prior land ownership. For example, on Monday, 14 March 2005, a petition with thirty-four signatories registered their discontent. In a petition ‘Aboriginal Treaty for Independence’ presented to members of the House of Representatives assembled in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. The petition drew attention to the ‘the reluctance by this present federal government to establish a Treaty with our Aboriginal people. The petitioners requested that the House ‘consider and permit a vote for Independence among the Koori (Aboriginal) people’.171 Following the release of the Social Justice Report 2005, prepared by Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma on 18 September 2007, the quality of life for First Australians and their health became a more significant issue. Western Australian parliamentarians joined the ranks of a further 80,000 people that called for the nation to close the gap on the life expectancy between First Australians and non-indigenous Australians in a petition to ‘Close the Gap’. The petition was signed by prominent sportspeople such as Cathy Freeman, and politicians from the Labor, Liberal and Greens parties put their names to a petition that requested increased funding for First Australian services and improvements in housing, education and self-determination.172

The Bark petitions In July 2008, a metre-long bark petition was presented to the then Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, by Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu. The petition requested First Australian recognition in the constitution. The Yirrkala petitions are significant as a key part of the persistent claim for constitutional change which achieved the amendment of the Australian Constitution (S.51,

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S.127) in 1967, the statutory acknowledgement of Aboriginal land rights by the Commonwealth in 1976, and contributed to the overturning of the perception of terra nullius by the High Court in the Mabo Case in 1992. The Yirrkala petition called for changes to the government intervention in their townships. A second bark petition called on the Commonwealth Government to recognise First Australian communities and traditional parliament and Madayin law. The petition was misinterpreted and placed into storage with gifts given to former prime minister John Howard in 1998. In 1998, politicians had been reminded of the 50th anniversary of the first Yirrkala bark petition, but few realised that subsequent petitions had been ignored. Many of the elders who had signed the 1998 petition had died without seeing the outcomes that they requested.173

The 1963 Yirrkala bark petition The 1963 Yirrkala bark petition requires special consideration here as it was celebrated in 2013 and is recognised in contemporary society as a founding document. In 1963, the Yolngu people of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land sent a petition to the House of Representatives that was made from bark and that demanded that their rights to land be respected in the government’s decision to encroach on Yolngu lands for the building of the bauxite mine. The Yolngu peoples’ petition started a long process of resistance to mining and eventually went to federal court in the Gove Land Rights case. However, the case and original petition were not successful in that Justice Blackburn found that under the present legal fiction of terra nullius the Yolngu people could not prevent mining on their traditional lands.174 The much celebrated Yirrkala bark petition is a prime and representative case in point of the ways in which First Australian social organisation and petitioning performed a twofold function in that it galvanised further support for First Australian land rights and precipitated far-reaching and significant landmark legal decisions. This view is confirmed by Larissa Behrendt, who proposes that despite the initial negative outcome of the case and the lack of success of the original petition, the petition itself can been regarded as a success, as it achieved other more far-reaching changes. The Gove case, for example, which arose from Yolgnu petitioning, was an important measure in applying pressure on the federal government to establish First Australian land rights.175 It holds further significance as it combines traditional

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communications through bark painting with textual representation on paper.176 In 1972, under the leadership of Whitlam Labour Government, a national policy of Aboriginal land rights was introduced in the Northern Territory, along with the Central Land Council and the Northern Land Council, which represents ‘the first attempt by an Australian government to legally recognise the Aboriginal system of land ownership’.177 The 1963 Yirrkala bark petition was tabled in the House of Representatives on 14 and 28 August and appears below: That nearly 500 people of the above tribes are residents of the land excised from the Aboriginal Reserve in Arnhem Land. That the procedures of the excision of this land and the rate of the people on it were never explained to them beforehand, and were kept secret from them. 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. That the land in question has been hunting and food gathering land for the Yirrkala tribes from time immemorial; we were all born here. That places sacred to the Yirrkala people, as well as vital to their livelihood are in the excised land, especially Melville Bay. 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. 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 people of Yirrkala before permitting the excision of this land. They humbly pray that no arrangements be entered into with any company which will destroy the livelihood and independence of the Yirrkala people.178

Petitioning against the Northern Territory Emergency Response There was vociferous objection to the transgression of basic human rights in the First Australian petitions that were presented to the House of Representatives regarding the Northern Territory Emergency Response. These were presented on 17 March, 26 May and 1 September 2008. The petitions requested a revision of legislation regarding the Northern Territory Emergency Response. The petitioners were strongly critical of Australian government policy regarding the Northern Territory Emergency Response and the government was denounced for its inaction against the broader issues concerned with indigenous poverty.

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The then prime minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough were accused of staging a media conference for the sole purpose of creating an environment of moral panic.179 The petition addressed the following issues as set out below: This Petition of certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House the many well-known public figures of this country who have publicly rejected the actions of the current Federal Government in its Northern Territory Intervention Strategy and Legislation and expresses our deep concern about it because: the Government’s strategy has been implemented with no consultation with Indigenous community leaders; the bulk of the $587 million allocated is to be spent on administration and bureaucrats rather than directly assisting Indigenous Communities; quarantining of welfare payments will result in many families, who are already struggling, being worse off; removal of the entry permits system exposes communities and children to further risk. We call on the incoming Federal Government to revisit the Northern Territory strategy and legislation in consultation with Indigenous leaders as a matter of urgency and to review its appropriateness for the goal of protecting Indigenous women and children in the Northern Territory or any other part of Australia.180

The minister for families, housing, community and indigenous affairs responded by committing ‘to a comprehensive review of the first 12 months of activity under the NTER’. As mentioned above, the government is committed to a comprehensive review of the first twelve months of activity under the NTER. It proposed to ‘review’ the circumstances of the intervention: ‘I will propose to examine all measures and available evidence to assess what is working, the extent of each measure’s effectiveness, and the impact to date. I envisage that the review will be highly consultative with face to face meetings with a variety of indigenous people and communities in the Northern Territory and submissions called from interested groups. I expect the findings to be delivered to Government before the end of 2008.’181

The Tent Embassy petitions On Australia day, 1972, a petition was presented voicing disapproval of the McMahon Liberal Government’s statement in which land rights were rejected for fifty-year leases to First Australian communities and were conditional on the ability of First Australians to make economic and social use of the land.

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The petition of February 1972 detailed a five-point plan which addressed First Australian ownership of existing reserves and settlements, preservation of all sacred sites, $6 million in compensation and full rights of statehood for the Northern Territory. The tents that were erected on the lawns of Old Parliament House were removed twice by the Liberal Government in 1972. From 1975, the embassy was intermittently forcibly removed by police and was re-established in 1974. It was removed after the enactment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1976. In 1992, it became a permanent fixture, representing the ongoing struggle for Aboriginal sovereignty and land rights. Since 1992, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy has been paramount to protests and marches on parliament. In 1995, the embassy was listed on the Australian Heritage Commission’s National Estate. It is the only place recognised nationally for the political struggle of Aboriginal people. It was subsequently subject to controversy and arson attacks. The fortieth anniversary of the Tent Embassy was marked on 26 January 2012. The anniversary is a significant milestone for First Australians.182 Activists celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the original protests overtook a function of the then prime minister Julia Gillard. In the twenty-first century, the Tent Embassy stands as a symbol of First Australian protest against successive governments and their approach to indigenous issues. Tent embassies have since been erected around Australia, the most prominent issue being publicised by the embassy is Aboriginal sovereignty over the Australian continent and an acknowledgement of an indigenous right to self-determination.183 The petition sent by members of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy to the House of Representatives on 25 May 2009 requested that the House of Representatives acknowledge the long-standing diplomatic role that the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra has played, and requested that the Tent Embassy’s rights be acknowledged and affirmed ‘according to international convention and international law, retrospectively from said Embassy’s establishment’.184 It was rejected on the grounds that it did not comply with international law. In response, I acknowledge the request in Petition No 160/259 that Canberra’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy be acknowledged as having diplomatic rights and responsibilities under international law. The minister for families, housing and community services and indigenous affairs, Ms Macklin, gave the following response: I am advised that, as the Aboriginal Tent Embassy does not represent a foreign country recognised by Australia, it cannot be recognised as a foreign mission with the equivalent rights and responsibilities afforded by international convention and law.185

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The Boomerang petition On 12 December 2013 a petition requesting constitutional recognition of First Australians was presented and signed by 2,113 individuals that raised concerns about the following matters of constitutional change and discrimination: The concern raised by the Expert Panel reporting on the Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in January 2012 was the need to remedy the historical exclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from Australia’s Constitution and the need to remove discrimination. We therefore ask the House to: Educate the Australian nation about the need for constitutional change and hold a referendum within two years to Remove Section 25 – which says the States can ban people from voting based on their race; Remove section 51(xxvi) which can be used to pass laws that discriminate against people based on their race; Insert a new section 51A – to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to preserve the Australian Government’s ability to pass laws for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; Insert a new section 116A, banning racial discrimination by government; and Insert a new section 127A, recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were this country’s first tongues, while confirming that English is Australia’s national language.186

The then Attorney-General Senator Brandis who addressed the issue responded that a Parliamentary Joint Select Committee would be established and contended that the government would prepare a draft constitutional amendment to recognize First Australian peoples in the Constitution. A review required under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 commenced on 27 March 2014 to consider support for indigenous constitutional recognition. A Joint Select Committee was established to inquire into and report on the following: A Parliamentary Joint Select Committee has been established to inquire into and report on steps that can be taken to progress towards a successful referendum on Indigenous constitutional recognition, including consideration of the recommendations of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians. The Committee is chaired by Mr Ken Wyatt AM MP, the first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives, and its deputy chair is Senator Nova Peris OAM, the first female Indigenous federal parliamentarian. The Committee will submit an interim report to the Parliament by the end of September 2014.187

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Insights into petitioning for formal land rights The First Australian resistance that took place through petitioning in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries concerned access to traditional lands and for formal land rights. Petitions and other forms of resistance within the Britishoriginated legal system have been largely discounted within the literature on First Australian resistance, in favour of a focus which has concentrated largely on violent forms of resistance. However, such a dominant focus on violent resistance creates an inaccurate picture of the totality of First Australian resistance to state power. Petitions are important in this regard. Petitions have been neglected as a resource in understanding the broader parameters of First Australian opposition to occupation of their lands. As a result, there is little interpretation of the political endeavour such organisation requires or little insight into the lived experiences of First Australians. A broad petitioning trend can be observed in these petitions, that ranges from primarily local and material concerns in the earlier petitions towards more universal political and moral concerns that were perceptible in later petitions. The earliest petitions primarily regarded the First Australian communities’ ability to be self-sufficient through the provision of land rights for agriculture. Often, the pursuit of self-sufficiency was understood through the framework of the introduced institutions of missions and reserves. Many such petitions also appealed to the authority figures in these institutions. Later petitions primarily regarded broader topics. First Australian activist groups began to call attention to unfair laws and policies and push for an equal recognition under Australian law. This continuous pressure culminated in petitions being framed in terms of more universal rights, which called for First Australians to have complete equality in Australian society and called for entitlement to all the advantages that pertained to citizenship. It was such petitioning as this that led to the 1967 referendum. All this being said, First Australian appellants’ connection to their ancestral land remained an important aspect of their petitions. An historiographical investigation of petitions finds that there is limited research of the role of petitioning in First Australian political mobilisation and action. Petitioning played an important role in the political organisation of First Australian activism. This examination of petitioning demonstrates how First Australian petitions might successfully build on knowledge of First Australian resistance through petitioning for land access and rights. First Australian petitioning for land began in the early nineteenth century with the earliest petitions that questioned colonial authority, albeit working within the confines

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of the system. They demonstrate how First Australians acted as agents of change to immediately and gradually transform their circumstances. The land access petitions and land rights petitions examined in this chapter might appear on the surface to be slight and insignificant. They were often ignored by colonial and government representatives. Though petitions provide slight or incremental change, the narrative inherent in First Australian petitioning was sufficient to create linear change. Many changes were brought about and accelerated from the previous petition and as a consequence created new demands for change. Without a doubt, such petitions formed a crucial contribution to the larger representation of First Australian political action for land rights.

3

Treatises and Petitions

The following discussion of treaties and petitions forms a comparative perspective of the early colonial circumstances encountered by First Nations of America, Canada and New Zealand in comparison with First Australians. It provides an account of the experiences of agreement-making in First Nations of America, Canada and New Zealand and offers an interpretation of First Peoples’ early experience under colonisation. It examines the struggle to control land and reserves, and establishes First Nations resistance to injustice, offering an account of the continuous efforts of First Nations challenge to colonial authority. A defining distinction between the colonisation of America, Canada and New Zealand in comparison with Australia is that the British Crown did not seek a treaty during Australian colonisation. However, the petitioning that ensued from other First Nations, such as America, Canada and New Zealand, was closely related to the conditions that the treaties imposed. Petitions indicate a long history of political action. Petitioning by First Nations of North America occurred within the British Empire but was later directed towards the international community. The hardships experienced by First Nations petitioners and the sentiments that were expressed in the petitions created in response to treaty-making bears much in common with the circumstances and dynamics that were driving petitioning in the early First Australian context, albeit without the imposition of treaties.

America’s broken treaty system A striking similarity of petitioning in comparative perspective is the act of endorsing a treaty to prevent violent retaliation to land excise and British or American colonial rule. Between 1778 and 1871, independent First Nations Americans and representatives of the Crown or US government entered into treaty negotiations, to create territory borders between First Nations

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American land. In many circumstances, treatises were instigated primarily to quell the force of First Nations retaliations and were instigated so as to reach an agreement of peace between the conflicting interest participants.1 By the year 1871, a total of three hundred and sixty-seven treaties were ratified by the United States government and independent First Nations American groups.2 Conversely, as is the case with Canada and New Zealand, the terms governing many treaties were broken. The treaties between the British Crown or the US government and First Nations American people did not guarantee equality between settler and First Nations. Nor did it mean that there was any recognition of First Nations land rights or the protection of their culture. The United States Congress brokered treaty agreements under laws that were passed by Congress which enabled them to govern First Peoples under the jurisdiction of the newly established Bureau of Indian Affairs. The US Congress, on 3 March 1871, passed the United States Code Title 25, Chapter 3, Subchapter 1, Section 71, which established a loophole that ensured that the United States was no longer obliged to enter into treaty agreements with First People, as they were no longer seen as independent nations.3 Section 71 stated that ‘no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States should be acknowledged or recognised as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty’.4 The code also claimed that treaties before 1871 were not to be invalidated under the code but stipulated that future arrangements between First People and the United States were to be made under domestic law.5 Prior to the implementation of United States Code, Title 25, Congress agreed that First Nations were sovereign nations. Conversely, it might be argued that the false notion of sovereignty was both a useful and timely method for the governing powers in Congress, especially when land was required to meet a colonising agenda. As with First Nations of Canada and New Zealand, First Nations of America have maintained that treaties largely failed to protect their interests and that government officials have unremittingly failed to follow through with the terms of agreement.6 After an internal struggle, the Hawaiian Islands were formally annexed to the United States in a treaty that was ratified by the US Congress on 7 July 1898. There was significant opposition to the treaty however, and First Nations Hawaiians sought to protect their rights and national identity through a petition objecting the proposed annexation and through membership of the Hawaiian Patriotic League.7

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The Hui Aloha Aina for Women and the Hui Aloha Aina for Men each drove a petition to inform the US government that First Nations Hawaiian citizens opposed annexation. Between 11 September and 2 October 1897 the two groups collected petition signatures at public meetings held on each of the five principal islands of Hawaii. The ‘Petition Against Annexation’ was written in Hawaiian and English and contained 21,269 native Hawaiian signatories, or more than half the 39,000 native Hawaiians and mixed-heritage persons reported by the Hawaiian Commission census for the same year. The women’s petition appears below and was written to William McKinley and stated the following: We the undersigned, native Hawaiian women ... are members of the women’s Hawaiian Patriotic League of the Hawaiian Islands, and other women who are in sympathy with the said League earnestly protest against the annexation of the said Hawaiian Islands to the said United States of America in any form or shape.8

The petition was successful for a time in delaying the annexation but in spite of the protest against it by the many thousands of signatories of the petition, Hawaii was later annexed and became the fiftieth state of the United States of America.

Canadian treaties After the cessation of the seven years’ French–Indian War between France and Britain over control of the region which made up Canada’s New France, the British seized control of New France in 1760.9 Pending their capture of the region, the British Crown implemented a policy of purchasing Canadian Aboriginal land that was made official in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued by King George III that proclaimed ownership of North America by the British Crown.10 However, the Royal Proclamation also established the rules for European settlement in First Nations Canadian territories.11 The proclamation declares that ‘Aboriginal title has existed and continues to exist and that all land would be considered Aboriginal land until ceded by treaty’.12 The proclamation prohibited future European settlers from acquiring Aboriginal land either through force or by sale, as it had established an exclusive rule that land must first be purchased by the British Crown to then be sold off to settlers.13 At the beginning of colonisation, in the years before the end of the French– Indian War, First Nations land was bought by numerous individuals, including individual farmers for private or large-scale production, real estate investors

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and colonial governments.14 Banner highlights that the sale of land varied in terms of who sold it as First Nations land was sold by individual families, small groups and entire tribes.15 The victory of the British Crown and the subsequent proclamation transformed the practice of land sales. The British Crown was authorised to purchase land that was authorised under the leadership of an entire tribe.16 This arrangement transformed land sales ‘from contracts to treaties-from transactions between private parties into transactions between sovereigns’.17 The stratagem to shift from contracts to treaties was similarly contained within United States policy for dealing with First Nations Americans post-American Revolution. The treaty arrangement was similarly established within the agreement-making process of the British Crown with Māori people of New Zealand. Scholarly deliberation about the Royal Proclamation tends to sit on two opposing sides of debate. It is regarded either as a revolutionary step in countenancing land title or as a feature of Eurocentric colonial dominance. The proclamation saw British and First Nations colonial relationships develop as First Nations Canadians had title over their lands and established a precedent for consent and compensation for land sale between First Nations and the government. Alternatively, it is proposed that the Royal Proclamation stemmed from a Eurocentric world view as it was designed and written by the British Crown to establish control over North American Aboriginal lands for interests in settlement and resources.18 Between 1871 and 1921, there were eleven different treaties signed between First Nations groups and the British Crown in the years following Canadian confederation. The series of treaties became known as the ‘Land Cession Treaties’, and the treaties were responsible for First Nations land dispossession. Each treaty varies in terms of the clauses set out by each First Nation group and the Crown. Owran argues that treaties established great benefits for the Crown as they reflected their interests for settlement and allowed the Crown to ‘own’ traditional land and natural resources. Such treaties resulted in negative outcomes for First Nations.19 Scholarly investigation of Canadian treaties has argued that in many cases, First Nation groups sought to enter into a treaty to put an end to settler violence.20 In exchange for their land, the First Nations groups were promised security and an end to the settler violence which was directed at First Nations Canadians in the European encroachment of their lands from the early days of contact and colonisation. However, a consequence of such moves to end violent confrontation against colonial dominance was land dispossession.

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Land dispossession brought about increased levels of economic disadvantage for those who were confined to reserves.21 The first two Canadian treaties were signed in August 1871 by the Chippewa and Swampy Cree Tribes. The treaty proposed to encompass all future tribes that might come to live in the region and who were residents of the same treaty area.22 The aim of the treaties was to ‘open up the area of land to settlement, commerce, and immigration’.23 Treaty One declared that in exchange for their land and sovereignty, the Crown would establish a reserve of land of up to 160 acres per family for the exclusive use of the tribes. The Yellow Quill tribe was promised 25 square miles of land for their exclusive use. In terms of monetary compensation, the terms of treaties one and two stipulated that the Crown was to offer the following: A gift of three dollars to each man, woman and child belonging to the tribes mentioned; to maintain a school on each reserve; to enforce a ban on all liquor; to perform a census of all Indians in the area; and to give to each family, on an annual basis, the sum of 15 dollars cash or the same amount in articles such as blankets, clothing, twine or traps.24

Monetary compensation was offered in the treaties which followed. Treaty Three was made between representatives of the British Crown and the Saulteaux and Lac Seul tribes of the Ojibbeway people, over the Lower Fort Garry region of Manitoba, on 3 October 1873.25 The cessation of their land ensured that the Saulteaux and Lac Seul people be given five dollars per head and that land be set aside for each family in the tribe.26 Treaty Five was implemented between the Crown and the Saulteaux and Swampy Cree tribes. The treaty was signed on 20 September 1875, at Beren’s River and Norway House regions of Manitoba.27 Treaty Six applied to the region of Carlton and Manitoba and was signed on 3 August 1876, by representatives of the Crown and the Plain and Wood Cree tribes. As with Treaties One and Two, this treaty applied to all other groups who resided within the geographical boundaries of the treaty.28 Unique to this treaty was the clause that in the event of disease or famine, the tribes affected would be given assistance by the Crown.29 The seventh treaty was concluded on 22 September 1877. The treaty was agreed between representatives of the Canadian government and Head Chiefs of the ‘Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee, Stony and other Indians, inhabitants of the territory north of the United States Boundary Line, east of the central range of the Rocky Mountains, and south and west of Treaties numbers Six and Four’.30

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Treaty Eight took effect in 1900 and differed from the previous treaties in that the land mass covered under the treaty was near 840,000 kilometres and applied to thirty-nine First Nation communities, making this significantly greater than previous treaties.31 The treaty covered regions now known as northern Alberta, north-western Saskatchewan, north-eastern British Columbia, and the southwestern area of the North-West Territories.32 Treaty Eight was established after a period of intense and extended violence between the Métis and rival first Nation groups, and between the Métis and the Canadian government. It was hoped that the establishment of a treaty would put an end to the violence. It was expected that the treaty would then establish cooperation between opposing First Nations communities and between European settlers and First Nations and the government.33 A main source of conflict in the lead up to the signing of Treaty Eight occurred between the Métis people and the Canadian government. The treaty system had originally failed to protect the land interests of Métis people. This led to violent confrontation with the Canadian government in 1885. The Métis people, a mixed-ancestry population made up of various aboriginal groups and European backgrounds became a distinct assemblage in the initial years of Canada’s fur trade.34 Métis people primarily held ties to land in the regions which make up the Red River and South Branch settlement, which are now Manitoba and Saskatchewan.35 From the 1870s to the late 1880s, the Métis drafted petitions to members of the federal government. These petitions were aimed at addressing the lack of political representation and recognition of Métis people as a distinct First Nations group by the federal government.36 Their petitions also demanded the recognition of First Nations rights to land title.37 In 1885, in resistance to the government’s failure to recognise Métis interests set out in their extensive petitioning, the Métis along the South Saskatchewan River established a provisional government. The Canadian government responded with violent reprisal against the Métis in an effort to prevent their refusal to accept their government.38 It was in the signing of Treaty Eight that the Canadian government and the Crown officially recognised the land title of Metis.39 However, the First Nations leaders involved in this treaty had consistently claimed that the terms of the treaty agreed upon were not met. They asserted that the treaty was intended to recognise their unrestricted rights to culture, lifestyle and customs that are linked to their traditional lands. Cultural rights were not recognised in the years following the treaty and the terms of the treaty have been the subject of contestation ever since.40

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Treaty Nine was actualised in 1905 by the Cree, Beaver and Chipewyan groups and the Canadian government.41 Treaty Ten followed in 1906, and was signed by the Canadian government and the Chipewyan, Cree and other Indian inhabitants of the region which makes up the eastern boundary of the province of Saskatchewan.42 Treaty Eleven was the last treaty to be established between the Crown, the Canadian government and First Nations groups of Canada. Treaty Eleven was signed in 1921 by ‘representatives of the government of Canada and the Slave, Dogrib, Loucheux, Hare’ and other groups in Mackenzie River Valley region and the Northwest Territories of Canada.43

Ceding and surrendering land to the Crown The First Nations of Canada lost much ground in signing the treaties. The terms of each of the eleven treaties proposed that the First Nations inhabitants of the treaty area were made to ‘cede, release, surrender and yield up to her Majesty the Queen’ their ancestral lands in the region and had to become loyal subjects of the British Crown in their relations with settlers.44 This meant that they were obliged to abide by British law and could no longer obstruct settler rights to property. However, each treaty differed in the terms agreed upon. In Treaties One, Two and Six an enforced ban on alcohol consumption was put in place on reserved land. Treaties One, Two and Nine offered provisions of clothing and blankets and Treaties Nine, Ten and Eleven stipulated tokens be given such as a ‘gift to every chief a silver medal, a suitable flag and a copy of the treaty’.45

Agricultural colonisation and resistance One form of resistance to colonisation was the rejection of the cultivation of crops and farming. Throughout the decade of 1870–1800, the four treaties established in this period encompassed a clause that stipulated that the Crown provide the supply of tools, seeds and livestock for personal and group use, required for food production and cultivation, as highlighted in Treaties Three, Four, Five, and Seven. It is unclear whether the need for seeds, tools and livestock that were requested on behalf of First Nations were proposed by First Nations themselves, in the terms of the treaty or whether they were stipulated by the Crown. However, in Treaty Three, the Crown emphasised that communities should begin the European practices of agricultural cultivation

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with their plots of land that were set aside. Treaty Three stated that the tools, seeds and livestock were intended for the ‘encouragement of the practice of agriculture among the Indians’.46 Treaty Seven differed from the others in that the Crown agreed to provide tools, livestock and seeds on the proviso that individual First Nations desired to pursue agricultural cultivation.47 Numerous American First Nations, such as the Hopi and many of the Sioux, for example, resisted the pursuit of farming and preferred to rely on their reading of the land and the traditional methods that they had employed successfully prior to colonisation. In examining the history of Canadian colonisation and treaty-making and the modern-day relationship between First Nations and the state, Poelzer and Coates draw attention to the underlying reasons why Canada’s people have failed to manage treaty-bound relationships with First Nations Canadians.48 Their research examines the historical treaties established in Canada and contends that Canada’s treaty-making was not put in place to foster relationships between First Nations Canadians and settlers.49 They claim that there is too little of treaty practice reflected in present-day relationships between the state, wider public and their treatment of First Nations Canadians.50 Poelzer and Coates make the point that although Canada is made of treaty peoples both indigenous and nonindigenous, the contemporary relationship between First Nation’s people and the modern state highlights that Canada is failing to be a ‘treaty nation’.51 Underlying Poelzer and Coates’ evaluation of Canada as a ‘treaty nation’ is a demand that Canadians work to overcome centuries of violence, oppression and betrayal which Aboriginal Canadians have been subjected to, and to move forward towards reconciliation.52 Poelzer and Coates believe that for such reconciliation to occur and for Canada to live up to the notion of a treaty, reforms must be made in the way of providing honour and status for First Peoples in state and society; empowering First Peoples in government; and expanding economic opportunity to establish First Peoples equal footing with other Canadians.53 They contend that the treaty has not been actively enforced or is not accurately reflected in the relationship between First Canadians and dominant society. They question the right to call Canada a treaty nation.54 As argued by Price, treaty nations are constantly advocating for a return to what they believe to be the original and agreed upon negotiations of the treaty.55 As is the case with New Zealand, many First Nations of Canada believe that the agreements were not met then and are not being met now.56 Recognising treaties today is a highly important task for reconciliation with First Nations and

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dominant society and institutions. As argued by the Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, ‘Reconciliation requires that the establishment of proper principles govern the continuing treaty relationship and to complete treaties that are incomplete because of the absence of consensus.’57 Scholarly literature about the colonisation of Canada before the establishment of the six treaties reveals that before negotiating with First Nation peoples of Canada in the establishment of treaties the British Crown attempted to systematically pursue the concept of terra nullius.58 Göcke confirms that the areas where the British Crown attempted to enforce terra nullius included Canada’s Maritime Provinces and regions of British Columbia and Quebec.59

New Zealand treaties After the colonisation of New Zealand in 1788, the British government demanded that Governor Arthur Philip of New South Wales acquire essential resources of timber and flax from the North Island for the British Navy.60 The colonisation of New Zealand differed from that of Australia in that the colonisation mainly stemmed from commercial interests rather than from a penal colony. Māori people first encountered Europeans when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman ‘discovered’ New Zealand when seeking ‘Terra Australis Incognita’.61 In 1769 when James Cook and Botanist Joseph Banks arrived in New Zealand the islands were further explored by Europeans.62 Owing to Australia’s proximity to New Zealand, it was inevitable that the British government would procure New Zealand land and resources.63 The first European community established in New Zealand was commercial in the interests of government officials in Port Jackson (Sydney).64 The European commodity-driven interests in seal furs led to the establishment of the first European community in 1772 at Dusky Sound, on the southwest corner of New Zealand’s south island.65 Dusky Sound became a prime harbour for European navigators and merchant vessels largely due to it being a prime location for sealing.66 Further commercial interests were established in 1775 and 1840. These included whaling, flax and timber.67 European settlement of New Zealand increased in 1834 when sheep were first introduced.68 However, it was not until after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi that New Zealand became an official British colony. Prior to the treaty, the New South Wales government was the unofficial authority over non-Māori people settled in New Zealand.69

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The Treaty of Waitangi was sought by the British Crown as a reaction to the large increase of private settlement of British people for commercial interest, and they wished to instigate control of their subjects.70 The Crown acknowledged that it was necessary to gain Māori consent before establishing any form of government, a factor that was not the case in Australia’s history of settlement. The British Crown authorised Captain William Hobson to act on their behalf in the negotiation of a treaty between him and Māori chiefs. The treaty was signed on 6 February 1840. William Hobson was declared Lieutenant Governor in May 1840, as a declaration of British sovereignty over New Zealand.71 The original Treaty of Waitangi was signed by Māori chiefs of the North Island of New Zealand but in later months was signed by chiefs around mainland New Zealand with approximately 530 signatures.72 The treaty declared that due to the great number of British subjects who migrated to New Zealand and ‘the rapid extension of emigration both from Europe and Australia’, it was necessary to establish a treaty.73 The treaty acknowledged the Māori people as the traditional owners of New Zealand land, mountains, water and forests, gave Māori people rights as British subjects and established the position of a British Governor in New Zealand.74 A consequence of the treaty was that in exchange for these benefits Māori people were to relinquish New Zealand to the Crown. Graham argues that the ‘agreed’ upon terms stated in the English and Māori versions of the treaty differed dramatically.75 Scholarly investigation of the Treaty of Waitangi suggests that the British perspective of the treaty established the Crown as having exclusive sovereignty over New Zealand under the authority of the New Zealand governor.76 Graham and Byrnes argue against this perspective and explain that Māori understandings of the treaty were not the same. Their understanding was that they relinquished their land to the Crown in exchange for protection but would remain in control of their affairs.77 In the years following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, neither self-determination nor self-governance was experienced by Māori people.78 Hill and Bönisch-brednich investigating colonial Māori historical injustices in colonisation before and after the signing of the treaty challenge the ‘national myth’ of an ‘ideal’ and ‘reciprocal tolerance’ between Māori and Pakeha (non-Māori).79 A significant body of literature claims that the Treaty of Waitangi establishes New Zealand as having ‘the best race relations in the world’.80 Conversely, Hill and Bönisch-brednich contend that the relationship between Māori and Pakeha is based on a conflictual rather than a consensual paradigm.81 They argue that

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‘race relations in New Zealand have always been redolent with the economic expropriation, cultural subsumption and politico-legal suppression of indigenes which have typified “settler colonies” and their successor states’.82 As was the case in Australia before European invasion and settlement, there was great diversity among the population and no standardised or ascribed Māori identity.83 The conception of an ‘overall Māori identity’ and the notion of ‘Māori people’ was later adopted to defend ‘shared Māori institutions against the settlers and their governments’.84 However, prior to the colonisation of New Zealand in 1840 in the signing of the treaty, Māori tribes from the Northern and Southern Island experienced continuous violence in struggles for territory between each other.85 Such violence extended beyond New Zealand to overwhelm the Moriori of Rekohu. Violent colonisation was made of Rekohu (Chatham Islands) during November 1835 when Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama aimed to colonise Rekohu. During a three-day gathering, the Moriori elders rejected violence and held to the observance of Nunuku’s law of non-violence. Subsequently, 300 Moriori were killed during Te Ati Awa efforts to colonise by conquest. The remaining population of 1300 people were enslaved, and in the following seventeen years until their release from slavery in 1863 at least a further 1000 died. The Chatham Islands were proclaimed part of New Zealand in 1842.86 In an extract from 1862 letter to Governor Sir George Grey, a petition was presented and signed by thirty Moriori elders who requested return of their lands. It outlined the extreme conditions of violence experienced by their nation and described their way of life and their adherence to peaceful conduct. Despite Moriori petitions to Governor Sir George Grey in the 1860s for return of their lands, the Moriori were informed by the Native Land Court in 1870 that they had been ‘conquered’ and therefore would receive only 2.7 per cent of the land. The rest went to Ngati Mutunga. An extract of the petition presented by the Moriori elders appears below: Friend, let no other peoples of the world ask why this people did not hold to their lands. It was because we were a people who did not know anger or how to fight. We were a people who dwelt in peace, who did not believe in killing and eating their own kind.87

There have been subsequent requests for a treaty mandate to resume settlement negotiations with the British Crown. The Hokotehi Moriori Trust is seeking to confirm a mandate to negotiate an initialled Deed of Settlement.88

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Post-treaty petitions As was the case in First Australian resistance through petitioning, a major theme of Māori petitioning was petitioning for land rights and access to land. Ward, in An Unsettled History: Treaty Claims in New Zealand Today, argues that Māori petitioning in the mid-nineteenth century was enacted primarily for the attainment of native land title reform.89 Māori petitioning for native title reform began in the 1860s when laws for the sale of Māori land underwent reform. After signing the Treaty of Waitangi, the British Crown was the sole procurer of Māori land, which they typically sold to settlers for a higher price. However, the law reform made it possible for settlers to buy Māori land directly. Under the reform, Māori people were only granted legal title to their ancestral lands if they could prove their connection to the Native Land Courts.90 The land court typically favoured settler interests and allowed for Māori land to be transferred from Māori ownership, which resulted in only two-million hectares of Māori land remaining under Māori ownership by the twentieth century.91 In response to the legal inequality of Māori land ownership and transactions, thousands of Māori and non-Māori allies petitioned New Zealand parliament in demand of land title reform.92 Of Māori petitioning, Finny argues that there were close to two thousand land-related petitions sent to ‘the Native Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, many of which involved complex disputes and legal issues about Māori land’.93 Finny argues that the Māori ‘petitioned as a way to express their objections and precipitated law reform through the Committee to retain their full tribal estate’.94 Although petitions were primarily sent to the New Zealand parliament, some petitioners requested that their petitions be sent to representatives of the Crown in England. Anderson draws attention to the petitioning by Waretini Tuainuku, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Kauwhata people, as each group made attempts to petition directly to the British Crown after the lack of effort of representatives of the New Zealand government to meet the objectives of the grievances expressed in their petitions. Anderson argues that the petitions often recognised that the Crown established that merely a handful of Māori possessed legitimate rights to land and predominately favoured settlers. Petitioners emphasised this injustice in their letters and in their petitions that were presented to the Crown.95 This stratagem was often effective as ‘the Committee would usually investigate and make recommendations for action’.96 A central claim of Māori petitioning from the mid-1860s onwards related to their diminished rights, the flawed Crown land purchase scheme and deliberate

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negotiation with and payment of those with secondary rights thus interrupting the arrangements dictated by custom. The petition made the following claim: After they saw Ngāti Raukawa’s claim to the land would not be investigated and that Ngāti Apa’s was allowed, they became disheartened and sold so that it might have put an end to the trouble. Some who took money owned no land. Some thought their land would be taken by the persistency of the government and the tribes. The Commissioner repeatedly said that whether they accepted money or not, the land had passed to the Queen. After the Court had awarded the land to Ngāti Apa and they had made a disturbance with Ngāti Raukawa at Horowhenua, the wrong of the government was clearly seen.97

Nineteenth-century Māori petitioning attracted attention to the ways in which Māori people demanded full control over their land and actively sought to reform the imposed laws relating to land transactions. As argued by Ward: ‘Māori utterly distrusted government agency over their land and did not want to place their land with official Commissioners for the sale of a lease. They had seen the formal reserves mal-administered, parliament legislates for large areas to be unilaterally placed under lease-in-perpetuity, and reserves relinquished for public works, without consultation.’98 As a reaction to the backlash against the native land title, the native land act was passed in 1888, which claimed to return the control of Māori lands back to Māori people. However, Ward highlights that Māori land continued to move into the native title court and pass to land purchase agents, which furthered Māori resistance and was expressed through petitioning to parliament.99 In 1870 in an era of rapid growth, Māori people began to experience land alienation and arbitrary changes to laws surrounding Māori land ownership. In petitions presented to the New Zealand Native Affairs Committee, from 1870 to 1900, it is clear that an overwhelming number of petitions centred on ownership of land.100 Māori petitions over the three decades were also focused around Māori self-government and education reform.101 Such land-centred petitions ‘ranged from calls for reform of Māori land laws and the Native Land Court (Land Court) to appeals involving highly particularised grievances against the Crown, private purchasers and against the operations of the Māori land laws and Land Court’.102 The petition of Raniera Turoa and 595 Māori signatories ‘on the east coast in the provincial district of Auckland’ that was presented to the members of the House of Representatives discloses how the Māori favoured community consultation concerning control or division of land. Ignoring Māori cultural

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custom, the petition documents the details of the ways in which the land was acquired surreptitiously by stealth in a mode of divide and conquer: We have seen the laws you have made for the Maoris’ land. Great troubles have come on other Maori tribes, and these troubles have commenced to come upon us and upon our lands through the defects of those laws. We now come to request that you may make a good law for us and our lands. Upon these laws you have already made, our lands will be all adjudicated upon by the Native Land Court; then the names of the owners will be known, and then the Europeans would desire to come possessed of it. They would come secretly, but not openly to the whole tribe, but to each individual separately, and during the night ask them to sign a conveyance to which the whole tribe if they know the circumstances would not have consented. This is by no means right; it is not a Maori custom. The Maori custom is that the chief of each tribe and men be appointed by the tribe, according to their wisdom and capability of conducting it for the tribe. This is the proper way to manage our lands. We have heard the Government have a Bill which they have presented to Parliament, and that Bill will prevent us from doing with out land as we please, but order us to place those lands in the hands of the Government. This is a much worse law than those you have already made. We thoroughly object to that Bill. We desire that our lands, commencing at Wharekahika and from thence to Uawa, may be managed by the owners. We pray that the laws you may pass may bring peace on both races.103

Māori resistance through the use of petitioning might be seen as a reaction against the lack of legal protection people had under the law. To protect their lands, petitioners protested against the injustice they faced at the hand of the land court and government authorities. Finny confirms that Māori petitions during this period ‘reflected the lack of Māori political power in a system dominated by settler interests. Overall, issues with the Māori land system were driving those adversely affected to search for an official outlet for their grievances and concerns.’104

Māori petitioning Most Māori petitioning for land encompassed the kinds of demands that were specific to individual circumstances of land alienation. Petitioning was undertaken by small groups and individuals rather than collective, largescale demands for law reform. ‘Private grievance’ petitions, dominated Māori

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petitioning during the period of 1870–1900 and as a consequence made up approximately 85 per cent of land-based petitioning.105 Individual or small group petitioning such as this forms a clear parallel with First Australian petitioning in the early nineteenth century. As confirmed in Chapter 1, First Australian petitioning over land originated out of the aspiration for land access for the purpose of independence. These petitions were similarly fixed on issues concerned with individual petitioners and addressed the requirements of a particular small group. They were dominated by the difficulties that were experienced by individual petitioners. As with the situation with First Australian petitioning, by the nineteenth century petitioning began to shift to include more large-scale petitioning demands for formal legal change and political recognition. Māori petitions increasingly demanded reform in land law, land policy and land court reform and petitioning of this nature intensified in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.106

Treaties versus petitions As noted above, a defining distinction between the colonisation of America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia is that the British Crown did not seek a treaty during Australian colonisation. This incongruity is reproduced further in scholarly research that concerns the early years of colonisation in America, where the prime subject of research concerns the top-down process of treatymaking that occurred between the Crown and settler governments and First Nations. This somewhat unbalanced emphasis on treaty-making in scholarly research concerning First Nations is perhaps understandable, to such an extent that the creation of treaties with First People marks a moment in American colonial history where colonial power brokers sought to actively engage with First People. However, the problem with the extensive scholarly convergence specific to treaty-making is that it so often continues a dominant or ‘settler’ account of research, even though it sets out with the intention of researching the concerns of First Nations. This is because treaties, particularly, those that were implemented in America, adhere to the Eurocentric notion of law and contracts which often reflect colonising and settler voices and their interests. Naturally, such voices dominate the administrative records that document the process of treaty-making. As discussed in previous chapters, treaties also represent a topdown approach taken by colonial governments to secure a non-violent response

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to land excise and to ensure what they perceived as ‘peaceful’ cooperation between settler and First People to allow for successful colonisation, unlike petitions which are driven by First Nations interests. In many cases, the observance of treaties proved to be the last resort for First Nations and were most often conformed to so as to ensure their survival in the aftermath of retaliation against settler aggression to appropriate land and resources.107 De Costa argues that treaties between the British Crown and First People have historically guaranteed nothing at all and that First Nations ‘knew only too well, the belief that a treaty provided inviolable recognition of indigenous rights was rarely shared by colonial powers’.108 Prucha argues that it is important to recognise that ‘formal written treaties were an Anglo-American, not an Indian, device’, and that since treaties were first established in the United States, the government has increasingly implemented treaties as a way to meet their own colonising interests.109 The treaty negotiations that took place between colonial powers and First Nations benefitted colonial powers and settler populations. The evidence presented in petitions about the conditions imposed by the treaties suggests that treaties were undertaken for the sole purpose of colonial expansion through the colonising or ‘legal’ acquisition of land, for the purpose of wealth building through the extraction of land and resources, which has resulted in predominantly negative outcomes for First Nations people. In contrast to treaties, petitions represent a grass-roots challenge to colonial power and were taken up by First Nations people across a broad temporal and geographical domain. Through the act of petitioning, First Nations since colonisation have consistently registered a formal counterattack against colonial authority and the British Crown.

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Through the act of petitioning, First Peoples have put forward articulate and formidable protests that have successfully challenged the consequences of colonial rule. As a part of the British Commonwealth and as casualties of colonial control, First Nations of America have shared similar conditions to First Australians and have comparably taken advantage of socio-legal opportunities to improve their status. In pursuing social justice, First Peoples have made numerous appeals to the law to gain equality and protection under the law. Such challenges have, on occasion, resulted in meaningful change. This chapter investigates the incidence of First Nations American petitioning and explores the occurrence of protest through petitions within a comparative context together with First Australians. Research presented at this juncture finds a comparable subject of land reclamation constitutes petitioning in both First Nations America and First Australian petitioning. There is limited scholarly investigation on the subject of First Nations American petitioning. However, the petitions that were presented in protest and in request for land are useful in comparative context to inform on the implications of colonial dominance and the means by which cultural connection was maintained by First Peoples. The conditions experienced by First Peoples of Australia and America are comparable in that they were produced first against the appropriation of land, and secondly, they comprise the measures taken by petitioners to reclaim excised land. The petitions pertaining to land are explored below. Comparable requests are made in petitions that take account of requests that First Nations land be protected under colonial legal systems. These include petitions requesting to sell land and petitions against land encroachment, petitions which request a new overseer, against forced removal, in contradiction of land dispossession and petitions for land rights. However, another prominent theme that falls into First Peoples protest of unlawful treaties is that which is expressed in petitions that protest against being ‘unlawfully’ taken into slavery and these petitions are discussed below.

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Treaty rights and recognitions were hard won by First People who adopted a number of socio-legal strategies to reclaim their pre-colonial rights. One most obvious strategy is that of registering discontent in writing through the process of petitioning. Over 100 petitions concerning land which protest the impacts of broken treaties on First Nations Americans are the subject of analysis in the discussion which follows. A major argument in the petitioning of First Nations, were petitions to Congress over the failure of the US government to follow through on the terms set out and agreed upon in the treaty document. In focusing on First Nations petitioning, as well as showcasing examples of petitions which express grievances against treaties and treaty processes, this chapter deconstructs any notion that the treaties between the British Crown and or the US government and First People represent a positive step towards intercultural relations. An iconic representative of the failure of the American treaty system is the Treaty of New Echota. The Cherokee Nation petitioning which occurred in opposition to the Treaty of New Echota is the subject of an extended investigation.

Cherokee petitions There is limited scholarly attention regarding First Nations American petitioning. However, there is significant research that is dedicated to an interpretation of the history of Cherokee people. Such research, which draws attention to the many hardships they experienced during and after their forced removal, is known today as the ‘Trail of Tears’. Since the very early years of colonisation, the Cherokee people have approached petitioning as a mechanism of protest against settler intrusion on their land and subsequent land dispossession. The US federal government’s treatment of the Cherokee people is perhaps one of the most infamous examples of the systematic oppression of American First People through forced removal and land dispossession. However, Cherokee petitions and the realities that they experienced and the concepts that they expressed in their writings do not figure prominently in scholarly literature on the Cherokee peoples’ dispossession and there is little research which addresses Cherokee petitions as a main focus of research. There are numerous accounts of Cherokee petitioning and letter writing that clearly expressed their dissatisfaction to colonial powers and government officials and these accounts are examined below.

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In the research provided by King, in The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History, a history of the Cherokee Nation from the beginning of British colonisation is offered that draws on primary sources, some of which include Cherokee writings such as petitions, memorials and letters.1 However, Cherokee writings do not make up the majority of King’s enquiry. King’s aim is to explore the events that lay behind the turbulent history of the Cherokee people since colonisation, but it might be argued that a deeper understanding of Cherokee history could be found by attending to those primary sources that explore Cherokee accounts of dispossession and discontent. Documents that contain first-hand accounts of the expression of the unacceptable position of Cherokee circumstances, such as petitions, add much to the historical landscape and provide a useful source of analysis. Although King does highlight some examples of Cherokee writing, a more extensive analysis of the social details in the documents will account for the lived experiences of Cherokee peoples, from a contemporaneous Cherokee historical perspective. Arguably, a closer examination such as this might be achieved through a deeper examination of the contents of Cherokee petitions. The Treaty of New Echota was ratified by the US Senate on 23 May 1836, with a one-vote majority.2 The treaty relinquished all Cherokee lands in the American South West in states now known as Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Nevada, in exchange for reserve lands in the mid-west which are now within the borders of Oklahoma and which was to be called Indian Territory. This arrangement precipitated the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from their homelands and is referred to as the ‘Trail of Tears’.3 Scholarly discourse about the Trail of Tears, which discusses the Treaty of New Echota, ranges from minor investigation to in-depth examination and often mentions a petition written by members of the Cherokee Nation, which I will refer to here as the ‘Fifteen Thousand Cherokee Petition’. The petition was signed by more than fifteen thousand Cherokee people and their allies, and was presented to Congress and declared that the treaty was fraudulent and therefore invalid.4 Among the studies that consider Cherokee writings and petitions is Vipperman’s account arguing that the treaty signed on 29 December 1835 was fraudulent because it was ‘signed’ by twenty Cherokee people with no tribal authority of a pro-removal minority, which went against the wishes of the majority of Cherokee people who opposed it.5 Vipperman points out that President Andrew Jackson’s administration orchestrated to have the pro-

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removalists sign the treaty on behalf of the entire Cherokee Nation, at the same time that Principal Chief John Ross and other authorities of the Cherokee Nation were travelling to Washington, DC to oppose the signing of the treaty.6 The unauthorised act of signing the New Echota Treaty that was purportedly carried out by the Cherokee representatives was challenged by not only the Cherokee people, but as McMillon notes, its fraudulent nature was similarly challenged by government employees as well. McMillon draws on a letter to Secretary of War, Lewis Cass on 12 April 1836 by Major William M. Davis, a property appraiser for the Cherokee Nation, who was commissioned by the US government to prepare the Cherokees for emigration.7 Davis wrote that the treaty was invalid as it was ‘not sanctioned by the great body of Cherokees and made without their participation or assent’.8 The fifteen thousand Cherokee petitioners strongly registered their discontent with the treaty, and articulated the rejection of the proposed forced removal from their lands. The petition is commonly discussed in literature of Cherokee history and the Trail of Tears, and is perhaps the most recognised example of First Nations American petitioning against the systematic abuses of the US government. It is infamous owing to the support it gained and the total amount of signatures it held, together with the widespread support against Cherokee removal by other supportive Native American nations as well as the general settler population made it hard to ignore. The petition is epitomised in First Nations American attempts to reject colonial supremacy. The petition sets out the challenges to treaty as follows: The undersigned representatives of the Cherokee nation, east of the river Mississippi, impelled by duty, would respectfully submit, for the consideration of your honorable body, the following statement of facts: It will be seen from the numerous subsisting treaties between the Cherokee nation and the United States, that from the earliest existence of this government, the United States, in Congress assembled, received the Cherokees and their nation in to favor and protection; and that the chiefs and warriors, for themselves and all parts of the Cherokee nation to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other sovereign whatsoever: they also stipulated, that the said Cherokee nation will not hold any treaty with any foreign power, individual State, or with individuals of any State; that for, and in consideration of, valuable concessions made by the Cherokee nation, the United States solemnly guaranteed to said nations all their lands not ceded, and pledged the faith of the government, that ‘all white people who have intruded, or may hereafter intrude, on the lands reserved for the Cherokees, shall be removed by the United States, and proceeded against,

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according to the provisions of the act, passed 30th March, 1802,’ entitled ‘An act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers’. The Cherokees were happy and prosperous under a scrupulous observance of treaty stipulations by the government of the United States, and from the fostering hand extended over them, they made rapid advances in civilization, morals, and in the arts and sciences. Little did they anticipate, that when taught to think and feel as the American citizen, and to have with him a common interest, they were to be despoiled by their guardian, to become strangers and wanderers in the land of their fathers, forced to return to the savage life, and to seek a new home in the wilds of the far west, and that without their consent. An instrument purporting to be a treaty with the Cherokee people, has recently been made public by the President of the United States, that will have such an operation if carried into effect. This instrument, the delegation ever before the civilized world, and in the presence of Almighty God, is fraudulent, false upon its face, made by unauthorized individuals, without the sanction, and against the wishes of the great body of the Cherokee people. Upwards of fifteen thousand of those people have protested against it, solemnly declaring they will never acquiesce.9

The Fifteen Thousand Cherokee Petition is a model petition demonstrating how the Cherokee Nation and other First Nations Americans formalised their protest against institutionalised oppression of First Nations by the US government. It draws attention to the means by which the fraudulent treaties were made use of to dispel First Nations from their land and dislocate First Nations culture. By adopting the ‘Western’ practices of lawsuits and petitions, First People were able to present their case and claim ownership of their land.10 Although the United States Congress rejected the petition, the Treaty of Echota was ratified. As a result, and in response, many subsequent petitions were presented by the Cherokee Nation, who consistently protested to the president, Senate and Congress, in an attempt to prevent removal from their land from going ahead. Petitions are referred to as ‘Memorials’ and the petitioners themselves are often referred to as ‘memorialists’. In December 1829, one such memorial letter and petition to protest against removal was made to the US Senate, House of Representatives. It aimed to gain the support of the general public and it was featured in the newspaper Cherokee Phoenix which was a publication run by and produced for the Cherokee people. The petition aimed to appeal to the ‘Christian’ values of the settler population in stating the following: ‘Your memorialists humbly conceive, that such an act [the act of removal] would be in

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the highest degree oppressive,’ and requested that the settler population join the Cherokees in their protest.11 In attempting to highlight the oppressive actions taken by the state of Georgia, the petitioners explain the burden of state powers which were pressing hard upon us, and urging us to relinquish our possessions for her benefit. We are told, if we do not leave the country, which we dearly love, and betake ourselves to the western wilds, the laws of the state will be extended over us, and the time, 1st of June, 1830, is appointed for the execution of the edict.12

The petitioners explain that their appeals to the public and Senate are the last resort, as their previous petitions to the president had been rejected. For example, the memorial states that ‘our father the president had refused us protection, and that he had decided in favor of the extension of the laws of the state over us’.13 Throughout the memorial, the petitioners maintain that this is their country and their land. For example, it is stated that ‘we dearly love our country, and it is due to your honourable bodies, as well as to us, to make known why we think the country is ours, and why we wish to remain in peace where we are’.14 The petitioners argue that their removal is unjust and that under the law their treaty agreement states that their rights to land are acknowledged, guaranteed and protected under federal law. They explain that they feel betrayed and mislead by the powers who entered into treaty negotiations with them and this is exemplified in the petition where the moral disapprobation of the actions of the government is set out in the petition as it appears below: In what light shall we view the conduct of the United States and Georgia, in their intercourse with us, in urging us to enter into treaties, and cede lands? If we were but tenants at will, why was it necessary that our consent must be obtained before these governments could take lawful possession of our lands? The answer is obvious. These governments perfectly understood our rights – our right to the country, and our right to self-government.15

The petitioners request that their sovereignty over their land be considered confirm that it is recognised under law, under their treaties and under the ‘ashes of their fathers’ as it set out below: In view of the strong ground upon which their rights are founded, your memorialists solemnly protest against being considered as tenants at will, or as mere occupants of the soil, without possessing the sovereignty. As such, they argue that they are in ‘possession of this soil in full sovereignty’.16

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The petitioners contend that they have never given up sovereignty of their land: [not] ceded nor forfeited the occupancy of the soil and the sovereignty over it, we do solemnly protest against being forced to leave it, either [by] direct or by indirect measures.17

The petitioners are resolute in their claim and confirm further connection to their lands by birth. Their words echo the disgust at the connivance, legal contravention and the tactical low standard in stealing it from them in following statement: It is the land of our nativity, and the land of our intellectual birth. We cannot consent to abandon it, for another far inferior, and which holds out to us no inducements.18

In addition to protesting against removal through petitioning, the Cherokee turned to alternative legal means to remain on their lands. They rejected the attempts of Congress to forcibly remove them by declaring an independent Cherokee Nation and the development of a Cherokee Constitution.19 However, the constitution was rejected by the Georgia legislature which confirmed the determination to extricate the Cherokee and as a result were further commanded to seize Cherokee lands by force if they did not leave willingly.20 In the case of Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Cherokee peoples attempted to claim sovereignty over their lands in the United States Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that ‘Georgians could not enter without the permission of the Cherokees themselves or in conformity with treaties’.21 Despite the Supreme Court win for the Cherokee Nation, the state of Georgia disobeyed the ruling and forcibly removed the Cherokee from their lands.22 The extent of petitioning efforts of the Cherokee Nation against removal is investigated by Moulton, who comments on the petitioning of the Cherokee people prior and subsequent to the Trail of Tears. However, the focus is not Cherokee petitioning as an act of intervention, but rather, petitions are referenced throughout.23 Moulton’s book offers an historical account the petitioning efforts of John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866.24 Wilkins’s research provides details of Cherokee petitioning to the United States Congress against their removal, and for general claims to their rights, including rights to land.25 In analysing the extensive writings of the Cherokee against removal, Wilkins argues that the Cherokee people learnt that ‘to gain any measure of justice they would have to petition Congress, the very branch intent on destroying the basis of tribalism – tribal land’.26 Denson examines the

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Cherokee political writings in the nineteenth century, made up of Cherokee petitions; appeals to Congress, newspaper articles and memorials; and details how the Cherokee people used their writing to represent their nation to the dominant population in the years following their forced removal to Indian Territory.27 Denson argues that ‘tribal leaders responded to developments in the United States and adapted their defence of Indian autonomy to the great changes transforming American life in the middle and late nineteenth century’, which questions common views that claim that the modernisation of the United States resulted in the end of tribal autonomy.28 Other research on the forced removal of First Nations American groups in the Trail of Tears provides extensive primary documents of Native American writings, among them are petitions. For example, Peterson collates an extensive analysis of the removal of various First Nations Americans (including the Cherokee people) in the Trail of Tears, and includes primary source materials, which includes information on First Nations American petitions against removal,29 while Sturgis describes the petitioning of the Cherokee and letters to President Andrew Jackson.30 Conser similarly reviews the petitioning efforts of John Ross and undertakes to provide a detailed analysis of the various ways that the Cherokee people rebut and oppose removal from their lands.31 The Cherokee, through their attempt to obstruct, resist and defeat the efforts made by the federal government to remove them from their homelands, developed a sophisticated and widely supported countermeasure to the proposed removal and the act of petitioning comprised a major component of their protests.32 Conser further argues that despite the Cherokee people being unable to stop their removal, the efforts taken by the Cherokee people should not be seen as a failure, and claims that ‘even if the Cherokees had little hope of success, the history of such resistance campaigns is much more than simply the story of who won the struggles’.33 Conser regards the petitioning efforts of the Cherokee people as a successful campaign of resistance and one which saw the Cherokee people unite and consistently oppose their removal.34 Scholarly investigation of Cherokee petitioning largely converges on the efforts of the anti-removalists in alliance but does not sufficiently address the political organisation represented by the petitioning of First Nations Cherokee and other groups. Prucha’s research, entitled ‘Protest by Petition: Jeremiah Evarts and the Cherokee Indians’ predominately reflects Jeremiah Evarts, an activist Christian missionary who petitioned against the US government

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policy of United States of Cherokee removal.35 Similar research proposes to rediscover the ‘lost stories’ of First People in forced removal.36 Portnoy examines the petitioning of women sent to the members of the United States Congress to protest the forced removal of First Nations Americans in the south.37 The majority of petitions examined by Portnoy reflect on the petitioning undertaken by anti-removalists, rather than by First Nations American women, and bypass the opportunity to account for First Nations intervention. Further, Portnoy argues that women’s protests against antebellum First Nations removal are the first instances of American women’s national, collective and political activism.38 Similarily, Hershberger highlights the various forms of protest (including petitioning) undertaken by many women’s charitable organisations who opposed forced removal.39 The failure to acknowledge the extent of First Nations petitioning activism is undertaken in Miles’s study that questions the academic focus on the petitioning efforts of anti-removalists and that does not fully address the initiation of political engagement by First Nations. In tackling the issue of the petitioning of Cherokee women against removal, Miles’s argues that Cherokee woman must be acknowledged as the very founders of female activism and political identity formation in the United States.40 In this sense, Miles reflects on the fact that American literature on the topic of woman’s activism traditionally prioritises the efforts of non-First Nations American woman Catharine Beecher. Unfortunately, there is little written about the ways in which First Nations women instigated anti-removal action, set in motion and subsequently brought about change. In this regard, the account fails to acknowledge the consistent efforts taken by Cherokee women.41 Miles claims that in the early nineteenth century, in recognising the threat of removal, Cherokee women defended themselves and their communities through the act of petitioning and that this large-scale political organisation of woman occurred long before such political tactics were utilised by women in settler society.42 Miles seeks to reposition the concentration on broader anti-removalist protest within the scope of Cherokee women’s political organisation, and draws attention to the need to recognise First Nations Americans’ rejection of the governmental policies which sought to discriminate against them. The petitions under investigation demonstrate that First Nations women were certainly active in bringing about change in the circumstances from early colonisation in the resolute endeavour to assert their rights and concretise their inclusion in the process of negotiation about their shared future.

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Petitions against treaties and forced removal There is scholarly debate about the level of First Nations involvement regarding nineteenth-century First Nations American removal in the Northwest region of the United States. Argument revolves around the contention that Cherokee removal experiences gratuitously dominate scholarly investigation and as a result there is a failure to adequately account for the engagement encounters of the broader First Nations American population.43 Studies have sought to broaden the interpretations of First Nations American forced removal in the nineteenth century and examined the experiences of the Choctaw Nation, particularly, the hardships that were experienced by a small group of the Choctaw people, who managed to remain on their ancestral lands as the bulk of their nation were forcibly removed to Indian Territory in the 1830s.44 Consistent efforts of the Choctaw people ensured that they stayed put on their lands and hindered efforts made by settlers and the US government to dispossess them throughout the 1800s and 1900s. Primary documents, including Choctaw letters and petitions, record the history of Choctaw survival, autonomy and persistence, despite objectionable treatment by the United States government.45 As with Cherokee petitioning, the examination of general First Nations American petitioning outlined in the paragraphs that follow particularises the details of those First Nations groups who in the same way petitioned against forced removal, but in this case, as a consequence of a treaty that was forged. First Nations removal has tended to follow a single narrative which follows the Cherokee Trail of Tears and further investigation might usefully extend this narrative.46 First Nations Americans’ removal involved many more Native American nations than merely the Cherokee. The Seneca-Cayugas, Wyandots and Delaware nations, each challenged government policies prior to the Indian Removal Act and before the Cherokee occurrence of the Trail of Tears.47 Primary documentation that was put in writing by different First Nations Americans in the Northwest appealed to the United States government against removal.48 On 26 December 1806, the petition of Montgomery Montour of the Delaware Nation appealed to the Senate and House of Representatives to prevent removal from Delaware lands in Sandusky Ohio.49 The petition speaks out to the Senate about the stipulation that the Delaware Nation must leave their land to make room for settler expansion of the region, based on the premise that the land was relinquished in a treaty between the Delawares and the United States on 21 August 1805.50 The petition outright

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denies the authenticity of the treaty and outright denies that the Delaware chiefs of Sandusky Ohio were ever present at treaty negotiations. The petition asserts that they did not sign the treaty and that their signatures on the document were counterfeit.51 As is indicated in this extract taken from the petition below, Montgomery argues that he was not present at the proposed location at the time of the proposed negotiation: Your memorialist asserts, from his own knowledge, and undertakes to prove, that the chiefs of his nation, whose names are affixed to the said treaties, were not present, but at great distance, when these treaties were negotiated and signed, and that therefore, the commissioner of the United States must have been somehow or other imposed upon, with respect to the Delaware chiefs.52

The petition suggests that the fraudulent endorsement on behalf of the Delaware chiefs was an attempt to dispel the Delaware Nation from their lands. The treaty contends that the Delawares had relinquished their claims to the land and guaranteed title to the United States government. Montgomery asserts in the following statement that the Delawares ‘claim[s], and states that they have always claimed the complete right to the land’. The petitioner contends that no Delaware would negotiate a treaty that did not offer some form compensation for relinquishing their rights to their lands.53 The petition decries violence and reiterates that the Delawares do not want to engage in conflict. It expresses the hope that the Senate and House of Representatives are prepared to fully engage in the process of justice and sympathy for the Delawares, who request that they be allowed to remain on their lands.54 They explain that they are a nation whose numbers are dwindling and that they live in fear of being forced from their lands and sent to the ‘foreign’ lands of Missouri to ‘settle among strange and warlike tribes’.55 They appeal that they be allowed to remain on their land and that a boundary be put in place to ensure that they are protected from land intrusion in future.56 Of injustice, Montgomery avows that he has asked for ‘nothing but what the white people would think reasonable to be granted to them, if they were in the same situation in which the remains of his nation now are’.57 The petition asks that Congress grant their wishes in acknowledging that ‘the chiefs of his nation take it very hard that their property was sold, and the names affixed to a treaty, in their absence, and without their consent’.58 Montgomery’s petition does not ask for compensation or expect that the lands previously stolen by settlers be

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given back to them; they simply petition to ensure that what land remains, will remain theirs.59 In relation to the same treaty, a petition was sent by members of the Stockbridge or Muhheakunuk Nation, to the president of the United States and Congress on 16 November 1819. The petition protested against their discovery that the Muhheakunuk Nation was not included in the signing of the treaty between the Delawares and the US government. It is explained by the Muhheakunuk petitioners that ‘many’ years prior (1805), the Miami or Maumee Nation, granted their nation, as well as the Delawares and the Munsee’s, a share of land in the White River area, west of Ohio. The petitioners explain that the granting of land was acknowledged in 1808 in Washington by President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Counsellor Henry Dearborn.60 The petitioners explain that initially, many of their people went with the Delawares and the Munsee’s to cultivate the land, and due to hardship, the petitioners (the remaining Muhheakunuk Nation) attempted to make the journey to White River. However, they discovered that a treaty was signed between the Delawares alone for these lands, and that their nation was not consulted ‘and our brethren who are on these lands are directed to leave’.61 The petitioners claim that their rights to ‘land is denied; our hopes are thus blasted, and we suffer under the wrong which grieves us greatly’.62 They confirm that ‘the lands we justly own as a nation are taken from us; we shall thus be deprived of our inheritance without our consent. We pray that you will not suffer this wrong to be done to us’.63 They request that the president and Congress consider their rights to land and that they be allowed to move to their lands in peace and ‘suffer no wrongs’.64 Congress requested that a bill for the confirmation of the Muhheakunuk claims to land be passed to the Senate, and if passed, the bill would provide for ‘the amicable and equitable adjustment of their claims to land’. Although it is clear that the bill made it to the Senate, it is not clear whether the bill was passed or rejected.65 The memorial sent to James Barbour, Secretary of War and the Choctaw Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs by the Mingoes, Warriors and Chiefs of the Choctaw Nation on 18 March 1826, correspondingly protested against the breaking of a treaty agreement. The Choctaw petitioners objected to the infringement of settlers on to the lands of the Choctaw Nation in Arkansas Territory under the claim that this violated the treaty agreements made between the Choctaw Nation and the US government in 1825.66 The memorial questions the decision to seize Choctaw land beyond the Mississippi River,

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which was off limits to settler expansion under the terms of the treaty. The petitioners state that they have come to the ‘resolution that we will sell no more land, on any terms’.67 The petitioners request that James Barbour aide in the execution of the treaty terms, where it was stipulated that the settlers ‘living on the west side shall be removed to the east side of the line to be run according to the agreement between us’.68 The petitioners request that all settlers be removed from Choctaw lands as soon as possible and express the following aspiration for ‘peace and harmony with our white neighbours’.69 A memorial letter that was sent to the president of the United States, James Polk on 26 November 1846, by the Miami people, brings to light their grievances over being forced to emigrate to their new homes in Mississippi and rationalises that the treaty signed in 1840 has left them without a homeland.70 The treaty offered the Miami people money and a new ‘homeland’ in the region formally known as Indian Territory* in exchange for their land which is now in Florida. The Miami people express feelings of loss and resentment over the deception that was involved in the treaty and that the ‘government expected from us the fulfilment of the treaty’.71 The petitioners explain that they have honoured their side of the agreement of which resulted in the dispossession of their homelands in the following: Dear to us was that home of our children, still dearer to us were the ashes of our forefathers, and how could we expect to find anywhere else aught that would compensate for such a loss. What is more, several individuals of our tribe were in possession of large tracts of land reserved for them in different treaties, these reserves could answer all the purposed of the inconsiderable remnants of a once powerful tribe; and ill advised, misguided by corrupt and designing white men, we had been persuaded that the government of the United States would consent, without the shadow of difficulty to our remaining in our dear native land.72

While petitions against treaty agreements were a significant theme of First Nations American petitioning, they most often relate to the predominant matter of First Nations American petitions around land ownership. Since the early years of British colonisation, First Nations American petitions have conveyed protection of ancestral land from settler violation and dispossession of homeland was a driving force behind petitioning proceedings. Petitions concerning land ownership during the early period of colonisation are deliberated below. The process of petitioning changed to adapt to new circumstances in the years following the American Revolutionary War and during the American Civil War.

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Petitioning in the early years of colonisation What follows below is a discussion of claims and requests of First Nations American petitions and memorials in the early years of British colonisation. Since the beginning of British colonisation of America, First Nations Americans have made use of petitions and memorials as a way to assert their rights to land, protest land dispossession, request protection and to speak out against unjust conditions they faced under colonial rule from 1607 to the end of the early years of the eighteenth century. The colonial settlements that were established in the first 100 years of British colonisation of America include Jamestown, Virginia, on 14 May 1607 followed by the establishment of the New England region, which began in 1620, and came to include establishment of Connecticut and Plymouth Colony on 3 November 1620, and the Puritan settlement in the Colony of Connecticut on 3 March 1636.* The early First Nations American petitions that were presented to British colonial officials emanated from the regions which make up the initial areas of British settlement. Petitions sent from the Colony of Virginia were written by First Nations American groups such as Pamunkey, Chickahominy, and Nottoway tribes, and petitions sent from the New England region were written by Mohegan, Pequot, Tunxis and Narragansett tribes.

Petitions requesting land patents Prior to the treaties of the British and later the US government to implement a system of treaties with First Nations American people, First Nations petitioned colonial authorities in an attempt to patent their lands. Requests for land patents were presumably sought by American First People as a pre-emptive deterrent against settler encroachment and land dispossession and reflects early approaches made by First Nations Americans to use the British legal system as a way to protect their lands. A land patent would typically ensure that the First Nations Americans group would hold rights and title to land, and legally excluded parties from intervening and selling the land while the patent was in place. Such a request was made in the petition sent by Mangai Harquip of the Chickahominy Nation. On 23 March 1660, Harquip petitioned major general of Virginia, Manwaring Hamond, and the James City General Assembly, stating that land from ‘the head if the Mattaponi River and into the woods’ was Chickahominy land, which had been sought out by settlers.73 Harquip requested

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that the land be patented and remonstrated that no settlers be allowed to disturb the process for a patent unless the majority of the ‘great men shall freely and voluntarily give consent in the quarter court or assembly’.74 A patent was granted by the James City County General Assembly to the Chickahominy tribe for the land outlined in the petition. However, Major General Manwaring Hamond claimed a personal two-thousand-acre dividend of the patent and ordered to ‘purchase from the tribe or to procure their consent for the preservation of the country’s honour and reputation’.75 Further petitions requesting land were sent by Betty Ann, Queen of Pamunkey Nation and her men on 22 May 1701 and later in 1706. Both petitions were sent to Lt. Governor Nicholson, asking that Pamunkey rights to lands be confirmed and that the land be patented to ensure that settlers could no longer encroach on their lands.76 A petition sent by Betty Ann in 1710 specifies that the Pamunkey people were able to remain on their lands, as long as they paid an annual tribute of food to the settlers nearby.77* Petitions for patents was an effective way for First Nations American people to be able to peacefully assert their rights to land and to hold land ownership under colonial legal systems. However, from 1722, treaties were sought by colonial powers which had the effect of hindering the endeavours of First Nations American people in the accomplishment of land patents.

Petitioning for land rights and protection under colonial legal systems In comparative context with First Australians claims for land rights, First Nations Americans sought to overcome the adversities presented by colonisation by adopting the practice of petitioning to challenge repressive colonial legal systems First Nations Americans altered their methods of protest against colonial rule by attempting to change their circumstances through the law that was established by the new authority. They argued against the issues of encroachment, theft of land, disruption of culture, requesting payment for land and against the violence that was directed against them. Such petitioning offered an avenue of protest and accomplished successful conclusions for First Nations American people protecting their land under the laws of their colonial overseers. The petition sent by Betty Ann, the Queen of Pamunkey, to the James County Court on 9 May 1672 demonstrates considerable accomplishment within the colonial legal system in challenging excise of land and ownership and to achieve

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payment for land sold to settlers to a victorious conclusion. The petition reported that Betty Ann had only been paid ‘in part thereof ’ for the land she had sold to several English settlers.78 As this was not consistent with the laws established in the county, the court ruled that the conduct of the land purchasers was not ‘beneficial for the public good and safety’, and directed them to pay Betty Ann the sum owing or have the land confiscated and placed back under the control of Betty Ann.79 Moreover, the court stated that until Betty Ann be compensated for the sale of land. The petition implies that such an outcome would have violent repercussions and the court took measures to legally protect her both against further claims as well as from violent disapproval of the decision as set out in the following declaration: ‘The Queen is not to be molested or have proceedings against her in any way.’80 Similar success was achieved by the petitioning made by the Notoway people on 4 April 1674, to the James City County Court, protesting against settler encroachment on their lands and building homes and farming systems.81 The petition highlights that the actions of the settlers violate an act passed by the James City County Assembly (date not mentioned in the petition), which ruled the Notoway tribe’s territory out of bounds for settlement.82 The court ordered that no person was to map out land within Notoway boundaries and requested that law enforcement of several counties in the region provide public notice to prevent future encroachment.83 The petitions generated by Betty Ann and the Notoway people effectively appealed to the laws of property ownership that were established by the Court of James City County, and, as a result, the petitioners in this instance protected themselves within the law and successfully negotiated their fate. Each petition clearly emphasised unlawful activity on the part or settlers.

Petitions to the Crown As with First Australian petitioning, in the early years of colonisation, First Nations American people sent petitions to the British Crown as a tactic for attaining royal intervention when those in charge on the ground failed to respect agreements made between representatives of the Crown and First Nations American people.84 Petitions of significance are the petitions of members of the Cherokee Nation to the king of Britain, titled ‘The memorial of the Kings and Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation’ and ‘The Address of the Chiefs of the Creek Nation’.85 The Cherokee petition appeals to the king of England about American

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violation of Cherokee Territory. The Cherokee requested that the British owed Cherokee reciprocal allegiance in return for Cherokee support during the War of Independence and called for British soldiers to be sent to Carolina and Georgia to protect them against further invasion of their land by encroaching settlers. A similar situation is elucidated in the Creek Nation petition, which complains of settlers confiscating land and property, and murdering Creek hunters.86 The petition requested that arms and ammunition were needed for defence against anticipated aggression from encroaching settlers in Georgia, and as with the Cherokee petition, the Creek Nation appealed for reciprocation owing to the demonstration of the Creek chief ’s loyalty to Great Britain.87 First Nations American petitions to the British Crown of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries demonstrate how First Nations American people were able to use petitioning as an aspect of the British political system as a method to achieve justice.88 When these petitions were successful, First Nations Americans found an avenue of expression to draw attention to the wrong doings of settlers and more importantly, preserve their rights.89 Petitions to the British Crown were presented by the Narragansetts, the Mohegans’ and the Mashpees, who sought to appeal to the foremost authority of the Crown. Subsequently they were able to resist settler mistreatment and effectively partake ‘in the process articulating a powerful conception of their legal status in a world transformed by the arrival of the English’.90 Various studies have shown how First Nations appealed to members of the British Crown in the early colonial period.91 The reasons why they appealed to the Crown included requests to support them in conflict with settlers, and in some cases, they used petitioning the Crown as a way to resolve disputes with other tribes.92 In this regard, they bear much in common with First Australian petitions. One such situation concerns Philip of the Wampanoag community, who effectively petitioned the royal commissioners to request their aid in a dispute between himself and the Narragansett over land, which resulted in the commissioners granting Philip’s requests by handing ownership of the land to Philip ‘in the name of the King’.93

Early petitions for land rights During early British settlement of the seventeenth century, First Nations Americans have petitioned to protect traditional lands from settler intrusion and have resorted to petitioning as a course of action by which to state their

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claims to land and protest for land rights. One such petition is presented by the Tunix Nation, which maintains that colonisers have no true authority or rights to the land as they had been dispossessed and sets out clearly the numerous wrongdoings against them. The petition of the Tunix Nation to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1672 argues for rights to land north of the Farmington settlement near Hartford, which had been overtaken by settlers. The petitioners asked the court to grant them land rights under the claim that they ‘have the true right to the said lands’ and make a case that the land was ‘never either given or sold to the English’.94 The petitioners argue in their petition that the dispossession of their land is unjust, as the transgressors are not the ‘Natives of that place’, eliciting justice in the assertion that ‘we have ground to believe that there is yet justice to be had from the English, which is all we desire’.95 There are numerous petitions of the seventeenth century that echo similar intrinsic rights to land and refer to the circumstances in which their traditional lands had been sold to settlers without their consent. The petition of the Chicohominy Nation to the James City County Court on 24 April 1691 requested permission from the court to remain on the land belonging to settler, Ben Arnold. The land that the Chicohominy people resided on had been sold to Mr Arnold by James City County, and the Chicohominy people made the request in their petition to stay on the property, in which they assert the claim that the land will always belong ‘to those of the Chicohominy’.96 Although the petition was read in court and passed to the Committee of Propositions for review, it is unclear whether or not the Chicohominy people were granted permission to stay on the land, or the conditions of which they were evicted and allowed to remain.97 However, the statement that the sold land was rightfully Chicohominy people’s confirms the interrogation and disruption of colonial dominance and discloses the attempts by First Nations Americans to claim their rights to land. The petition demonstrates a sense of belonging to the land and illustrates negotiation, determination, magnanimity and flexibility to survive in difficult moments in time. The petition sent by Drammacho Mongai, the chief ruler of Chickahominy people, to the James City County Assembly Committee on June second, 1699, similarly communicates a claim to land while also questioning the assembly committee’s sale of their land in Pamunkey Neck, James City County. The petitioner outright states ownership and dominion over any sale of the land and claims that according to the agreements made by the Articles of Peace in May 1677 the land belongs to them and, therefore, any sales ‘should be authorised by

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the Chickahominy people’.98 The Articles of Peace refers to the promises made by the British government in the Treaty of Middle Plantation, signed on 29 May 1677, which saw Pamunkey chief Cockacoeske pledge allegiance to the Crown in exchange for land boundaries and future protection from settler violence.99 The assembly committee drew up territorial boundaries and rejected the petition and refuted Chief Drammacho Mongai claims land ownership on the basis that ‘only land within three miles of the Indian Town was Indian property’.100 Despite the petition being unproductive in this instance, the petition stands as evidence that since the early years of colonisation, First Nations American people have consistently affirmed their rights to ownership of their lands. Despite the rejection, Drammacho Mongai continued to protest against the dispossession of his peoples land. On 12 March 1701, he petitioned the James County Court in response to the rejection of the land claim made by him and his people in 1699.101 The petition requested that an interpreter bring him and his people to court and that a copy of their original petition be sent to the high officials of King and Queen County.102 Although early petitions by First Nations American people which argued for rights to land and protested against settler encroachment did not always prove successful, what their presence highlights is that since American colonisation, First Nations Americans have protested against the injustice of colonial officials, and attempted through the process of petitioning to maintain their abiding rights to ownership of their traditional lands. First Nations Americans’ petitioning as an approach to protect their traditional lands from settler invasion is a demonstration of their agency under colonial rule, and a strategic approach to state their claims to land and protest for land rights. In this context, petitioning produces a continuity in the rejection of colonial dominance and serves as a demonstration of their consistent attempts to attain positive and self-determined decisions.

Petitions in the eighteenth and nineteenth century In the early years of the eighteenth century and before the War of Independence, First Nations who had previously not been under the control of Britain began to petition authorities as Britain became the overarching colonial power of the area that now makes up the United States, and gained power over territories previously under the control of other European Nation States. As a result, the kinds of land petitions presented by First People in the eighteenth and nineteenth

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centuries differed significantly from those petitions of the early years of British colonisation. Settler expansion in the western region of America also meant that new groups who were previously less affected by colonisation petitioned authorities as a way to protest colonisation and land encroachment. During this period there were distinct changes in the type of petition from land claims to land encroachment. The petitions presented in the New England region in the seventeenth century tended to revolve around issues of land encroachment. However, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, land petitions were focused on issues of treaty agreements not being met, forced removal, land dispossession and land rights. The appeals for individual freedom appeared more often in the petitions which emerged from First Nations of Virginia. Regional and geographical changes occurring in the southern states of America also changed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The petitions which emerged from the southern or ‘slave’ states of America during this period differed significantly in context and content from the petitions which emerged from the northern ‘free’ states.*103 First Nations American petitions which came from the north were focused on issues of land right and forced removal, whereas petitions from the south during this period frequently concerned issues of First Nations American enslavement and petitions for individual freedom owing to their First Nations heritage. Petitions written by American First People from the southern region, in the late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, cannot be separated from the geographical, legal and political contexts which marked their experiences of slavery in the years before the end of the American Civil War. A discussion focusing on land petitioning in this period from the northern regions is given below. There were many First Nations American petitions that protested against dispossession and forced removal and a call for land rights to be recognised by the powers of the newly appointed American republic. The attempts made by the Cherokee Nation to stop their removal in the region of Indian Territory is examined below and the petitions draw attention to the efforts made by the Cherokee people to control ownership of their ancestral lands. The Cherokee petitions and the petitions of other First Nations American groups discussed below reflect the persistent bids of First Nations Americans to redefine the terms of colonialism and through their efforts record the means by which First Nations Americans were able to contribute to negotiating change in their circumstances.

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Petitions on land encroachment, dispossession and rights After the American War of Independence in 1775, First Nations American petitions primarily objected to land encroachment by settlers and land dispossession by the powers of the United States government. Petitions protested against settler encroachment concerned Nations who were allocated reserve lands under a treaty agreement, those reserve lands had been overtaken by settler establishment on reserve lands. Land dispossession from authorities of the US government occurred for a variety of different reasons. Some First Nations were dispossessed owing to their cooperation with the British during the War of Independence. At the conclusion of the war those who sided with the British were frequently stripped of their rights to identified land in treaty agreements made in the past with the British Crown.104 For the most part land was disposed to facilitate the goal of nation building and the US government plans to expand westwards to extract resources and land from regions populated by First Nations American people.105 In the petitioning by First Nations Americans who protested against land dispossession and encroachment, it was common for them to demand that these injustices be recognised and that they be compensated for their loss of land. This is evident in the petition by James Wawowos, of the Tunxis tribe, who petitioned the Connecticut General Assembly on 7 September 1767, asking that they reimburse his people with the full possession of their land, which had been appropriated by settlers in Farmington, New England.106 In his petition, James made the statement below: The agreement made by and between the English first settlers of said town and your petitioners’ ancestors, the original inhabitants and possessors of said town, there was reserved and conceded to the said Indians for their use, a certain piece of land in said town consisting of about one hundred acres … which piece of ground the English people, inhabitants of said town, have from time to time and by little and little entered.107

The claim to land rights over the Tunxis peoples reserved lands at Farmington were passed by the General Assembly to the Lower House. A committee was established to enquire about the issues stated in the petition.108 The petition was later given to members of the Upper House of Representatives on 26 October 1767, where it was granted that the Tunxis people be compensated for their loss of land for an undisclosed amount.109 Although the petitioners did not achieve reinstatement of land lost from settler infringement, the success of compensation

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for loss of land is significant in negotiating agreement and draws attention to the determination, persistence and knowledge of the law of petitioning, made all the more noteworthy as attainment of these aspirations occurred during a period where the rights of First Nations established under British rule were being dismantled by the new United States Republic. Despite the eighteenth century being a period where the new powers of the US government disregarded the rights of First Nations Americans to land reserved by the British, it is clear that First Nations Americans used petitioning as a way to question the oppressive actions of the state and to demand rights to land. The memorial of Pequot man, Joseph Wyoke, in May 1761 sets out the means by which First Nations interrogated colonial authority. Joseph’s memorial questions a report written by a committee of the Connecticut General Assembly that proposed the Mashantucket lands in Groton (Connecticut) lawfully belonged to English proprietors who had encroached on Pequot land.110 Joseph protested against the committee’s decision in 1718, to grant three thousand acres of Mashantucket lands and six hundred acres of land at Walnut Hill (New Britain, Connecticut) to English proprietors.111 Joseph argues that the committee’s decision ‘wholly excluded said Indians from any privilege or benefit in said two last mentioned tracts of land as they ought to have done’.112 Joseph argues that the General Assembly has continuously privileged English proprietors over Pequot interests in land claims and demands that the assembly disregard the committee’s report which aimed to disposess Mashantucket lands.113 Numerous petitions contested the authority to take land. One such case concerns the Connecticut General Assembly’s misappropriation of First People’s lands and was challenged in the petition sent by Robert Ashbow, Samuel Ashbow and Henry Quaquaquid, on behalf of the Mohegan people in May 1790. The petitioners claimed that the Mohegan land which had previously been assessed by the General Assembly and divided between the Mohegan people was not accurately divided.114 They argued that a considerable amount of their land was left out of the division, and given to several widows of settler descent. The petitioners stated their claims to continuity of occupation and legal right of ownership as set out in the petition below: Leave to inform Your Honors that they have some reason to apprehend that several of their white neighbors have encroached on their said land, which by long continuance they claim as their property whereas if the records of the said lands were examined, it would appear they would have no legal right to such part, as they have now so encroached upon.115

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The petitioners demanded that the General Assembly enquire about this injustice so that an equal method of division of Mohegan land be taken up.116 The General Assembly rejected the petition, and the petitioners were unable to acquire restitution for the loss of their land. Although no tangible outcome came from this petition, the act of petitioning and the questioning of the committee’s decision-making and the dispossession of land by the state and settlers contributed to the key requests made by First Nations Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for land rights, and formed a reflection of the continued rejection of colonialism and dispossession of First Nations. It might be argued that each petition to governmental authorities, which protested against land dispossession and encroachment, was, in essence, a petition which requested rights to land, a petition by the Pequot Tribe to the legislatures of the Connecticut General Assembly in 1856, epitomises the call for land rights and sets out the demand for recognition. The petition directly challenges an Act passed by the Connecticut General Assembly the previous year, which allowed the state of Connecticut to sell Pequot land without their consent.117 The petitioners argue that they were undermined by the legislature and argue that ‘we were not notified, as we learn, not one of us was notified to appear and speak for ourselves and defend our rights which has been our great privilege always before’.118 The petitioners articulate the extent of their dispossession in social costs in giving voice to the following claim: ‘Our land has been severed asunder from our arms without the consent of the tribe and our bread has been torn from our mouths.’119 The petition sets out the circumstances in which Pequot people helped out new arrivals only to be ignored when settlers took over from them and left them unaided. They argue that under the new system the legislature has determined momentous loss and danger as the statement suggests below: driven off their native land and penned up in one corner of their reservation like a horde of vermin in a space not exceeding two hundred acres for 36 or 40 to live upon but as we take it to perish and die without bread and water in a den of red snakes.120

The petitioners further question mistreatment in an assertion which reflects the Pequot Tribes’ anger and frustration of the General Assembly as they question why the legislature decides to dispossess their land without consent: Is this consistent? Is it just to make our present state more deplorable and our condition more helpless by denouncing industry and battering every energy for

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improvement which might perhaps bring about better days of civilization (this is the case). And now what have we done in these later years? We have sustained the power which now spurns us. We have nerved the arm which has smote us. We have lavished our strength, our talent, and our treasures. We have done more. We have sacrificed upon the altar of our country, to you, hundreds of acres of land to secure to ourselves a little permanent reservation. What else have we done? We helped buoy up the prodigal effusions of your blood, the triumphant ark of the United States’ liberty and independence.121

The petition describes the Pequot people’s rejection of colonialism, as they argue that their sacrifice, subsequent mistreatment and dispossession has allowed for settlers to rule over their lands under the exclusionary notion of liberty and independence. In appealing to the ‘founding’ notion of liberty and independence, the petitioners appeal to the committee, and demand that they gain back possession of their lands, under their ‘rights as men’, and argue that the legislatures consider their requests for land and abolish and repeal the Act as it infringes upon their ‘natural rights and liberty’.122 Such petitions by First Nations speaking out against land encroachment and dispossession reflect their continued rejection of colonialism and dispossession.

Petitions requesting a new overseer Petitions requesting a competent and humane management of reserves are similar to those of First Australian petitions which questioned the competence and ability of overseers in control of their lives. The petitions that demonstrate agency in First Nations people are also evident in petitions where First Nations people attempt to question and change the oppressive limitations imposed on them by overseers. Kindly disposed overseers might have prevented settler encroachment and therefore offered a degree of stability in the lives of the petitioners. Such was the case with the Mohegan Nation when in petitioning the colonial authorities requested the appointment of a new overseer. In a memorial presented to the Connecticut General Assembly on the 9 May 1737, the Mohegan Nation explained their fears over loss of property and land in the wake of the death of their overseer, John Mason.123 They explain that since his death, unknown settlers have attempted to take over the control of their lands and property and they had suffered great damage to their fields and property. They highlight that settlers have

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allowed their livestock from neighbouring properties to occupy Mohegan land (presumably for grazing).124 The petitioners fear for their safety without an overseer and likewise fear for the welfare of Mrs Mason and her children, who may be turned off the land once a new overseer is appointed. The memorialists requested that the General Assembly allow for Mrs Mason and her children to remain and that the assembly stop any other person from encroaching on their lands.125 Not all overseers were as helpful as John Mason. Some were abusive. In a memorial written by the Pequot Nation to the Representatives in General Court in Hartford on 13 May 1725, the petitioners request that the court appoint an alternative overseer as they had suffered abuses under the control of the appointed overseer, Captain James Avery.126 They asked that the court appoint Deacon James Morgan of Groton to take Avery’s place and explained that their petition intends ‘to see that we be not wronged, and to inform this court of the wrongs and abuses which we may be liable to sustain, and to afford us all that counsel and direction which may be needful for us’.127 In addition, the memorial ended with a request that the court record the deeds of their land in the colony records ‘for our security and our children after us’.128 The petitioners wished to overcome their situation by engaging with the colonial authorities and requesting that they provide the Pequot Tribe with the understanding of how to replace their overseer, with a person who they proposed was a more suitable candidate for the role. Similar offensive circumstances are reflected in the memorial by Pequot peoples living in Stonington, New London County, who also petitioned the General Assembly to request a new overseer.129 The memorialists argue that their current overseers Ebenezer Backus and Lieutenant Israel Hewitt, Jr, lived far away from the community and had, therefore, failed to aid in settlement of their land affairs and as a result ‘great difference, difficulty and troubles are subsisting’ among them.130 They requested that Stonington resident, Doctor Charles Phelps, would be appointed the new overseer.131 A similar request was made in the petition by Benjamin Uncas, Sachem of the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut, who asked the permission of General Assembly to appoint Captain Matthew Griswold as their new overseer, to replace a deceased overseer.132 In an attempt to gain a favourable outcome by engaging with colonial authorities, Uncas explains that Griswold lives nearby and wishes to teach the tribe to read. In both cases, the petitioners decide on who they wish to select as their new overseer.

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Requests to sell land Petitioning often represents a successful negotiation and opens a dialogue for change which subsequently contests colonial domination and such dialogue indicates an acute consciousness of entitlement and substantiates ownership of land. A significant number of First Nations American petitions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries relate to requests to sell land. Selling off the land was often perceived as the lesser of two evils and at the very least offered an alternative to encroachment. Petitioners and memorialists wrote to the Connecticut General Assembly between 1760 and 1810 most often to request that the General Assembly authorise the sale of land. Petitions and memorials were put in writing by individuals or by immediate family members as opposed to a community living on a reserve. This kind of petition is a result of the way that the governmental powers of the New England region distributed lands in the wake of a treaty agreement and during the establishment of a reserve. A division of the broader community was undertaken in an attempt to dismantle the traditional practices of communal living of First Nations Americans. For example, individual land plots were frequently divided between families within a nation and this was aimed at moulding First Nations to conform to a normative settler way of life. In such a divisive context, traditional community dwelling was set aside and the petitioners were placed in an environment where the family was responsible for caring for their own land, responsible for the home and for cultivating the land with which they fed their families. The petitions often disclose that the allocated land was deemed ‘un-useful for settlement’. This meant that the soil was typically non-arable and was especially difficult to cultivate. To make things worse, the knowledge and tools that First Nations Americans had shared was not returned. They were not offered the appropriate knowledge and tools to succeed at that style of living and this resulted in financial and physical hardship which precipitated further adverse conditions such as starvation or famine. Since the early years of American colonisation, First Nations petitioners have set out the details of such adversity and sent their requests to colonial courts. The Chickohominy people sent a petition to the Court of King and Queen County on 25 October 1694. In the petition they explained that the land that they had been moved to on the north side of the Mattapony River was insufficient and ‘so

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poor that it will no longer yield corn or wood’, and they wrote that they feared for their survival over the winter.133 In similar circumstances, a petition sent to the James City Assembly Committee by Betty Ann ‘the Queen of Pamunkey Tribe’ in 1710, begged to be relieved of providing the committee with their annual tribute. Her petition gave the details of a great famine which plagued her people and explains the dire outcomes of such starvation such as community disintegration and the harsh conditions that they had endured that they have been forced to ‘scatter and live among the English or risk withered and disabled bodies from starvation’.134

The Moqui petition In the years after the reservation systems were introduced, American officials considered that land allotment would assist in speeding up the process of assimilation. After ten years of failed allotment bills, Congress conclusively approved the General Allotment Act. The Act, more widely known as the Dawes Act of 1887, authorised the government to assign portions of land to First Nations Americans on an individual basis, that is, in ‘severalty’. The stated aim of the law was to secure land under the legal and economic system of the United States under a patriarchal system and to ensure that there would be rapid settlement of the West. The Act sanctioned division of land in First Nations reservations which was to be divided into individual allotments and assigned to male heads of household of 160-acre parcels.135 During this time, a petition, presented to the Bureau of Indian affairs, was composed in order to draw attention to the environmental, social and economic unease raised by severalty among the Moqui Nation.136 The petition conveys Moqui knowledge of the land and explains how to maintain the system that it had evolved over many centuries. The twenty-two signatories of the petition, all considered to be Moqui women, raised concerns about proposed division of lands that belonged to extended families into small privately owned allotments and offered information about female means of production. The petitioners express disquiet about the possible transfer from females to males under the proposed allotment system and delineate the preference for the matriarchal system under which the villages had flourished. On 10 April 1894, First Lieutenant Plummer, acting US Indian agent of the Navajo Agency, at Fort Defiance, presented the petition to the Commissioner

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of Indian Affairs. The communication that accompanied the Moqui petition expresses support for the Moqui to continue to manage their own territory as put into words in the lines below: I have the honour to transmit herewith the petition of the Moqui Indians praying that they may be allowed to handle, hold and cultivate their lands according to their customs and that a certain portion of the reservation be assigned to them exclusively. I urgently recommend that their request be granted. It is supported by recommendations of prominent persons familiar with the life and customs of these people as well as with the land which they till.137 He further states support for the petition and refers to others who were experienced in such matters and who knew the Moqui lands well and sounds cautionary advice against proceeding ‘Agent John S. Mayhugh, it was a mistake to allot their lands to them in severalty; that if the allotments are confirmed confusion and trouble will ensue’.138

In a tone that is strong and confident the petition enunciates warnings about the marking out of Hopi land for broad distribution. It voices concerns about the unfamiliar means of measuring land into small parcels as being unnecessary and inefficient. The petitioners advise that as owners of the land, it might have been prudent to consult with them beforehand and drew attention to the lack of such propriety in failing to contact them for permission to enter their lands. Their words insinuate that such action might have ‘unintentionally’ disturbed their way of life: To the Washington Chiefs: During the last two years, strangers have looked over our land with spyglasses and made marks upon it and we know but little of what this means. As we believe that you have no wish to disturb our possessions, we want to tell you something about this Hopi land. None of us were asked that if it were to be measured into separate lots and given to individuals that this would cause confusion.139

The petitioners offer detailed knowledge about the importance of a matriarchal system of land ownership and management of harvest that is essential to the economic viability of the land. They give information about the skills and the rotation of labour that are necessary to maintain crops on the land and a way of life that has been traditionally effective in supporting generations of families: The family the dwelling house and the field are inseparable because the woman is the heart of these, and they rest with her. Among us the family traces its kin from the mother, hence all its possessions are hers. The man builds the house but

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the woman is the owner because she repairs and preserves it; the man cultivates the fields, but he renders its harvests into the woman’s keeping, because upon her it rests to prepare the food, and the surplus of stores for barter depends upon her thrift. A man plants the fields of his wife, and the fields assigned to the children she bears and informally he calls them his, although in fact they are not.140

The petitioners outline the traditional means of inheritance of land and property and convey by what method it is distributed, according to the numbers of families that are available to maintain it, but emphasise that in all cases the land remains in female possession: He may permit his son to occupy it and gather its produce, but at the father’s death the son may not own it for them it passes to the father’s sister’s son, or nearest mothers kin, and thus our fields and houses always remain with our mother’s family. According to the number of children a woman has, fields for them are assigned to her, form some of the lands of her family group, and her husband takes care of them. Hence our fields are numerous but small and several belonging to the same family may be closer together, or they may be miles apart, because arable localities are not continuous. There are other reasons for the irregularity I size and situation of our family lands, as interrupted sequence of inheritance caused by extinction of families, but chiefly owing to the following condition and to which we especially invite your attention.141

The petition offers seasonal, geological and irrigation intelligence about land and land patterns and identifies the many difficulties that such management encounters. They advise on the measures that must be undertaken to ensure its successful management in the difficult conditions of seasonal winds and changes in the unwieldy and harsh sandy growing conditions: In the spring and early summer there usually comes from the southwest a succession of gales, oftentimes strong enough to blow away the sandy soil from the face of some of our fields and to expose the underlying clay which is hard, and sour, and barren; as the sand is the only fertile land, when it moves, the planters must follow it and other fields must be provided in place of those which have been devastated. Sometimes generations pass away and these barren spots remain, while in other instances, after a few years, the winds have again restored the desirable sand upon them. In such event its fertility is disclosed by the nature of the grass and shrubs that grow upon it. If these are promising, a number of use unite to clear off the land and make it again fit for planting when it may be given back to its former owner, or if a long time has elapsed, to other heirs, or

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it may be given to some persons of the same family group, more in need of a planting place.142

The Moqui petitioners tell of how the community traditionally decides land holding systems and that they have the requisite knowledge to continue to achieve success in food provision and the means to ensure that the methods are observed to ensure maximum provision: These limited changes in land holding are affected by mutual discussion and concession among the elders, and among all the thinking men and women of the family groups, interested. In effect, the same system of holding and the same method of planting, obtain among the Tewa and all the Hopi villages, and under them we provide ourselves with food in abundance.143

Although diplomatic in attitude and poignant in expression, the tone of the petition is firm. It substantiates the petitioners’ request to be convinced of the reasons for an imposed unworkable method of land management that has the capacity to undermine their knowledge and system. They confirm that they do not wish to change a system that works well and request that they proceed without interruption and reject the impractical system of ownership that is presented in the European system of land titles as documentary proof of land dwelling: The American is our elder brother, and in everything he can teach us, except in the method of growing corn in the waterless sandy valleys and in that we are sure we can teach him. We believe that you have no desire to change our system of small holdings, nor do we think that you wish to remove any of our ancient landmarks, and it seems to use that the conditions we have mentioned afford sufficient grounds for this requesting to be left undisturbed. Further it has been told to us, as coming from Washington, that neither measuring nor individual papers are necessary for us to keep possession of our villages, our peach orchards and our springs. If this be so, we should like to ask what need there is to bring confusion into our accustomed system of holding corn fields.144

The Moqui articulate the strong desire to carry on with their cultural methods uninterrupted. They sound a clear word of warning against interference. They propose to ensure land management according to the special qualities of the land and outline the well-founded desire to ensure that the land remains within their stewardship to continue proper land management in the traditional and most efficient way: We are aware that some ten years ago a certain area around our lands was proclaimed to be for our use, but the extent of this area is unknown to us, nor

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has any agent ever been able to point it out, for its boundaries have never been measured. We most earnestly desire to have one continuous boundary ring enclosing all the Tewa. And all the Hopi lands, and that is shall be large enough to afford sustenance for our increasing flocks and herds. If such a scope can be confirmed to us by a paper from your hands securing us forever against intrusion, all our people will be satisfied.145

The petition was circulated widely and transported to numerous villages with interpreters who communicated the contents of the petition, and witnesses A. M. Stephens, Thomas Keam and H. R. Vosh signed to confirm that the petition had been read and understood by the villagers. The community members identified themselves with images that confirmed their belonging and was expressed in totems. The written statement that accompanied the petition declared the following: I certify that I understand the foregoing petition and that I have told its meaning to the people of the East Mesa and of the middle Mesa.146 I certify that I understand the foregoing petition and that I have told its meaning to the people of the middle Mesa and of Oraibi.147 We the undersigned certify that the foregoing totem signature were made in the presence of one or other of use during different days and at different villages and that before the signatures were made, we caused the contents of the petition to be explained by one of the above interpreters.148

The letter accompanying the petition contains the details of a ‘Commission’ that was convened at Keams Canon to adjust the matter of a circle limit, within which the Moquis should have exclusive use of the reservation. There is no record in this office of the recommendations of this Commission having been confirmed.149

As the lines above indicate, there was no known official government response to the petition, E. H. Plummer reported that the process of parcelling the Moqui land into allotments via a circle limit did not come to fruition. The petition and accompanying documents suggest that the Moqui petition was successful in preventing severalty and the Moqui continued to manage the land and grow crops according to seasonal changes, geological land patterns and rotation of labour. A matter that emerged often in the petitions of First People who petitioned the General Assembly requesting to sell land concerned the agrarian lifestyle that was forced upon them and the difficulties imposed by the lack of capital

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equipment that made it impossible for them to maintain themselves from the land as they had done in the past. The petitions chronicled the subsequent financial and physical hardship that occurred. The inability to self-support is reflected in the petition of Joseph Poquiantup, an elderly Native American man (it is not clear what tribe Joseph was a member of), that was sent to the Connecticut General Assembly on 10 October 1793. Joseph requested permission to sell his fifteen acres of land that he was unable to cultivate owing to infirmity and old age.150 As farming the land was the key way that First Nations Americans were expected to survive under the treaty system, Joseph’s inability to farm meant that he was unable to support himself.151 The memorial requested that he sell the land to allow him to gain the financial means for his survival.152 Joseph stated that he wished for the General Assembly to consider and ‘grant liberty (under such regulations as Your Honors think fit) to your memorialist to sell said land that he might have some support in his indigent circumstances’.153 There was little hope of survival for the elderly or ill. A petition outlining the negative effects of the settler way of life on First People is reflected in the petition to the General Assembly by members of the Mohegan Nation, John Tantaquidgeon, Solomon Cooper and Lucy Cooper, who on 1 May 1806 asked for permission to sell their lands as they were ill and no longer able to support themselves.154 John and Solomon wished to sell their lands as they were blind and old and Lucy, who was responsible for her daughter, said that she was in ill health and could no longer look after herself.155 The three petitioners said that as they could no longer maintain their land, they could not support themselves and put forward that their lands be sold under the direction of an overseer so that they could then ensure that they would have the financial means to support themselves.156 Simon Choychoy and Solomon Mary Cooper of the Mohegan tribe in Montville Connecticut, in a petition to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1807, likewise requested permission to sell their land, as they felt their age and deteriorated health made them now unable to work and ‘incapable of much bodily labor’.157 Numerous petitions requesting permission to sell land did so to acquire the mere basic items of survival, such as clothing, or to assist in creating a situation of financial stability. The petition of Benoni Occom and Tabitha Cooper of the Mohegan Nation to the Connecticut General Assembly on 12 May 1807 was intended to sell their land to ensure their basic survival and to adequately provide clothes for themselves. They explained that they were in debt and

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requested permission to sell their late father, Reverend Samson Occom plot of land in Mohegan Territory, so as ‘to enable them to discharge some debts which they now owe and also to supply themselves with necessary clothing’.158 As outlined by the petitioners in the request above, overcoming hardship was a key motivation for selling their lands. The petitions show that in many instances, the sale was the only means by which to gain financial stability in times of adversity. Sometimes petitions were presented to request permission to sell lands in order to leave a reservation that was in difficulty to join an alternative First Nation reserve or in order to be financially compensated for their forced removal from their lands to enable their independence. One such example concerns the memorial to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1774, written by Elijah Wampey, Solomon Mossuck, and Samuel Adams, on behalf of the Tunxis tribe. They requested that the General Assembly help them sell their lands on the Farmington reserve in Hartford. The memorialists appeal to leave Farmington because they have been invited to join ‘their brethren the Six Nations at Oneida to come and dwell with them with a promise of a cordial reception and ample provision in lands whereon to subsist’.159 They explain that they are willing to accept the offer to move to Oneida reserve as it is in the best interest of their children and the future of the nation and propose that the sale of the land will allow the Tunxis people freedom of independence from the tribes of the Oneida reserve. The memorial in its entirety was granted on 1 June 1774 by the lower house, and concurred by the Upper House.160 The Tunxis petition exemplifies First Nations pragmatism in survival. It draws attention to the reasons why the Tunxis people appealed to leave their lands and go to Oneida. In deliberate avoidance of inevitable disaster, they sold land rather than take no action and face confiscation of their land and be forcibly removed where they would be certain to face adversity. Decades later, a petition sent to the General Assembly on behalf of the Mohegan nation demonstrates that not all First People were willing to relocate from their lands. For example, Robert Ashbow on 20 April 1795, on behalf of eighteen other tribes’ people, explained that the Mohegan tribe had been offered land and were invited to be a resident of the Oneida tribe in New York, which those that had signed the petition were eager to accept.161 However, the petition stated that those who had not signed the petition were not willing to go.162 Ashbow’s petition requested that the General Assembly intervene so that the other tribe members accept the Oneida offer, and that the remaining Mohegan

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land be sold and divided between the tribe.163 However, unlike the previous petition, the Upper House and House of Representatives refused the petitioner’s requests and ordered that Committee of Indians inquire into the facts about the Ashbow’s petition before intervening.164 On 28 April 1804 Robert Ashbow, with John Cooper, petitioned the General Assembly on behalf of the Mohegan people, with the request to sell land. The petitioners explained that the land ‘is of little or no value to said tribe for improvement, and it would be of much advantage to said tribe to sell and dispose of the same for the benefit of said tribe’.165 The petition was passed to the House of Representatives, who granted the requests of the petition and an undisclosed amount was paid to the Mohegan people in exchange for their land in May 1804.166 This instance of petitioning represents the implementation of a successful negotiation taking place in a space within which a dialogue for change has contested the proposed outcomes of domination. It reflects a situation of Mohegan entitlement and confirms the successful rights to ownership of the land by the Mohegan peoples in an ongoing battle for recognition of First Nations ownership of colonised land. A petition of by the Wangunk tribe of Mattabesett (English name Middletown, Connecticut) communicated to the General Assembly and the Governor of Connecticut on 29 May 1765 constitutes the determination to establish their own fate and in this way avoid Wangunk removal and loss of land by requesting authorisation for the sale of their lands.167 The petition delineates the Wangunk claim to ownership of the land in question and confirms that the petitioners request to remain in Middletown. They are aware that in doing so such action as this will result in a loss of a significant portion of their land. The petitioners propose that they desire to sell the lands of Wangunk families who had previously ‘being all removed from thence and settled in other places’.168 This request recognises that the General Assembly is planning to remove their people, and the petitioners wish to be compensated for their land as a result. The petitioners do not argue against the removal of their kin and community but request that they be compensated for the land belonging to those who have been removed. Their petition agrees to the following: The money that shall be found our proportion of the money arising from said sale, and to set out a part and divide their share of said land to such of said tribe as shall choose to continue to hold and possess their share of said land.169

Petitioners and memorialists requested to sell unused plots of land so that they might use the resources to improve the community as a whole. The memorial

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written by the Mohegan people to the General Assembly of Connecticut on 3 October 1795 explains that their reservation holds a corner plot of undivided land, which they wish to sell to their neighbour, Captain Thomas Avery. They explain that Avery ‘is desirous of buying the same and will give the full value thereof and the parting with said land would not in the least incommodate the residue of said Mohegan lands’.170 They make clear that the money to come from the land sale would be a greater advantage to the entire tribe, than if they were to make improvements to the land themselves and explain that they wished to use the funds to build a school house for the community.171 The memorial stated: ‘Memorialist pray Your Honors that your humble petitioners may have liberty to sell and dispose of said bit of land and that our overseers be empowered to sell the same and dispose of the monies for the benefit of said tribe in such manner as shall be the best for the use of said tribe.’172 The Upper and Lower House granted the memorial on 3 October 1795 in understanding that the memorialists wanted to better themselves and children through education.173 Predictably, petitions such those which reflected the practices or values of settler society tended to be granted more often than did the requests of those petitioners that remonstrated against the privations brought to bear on First Nations by colonial authorities. For example, the petition to the Connecticut General Assembly on behalf of the Mohegan people on 14 October 1799 discusses an Act implemented by the General Assembly, which divided a considerable area of Mohegan land between Mohegan families.174 The Act meant that families of the Mohegan tribe were responsible for ‘improving’ their individual tracts of land, and their reservation resembled that of settler property rather than the communal style of living. The petitioners do not quarrel with the General Assembly’s land divisions, they request that the assembly enact a law which allows for the descendants of Mohegan tract owners to gain control of their families’ land in cases of death, rather than it be passed back under community control.175 When the General Assembly first endorsed the Act, the land reverted to the community, but the Mohegan people requested that each tract remain under the control only of the family’s living descendants.176 While such action as this followed settler forms of land ownership, the petition aimed to avoid inter-community conflict and therefore expressed a desire to avoid ‘disputes and misunderstanding on that stead which may arise for the tribe’. On this occasion the petition was victorious, and the House of Representatives and the Upper House approved the requests of the petition.177

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Land petitions: Scholarly literature There has been a call for further research into the area of First Nations political expression as there is limited scholarly research into the context of First Nations petitioning. Peyer analyses two centuries of political literature by American First People, from its origins in seventeenth-century New England. The study, which includes land petitioning, finds that until recently, there has been little academic interest in the political writings by First Nations Americans and proposes that it is necessary to examine these writings as such documents form an important part of American history. Peyser suggests research into the ‘letters sermons, petitions, and tracts penned and published by educational Indian intellectuals have sought to secure Native rights to a prosperous future of the United States’.178 Acknowledgement of the writings and protests of First Nations American people appears in research of the extensive writings of Samson Occom of the Mohegan Nation, from the New London region of Connecticut.179 Occom, who was a Presbyterian cleric, and a key Native American activist, aided in the negotiations of several land settlements and drafted petitions, letters and memorials on behalf of many nations across New England until his death in 1792.180 Brooks proposes that from the seventeenth century onwards, First Nations American letters, petitions and memorials were the primary instrument by which Native Americans could assert their authority and have their voices heard to challenge the imbalance present in the legal and economic processes that were established by settlers and colonial governments.181 William Apes, an ordained minister, writer and activist of Pequot descent, in his autobiography of 1835, outlined his advocacy for ‘Indian nullification and unconstitutional law’. He spoke out against the actions taken by the US government and by the settlers who disposed First Nations Americans of their land.182 He preached to other First Nations about Christianity and forms of oppression and refers to a memorial letter to ‘the White People of Massachusetts’, that was written by his collaborators Israel Amos, Isaac Coombs and Ezra Attaquin of the Mashpee tribe.183 The memorialists speak out against the persecution of William Apes, and attempt to defend his actions. The memorialists draw attention to the hypocritical treatment received by William Apes in the following words: ‘The red children of the soil of America address themselves to the descendants of the pale men who came across the big waters to seek among them a refuge

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from tyranny and persecution.’184 In support of Apes, they further argue the following: [William Apes] might show us all the secret contrivances of the pale faces to deceive and defraud us. For this, many of our white brethren hate him, and revile him, and say all manner of evil of him, falsely calling him an impostor. However, they maintain that white men are the only persons who have imposed on us.185

Scholarly discourse on issues of First Nations Americans’ land dispossession has commonly focused on the stories of dispossession experienced by one specific nation, or on the nations living in close proximity to one particular region. The book of essays, edited by Beatty-Medina and Rinehart titled Contested Territories: Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850, concentrates on the ways in which First Nations Americans protested against settler expansion westwards in the Great Lakes region by engaging in methods of political organisation in petitions and letter writing. First Nations Americans acquired self-determined outcomes through acts of diplomacy between settler populations and by engaging in the formal economy as an altered subsistence method and to assure their basic survival as they encountered rapidly changing cultural dynamics in the face of colonisations and land dispossession.186 Rinehart focuses on the various ways that the Miami Nation resisted colonial rule and settler encroachment, ranging from the periods of violent resistance to that of the Miami peoples’ engagement with forms of non-violent political action against removal.187 Marsh describes the shifting relationship between the Delaware Nation and the settler groups of Quakers in the Northwest Territory or the Great Lakes region as a dynamic shift from hostile resistance against settler encroachment to a form of ‘friendship’ between the Delawares and the Quakers.188 Marsh centres on the ways in which the Quakers taught the Delawares to read and write, and explores how they taught them about Christianity, while the Delawares taught the Quakers how to survive and grow food on the land. However, Marsh does not address the colonialism underlying the ‘civilising mission’ but records the process of change in attitudes from resentment to cooperation. Marsh refers to a petition written by the Quakers to colonial authorities about the unfair treatment of the state against the Delaware people. Marsh frames this as ‘friendship’ between the Quakers and the Delawares. However, Marsh does not address the petitions written by the Delaware people themselves, or examine knowledge prior to the proposed ‘friendship’ or that

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the Delawares protested against the treatment of settlers who sought to dispose them of their lands. As there is limited scholarly investigation into First Nations Americans, land petitioning, this account considers petitioning that concerns land. However, a large-scale investigation of land petitions would add much to the historiography of the field. Future research might adequately account for First Nations American writings as a way to account for First Nations Americans’ perspectives and might acknowledge the ways that First Nations Americans protested against inequality and protected their land. While the petitions examined in this chapter is a step towards establishing a greater understanding of the extent of First Nations Americans’ petitioning for land, further research is necessary to appropriately account for the extent of First Nations Americans’ petitioning, and the petitioning for change that was undertaken by First Nations Americans across a variety of geographical and cultural contexts.

First Nations Petitions as documents of activism First Nations petitioning effectively operated to challenge colonialist power and injustice. Although chronologically disparate and in some cases separated by more than a century, First Nations American petitioning bears much in common with the narrative of First Australian petitioning for land rights and recognition. In both contexts, land petitioning was a prominent feature of petitions and explicitly protested land dispossession and forced removal. Contrary to the treaty agreements that should have in theory protected First Nations Americans from antagonistic acts of colonial domination, petitions serve to record the failure of negotiated treaties to protect them. The major difference between the encounters of First Nations Americans with that of First Australians concerns that for the most part, treaties were not sought or effectively implemented between the British Crown and First Australians. In the First Nations American context, the Fifteen Thousand Cherokee petition against the Treaty of New Echota is representative of the fact that treaties were mostly deployed to excise land from First Nations Americans and many treaties were fraudulent. Petitions show that treaties repeatedly failed to protect First Nations Americans from land dispossession or encroachment and did little to ensure First Nations rights to autonomy and sovereignty. Government representatives and in

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particular settler communities neglected to keep the agreed terms of a treaty. Such failure to uphold the circumstances of the treaty is evident in land clauses in treaty agreements and evident in the memorial by the Mingoes, Warriors and Chiefs of the Choctaw Nation on 18 March 1826 to James Barbour, Secretary of War, which protested against the breaking of a treaty agreement. Such memorials protested against settler encroachment on Choctaw land in Arkansas Territory and violated the treaty agreements made between the Choctaw Nation and the US government in 1825 which stipulated that their land was off limits to settlers. The memorial of the Mingoes, Warriors and Chiefs of the Choctaw Nation indicates that even when First Nations Americans agreed to give up their rights to the majority of their ancestral lands in exchange for a fraction of it, colonial governments would later then divest them of what little land they possessed. The petitions disclose the circumstances of the ways in which settlers often outright refused to conform to a legally negotiated treaty agreement. The petitioners record how land divestment would occur, and speak of settlers infringing on First Nations American lands, by gradually appropriating it little by little. First Nations, bereft of their land made them susceptible to enforced removal. First Nations Americans experienced the wearisome process of treatymaking, only to be dispossessed of land rights. While First Australians were not involved in the process of treaty-making, dispossession occurred all the same by violent means, encroachment or removal. While it was common for treaties to provide a façade of peaceful negotiation and a binding contract they did not guarantee to provide First Nations American groups with any natural legal rights to land. While First Australians too were denied natural rights to land and experienced land dispossession and removal, First Australian dispossession occurred without the smokescreen of treaty agreement, negotiation and enforced their cooperation. Petitions offered First Nations a potential way to prevail over colonial adversity. The practice of petitioning to challenge the oppressive colonial legal systems and the circumstances of hardship might offer the means of achieving a successful outcome for First Nations Americans, and in some circumstances, it allowed First Nations Americans to protect their land while exercising their right to utilise the laws of their colonial overseers. This is exemplified in the petition by Mangai Harquip of the Chickahominy Nation, who on 23 March 1660 petitioned Major General of Virginia and the James City General Assembly,

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to request that Chickahominy land be patented to protect against settler encroachment, which resulted in a land patent being granted by the James City County General Assembly. The petition by the Notoway tribe to the James City County Court on 4 April 1674 appealed to the laws of property ownership that were established by the Court of James City County and as a consequence was able to negotiate positive outcomes. The petition protested against settlers encroaching on their and argued that the settler’s actions were in violation of a court ruling which made Notoway territory out of bounds for settlement. The petition was successful, and the court ordered that no person was to encroach on Notoway land. Successful petitioning for ownership of land was manifest in the petition of Betty Ann, the Queen of Pamunkey, presented to the James County Court on 9 May 1672 against the unlawful conduct of a man who purchased land from her but failed to pay the full sum. Her petition proved successful. The court ruled that the purchaser pay Betty Ann the owing sum or risk the land being confiscated and placed back under the control of Betty Ann. The petitions by Betty Ann, the Notoway and Chickahominy nations, highlight that the act of petition could result in successful outcomes, including land protection under colonial legal systems. Since the seventeenth century, petitions which protested against settler encroachment and made claims to land rights were a recurring theme of petitioning. However, in contrast to the outcomes of First Nations Americans’ petitioning for protection and against hardship, petitions which requested recognition of land rights and against encroachment did not often result in successful outcomes. Although land rights petitions were not always successful, petitions that demanded recognition for the unbreakable rights to First Nations Americans’ traditional lands demonstrate that since colonisation, First Nations Americans have petitioned strategically to state their claims to land. Petitioning for land rights is a demonstration of their agency under colonial rule, and underlines the constant attempts made by First Nations Americans to attain selfdetermined outcomes. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, First Nations Americans’ petitions on land changed from protests against settler encroachment to include petitioning against failed treaty agreements, forced removal from traditional lands, land dispossession, while continuing the underlying theme of their unbreakable claims to land. As demonstrated in the petitions by Robert Ashbow, Samuel Ashbow and Henry Quaquaquid, on behalf of the Mohegan people in May 1790, and the

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petition by the Pequot Tribe to the legislatures of the Connecticut General Assembly in 1856, petitions against removal from land and land dispossession often did not result in tangible outcomes for First Nations Americans. Government authorities often rejected the petitioner’s demands and claims, and they were, unable to acquire restitution for the loss of their land. Although on occasion no tangible outcome occurred from petitioning against removal and land dispossession, the act of petitioning itself functioned to interrupt, alter, question and influence the decisions that were made by the state and to prevent the movements of the settlers to dispossess them of their land. Such petitioning against injustice contributed to the overarching requests for land rights made by First Nations Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and reflects the continued rejection of colonial expansion into their lands and provides and account of their subsequent dispossession. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, petitions were presented by those of First Nations American descent to protest against being unlawfully taken into slavery. Such petitioning reflects the geographical and ideological divides of the states and the slave trade in the southern ‘slave’ states and the northern ‘free’ states during the period prior to the end of the American Civil War. In contrast to the often unsuccessful outcome of petitioning against settler land encroachment, petitions presented by people of First Nations American descent who could legally prove their First Nations heritage were often successful in having their demands for freedom met. Colonial authorities were as a result more willing to grant claims in petitions as they were compatible with the pseudo-scientific evaluation of race and blood quantum measurement. Those petitions that argued against land encroachment and claims to land rights directly challenged the colonial expansion and control of natural resources and were less often successful. In undertaking an examination of scholarly discourse on the topic of First Nations Americans’ petitioning, especially on the topic of land, it is obvious that scholarly investigation on petitioning en bloc is limited. The First Nations Americans’ petitions discussed here draws attention to the extent of First Nations Americans petitioning as a rejection to colonial rule, and a call for rights and recognition for land, since colonisation. There is potential to build on the scholarly discourse surrounding the history of First Nations American activism, and to broaden the scope of scholarly investigation on the topic of First Nations Americans’ history. As petitions and memorials provide first-hand accounts of First Nations Americans such texts offer insight into First Nations Americans’ perspectives and experiences. The significance of accounting for the

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lived realities of First Nations Americans through the examination of petitions is highlighted in this chapter’s acknowledgement of the Fifteen Thousand Cherokee petition, and later the memorial letter from the Cherokee Nation featured in the newspaper Cherokee Phoenix to the US Senate, House of Representatives and the general public in December 1829. Both writings spoke on the Cherokee people’s feelings of betrayal and anguish about being misled by the US government into signing a treaty which would lead to their removal from their ancestral lands. Further scholarly examination of First Nations Americans’ petitions and memorials would allow for the inclusion of first-hand accounts and perspectives of First Nations Americans themselves. The process of evaluating the petitions of First Nations as documents of activism has the effect of extending the limited existing scholarly discourse on the subject of First Nations activism. The many and varied petitions that were drafted by First Nations Americans since colonisation highlight the significance of petitioning as both a rejection of colonial dominance, rejection of land dispossession and as documents of social justice record the details of the quest for the recognition of rights to self-determination. The breadth of First Nation petitioning can best be understood in comparative context and might usefully be extended to include transnational examples of petitioning by other First Nation groups within the British Empire. The comparative focus of the petitioning of First Nations Americans with the petitioning of First Australians offered here is the first step towards reaching an understanding of the value of petitioning in the opening up of a space for negotiation and in drawing attention to the inconsistencies and double standards that were presented in the petitions and conforming to public law. Further scholarly investigation of the circumstances of First Nations activism, the resistance and interruption of colonial dominance and protests against colonial rule through petitioning is required if we are to accurately understand the greater impacts of petitioning. This can be achieved by an examination of First Nations people across broad temporal, geographical, cultural contexts. Such examinations may offer insight into the role of First Nations petitioning in achieving self-determined outcomes in the face of colonial control, denial of rights and land dispossession.

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Contemporary Petitioning

Achieving land rights: Socio-legal perspectives The petitions of First Nations provided the formal means by which the transformation of the direst of circumstances was brought about. The narrative contained within traverses an ocean of emotions from harrowing expressions of desperation to unwavering appeals for social justice. They played a part in the process of overcoming the intersecting matrices of oppression, in drawing attention to colonial violence and appealing for social justice and they were instrumental in setting the standards for future intercultural relations. The petitioning undertaken by First Australians in Australia is noteworthy for having played a significant part in achieving landmark legal achievements in land reclamation. It has influenced many successful outcomes in the course of contemporary agreement-making. As a direct result of the Yirrkala bark petitions, the Yolgnu claimed rights to land that was earmarked for mining. The petitioning by the Yorta Yorta people of the Maloga Mission on the Murray River of New South Wales in 1881 established the right to self-sufficiency through farming and regained access to traditional lands, the South Australian government granted a new license for the land requested at Point Macleay in July 1872, and the station of Coranderrk was established through petitioning as a place for propagating First Australian self-determination. The tradition of petitioning has laid the groundwork for other legal land claims. This is especially the case with Australian Native Title land claims where the narrative of petitions is now depicted in paintings. In First Australian native title claims, contemporary painted images of country are accepted without hesitation as evidence of prior land ownership and cultural continuity. Artistclaimants of the far western desert have successfully put forward collaborative canvases to provide legal testimony in native title land claims.1 The Ngurrara canvas is a collective work by over sixty artists, a collaboration from memory of

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prior land ownership at Pirnini, south west of Fitzroy Crossing, on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert in the southern Kimberley region. Artistclaimants created two canvases, the second, produced in 1997, measured eight metres by ten metres.2 In June 2005, the Australian Federal Court recognised the exclusive right of the Ngaanyatjarra people to 180,000 square kilometres of land between the Great Victoria Desert and the Gibson Desert.3 The 20th anniversary of the presentation of the painting in October 2017 marked a milestone for Ngurrara people when the giant canvas returned to the edge of the Great Sandy Desert.

First Australian narrative and contemporary commemoration of petitions The earlier petitions which initiated some of the claims to land rights and selfdetermination are widely celebrated in contemporary society. Visual statements of great consequence to First Australian political activism such as ‘Hereby Make Protest’4 represent an important celebration of First Australian-driven political achievement together with creative expression, which reflects political achievement and continued struggle. Contemporary petition-driven exhibitions highlight the national importance of First Australian political organisation. In 2007, in the state of Victoria, a major exhibition, ‘And Your Petitioners Humbly Pray: 150 Years of Petitions in Victoria’, reflects a range of social concerns through petitions. Similarly, the Larrakia petition was displayed in the exhibition ‘Memory of a Nation’ and published in ‘Gwalwa Daranaki: land rights struggle on record’.5 In 2013, the inaugural Coranderrk festival commemorated the 150th anniversary of the founding of the original Coranderrk station, reverencing the petitioning of William Barak, among others. Since 2010, there have been periodic performances of the project ‘Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country’ in which recitals celebrate the Coranderrk petition of 1886. The exhibition ‘Hereby Make Protest’ comprises petitions and the policy of the Aborigines Progressive Association. Contained within the exhibition is the resolution for the rights of citizenship which was read aloud in a declaration by Jack Patten at the Day of Mourning Conference on 26 January 1938. ‘Hereby Make Protest’ does not solely commemorate the past with archival sources as other exhibitions have done – it commemorates the petitions that have recorded the challenge to dominant Australian discourse while commenting on and extending the

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dialogue initiated by the Aborigines Progressive Association. Through a range of First Australian creative expression, contemporary installation artworks commemorate and continue the exchange of ideas initially created by the First Australian-driven political organisation of the Aborigines Progressive Association to mobilise and elicit cohesion among First Australians across Australia to achieve social equality. They honour the resilience and vision of the supporters of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association and Aborigines Progressive Association who sought to create a transformative space to include First Australians within Australia’s social arrangement. First Australian artists pay tribute to the ‘warriors’ who publicly sought recognition through contesting and disrupting the normative order, as a result, opening up the way for a renegotiation of citizenship rights and the consequent restructuring of Australia’s legislative procedure. A subtle and successful integration of First Australian creative expression with petitions makes available a symbolic commentary, which not only celebrates, but also dynamically recreates the petitioning action that enabled the restructuring of legislative practice that was to bring future landmark victories to fruition. The Hereby Make Protest exhibition graciously acknowledges the Aboriginal Progressive Association as the forerunners of change. The exhibition draws attention to First Australian renegotiation of the past, not only through commemoration, but also through First Australian artistic celebration to be acknowledged and remedy the exclusions of the past and to elicit societies’ involvement in the ongoing First Australian great effort to establish social justice in the present.

The Uluru Statement from the heart First Australian petitioning and the resistance that is expressed within them have achieved significant milestones in the pursuit of self-determination. The Uluru Statement of intent, in 2017, for example, is proposed to be the culmination of all petitions that aspire to structural constitutional reform. We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country. We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.6

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In confining the outcomes of all petitions to a single outcome of constitutional recognition it refers to the importance of the petitions that have precipitated the conditions that have enabled the way forward in attaining high-level political representation. Ten years in the making, that is in concentrated discussion with communities around Australia, the Uluru Statement establishes intent and proposes to be a culmination of past petitioning efforts in the struggle for selfdetermination. It calls for ‘clear and urgent call for reform’. Alluding to ‘too many bark petitions, too many statements’ it sets out a clear agenda for a peaceful but pressing resolution and a framework for the working out of First Australian grievances. Megan Davis, Chair of the Permanent Forum on First Australian issues at the United Nations confirms the importance of petitions in the process of inciting the now substantial contemporary social movements that have arisen from petitioning: The reform proposals are not new, just newly urgent. The Uluru Statement sits in a continuum of Aboriginal advocacy for structural reform: the Yirrkala Bark Petitions of 1963, the Barunga Statement of 1988, the Eva Valley Statement of 1993, the Kalkaringi Statement of 1998, the report on the Social Justice Package by ATSIC in 1995 and the Kirribilli Statement of 2015.7

Described as a statement, but identical to a petition, the Uluru Statement refers to broad public support for endorsement of the statement. It intends to circumvent the democratically elected representatives that have failed to keep their agreements. Referring to the previous Makarrata Commission and the establishment of a Makarrata Commission to ‘supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling’, the Uluru Statement calls for fairness, justice and a better future for First Australians and aims to elicit reconciliation and extends the ‘sovereignty’ of ‘a spiritual notion’. However, the gestures of reconciliation and the establishment of the formal arrangements that sustain healthy and strong relationships between First Peoples and governments are in danger of being replaced by top-down land tenure reforms. The value of agreements are well known and that local agreements work well as ‘local partnership agreements move away from the colonial relationship of the past in creating a joint future for social and economic well-being’ and it is proposed that ‘they move towards a potent space for healing, celebrating difference and creating joint futures’.8 It is then, a cause for concern that in the former British colonies, local agreement-making is superseded by federal attempts to bring finality through a ‘resolution’ rather than to address the ongoing issues of the trans-generational trauma that is

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caused by colonisation. This, taken together with what has been described as ‘hostile’ federal policy, is intent on land reforms with the result of taking back what has been hard won in the petitioning efforts and gains made by the First Peoples of the British colonies.9

Agreement-making: Australia The petitions that were initiated in the early modern period have certainly contributed to important contemporary arrangements of agreement-making. The process of agreement-making with First Peoples is becoming ever more important in areas relating to land, resources, health, education and research. The background to the up-and-coming culture of agreement-making occurs in a range of spheres and jurisdictions, under a range of managements, and in a variety of environments. In the contemporary setting, agreements are made between First Australians and resource extraction companies, railway, pipeline and other major infrastructure project proponents, local governments, state governments, cultivation and cropping representative bodies, academies, arts organisations, publishers and many other societies and bureaus. As the result of petitioning, some of these agreements have legal status, such as those concluded under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) while some have resulted in determinations of the Federal Court of Australia and some agreements are registered under the terms of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth). Others are simple contractual agreements that set out the terms of ‘licences to operate’ and future developments. Yet others consist of memoranda of understanding or statements of commitment or intent.10

Agreement-making: New Zealand Arrangements around agreement-making in New Zealand have been significantly influenced through the petitions that were presented to the House of Representatives concerning land claims. Agreements relating to land claims that are based on Crown actions or omissions after September 1992 are known as contemporary claims. Contemporary land claims are dealt with through a process of negotiation where the Crown and an authorised representative discuss the interests that they wish to safeguard and endorse and to which they

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aspire to reach agreement on in particular proposals for settling a claim. An ‘Agreement in Principle’ or ‘Heads of Agreement’ is then signed which records, in an open and transparent manner, the basic outline of the proposed settlement. A draft Deed of Settlement detailing the comprehensive and final terms of the settlement and redress is then agreed and must be approved by Cabinet and initialled between the Crown and the mandated representatives. A lengthy and complicated procedure of legislation follows before the legislation and then allows the settlement assets to be transferred to the governance entity and the claimant group can begin to make use of the cultural redress provided in the settlement.11

Agreement-making: Canada The Huron-Robinson treaty The conditions imposed on First Nations by the treaty-making process have proved difficult to overcome. The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Calder versus Attorney-General of British Columbia (1973) suggested that land rights based on Aboriginal title originating in traditional use and occupancy of the land might be recognised by the common law. By legal means, Canadian agreements relating to land were established and the Canadian federal government in 1973 established a federal policy for the negotiation and settlement of First Nations land claims. ‘Comprehensive’ claims are based on the assertion of continuing title to land and resources where land claims may be negotiated only in those areas where claims to Aboriginal title have not been dealt with by treaty or by some other legal means. A ‘Specific Claims Policy’ governs contemporary claims that arise from Canada’s breach or non-fulfilment of legal obligations found in treaties, agreements or statutes (including the Indian Act). The policy was substantially reformed by the Specific Claims Resolution Act 2003 which set up an independent centre for the resolution of specific claims. The federal policy is implemented in the Province of British Columbia through a specific tri-partite treaty process established in 1993. In 1998, the federal government published Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan, ‘Gathering Strength’, which was released in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. It described its objectives as the renewal ‘of the relationship with the Aboriginal people of Canada builds on

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the principles of mutual respect, mutual recognition, mutual responsibility and sharing’.12 The plan, outlined above, affirms that modern treaties will continue to be the basis for the ongoing relationship between First People and the Crown in the comprehensive land claims agreement-making process.13 Although selfdetermination agreements involving the acknowledgement of governance powers for First Nations and Inuit communities over both their territories and their members are slowly being reached in various parts of the country, the majority of First Nations are not at a land-claims situation that will result in a dramatic change to their economic conditions. Legal intervention by the courts to further broaden the interpretation of the treaty would confirm equality but parity is not currently reflected in the relationship between First Canadians and dominant society. Such inequality remains, in spite of more recent success with treaty negotiations. The Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) in First Nations rights’ ‘Tables’ of self-determination is being proposed to represent 300 First Nations with the aim of reaching contemporary agreement. ‘Modernday land claim agreements’, as they are called, are proposed to be different from historical treaties signed in the colonial and confederation eras. Comprehensive claim negotiations have been criticised for being extremely long and inflexible with the average length of the claim being eighteen years and there are often irreconcilable differences over what ought to be on the table, especially if the two sides disagree on whether another treaty or deal from the past had already resolved a disagreement.14 Such disparity is characterised by the conditions of the 2017 Huron-Robinson lawsuit that addresses the annuity to be paid to each First Nations member residing within the boundaries of the 92,463 square kilometres covered by the Huron-Robinson treaty of 1850. One hundred and sixty-seven years later, a legal action is underway to challenge the conditions of the treaty. In particular, the ‘Escalator Clause’ is at issue for current legal action. The Robinson Huron Treaty Annuities Claim has been a matter of discussion between government officials and a litigation management committee that operates on behalf of twenty-one chiefs. A statement of claim seeks a calculation of the revenue generated from the treaty territory since 1850, and an increase in annuities and compensation for losses stemming from the Crown’s failure to increase annuities over the past 167 years. Ogimaa Dean Sayers and Ogimaa Duke Peltier point out the government’s failure to observe the efforts made to develop a partnership based on recognition of First Nations rights and the Canadian Government’s interpretation of the

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Robinson Huron Treaty and express the apprehension that the government is not prepared to enter into negotiations: Every year since 1850 there was supposed to be an accounting of the revenues generated from the sale of the resources from our lands. At the end of every year there would be monies transferred to the First Nations that signed the 1850 treaty with The Crown. An Annual Resource Revenue Agreement – A revenue sharing agreement. If the Crown was able to generate more money in a particular year – we would receive more money. There has only been one raise to those funds, and that was in 1875.15

Chief Sayers contends that the Crown made a commitment to offer an annuity based on the value of minerals or other extractions that had been taken from the land and that resource extraction would be done sustainably. The twenty-one First Nations involved believed that by signing the treaty, they would get some annual return on natural resource extractions.16

Legally enforcing treaty rights: The Cherokee court ruling Since treaties were first established in the United States, the government has increasingly implemented treaties as a way to meet their own colonising interests. Petitions represent a grass-roots challenge to colonial power and were taken up by First Nations people who have consistently registered a formal counterattack against colonial authority and the British Crown. The US Constitution gives exclusive authority in Indian affairs to the federal government. Federal policy towards First Nations saw increased legislation in the 1990s which sought to limit the exercise of First Nations self-government. The Supreme Court has increasingly limited First Nations governments’ jurisdiction over non-tribal members. In addition, proposals have surfaced in the US Congress that inhibit the communities’ ability to provide basic government functions and services, exercise legal jurisdiction, enforce treaty rights, recover land, or raise revenues for government functions – even to continue age-old hunting and fishing practices. This hostile legislation threatens to end First Nations’ ability to function and would effectively force group members to depart from their homes and communities.17 The putting into practice of treaty rights is legally important to First Nations outcomes. In an act expressing cultural belonging, and in a rejection of the Eurocentric blood quantum measurement of culture, the Cherokee Nation voted to accept the Cherokee Freedmen’s right to Cherokee citizenship. Blood

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politics were set aside when blood requirements imposed by official government for Cherokee citizenship was revoked by the federal courts. The decision from the court relied on an interpretation of the Treaty with the Cherokee, 1866, in the formal title of the last treaty the Cherokee Nation signed with the federal government at the end of the civil war that guaranteed freedom to 2,500 Cherokee-owned slaves and, as stated in Article 9, granted them and all their descendants ‘all the rights of native Cherokees’.18

Land tenure reform The colonial grip on land ownership continues to be strong. It continues to exert direct authority and control from the top down. It constitutes the broad response to the positive outcomes achieved by First Peoples petitions and activism as is seen in contemporary land tenure reform. In the Australian context especially, and in pursuit of centralist policies, there are plans to reform land law tenure which is not advantageous to First Australians. Subsequent to the amendment of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory) 1976 (Cth), under a township lease, the land on which a First Australian community is situated is now leased to a government body which then subleases sections of that land.19 The reform proposes to be an ‘economic’ reform ‘that will also help facilitate home ownership and commercial use of Aboriginal land’.20 However, examination of the proposed system of land reform finds that of the 240 houses built in the Nguiu community by leasing First Australian land, only 7 have been sub-leased to First Australians.21 Petitions against land law tenure were presented rejecting the leases of the Northern Territory Intervention Response. However, such reforms to land law tenure are being implemented throughout Australia.22 Experts suggest that the land lease scheme lacks clarity and transparency and that it represents a topdown scheme of reform. It has received expert criticism for not presenting its policies clearly. It takes a focus on ‘secure government tenure’ which offers no economic improvements or opportunities for First Australians. It is inconsistent with the proposal for building ‘equitable and lasting agreements’ and contradicts the principles of ‘free prior and informed consent’ that are necessary in First Australian land tenure reform.23 In an appraisal of the land tenure reform scheme, Tom Calma, Social Justice Commissioner, in a 2009 Native Title report recommended that the Northern Territory Emergency Response scheme in particular ignores ‘free prior and informed consent’ that is an inherent part of the voluntary lease scheme and that

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the Australian government should meet with the land councils of the Northern Territory to discuss leasing arrangements.24 Experts are critical of the Australian government proposals for long-term leases where it is suggested that they are ‘negotiating to provide certainty’ but there are questions being raised about who will be the recipient of such certainty. Such arrangements do not bode well for First Australians. It is suggested that there is no national land rights scheme and that First Australian land ownership varies across Australia. Historically, there were no formal arrangements put in place to determine infrastructure on First Australian land.25 The outcome of the effects of federal policy consists of the transfer of large areas of First Australian land to government control. It is suggested that ‘the large scale transfer of previously private land to the government, commonly without the payment of rent, is more consistent with the abandonment of any economic aims. The purpose of the transfer seems instead to facilitate bureaucratic reforms.’26 Further discussion between First Australians and the government is required to clarify precisely what it is that reform of First Australian land can realistically achieve. In place of land tenure reform, resilience, reconstruction and rebuilding of strong families, communities and organisations are recommended by the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, June Oscar: The Uluru Statement has inspired Indigenous people and many other Australians to think big about our sense of Australian nationhood and the potential for Indigenous recognition and inclusion in Australian nation building. Within this thinking, we must address the fundamental importance of rebuilding Indigenous communities whose cultural, social and economic fabric have been shattered by colonisation over many generations.27

Land reform: United States Buy-back scheme Land tenure reform of a different kind has recently been implemented in the United States. It has been argued that customary land use rights may help preserve Indian cultural identity by cultivating core, non-economic values.28 First Nations Americans rank consistently as one of the poorest socio-economic groups in United States. In 2011, median household earnings of American Indians were 30 per cent lower than of non-native households. Measures of income, health and education point to a lack of economic development on

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reservations. An increasing focus of contemporary First Nations American economic development literature has shifted to the role of institutions. Most reservations are located in rural areas, making agriculture and resource extraction important components of the local economy. Successful management of these resources means that property rights structures be implemented on Native American reservations.29 In spite of the efforts to ensure control of land, an outcome of a court decision in the Cobell Agreement claims resolution Act of 2010, after appeals in the US Supreme court, has made a $1.9 billion trust fund available. There is a ten-year opportunity to buy-back land from 2012 to 2022 in which First Nations may apply for what is being described as an acceleration of the reconsolidation of tribal lands. Federal government is accelerating a programme to return acres of land to First Nations management that was previously implemented by the government. Described as a ‘buy-back’ programme, it is proposed as a settlement by the Department of the Interior to buy 10 million acres of privately owned land and to increase the amount of land under collective tribal management to 150 nations on four reservations, in Montana, South Dakota and Washington. Although First Nations have been dealing with fractionation and have their own buy-back programmes, the federal government has not yet engaged with the locally overseen initiatives.

The Tent Embassy continues The establishment of the Tent Embassy and the petition of February 1972, that contained the five-point plan which addressed First Australian ownership of existing reserves and settlements, and the preservation of all sacred sites, have been instrumental in pursuing recognition of sovereignty and prior land ownership. Extrication from country continues in regions and cities across Australia. In the contemporary world of First Australian petitioning, in the Sydney inner city suburb of Redfern, a Tent Embassy was erected as the result of a petition where there are continuing struggles about the enforced appropriation of First Australian land known as the ‘battle for the block’ in Redfern. Here, there exists a strong sense of continuity and durable kinship networks. Caring for community connects much of the First Australian Redfern community with a renowned reputation for presenting a formidable resistance to the social injustices of colonisation. The population of Redfern grew dramatically after citizenship rights were granted to First Australian people following the 1967 referendum. As the commercial development of the block

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commenced, First Australians expected that there would be plans made to be pushed back once more to the fringes. The Aboriginal Housing Commission produced plans to develop the ‘Pemulwuy Centre’ on the block, but the plans were never well received by the broader First Australian community and are the subject of much debate. The value of the project was disputed because the Pemulwuy plans relied on retail and office space development on the Aboriginal Housing Commission-owned block. Affordable housing, specifically for First Australians, was not a major consideration being dependent on the revenue raised by the retail and office space. Dei Corp, the company that the Aboriginal Housing Commission subcontracted to build Pemulwuy, advertised on their website that ‘the Aboriginals have already moved out’ and that ‘Redfern is the last virgin suburb close to the city’. In response to the proposed plans, First Australian Redfern activists petitioned the government and refused to move, and defied development of the site. When construction was scheduled to begin on 7 July 2014, many supporters of the sit-in arrived to oppose the development of the site with the activists of the First Australian Tent Embassy. Since that demonstration of solidarity, there has been an uneasy impasse. As the gentrification of Redfern and the surrounding areas of Waterloo goes on, the battle for the block continues. In the present-day world of petitioning there are thousands of petitions assisted by improved information technology and the facilities presented by on-line petitioning. Since 2008, in Australia alone, there have been 140 petitions presented to parliament annually.30 As the forerunners of change the petitions of the past have played their part and summed up in a recent statement: ‘We fight on. Law reform [is] never easy. The Uluru Statement [is] in our hands. It was never presented to politicians who turn petitions into relics.’31

In pursuit of autonomy, power and self-direction First Nations petitions voiced their opposition to colonial violence and they constitute a well-defined embodiment of anti-colonialism. The earliest petitions served to clear a space for dialogue and diplomacy and through the objectives of the earliest petitions First Nations petitioners sought to secure a peaceful existence and achieved short-term solutions in the provision of food, shelter, warmth and clothing. Similarly, petitions for legislative reform established a clear claim of prior land ownership and through asserting their recognition of their rights to land provided a stratagem for future land rights campaigns. In their petition, the Moqui gracefully asserted their rights to self-determination, and positively

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established their right to continue their culture uninhibited and continue to this day to enjoy their rights to autonomy and demonstrate success in challenging the imposition of severalty of 1887 Dawes Act. Contemporary petitions continue to record the details of hostile policy in land lease and buy-back schemes that continue with ever more innovative means to annexe First Nations land. In response, contemporary First Nations petitions record the ongoing struggle against neo-colonial aggression and continue to argue for the constitutional rights of First Nations through the recognition of prior ownership of land and land rights. While some early petitions may be regarded as an endorsement of the legitimacy of the power being appealed to, the agency contained within them enabled the means for First Australian negotiation and representation. Petitions are representative of power relations, political identities, and the desire for First Australian geopolitical selfdetermination. First Australian petitions, such as the Yirrkala bark petitions in the broader Australian community, are sometimes perceived as symbolic relics, artefacts or works of art. They are not primarily regarded as ongoing records of First Australian resistance to colonisation. Several exhibitions highlighting the national importance of specific petitions have drawn great public interest in First Australian rights. However, there is a tendency for successive governments to ignore completely or misunderstand the multiple and layered meanings contained in First Australian Yirrkala bark petitions and other valuable statements of political engagement such as the Uluru Statement, which was ignored by the Australian government in 2017. In acknowledging the wide-ranging scope of First Australian activity through the sphere of petitioning, one can attain a new understanding of First Australian self-determination. In recasting First Australian petitioning as an articulation of self-determination rather than as a failure to overturn colonialism, an appropriate account of First Nations activity is feasible. It gives voice to First Australian political and social organisation and provides new insights into the people who drove and continue to drive the process of change. First Australian petitions stand apart from other primary colonial sources of information in that they contain the actual voices and narratives of the petitioners. There is a danger that they will be regulated to the past as a subset of peaceful collaboration with settlers without due consideration as political, legal and historical records of resistance to colonisation. This is true even as, and perhaps partly because, better-known First Australian petitions are

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today celebrated emblematically as mere icons or historical artefacts. Petitions continue to communicate the ongoing resistance to colonial rule and provide a useful instrument for questioning colonial socio-legal contexts. The intent of the petitions explored above can be seen to interrogate colonisation as a continuous and ongoing process rather than a single, foundational event where the act of petitioning itself interrupts colonial dominance and asserts alternative modes of First Nations existence.

Notes Chapter 1 1 ‘Case for “yes” in the 1967 Referendum: Argument in Favour of the Proposed Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967’. National Archives of Australia. Retrieved 13 September 2017. In 2010, the federal government established a panel of experts to inquire into changing the federal constitution for recognition of First Australians in a new referendum under section 128 of the Australian Constitution. The further changes are discussed by Marcia Langton, ‘Reading the Constitution Out Loud’, Meanjin 70, 4 (2012), 18–32. Retrieved 13 September 2017. See also, George Williams, Sean Brennan, Andrew Lynch, Blackshield and Williams Australian Constitutional Law and Theory (6th ed.) (Leichhardt, NSW: Federation Press, 2014), 135–6. George Williams, ‘Removing Racism from Australia’s Constitutional DNA’, Alternative Law Journal 37, 3 (2012), 151. Retrieved 13 September 2017. 2 Nicholas Buchanan and Eve Darian‐Smith, ‘Introduction: Law and the Problematics of First Australian Authenticities’, Law and Social Inquiry 36, 1 (2011), 115. 3 Buchanan and Darian‐Smith, ‘Introduction’. 4 Karen O’Brien, ‘Sexual Impropriety, Petitioning and the Dynamics of Ill Will in Daily Urban Life’, Urban History 43, 2 (2016), 177–99. 5 Karen O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets and Bomb Tests: First Australian Petitioning and Resistance to Colonisation’, Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity 2, 2 (2014), 357–76. 6 The London Lives Petitions Project explores 10,000 petitions. Accessed 11 September 2017. Retrieved from http://earlymodernweb.org/llpp/Henry Miller, Petitions, Parliament, and People Project. Accessed 11 September 2017. Retrieved from https://www.dur.ac.uk/history/research/research_projects/ petitionsandpeople/ See also, Mark Ormrod, Linne Mooney and Gwilym Dodd, The Writing of Petitions in Later Medieval England (8 April 2014) Stanford University: Manuscript Studies in an Interoperable Digital Environment. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/group/dmstech/cgi-bin/drupal/ node/43 7 New South Wales Legislative Council, Minutes and Proceeding, 25 August 1824 to 22 November 1825, p. 1.

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8 Buchanan and Darian‐Smith, ‘Introduction’. 9 Karen O’Brien, ‘“With my Eyes, my Heart and with my Brain I am Thinking”: Testimony, Treaty and Decolonising Indigenous History from Images’. ANZLH E-Journal 7, 4 9 (2011), 16. 10 Larissa Behrendt, Robert J. Miller, Jacinta Ruru and Tracey Lindberg, Discovering Indigenous Lands, The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 11 Andrew Fitzmaurice, ‘The Genealogy of Terra Nullius’, Australian Historical Studies 38, 29 (2007), 1–11. 12 Fitzmaurice, ‘The Genealogy of Terra Nullius’. 13 Ibid. 14 Niamh Corbett, ‘Parliamentary Petitions: An Untapped Library Resource’, Australian Library Journal 60, 3 (2013), 218, 222. 15 Corbett, ‘Parliamentary Petitions’. 16 See, for example, Ravi De Costa, ‘Identity, Authority, and the Moral Worlds of First Australian Petitions’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, 3 (2006), 669; Larissa Behrendt et al., Discovering First Australian Lands, the Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Bain Attwood, Rights for Aborigines (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003); Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994); Blanca Tovías, ‘Diplomacy and Contestation before and after the 1870 Massacre of Amskapi Pikuni’, Ethnohistory 60, 2 (2013), 269; John Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom: The Origins of Australian Aboriginal Activism (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007); Judy Iseke-Barnes, ‘Living and Writing First Australian Spiritual Resistance’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 24, 3 (2003), 211. 17 New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Office, Colonial Secretary Index 1788–1825. NSW State Archives and Records. Accessed 18 September 2017. Retrieved from https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-andindexes/colonial-secretarys-papers. 18 Johan Goudsblom and Stephen Mennell, The Norbert Elias Reader (Blackwell, 1998), 223. 19 Niamh Corbett, ‘Parliamentary Petitions: An Information Studies Perspective’, LIBRI 60, 12 (2010), 293. 20 See, for example, Ravi De Costa, A Higher Authority: Indigenous Transnationalism and Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2006); Ricky Maynard, Portrait of a Distant Land, Retrieved from https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_ id=maynard-ricky; Ian Anderson, ‘“Introduction”: The Aboriginal Critique of Colonial Knowing’. In Blacklines: Contemporary Critical Writing by Indigenous Australians, ed. Michele Grossman (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University

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22 23 24 25

26 27

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Press, 2003); De Costa., ‘Identity, Authority and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions’, 669–98; Ravi De Costa, ‘Treaties in British Columbia: Comprehensive Agreement-making in a Democratic Context’. In Honour Among Nations? Treaties and Agreements with Indigenous People, eds Marcia Langton et al., (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004): 133–46; Ravi De Costa, ‘Transnational activism and Indigenous rights’. In Globalisation and Citizenship: The Transnational Challenge, eds Wayne Hudson and Steven Slaughter (New York: Routledge, 2007):172–85. 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 Journal of Public Record Office Victoria 7, (2008) Retrieved from http://prov.vic.gov.au/publications/provenance/ provenance2008/give-to-us-the-people O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets, and Bomb Tests’, 1, 364. Ibid. Corbett, ‘Parliamentary Petitions’, 222. See, for example, Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and First Australian People in America and Australia, 1788-1836 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); Lisa Ford and Tim Rowse, eds, Between First Australian and Settler Governance (New York: Routledge, 2013). De Costa, ‘Identity, Authority and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions’, 670; De Costa, A Higher Authority; De Costa, ‘Treaties in British Columbia’. See, for example, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies Research and First Australian Peoples (2nd ed.) (London: Zed Books, 1999); Karen Martin and Booran Mirraboopa, ‘Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing: A Theoretical Framework and Methods for First Australian and Indigenist Re-search’, Journal of Australian Studies 27, 76 (2003), 203; Irabinna L. Rigney, ‘Internationalisation of an First Australian Anti-Colonial Cultural Critique of Research Methodologies: A Guide to Indigenist Research Methodology and its Principles’, Wicazo Sa Review 14, 2 (1990), 109; Dennis Foley, ‘First Australian Epistemology and First Australian Standpoint Theory’, Social Alternatives 22, 4 (2003), 44; Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Aboriginal Women and Feminism (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2000); Terri Janke, Writing up First Australian Research: Authorship, Copyright and First Australian Knowledge Systems (Sydney: Terri Janke and Company Pty Ltd, 2009). Accessed 16 April 2014. Retrieved from http://www.terrijanke.com.au/documents/WritingupIndigenousresearch_14Sep09.pdf; Judy M. Iseke-Barnes, ‘Pedagogies for Decolonizing’, Canadian Journal of Native Education 31, 1 (2008), 123. Harry Blagg, Crime, Aboriginality and the Decolonization of Justice (Annandale, New South Wales: Hawkins Press, 2008).

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29 Haskins, ‘Give to Us the People,’ 13. 30 Penny van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006). 31 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, 18–22. 32 Saliha Belmessous, Native Claims: Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500-1920 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 9. 33 Belmessous, Native Claims, 56. 34 Ibid., 63. 35 Ibid., 63–9. 36 Tovias, ‘Diplomacy and Contestation’, 268, 269. 37 Ibid., 270. For further accounts that examine the massacre of Amskapi Pikuni see also, Clark Wissler and Alice Beck Kehoe, Amskapi Pikuni: The Blackfeet People (Albany: State University of New York, 2012); Clark Wissler, and D. C. Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). *Please note that this massacre is also referred to as the ‘Baker massacre,’ after Colonel Eugene Baker who led the troops in the massacre. 38 Tovias, ‘Diplomacy and Contestation’, 270. 39 Ibid., 288. Modern day Canada is divided into ten provinces, which include British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Quebec and Nova Scotia. 40 Ibid. 41 Naomi Parry, ‘Musquito (1780–1825)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (Supplementary Volume, MUP, 2005). Accessed June 27 2017. Retrieved from http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/musquito-13124 42 Michael Powell, Musquito, Brutality and Exile: Aboriginal Resistance in New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (Hobart: Fullers Bookshop, 2016), 262. 43 Powell, Musquito, Brutality and Exile, 24. 44 Ibid. 45 See, for example, Orderly Book of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, ‘Original Documents on Aborigines and Law, 1797-1840’, The Centre for Comparative Law History and Governance of Macquarie University, and State Records of New South Wales. Accessed July 26 2017. Retrieved from http://www. law.mq.edu.au/research/colonial_case_law/nsw/other_features/correspondence/ documents/document_1/ 46 Naomi Parry, ‘“Hanging no Good for Blackfellow’: Looking into the Life of Musquito’ (153–77). In Transgressions: Critical Australian Indigenous Histories, eds Ingereth Macfarlane and Mark Hannah (Canberra: Australian National University E-Press, 2007), 155. 47 Sydney Gazette, ‘General orders’, 7 July 1805. Accessed 21 July 2017. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/PMmbVH

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48 Sydney Gazette, ‘General Orders’, 11 August 1805. Accessed 21 July 2017. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/Vazk2p 49 Gazette, ‘General Orders’. 50 Van Toorn, Writing Never Arrives Naked, 63. 51 New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Office, ‘Letter by Governor Philip Gidley King to John Piper, Sydney’, 18 August 1805. Correspondence, 1803-1810 (Reel CY 178, Safe 1/51), 41. 52 New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Office, Colonial Secretary Index 1788–1825 (Reel 6040: ML safe 1/51), 41. 53 Thomas Campbell, RE Colonial Secretary to Lt. Gov. Davey, 1814, Van Diemen’s Land, State Records of New South Wales, Sydney [hereafter SRNSW] (Reel 6004; 4/3493), 251. 54 Campbell, RE Colonial Secretary to Lt. Gov. Davey. 55 Ibid. 56 New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Office, ‘Committal of Bull Dog and Musquito to Norfolk Island’, Miscellaneous correspondence relating to Aborigines, 1797, 1804–6, 1814–6, 1824–40 (Reel 6040; ML Safe 1/51), 41. 57 Powell, Musquito, Brutality and Exile, 160. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 120, 160. 61 Ibid. 62 Governor Lachlan Macquarie, ‘Permission for Mosquito to return to Sydney from Van Diemen’s Land’, New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Office Colonial Papers Index (Reel 6004; 4/3493), 251. 63 Lyndal Ryan, Colonial Frontier Massacres in Eastern Australia 1788–1872. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1340762 The ‘genocide’ understanding of frontier conflict is rejected by First Nations Tasmanians. 64 David Collins, Historical Records of New South Wales (1756–1810) volume 1, 259. Digital text sponsored by the University of Sydney Library (2003). Accessed 18 July 2017. Retrieved from http://adc.library.usyd.edu.au/data-2/colacc1.pdf Arthur Bowes Smyth’s Lady Penrhyn Journal, MSS 955, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney; John Hunter, An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (London: John Stockdale, 1793), 506–7. 65 Richard Broome, ‘The Statistics of the Frontier Conflict’. In Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, eds Bain Attwood and S. G. Foster (Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2003), 88, 89. 66 Port Philip Association (1835–36) Letter written by James Simpson, Commissioner, Hobart Town. State Library of Victoria Port Philip Association, Records 1835 to 1836 Box 23/4.

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67 Transcript of the Batman land Deed, National Museum of Australia, Accessed 21 September, 2017. Retrieved http://www.nma.gov.au/education/resources/multimedia/ interactives/batmania_html_version/transcript_of_the_batman_land_deed. 68 Ibid. 69 O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets, and Bomb Tests’, 1, 364. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., 56. 73 Ibid., 63. 74 Ibid., 63–9. 75 State Library of New South Wales, ‘Petition from John Connell to Captain Dumaresq Recommending Aborigines of Botany Bay to receive General Darling’s Donation of Blankets’, 1825–1831. Retrieved from http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/ itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=893645 as cited in O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets, and Bomb Tests,’ 364. 76 John Piper, ‘Petition from Aborigines at Point Piper for an allowance of clothing from the Store (July 1822)’, Colonial Secretary’s Papers 1788-1825 (Reel 6052; 4/1753), 159. 77 Harvey, Balmain, Frankie (1st), Frankie (2nd), Punch, Maria, Peggy, ‘Point Piper Petition to the Governor of New South Wales’ (July 1822), State Records of New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s index, 1788-1825 (Reel 6052; 4/1753), 159. 78 John McArthur, Land marked out at Camden to be assigned to group of Aborigines under protection of John McArthur (5 March 1818). State Records of New South Wales. Colonial Secretary Index, 1788–1825 (Reel: Fiche 3276; SZ1046), 4–5. 79 John Hacodole, Petition for Blankets for Aborigines after Attack (9 September 1832). State Records of New South Wales. Colonial Secretary Index, 1788–1825 (Reel 4/7092). 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 82 John Campbell Thomas (Colonial Secretary), Retention of Aboriginal girl, companion of Michael Howe, at Sydney. State Records of New South Wales. Colonial Secretary Index, 1788–1825 (Reel 6006; 4/3498), 109. 83 This manuscript has a link to other documents concerning accommodation and clothing for Aboriginal girl, companion of Michael Howe, a bushranger in Van Diemen’s Land. State Records of New South Wales. Colonial Secretary Index, 1788–1825 (Reel 6005; 4/3497 294). 84 John Campbell Thomas (Colonial Secretary), Retention of Aboriginal girl, companion of Michael Howe, at Sydney. State Records of New South Wales, Colonial Secretary Index, 1788–1825 (Reel 6006; 4/3498 109).

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85 Sir William Dixson, documents relating to Aboriginal Australians, 1816–53, The Ninth Annual Report of the Apsley Aboriginal Mission conducted by the Rev. W. Watson, Minister of the United Church of England and Ireland, Wellington, New South Wales Dixon Document Accessed 17 September 2017. Retrieved from http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110327964 86 William Watson, missionary of Apsley Mission, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, Letters received, 1840, State Records of New South Wales, Colonial Secretary’s Index, 4/283.1. 87 Writer unknown (Petitioners: ‘Residents and otherwise of the Colony of NSW’), Petition regarding a death sentence passed on Aboriginals named Alfred Alexander and Metcalf and Charles E. Wilkinson (1879), State Records of New South Wales Colonial Secretary’s Index, 1850-1900, 4/6029. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 90 Dirk Moses, ‘An Antipodean Genocide? The Origins of the Genocidal Moment in the Colonisation of Australia’, Journal of Genocide Research 2, 1 (2000), 97. 91 Moses, ‘An Antipodean Genocide?’ 98. 92 Jim Everett, Aboriginal Education and Colonialism: ‘Our Earthlinks Under Threat’, Australian Journal of Environmental Education 13, 1 (1997), 11–6. 93 Ricky Maynard, Portrait of a Distant Land, Retrieved from https://www.artgallery. nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=maynard-ricky 94 Ryan, ‘Hard Evidence’. 95 See, for example, John Connor, ‘British Frontier Warfare Logistics and the “Black Line”, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), 1830’, War in History 9, 2 (2002), 143–58; Julie Evans, ‘Where Lawlessness is Law: The Settler-colonial Frontier as a Legal Space of Violence’, Australian Feminist Law Journal 30, 1 (2009), 3–22; Benjamin Madley, ‘From Terror to Genocide: Britain’s Tasmanian Penal Colony and Australia’s History Wars’, The Journal of British Studies 47, 1 (2008), 77–106; Henry Reynolds, The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia (Kensington, New South Wales: University of New South Wales Press, 2006); Angela Woollacott, ‘Frontier Violence and Settler Manhood’, History Australia 6, 1 (2009), 11–1. 96 Ian Anderson, ‘Introduction’, 17; Ian Anderson and Glyn Davis, ‘The Hard Conversation: Indigenous Voices on Public Policy’, Meanjin 75, 2 (2016), 70. 97 Anderson, ‘The Aboriginal Critique of Colonial Knowing’, 17. 98 Anderson and Davis, ‘The Hard Conversation’, 71. 99 Anderson, ‘The Aboriginal Critique of Colonial Knowing’, 18. 100 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 (Reel: CSO11/26, file 378).

170 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

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112 113

114 115

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117 118 119 120 121 122 123

Notes Ibid., 17. Anderson, ‘The Aboriginal Critique of Colonial Knowing’, 17. Anderson and Davis, ‘The Hard Conversation’ 70. Ibid. Ann McGrath, Contested Ground: Australian Aborigines under the British Crown (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1995), 129. McGrath, Contested Ground, 130. Giordano Nanni and Andrea James, Coranderrk: We will Show the Country (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Reader, 2013), 6. Heather Goodall, Invasion to Embassy: Land in Aboriginal Politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996), 104. NSW Parliament, Legislative Council, William Ridley, The Petition of William Ridley, A.B., Minister of the Gospel 1854. Accessed 21 September 2017. Retrieved from http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/MAIN:Everything:SLV_VOYAGER1287543 Elizabeth Nelson, Sandra Smith and Patricia Grimshaw, eds, Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, 1867–1926 (Melbourne: The History Department, the University of Melbourne, 2012). Melbourne Museum, Coranderrk Petition (1886), Public Record Office Victoria. Accessed 11 July 2017. Retrieved from https://museumvictoria.com.au/ melbournemuseum/whatson/current-exhibitions/melbournestory/favouriteobjects/coranderrk-petition/ Karen O’Brien, ‘Social Cohesion and Resilience in First Australian Family and Kinship Networks’, Journal of Family History 42, 4 (2017), 440–51 Kate Mullett, Letter to Mr Murray, Chief Secretary (1 July 1912), In Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, 1867–1926, eds Elizabeth Nelson, Sandra Smith and Patricia Grimshaw (Melbourne, 2012), 54. Nelson, Smith and Grimshaw, Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, 54. Kate Mullett, ‘Letter from Coranderrk, to Mr Ditchburn, Secretary, Board of Protection for Aborigines’ (10 March 1914). In Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, eds Nelson, Smith and Grimshaw, 55. Mr Ditchburn, ‘Letter from Secretary of the Board of Protection of Aborigines, to Kate Mullett, Coranderrk’ (18 March 1914). In Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, eds Nelson, Smith and Grimshaw, 55. Nelson, Smith and Grimshaw, Letters from Aboriginal Women of Victoria, 258. Ibid., 258. McGrath, Contested Ground, 18. Sandy Toussaint, Kimberley Stories. (Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2012). Toussaint, Kimberley Stories. Ibid. H. Pedersen and B. Woorunmurra, Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance (Western Australia: Magabala Books, 1995), 22.

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124 State Records Office of Western Australia, ‘Request by G. Daly for Blankets’, Department of Aborigines record series (Item Number 1899/0052). 125 State Records Office of Western Australia, ‘Request by J. Nairn & Sons’, Department of Aborigines record series (Item Number 1899/0324). 126 State Records Office of Western Australia. ‘Request for old native “Cobelcoot”’ (5 April 1906), Department of Aborigines record series (Item Number 1906/0397). 127 Fiona Paisley, ‘Feminist Challenges to White Australia, 1900-1940’. (pp. 252–269) In Sex Power and Justice, ed. D. Kirkby (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995), 266. 128 Petition quoted by Paisley, ‘Feminist challenges to white Australia’, 267. 129 Katherine Ellinghaus, ‘Absorbing the “Aboriginal Problem”: Controlling Interracial Marriage in Australia in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, Aboriginal History 27, 1 (2003), 187, 190; Patricia Jacobs, ‘Science and Veiled Assumptions: Miscegenation in W.A. 1930-1937’, Australian Aboriginal Studies 1, 2 (1986), 15–23. 130 R. McGregor, ‘Breed Out the Colour or the Importance of Being White’, Australian Historical Studies 33, 120 (2002), 287. 131 Christine Choo, ‘A Challenge to Human Rights: Aboriginal Women in the West Kimberley’, Studies in Western Australian History 19, 1 (2001), 4. 132 State Records Office of Western Australia, ‘Request by “Abdullah” to marry’, 4 November 1901, Chief Protector of Aborigines record series (Item Number 1901/0965). 133 State Records Office of Western Australia, ‘Request by How Jow Chin to Marry’, Chief Protector of Aborigines record series (Item Number 1901/0660). 134 Ibid. 135 Robert Foster, The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History, ed. Wilfrid Prest, Kerrie Round and Carol Fort (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2001), 67. 136 Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 2003), 96. 137 Foster, Wakefield Companion, 68. 138 Foster, Wakefield Companion, 68, 69. 139 Darren Griffin, ‘Identifying Domination and Resistance through the Spatial Organization of Poonindie Mission, South Australia’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology 14, 1 (2010), 156–69. 140 The petition was copied in The Advertiser, 12 April 1907. Accessed 17 August 2017. Retrieved from http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/931067 141 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. 142 Ibid. 143 W. Bray to Protector of Aboriginals, April 1941, reproduced in Rowena MacDonald, Between Two Worlds: The Commonwealth Government and the

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150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161

162 163 164

Notes Removal of Aboriginal children of Part Descent in the Northern Territory: An Australian Archives exhibition (Alice Springs, IAD Press, 1995), 47. The Register, Adelaide, ‘Give us our Children’. The Aborigines’ Plea – Opposition to New Act’, 21 December 1923. Department of State Aboriginal Affairs, South Australian Newspaper Clippings. GRS series, State Record Office of South Australia. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ellen Kropinyeri, ‘Petition to repeal the 1923 Act’ [Reproduced in the Register, 21 December 1923]. ‘Give Us Our Children. The Aboriginal Plea. Opposition to New Act.’ The Register, State Record Office of South Australia. Noel Loos, Invasion and Resistance: Aboriginal European Relations on the North Queensland Frontier 1861-1897 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982), xviii. *The duties of Native police included the prevention of First Australian ‘deprivations’; intimidating them into submission through constant patrolling; and acts of punitive force to protect settlers. Loos, Invasion and Resistance, 24. Ibid., 24. Ibid., 23–4. Clive Moore, ‘Blackgin’s Leap: A Window into Aboriginal-European Relations in the Pioneer Valley, Queensland in the 1860s’, Aboriginal History 14, 1 (1990), 61, 63. Moore, ‘Blackgin’s Leap’. Noel Loos and Henry Reynolds, ‘Aboriginal Resistance in Queensland’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 22, 2 (1976), 215. Loos and Reynolds, ‘Aboriginal Resistance in Queensland’, 216. Loos, Invasion and Resistance, 43. Ibid. Rosalind Kidd, The Way We Civilise: Aboriginal Affairs, the Untold Story (St Lucia, Queensland: Queensland University Press, 1994), 25. Kidd, The Way We Civilise. Robin C. Holland, ‘The Impact of ‘Doomed Race’ Assumptions in the Administration of Queensland’s Indigenous Population by the Chief Protectors of Aboriginals from 1897 to 1942’ (MA thesis., Queensland University of Technology, 2013). Accessed 4 July 2017. Retrieved from https://eprints.qut.edu.au/61774/2/ Robin_Holland_Thesis.pdf Queensland Legislative Committee, Aborigines of Queensland Report of the Commissioners, 30 April 1874. Accessed 4 July 2017, 441. Ibid. Ibid.

Notes 165 166 167 168 169 170

171 172

173

Ibid., 55. Ibid., 57. Loos, Invasion and Resistance, 133. Thom Blake, ‘Deported...At the Sweet will of the Government: The Removal of Aborigines to Reserves in Queensland 1897–1939’, Aboriginal History 22, 1 (1998), 58. Blake, ‘Deported...At the Sweet will of the Government’. Annual Report of Chief Protector of Aboriginals for 1907, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1908, vol. 3, p. 93; as cited in Blake, ‘The Removal of Aborigines to Reserves in Queensland,’ 58. Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Paul Grant-Costa and Tobias Glaza, eds, The New England Indian Papers Series, Yale University Library Digital Collections, http://findit.library.yale.edu/yipp. Memorandum for the Committee of the Massachusetts Court Regarding the Wives and Children of Indian Captives, Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://images.library.yale.edu:8080/neips/ data/html/1675.11.05.00.html

Chapter 2 1 O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets, and Bomb Tests’, 360. 2 Niamh Corbett, ‘Parliamentary Petitions: An Untapped Library Resource’. Australian Library Journal 60, 3 (2013), 218, 222. 3 Belmessous, Native Claims, 14. 4 Ibid. 5 See, for example, Judy Atkinson, ‘Violence in Aboriginal Australia: Colonisation and Gender’, Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal 14, 2 (1990), 5–21; John Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars, 1788-1838 (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2002); Penelope Edmonds and Tracey Banivanua-Mar (eds), ‘The Intimate, Urbanising Frontier: Native Camps and Settler Colonialism’s Violent Array of Spaces Around Early Melbourne’. In Making Settler Colonial Space (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 129–54; Mark Finnane and Jonathan Richards, ‘Aboriginal Violence and State Response: Histories, Policies and Legacies in Queensland 1860– 1940’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 43, 2 (2010), 238–62; Robert Foster, Amanda Nettelbeck and Rick Hosking, Fatal Collisions: The South Australian Frontier and the Violence of Memory (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2001); Beverley Nance, ‘The Level of Violence: Europeans and Aborigines’. In Forgotten War, ed. Henry Reynolds (Kensington: New South Publishing, 2013), 532–52; Alan Pope, Resistance and Retaliation: Aboriginal-European Relations in Early Colonial

174

6

7 8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19

20

Notes South Australia (Bridgewater, SA: Heritage Action, 1989); Woollacott, ‘Frontier Violence and Settler Manhood’, 11–1. See, for example, Sarah Maddison, Morgan Brigg and Stephen Cornell, eds, Unsettling the Settler State: Creativity and Resistance in Indigenous Settler-State Governance (Annandale: Federation Press, 2011); Griffin, ‘Identifying Domination and Resistance through the Spatial Organization of Poonindie Mission, South Australia’. McGrath. Contested Ground, 127. Ibid. For studies of identity, see R. Wheeler, The Complexion of Race: Categories of Difference in Eighteenth-Century British Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); W. Brady ‘“Talkin” Up Whiteness’: A Black and White Dialogue’. In Race, Colour and Identity in Australia and New Zealand, eds J. Docker and G. Fisher (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2000), 270–82. E. C. Eze, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997); N. Hudson, ‘From “Nation to Race”: The Origin of Racial Classification in Eighteenth Century Thought’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 29, 3 (1996), 247–64. Francis Hutchinson and Peter J. Herborn, ‘Landscapes for Peace: A Case Study of Active Learning about Urban Environments and the Future’, Futures 44, 1 (2012), 30. *See also the following which focus on the use of legal resistance in the Australian historical context: Mark Finnane, ‘The Tides of Customary Law’, ANZLH E-Journal (2007), 6–8. In a global context see, Daniel Webb and Timothy Conboy, ‘AsiaPacific: Kiribati, Customary Title and the Rising Tide’, Alternative Law Journal 38, 1 (2013), 49–51. Belmessous, Native Claims, 14. Ibid. Ibid. O’Brien. ‘With my Eyes, my Heart and with my Brain I am Thinking’, 16. Kate Auty, Black Glass: Western Australian Courts of Native Affairs 1936-54 (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2005), 9. Auty, Black Glass. Ibid. For an example of First Australian resistance using traditional law, see, L. Connors, ‘Traditional Law and Indigenous Resistance at Moreton Bay 1842–1855’, ANZLH E-Journal 5 (2005), 107–17. Andrew Markus, Blood from a Stone: William Cooper and the Aborigines’ League (Clayton, Victoria: Monash Publications in History, 1986), 2, 3, 9, 67. Andrew Markus, ‘William Cooper and the 1937 Petition to the King’, Aboriginal History 7, 1 and 2 (1983), 47, 50, 52. Markus, Blood from a Stone, 67.

Notes

175

21 Chiara Gamboz, ‘Petitions From Indigenous Communities in Australia: Recovering Inherited Voices And Perspectives’, Chapter Ten (pp. 167–87). In New Voices, New Visions: Challenging Australian Identities and Legacies, eds Catriona Elder and Keith Moore (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 167. 22 Gamboz, ‘Petitions From Indigenous Communities in Australia’, 177. 23 Ibid., 168. 24 Ibid., 173. 25 Lake Tyers petition, Public Record Office of Victoria, VPRS1694/P0, Correspondence Files, Unit 11 file May 1931–June 1931. 26 Morgan Brigg and Sarah Maddison, ‘Unsettling Governance: From Bark Petition to YouTube’, Chapter One. In Unsettling the Settler State: Creativity and Resistance in Indigenous Settler-State Governance, eds Sarah Maddison, Morgan Brigg and Stephen Cornell (Annandale: Federation Press, 2011), 1. 27 Brigg and Maddison, ‘Unsettling Governance’. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 8. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 O’Brien, ‘Boots and Blankets’, 368. 33 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 Journal of Public Record Office Victoria 7, 1 (2008), http://prov.vic.gov.au/publications/provenance/provenance2008/give-tous-the-people 34 Karen Ellingford, ‘The Purpose, Practice and Effects of Petitioning the Victorian Parliament’, Australasian Parliamentary Review 23, 2 (2008), 86, 87. 35 See, for example, Ravi de Costa. ‘Identity, Authority, and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, 3 (2006), 669; Prucha, American Indian Treaties; Judy Iseke-Barnes, ‘“Living and Writing Indigenous Spiritual Resistance”’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 24, 3 (2003), 211. 36 Gamboz, ‘Petitions from Indigenous Communities in Australia,’ 173; Markus, Blood from a Stone, 2; Brigg and Maddison, ‘Unsettling Governance,’ 8. 37 Heather Goodall and Allison Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience: Aboriginal People on Sydney’s Georges River (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009), 73. 38 Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, 79. 39 Ibid., 74. 40 Ibid. 41 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.

176

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42 Wayne Attkinson, ‘The Schools of Human Experience’, Chapter 6 (287–31). In First Australians: An Illustrated History, eds Rachel Perkins and Patricia Langton (Carlton Victoria: Miegunyah Press, 2008), 329. 43 Attkinson, ‘The Schools of Human Experience’. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 The Yorta Yorta Petition, as cited in; Attkinson, ‘The Schools of Human Experience,’ 329. 47 Bain Attwood, Rights for Aborigines (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2003), 30. 48 *There are numerous ways in which Cumeroogunga is spelled in archival documents. Attkinson, ‘The Schools of Human Experience,’ 329. 49 See also a film ‘First Australians’, https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/ program/first-australians Episode Three: ‘Freedom for Our Lifetime’, Retrieved 19 August 2017. 50 Belmessous, Native Claims, 194. Kay L. Mead, ‘Aborigines Friends Association: A Guide to the Collection of the Aborigines Friends Association held in the South Australian Museum Archives’, South Australian Museum Annual Report 1968/69. Retrieved from http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/aa1/provlist.htm 51 Belmessous, Native Claims, 194. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 194. 54 Furphy, Nanni and James, Coranderrk, 11. 55 Ibid., 10. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., 16. 58 Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, 17; Nicole Watson, ‘Justice in Whose Eyes? Why Lawyers Should Read Black Australian Literature’, Griffith Law Review 23, 1 (2014), 46. 59 Samuel Furphy, ‘They Formed a Little Family as It Were’: The Board for the Protection of Aborigines (1875–1883)’, (95–116). In Settler Colonial Governance in Nineteenth-century Victoria, eds Leigh Boucher and Lynette Russell (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 95. 60 Watson, ‘Justice in Whose Eyes?’ 46. 61 Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, 19. 62 Ibid., 19. 63 Ibid. 64 Attwood, Rights of Aborigines, 15. 65 Jonathan Goggey, Petition to Governor General, 18 November 1857, SRNSW, NRS 7933, Department of Lands and Public Works, Correspondence: Letters Received 1856–66, 57/4196, [5/3581], identified by Terry Kass, consultant historian and

Notes

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86 87 88

177

researcher in Lands Department history, reproduced in Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, 58–9 and Goodall and Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience, 72. Ibid., 56. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 58–9. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 175. Register (Adelaide), 21 February 1894; reproduced in Attwood and Markus, Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, doc. 22, 55–6. David Mullet, Aboriginal Case Files Victoria, National Archives of Australia, Series B337, 1927 to 1934. Accessed 21 September, 2017. Retrieved from http://www. cifhs.com/vicrecords/B337.html Ibid. Mrs J. Connolly, Aboriginal Case Files Victoria, National Archives of Australia, B337, 169, 1930–31. Ibid. Billy Russell, Aboriginal Case Files Victoria, National Archives of Australia, Series B337, 1932. Accessed 21 September, 2017. Retrieved from http://www.cifhs.com/ vicrecords/B337.html Captain Harrison, Aboriginal Case Files, National Archives of Australia, Series B337, 1930–38. Winifred Terrick, Aboriginal Case Files, National Archives of Australia, Series B337, 1950. Katja Göcke, ‘Protection and Realization of Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights’, Goettingen Journal of International Law 5, 1 (2013), 92. Stuart Banner, ‘Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia’, Law and History Review 23, 1 (2005), 96. See, for example, David Ritter, ‘The “Rejection of Terra Nullius’ in Mabo: Critical Analysis’, Sydney Law Review 18, 1 (1996), 5–33; Michael Connor, The Invention of Terra Nullius: Historical and Legal Fictions on the Foundation of Australia (Sydney: Macleay Press, 2005); Bain Attwood. ‘The Law of the Land or the Law of the Land?, History, Law and Narrative in a Settler Society’, History Compass 2, 1 (2004): 1–30. McGrath, Contested Ground, 6. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 72. Ibid. Larissa Behrendt and Nicole Watson, ‘Shifting Ground: Why Land Rights and Native Title have not Delivered Social Justice’, Journal of Indigenous Policy 1, 8 (2007), 94.

178

Notes

89 Behrendt and Nicole Watson, ‘Shifting Ground’. 90 *The petition was signed on behalf of William Cooper and other petitioners such as Aaron Atkinson, Robert Cooper, Samson Barber, Edward Joachim, John Atkinson, John Cooper, Edgar Atkinson, Whyman McLean, Hughy Anderson and George Middleton. Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004), 27; Anderson and Davis, ‘The Hard Conversation’, 71. 91 William Cooper, Maloga Petition to the Right Hon. Baron Carrington, 20 July 1887, as cited in Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, 27. 92 Attwood and Markus, Thinking Black, 26, 27. 93 Gary Foley and Tim Anderson, ‘Land Rights and Aboriginal Voices’, Australian Journal of Human Rights 12, 1 (2006), 84. 94 Foley and Anderson, ‘Land Rights and Aboriginal Voices’, 85. 95 Markus, Blood from a Stone, 2. 96 Anderson and Davis, ‘The Hard Conversation,’ 71. 97 Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, 57. 98 Ibid., 54. 99 Markus, ‘William Cooper and the 1937 Petition to the King’, 53. 100 Ibid., 50, 51. 101 Ibid., 52. 102 Anderson and Davis, ‘The Hard Conversation’, 71. 103 Ibid. 104 Maynard, Fight for Liberty and Freedom, 6. 105 John Maynard, ‘Vision, Voice and Influence: The Rise of the Australian. Aboriginal Progressive Association’, Australian Historical Studies 34, 121 (2003), 99. 106 Maynard, ‘Vision, Voice and Influence’. 107 Ibid., 7. 108 Committee for Aboriginal Citizenship, ‘Petition to Premier Stevens’ (29 October 1938), Dixon Library, State Library of New South Wales. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid. 113 Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, 54. 114 Advertised Resolution for an Aboriginal ‘Day of Mourning and Protest,’ as cited in Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, 54. 115 Behrendt and Watson, ‘Shifting Ground,’ 94. 116 Ibid., 95. 117 Ibid. 118 Foley and Anderson, ‘Land Rights and Aboriginal Voices,’ 86.

Notes

179

119 Ibid., 84, 85. 120 Ibid., 85, 86. 121 See, for example, Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, The 1967 Referendum: Race, Power and the Australian Constitution (2nd ed.) (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007); John Chesterman, Civil Rights: How Indigenous Australians Won Formal Equality (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2005); Jack Horner. ‘From Sydney to Tingha: Early Days in the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship’, Aboriginal History 11, 1 and 2 (1987), 33–40; Jack Horner, Seeking Racial Justice: An Insider’s Memoir of the Movement for Aboriginal Advancement, 1938-1978 (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2004); Sue Taffe, Black and White Together FCAATSI: The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, 1958-1973 (St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2005); Sue Taffe, ‘Witnesses from the Conference Floor: Oral History and the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders’, Journal of Australian Studies 25, 67 (2001), 9–21. 122 Attwood and Markus, The 1967 Referendum, 21, 24. 123 Faith Bandler, Turning the Tide: A Personal History of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1989), 13. 124 Faith Bandler and Len Fox, The Time Was Ripe: A History of the AboriginalAustralian Fellowship (1956-1969) (Chippendale: Alternative Publishing Co-operative, 1983), 53. 125 National Museum of Australia, Canberra. ‘Collaborating for Indigenous Rights: Early Petitioning’. National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Accessed 24 January 2017. Retrieved from http://indigenousrights.net.au/civil_rights/the_ referendum,_1957-67/early_petitions 126 National Museum of Australia, Canberra. ‘Collaborating for Indigenous Rights: Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islands (FCAATSI).’ National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Accessed 24 January 2017. Retrieved from http://indigenousrights.net.au/civil_rights/the_ referendum,_1957-67/early_petitions 127 Attwood and Markus, The 1967 Referendum, 27. 128 Ibid. 129 National Museum of Australia, Canberra, ‘Collaborating for Indigenous Rights: Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islands (FCAATSI).’ National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Accessed 24 January 2017. Retrieved from http://indigenousrights.net.au/civil_rights/the_ referendum,_1957-67/aftermath 130 Ibid., 32–3. 131 Ibid., 33.

180

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132 Attwood and Markus, The 1967 Referendum, 44. 133 Goodall, Invasion to Embassy, 79. 134 Larissa Behrendt, ‘Land Rights and Native Title’, Hot Topics: Legal Issues in Plain Language 86, 1 (2013), 16. 135 Kitty Eggerking, ‘Revitalising Citizenship: Lessons from the Margins’, Culture and Policy 8, 3 (1997), 87. 136 Eggerking, ‘Revitalising Citizenship’, 79. 137 The Australian, 10 August 1965, ‘Give us Back our Tribal Lands’, Department of State Aboriginal Affairs, South Australian Newspaper Clippings. GRS series, State Record Office of South Australia. 138 The 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition, House of Representatives, 14 and 28 August 1963. Accessed 18 October 2017. Retrieved from http://www.australia.gov.au/aboutaustralia/australian-story/bark-petitions-indigenous-art 139 Charlie Ward, ‘Red Truths and White Lies: Frank Hardy and Bill Jeffrey at Wave Hill, in “What is Australia For?”’, Griffith Review 36, 2 (2012), 218. 140 Ward, ‘Red Truths and White Lies’, 218, 219. 141 Behrendt, ‘Land Rights and Native Title’, 17. 142 Ibid. 143 Australian Government, National Archives of Australia. ‘Larrakia petition to the Queen.’ Accessed 3 February 2017. Retrieved from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/ print/?ID=19522 144 O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets, and Bomb Tests’, 367. 145 Isabelle Auguste, ‘Rethinking the Nation: Apology, Treaty and Reconciliation in Australia’, National Identities 12, 4 (2010), 426. 146 Auguste, ‘Rethinking the Nation’. 147 Peter Read, Gary Meyers and Bob Reece, What Good Condition? Reflections on an Australian Aboriginal Treaty 1986-2006 (Canberra, ACT: ANU E-Press, 2006), 51, 53. 148 Read, Meyers and Reece, What Good Condition, 51. 149 Ibid. 150 Australian Government – National Archives of Australia. ‘Larrakia petition to the Queen.’ Accessed 3 February 2017. Retrieved from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/ print/?ID=19522 151 Ibid. 152 O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets and Bomb Tests’, 368. 153 Australian Government – National Archives of Australia. ‘Larrakia petition to the queen.’ Accessed 3 February 2017. Retrieved from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/ print/?ID=19522 154 O’Brien, ‘Boots, Blankets and Bomb Tests’, 368.

Notes

181

155 Commonwealth of Australia, The Senate ‘Native Races’ Procedural Text, ‘Conditions of the Aborigines of Australia’, 30 November 1933, Accessed 12 October 2017. Retrieved from http://historichansard.net/senate/1970/19701104_ senate_27_s46/ 156 Commonwealth of Australia, The Senate, Petition, Aborigines Procedural Text, Tuesday, 9 April 1963, http://historichansard.net/senate/1970/19701104_ senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 157 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, the Senate, States Grants (Aboriginal Advancement) Bill 1970, Second Reading, speech, Wednesday 4 November 1970, http://historichansard.net/senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 158 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, the Senate, States Grants Aboriginal Land Rights, Speech, James Keeffe, Wednesday 20 October, 1976. http://historichansard.net/senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 159 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, Aborigines ‘Matter of Urgency’ speech Wednesday, 23 March 1977, http://historichansard.net/ senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 160 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, ‘Aborigines’ Speech, Thursday, 8 September 1977, http://historichansard.net/ senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 161 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, ‘Aboriginal Land Rights Petition’, Thursday, 23 March, 1982, http://historichansard.net/ senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 162 https://www.commongrace.org.au/barunga_statement 163 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, ‘Land, Mining and Sacred Sites’, 12 September 1996, http://historichansard.net/ senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 164 House of Representatives, Petitions, ‘Housing – the Future’ http://parlinfo.aph.gov. au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansardr/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 165 Marcia Langton, Odette Mazel, Lisa Palmer Kathryn Shain and Maureen Tehan, Settling with Indigenous People: Modern Treaty and Agreement-making (The Federation Press, 2006), 182–285. Marcia Langton and Lisa Palmer, ‘Modern Agreement Making and Indigenous People in Australia: Issues and Trends’ (2003) 8 (1) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 1–31; M. Tehan, ‘A Hope Disillusioned, an Opportunity Lost? Reflections on Common Law Native Title and Ten Years of the Native Title Act’ 27 (Melbourne University Law Review 2–52). 166 Eva Valley Statement, 1993. ATNS, http://www.atns.net.au/agreement_print. asp?EntityID=1742. Accessed 16 October 2017.

182

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167 House of Representatives, Petitions, ‘Mujuwa Corporation’ http://parlinfo.aph.gov. au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansardr/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 168 House of Representatives, Petitions, ‘Aboriginal Community Organisations http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansardr/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 169 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, ‘Reconciliation’ Tuesday, 3 March 1998. http://historichansard.net/senate/1970/19701104_ senate_27_s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 170 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, ‘Reconciliation’ 26 February 2001. http://historichansard.net/senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_ s46/. Accessed 12 October 2017. 171 House of Representatives, Petitions, ‘Aboriginal Treaty for Independence’, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansardr/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 172 Danielle Cronin, 80,000 sign petition on indigenous health gap. The Canberra Times [Canberra, A.C.T] 18 September 2007. http://ezproxy.library.usyd.edu.au/ login? url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 173 Second bark petition, The Northern Territory News, 16 July 2013, News digital media http://ezproxy.library.usyd.edu.au/login? url=http://search.proquest.com/ docview. Accessed 26 September 2016. 174 Behrendt, ‘Land Rights and Native Title’, 17. See also, J. Hookey ‘The Gove Land Rights Case’, Federal Law Review 5, (1972), 85–114. 175 Ibid. 176 Commonwealth of Australia, House of Representatives, Report of the Select Committee on Grievances of Yirrkala Aborigines, Arnhem Land Reserve 1963, AGPS, Canberra, 1963. Howard Morphy, Ancestral Connections: Art and an Aboriginal System of Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 177 Morphy, Ancestral Connections. 178 The 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition, House of Representatives, 14 and 28 August 1963. Accessed 18 October 2017. http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australianstory/bark-petitions-indigenous-art 179 Bob Gosford, ‘Marion Scrymgour: The NT Intervention Disinformation Campaign—From Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse to Moral Panic’, The Northern Myth. Accessed 9 October 2014. http://blogs.crikey. com.au/ northern/2014/10/09/marion-scrymgour-the-nt-intervention-disinformationcampaign-from-allegations-of-child-sexual-abuse-to-moral-panic/ 180 House of Representatives, Petitions, ‘Northern Territory Intervention and Response’. http___www.aphref.aph.gov.au_house_committee_petitions_ ministerial_23june2008_northernterritory-2.pdf Accessed 16 October 2017. 181 Ibid.

Notes

183

182 Gary Foley, Andrew Schaap and Edwina Howell, eds, The Aboriginal Tent Embassy: Sovereignty, Black Power, Land Rights and the State (London: Routledge, 2013). John Newfong, ‘The Aboriginal Embassy: Its Purpose and Aims’ in Identity, July 1972. 183 Tent embassies have been erected in Brisbane, Cowra, James Price Point, Moree, Perth, Port Augusta, Portland, Redfern, Sandon Point, Swan Valley, Woomera. 184 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, Petitions, ‘Aboriginal Tent embassy’ 26 October 2009. http://historichansard.net/ senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 185 Ibid. 186 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, The Senate, Petitions, Procedural Text, 12 December 2013. http://historichansard.net/ senate/1970/19701104_senate_27_s46/. Accessed 26 September 2017. 187 Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Progress report, June 2013. Accessed 26 September 2017.

Chapter 3 1 The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. American Indian Treaties. Accessed 17 March 2017. Retrieved from https://www.archives.gov/research/ native-americans/treaties 2 Arthur Spirling, ‘U.S. Treaty Making with American Indians: Institutional Change and Relative Power, 1784–1911’, American Journal of Political Science 56, 1 (2012), 86. 3 United States Congress, U.S. Code Title 25, Chapter 3, Subchapter I section 71 – Future treaties with Indian tribes (1871). Cornell University Law School and Legal Information Institute. Accessed 17 March 2017. Retrieved from https://www.law. cornell.edu/uscode/text/25/71 4 Ibid. 5 United States Congress, U.S. Code Title 2, section 71; The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. American Indian Treaties. Retrieved from https:// www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/treaties 6 Deloria Vine Jr., Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010). 7 For more information regarding the annexation of Hawaii to the United States, see also, Noenoe K. Silva, Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 123–63; Wynell Schamel and Charles E. Schamel, ‘The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii’, Social Education 63, 7 (November/December 1999), 402–8.

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8 The 1897 Petition Against the Annexation of Hawaii, National Archives Catalogue, Page 22 of Women’s Petition Against Annexation of Hawaii 11 September 1897, Record Group 46, Records of the U.S. Senate National Archives and Records Administration. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/595390. Accessed 9 October 2017. 9 Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 862. 10 Alain Beaulieu, ‘An Equitable Right to be Compensated’: The Dispossession of the Aboriginal Peoples of Quebec and the Emergence of a New Legal Rationale (1760–1860)’, The Canadian Historical Review 94, 1 (2013), 2. 11 Beaulieu, ‘An Equitable Right to be Compensated’. 12 The University of British Columbia. Royal Proclamation, 1763. Indigenous Foundations. Accessed 7 March 2017. Retrieved from http://indigenousfoundations. arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/royal-proclamation-1763.html 13 Ibid. 14 Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2005), 85. 15 Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 See, for example, Hamar Foster, ‘Letting Go the Bone: The Idea of Indian Title in British Columbia, 1849-1927’ (pp. 28–86). In Essays in the History of Canadian Law, eds Foster and McLaren, volume 4 (British Columbia and the Yukon, Toronto: University of Toronto and the Osgoode Society, 1995). 19 Doug Owran, The Promise of the West as Settlement Frontier (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2007), 3–4. 20 For further discussion of scholarly literature in settler violence see, Paulette Regan and Yvonne Lynette, Unsettling the Settler within: Canada’s Peacemaker Myth, Reconciliation, and Transformative Pathways to Decolonization. Diss. 2006. Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham, ‘Colonial Reckoning, National Reconciliation? Aboriginal Peoples and the Culture of Redress in Canada’, ESC: English Studies in Canada 35, 1 (2009), 1–26; Zainab Amadahy and Bonita Lawrence, Indigenous Peoples and Black People in Canada: Settlers or Allies? Breaching the Colonial Contract (Netherlands: Springer, 2009), 105–36; Amanda Nettelbeck and Russell Smandych, ‘Policing Indigenous Peoples on Two Colonial Frontiers: Australia’s Mounted Police and Canada’s North-West Mounted Police’, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 43, 2 (2010), 356–75; Andrew Woolford, ‘Nodal Repair and Networks of Destruction: Residential Schools, Colonial Genocide, and Redress in Canada’. Settler Colonial Studies 3, 1 (2013), 65–81; Duncan Bell, ‘John Stuart Mill on Colonies’, Political Theory 38, 1 (2009), 34–64. 21 Owran, The Promise of the West as Settlement Frontier, 4.

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22 The Indigenous Studies Program, The University of Melbourne. ATNS: Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements Project. Treaty 1 & 2. Accessed 10 March 2017. Retrieved from http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?Subcategory ID=101&EntityID=3898 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 The Indigenous Studies Program, The University of Melbourne. ATNS: Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements Project. Treaty 3. Accessed 10 March 2017. Retrieved from http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?SubcategoryID =101&EntityID=3900 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Camie Augustus, ‘Métis Scrip’. The University of Saskatchewan Library Archives. Accessed 7 March 2017. Retrieved from http://digital.scaa.sk.ca/ourlegacy/ exhibit_scrip 35 Virtual Museum of Canada, ‘Why did the 1885 Resistance Happen?’ Back to Batoche. Accessed 7 March 2017. Retrieved from http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/ expositions-exhibitions/batoche/html/resources/proof_why_did_the_1885_res.php 36 Augustus, ‘Métis Scrip’, n.p. 37 Calvin Racette, Métis Development in the Canadian West. Book 3: Petitioning for Rights (Regina: Gabriel Dumont Institute, 1985). 38 Virtual Museum of Canada, ‘1885 Resistance,’ n.p. 39 The Indigenous Studies Program, Treaty 8, n.p. 40 Maureen Tehan and Lisa Palmer, ‘Anchored to the Land?: Asserting and Recognising Aboriginal Jurisdiction in the Northwest Territories (Chapter 4)’. In Settling with Indigenous People: Modern Treaty and Agreement-making, eds Marcia Langton, Odette Mazel, Lisa Palmer, Kathryn Shain and Maureen Tehan (Annandale: The Federation Press, 2006), 70. 41 Tehan and Lisa Palmer, ‘Anchored to the Land?’ 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 This clause is stipulated in each treaty. For each example, see The Indigenous Studies Program, The University of Melbourne. ATNS: Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements Project.

186 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59

60 61 62 63 64 65

Notes The Indigenous Studies Program and the University of Melbourne, Treaty 10, n.p. The Indigenous Studies Program and the University of Melbourne, Treaty 3, n.p. The Indigenous Studies Program and the University of Melbourne, Treaty 7, n.p. Ibid. Greg Poelzer and Ken S. Coates, Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation: A Road Map for All Canadians (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2015). Poelzer and Coates, Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Richard T. Price, The Spirit of the Alberta Indian Treaties (3rd ed.) (Edmonton, Alberta: The University of Alberta Press, 1999), ix. Price, The Spirit of the Alberta Indian Treaties. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996, Vol. 2. Part One, 49–50. See, for example, Algonquin Nation, ‘Presentation to the Members of the Committee to Examine Matters Relating to the Accession of Quebec to Sovereignty’ (4 February 1992), paragraph 2. Accessed 3 March 2017. Retrieved from http://cwis.org/fwdp/Americas/algonqin.txt; N. E. Ayers, ‘Aboriginal Rights in the Maritimes’, Canadian Native Law Reporter 1, 1 (1984); S. Banner. Possessing the Pacific: Land, Settlers, and Indigenous People from Australia to Alaska (2007), 195– 230; R. H. Bartlett, Indian Reserves in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada (1986); R. H. Bartlett, Indian Reserves and Aboriginal Lands in Canada: A Homeland (1990), 14–5; K. Coates, ‘Best Left as Indians: The Federal Government and the Indians of the Yukon, 1894-1950’, The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 4, 2 (1984), 179, 181; T. Morantz, ‘Aboriginal Land Claims in Quebec’. In Aboriginal Land Claims in Canada: A Regional Perspective, ed K. Coates, (1992), 101, 103; W. R. Morrison, ‘Aboriginal Land Claims in the Canadian North’. In Aboriginal Land Claims in Canada, ed. K. Coates, 167–8; B. Slattery, The Land Rights of Indigenous Canadian Peoples as Affected by the Crown’s Acquisition of Their Territories (1979), 363–9. Katja Göcke, ‘Protection and Realization of Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights at the National and International Level’, Goettingen Journal of International Law 5, 1 (2013), 92–3. Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin, 2003), 115–6. King, The Penguin History of New Zealand. Steven Roger Fischer, The History of the Pacific Islands (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 87. King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, 116. Ibid. Ibid., 118.

Notes

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66 Peter Entwisle, Behold the Moon: The European Occupation of the Dunedin District 1770-1848 (Dunedin, NZ: Port Daniel Press, 1998), 11. 67 Fischer, The History of the Pacific Islands, 123. 68 Ibid. 69 Ian Pool, Colonization and Development in New Zealand Between 1769 and 1900: The Seeds of Rangiatea, Volume 3 (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015). 70 Ministry for Culture and Heritage, The Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand History. Accessed 23 February 2017. Retrieved from https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/ treaty/read-the-treaty/english-text 71 James Belich, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders, from Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 26. 72 Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (Wellington: Allen and Unwin/Port Nicholson Press, 1987). 73 Ministry for Culture and Heritage, The Treaty of Waitangi. 74 Douglas Graham, Trick or Treaty? Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies (Victoria: University of Wellington, 1997). 75 Graham. Trick or Treaty? 76 Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi. 77 Graham, Trick or Treaty; Giselle Byrnes, The Waitangi Tribunal and New Zealand History (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 2004). 78 See, for example, Mark R. Amstutz, The Healing of Nations (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Amstutz, 2005), 16; Neil J. Kritz, ed., Transitional Justice: Volume 1 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), xiii; Jon Elster, Closing the Books (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 79 Richard S. Hill and Brigitte Bönisch-brednich, ‘Politicising the Past: Indigenous Scholarship and Crown–Māori Reparations Processes in New Zealand’, Social & Legal Studies 16, 2 (2016), 164. 80 King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, 468, 469; Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi. 81 James Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986); Richard S. Hill, State Authority, Indigenous Autonomy (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2004). 82 Hill and Bönisch-brednich, ‘Politicizing the Past,’ 164. 83 R. G. Mulgan and Peter Aimer, Politics in New Zealand (3rd ed.) (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2013), 25. 84 Mulgan and Aimer, Politics in New Zealand. 85 See, for example, S. Percy Smith, Māori Wars of the Nineteenth Century: The Struggle of the Northern Against the Southern Māori Tribes Prior to the Colonisation of New Zealand in 1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

188

Notes

86 Michael King, Moriori: A People Rediscovered; revised edition (2000), 57–8; Michael King, The Silence Beyond (Penguin, 2011), 190; K. R. Howe. ‘Ideas of Māori origins, Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 28 October 2008. 87 Extract from 1862 petition to Sir George Grey, Governor, signed by thirty Moriori elders. Pataka Education, The Moriori of Rekohu, T’Chakat henu – people of the land, 2011. Education resource compiled by the Education Team at Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, 2010. http://www.pataka.org.nz/wp-content/ uploads/THE_MORIORI_11.pdf. Accessed 9 October 2017. 88 Hokotehi Newsletter, January 2016. http://www.moriori.co.nz/_w/_w/wp-content/ uploads/2016/01/hmt-january-2016-newsletter.pdf Accessed 9 October, 2017 89 Alan Ward, An Unsettled History: Treaty Claims in New Zealand Today (Bridget Williams Books, 2015), 180. 90 The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. Story: Te Kōti Whenua – Māori Land Court. Accessed 28 February 2017. Retrieved from http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/ zoomify/36139/native-affairs-petition-1889 91 Ibid. 92 Ward, An Unsettled History, 180. 93 Guy Finny, New Zealand’s Forgotten Appellate Court? The Native Affairs Committee, Petitions and Māori Land: 1871 to 1900, Honours Thesis. Faculty of Law Victoria University of Wellington (2013), 3. http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/ bitstream/handle/10063/3235/thesis.pdf?sequence=2 94 Robyn Anderson, Porirua Ki Manawatū Inquiry: Historical Issues Scoping Report For Hapū And Iwi Broadly Associated With Ngāti Raukawa. Report received by the Waitangi Tribunal (Ministry of Justice, Wellington, 2014), 38. Accessed 28 February 2017. Retrieved from https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/ WT/wt_DOC_88628561/Wai%202200,%20A128.pdf 95 Anderson, Porirua Ki Manawatū Inquiry, 38. 96 Ibid. 97 Petition of Waretini Tuainuku and 304 others, MA 13/16. As cited in Anderson, Porirua Ki Manawatū Inquiry, 38. 98 Ward, An Unsettled History, 180. 99 Ibid., 181. 100 Finny, New Zealand’s Forgotten Appellate Court, 5. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. 103 New Zealand House of Representatives ‘Standing Orders of the House of Representatives’ [1884 Session I] II AJHR J1 at [233]. Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives https://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/. Accessed 11 October 2017. 104 Ibid., 12. 105 Ibid., 13.

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106 Ibid., 12–3. For further comparative discussion of social legal contexts of agreementmaking see Richard Boast, Jeremy Finn and Peter Spiller, A New Zealand Legal History (2nd ed.) (Brookers, Wellington, 2001), 17, 18, 19. Richard Boast, Buying the Land, Selling the Land: Governments and Māori Land in the North Island 18651921 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2008), 296. Beaulieu, ‘An Equitable Right to be Compensated’, 1–27. Sheldon Kirk Krasowski, Mediating the Numbered Treaties: Eyewitness Accounts of Treaties Between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2011), 33. Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 162. 107 See, for example, Donald L. Fixico, Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts, and Sovereignty (Santa Barber, California: ABCCLIO, 2007), 253–4; Blackhawk, Violence over the Land, 159, 160, 197; Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015). 108 Ravi de Costa, A Higher Authority, 153. 109 Prucha, American Indian Treaties, 41.

Chapter 4 1 Duane H. King, The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), 73–4. 2 Robert L. George and Mitchell T. Kinder, Bradley County (Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), 7; Vicki Rozema, Footsteps of the Cherokees: A guide to the Eastern Homelands of the Cherokee Nation (2nd ed.) (Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Publishers, 2007), 43; Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, eds., The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents (2nd ed.) (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005). 3 Rozema, Footsteps of the Cherokees, 42–5. 4 Donald L. Fixico, ed., Treaties with American Indians, vol.3, 354. 5 Carl J. Vipperman, ‘The Bungled Treaty of New Echota: The Failure of Cherokee Removal, 1836-1838’, The Georgia Historical Quarterly 73, 3 (FALL 1989), 540. 6 Vipperman, ‘The Bungled Treaty of New Echota’. 7 Ovid Andrew McMillon, ‘Cherokee Indian Removal: The Treaty of New Echota and General Winfield Scott’. (Thesis: East Tennessee State University, 2003). Retrieved from http://dc.etsu.edu/etd/778 8 Ibid., 43. 9 United States Congress, House Documents, Otherwise Published as Executive Documents: 13th Congress, 2d Session-49th Congress, 1st Session. United States Congressional serial set. Doc. No. 286, pp. 1–5. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/IQ2IBq

190

Notes

10 Joseph Locke and Ben Wright, eds., Cherokee Petition Protesting Removal (1836). The American Yawp. Accessed 9 May 2017. Retrieved from http://www.americanyawp.com/reader/manifest-destiny/cherokee-petitionprotesting-removal-1836/ 11 The Cherokee Nation, Memorial of the Cherokee Nation, December 1829. Teach US History: Indian Removal petitions. Accessed 11 April 2017. Retrieved from http://www.teachushistory.org/indian-removal/resources/memorial-cherokeenation-december-1829 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American West, A New Interpretive History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 176, 235–6. 20 Ibid. 21 Teach US History, ‘To the Cherokee Tribe of Indians from Jackson’, Indian Removal Petitions. Accessed 11 April 2017. Retrieved from http://www.teachushistory.org/ indian-removal/resources/memorial-delegation-cherokee-nation-indians 22 Hine and Faragher, The American West, 236; Bradley J. Gills, Royal Proclamation in Donald L. Fixico, ed., Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts, and Sovereignty, vol. 3 (Santa Barbra, CA: ABC-CLIO Inc., 2007), 354. 23 Gary E. Moulton, John Ross, Cherokee Chief (Athens & London: University of Georgia Press, 1978). 24 Ibid. 25 David E. Wilkins, American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2010). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/NG0fLp 26 Wilkins, American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court, 115. 27 Andrew Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/pLOjdr 28 Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation. 29 Herman A. Peterson, The Trail of Tears: An Annotated Bibliography of Southeastern Indian Removal (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010). Retrieved from https://goo. gl/H7hRDV 30 Amy H. Sturgis, The Trail of Tears and Indian Removal (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/p1yxDY. See also, Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green, The Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears

Notes

31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42 43

44

191

(New York: Penguin, 2007); William L. Anderson. Cherokee Removal: Before and After (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1992); Claudia Haake, ‘Identity, Sovereignty, and Power: The Cherokee-Delaware Agreement of 1867, Past and Present’, American Indian Quarterly 26, 3 (2003), 418–35. Walter H. Conser, ‘John Ross and the Cherokee Resistance Campaign, 1833-1838’, The Journal of Southern History 44, 2 (1978), 191–3. Conser, ‘John Ross and the Cherokee Resistance Campaign’, 191–2. Ibid., 192. Ibid. Francis Paul Prucha, ‘Protest by Petition: Jeremiah Evarts and the Cherokee Indians’, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 97 (1985), 42–58. Amy M. Kostine. ‘“Urge Everywhere the Importance of Petitioning!” Jeremiah Evarts’s Petition Campaign against Indian Removal’. In M.A. thesis: Rediscovering Lost Stories Landmarking Trail of Tears Sites in East Tennessee. Middle Tennessee State University, Department of History. Retrieved from http://library.mtsu.edu/tps/ lessonplans&ideas/Kostine_Article.pdf. *From 1787 to the mid-nineteenth century (the dates of the petitions against slavery drawn on in this analysis) the ‘slave’ states included Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. The free states consisted of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and Ohio. States that later became free states include New York (1799), New Jersey (1804), Oregon (1859) and Kanas (1861) ‘slave’ states included Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. Slavery was finally abolished across the United States with the ratification of the 13th amendment on abolished slavery, on 6 December 1865. Alisse Portnoy, Their Right to Speak: Women’s Activism in the Indian and Slave Debates (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2009). Portnoy, Their Right to Speak. Mary Hershberger, ‘Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle against Indian Removal in the 1830s’, The Journal of American History 86, 1 (1999), 15–40. Tiya Miles, ‘Circular Reasoning’: Re-Centering Cherokee Women in the Antiremoval Campaigns’, American Quarterly 61, 2 (2009), 221–43. Miles, ‘Circular Reasoning’, 223. Ibid., 224–30. See, for example, K. A. Berry and M. A. Rinehart, ‘A Legacy of Forced Migration: The Removal of the Miami Tribe in 1846’, International Journal of Popular Geography 9, 1(2003), 93–112. Jacqueline Anderson Matte, They Say the Wind Is Red: The Alabama Choctaw - Lost in Their Own Land (Montgomery, Louisville: NewSouth Books, 2012). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/J5Nckb

192

Notes

45 Ibid. 46 John P. Bowes, Land Too Good for Indians: Northern Indian Removal (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/GZ7Aox 47 Bowes, Land Too Good for Indians. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 116–7. 50 Montgomery Montour of the Delaware Nation, The Petition of the Delaware’s to the Senate and House of Representatives (26 December 1806). A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875: The Library of Congress. Accessed 4 Aril 2017. Retrieved from http://memory.loc.gov/ cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=007/llsp007.db&recNum=796 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Members of the Stockbridge Nation, the petition of the Stockbridge Indians (16 November 1819). In Congress of the United States, American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834), 375. Retrieved from goo.gl/9XDmJg 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Congress of the United States, American State Papers, 375. 66 Mingoes, Warriors and Chiefs of the Choctaw Nation. Choctowa Petition to James Barbour, Indian Affairs vol. 11 (March eighteenth, 1826). In Congress of the United States, American State Papers, 704. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 The warriors and headmen of the Tribe of Miami Indians memorial letter to James K. Polk (26 November 1846). A Cultural Exploration of the Myaamia Removal Route: Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Accessed 11 April 2017. 29–31. Retrieved from http://myaamiacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/myaamia_removal.pdf 71 Ibid.

Notes

193

72 Ibid. 73 Library of Virginia, Harquip, Mangai of the Chickahomini Petition (23 March 1660/1). James City County Colonial Papers (Hening (II) 1823: 34). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/ moretti-langholtz/chap10a.htm 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. *Here it must be noted that other First Nations American groups existed in the regions stated above, however, the petitions which have been accessed in this analysis are from the Pamunkey, Chickahominy, and Nottoway, Mohegan, Pequot, Tunxis and Narragansett Nations. 76 Library of Virginia, Betty [Ann], Queen of Pamunkey, et al. Petition (22 May 1701). James City County Colonial Papers (P.R.O.C.O. 5/1312, Pt. 1, folios 318–9); Library of Virginia. The ‘Queen and Great Men’ of the Pamunkey Tribe Petition (1706). James City County Colonial Papers (Folder 16, 1706, #27). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/ moretti-langholtz/chap10a.htm. Research of the broader geographical reach of petitioning might prove useful to achieving further understanding of First Nations petitions. 77 Library of Virginia, the Petition of Ann and men of the Pamunkey (1710), Colonial Papers: James City County Records (Folder 22, 1710, #18). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/morettilangholtz/chap10a.htm 78 Library of Virginia, Queen of Pamunkie Petition to the James County Court (10 October 1677). James City County Colonial Papers (McIlwaine 1914:115). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/ jame1/moretti-langholtz/chap10a.htm 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Virginia State Library, Court & Notoway Indians Petition (4 April 1674). James City County Colonial Papers (McIlwaine 1979B:365). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/morettilangholtz/chap10a.htm 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 King, The Cherokee Indian Nation, 73–4. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid., 73. 87 Ibid., 74. 88 Craig Yirush, ‘Chief Princes and Owners of All’: Native American Appeals to the Crown in the Early-Modern British Atlantic (Chapter 6). In Native Claims:

194

89 90 91

92 93 94

95 96

97 98

99

100 101

102 103 104

105

Notes Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500–1920, ed. Saliha Belmessous (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2012), 131–3. Yirush, ‘Chief Princes and Owners of All’, 131. Ibid., 132–4. J. H. Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 40–2. Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King, 42. Ibid., 42. Tunxis Nation, Petition of Tunxis Indians to Connecticut General Assembly (9 May 1672). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll3828 Ibid. Virginia State Library, Chicohomimy Indians Petition (24 April 1691). James City County Colonial Papers (McIlwaine 1914:343). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/ chap10a.htm Ibid. Library of Virginia, Pamunkey Neck and Blackwater Land Claims Petition (2 June 1699). James City County Colonial Papers (des Cognets 1981:66). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/ moretti-langholtz/chap10a.htm Encyclopaedia of Virginia. Primary Resource: Articles of Peace (May 1677). Accessed 26 May 2017. Retrieved from https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/ Articles_of_Peace_1677# Library of Virginia, Pamunkey Neck. Library of Virginia, Drammacho, Ruler of the Chicahominies/Chickahominy and Pamunkey Indians Petition to the Court (12 March 1701). James City County Colonial Papers (McIlwaine, 1927:226). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www. nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/chap10a.htm Ibid. Petitions addressing the conditions of slavery are beyond the scope of this study and are the subject of current research. See, for example, Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 43; Prucha, American Indian Treaties, 42. Ray Allen Billington, Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (Martin Ridge: UNM Press, 2001), 40–2; Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 1–11; Prucha, The Great Father, 340–4; Frederick Jackson Turner and

Notes

106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114

115 116 117

118 119 120 121 122 123

124 125 126

127 128 129

195

Allan G. Bogue, The Frontier in American History (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 2010), 214–7. Petition of James Wawowos (7 September 1767), Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll2536 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Memorial of Joseph Wyoke (May 1761). Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll2386 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Robert Ashbow, Samuel Ashbow and Henry Quaquaquid (of the Mohegan Tribe). Petition of the Mohegan Indians to the Connecticut General Assembly Protesting the Appeal of a Law relative to Indian Debt (May 1790). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/ annotated-transcription/digcoll1018773 Ibid. Ibid. Petition of the Pequot Indians of Ledyard for Restoration of their Lands (21 April 1856). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll2786472 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Memorial of the Mohegan Indians (9 May 1737). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/ annotated-transcription/digcoll3061 Ibid. Ibid. Memorial of the Pequot Indians (13 May 1725). Yale Indian Papers Project (Yale University). Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/ annotated-transcription/digcoll3017 Ibid. Ibid. Memorial of the Pequot tribe at Stonington on the Selection of an Overseer (6 October 1766). Yale Indian Papers Project (Yale University). Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll2729

196

Notes

130 Ibid. 131 Ibid. 132 Petition of Benjamin Uncas Requesting a New Overseer (14 October 1754). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll2296 133 Library of Virginia, Chickohominy Indians Petition to the court (25 October 1694). Colonial Papers: James City County Records (McIlwaine, 1925:320). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_ books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/chap10a.htm 134 Library of Virginia, Petition of Ann and men of the Pamunkey (1710). Colonial Papers: James City County Records (Folder 22, 1710, #18). Accessed 4 April 2017. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/morettilangholtz/chap10a.htm 135 Tom Flanagan, Christopher Alcantara, André Le Dressay, Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights, Montréal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010. Dustin Frye, ‘Leasing, Law and Land Tenure: Measuring the Impact of the Long-Term Leasing Act of 1955 on Indian Land Holdings’ University of Colorado, Boulder, 11 December 2012. Accessed 6 September 2017. https://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ssrn-id2181724-1.pdf, David A. Chang, The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Landownership in Oklahoma, 1832-1929 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010). See also, the signatories of the petition are identified as female in Jean West and Wynell Burroughs Schamel, ‘Those Waterless, Sandy Valleys: Petition of the Moqui Women’, OAH Magazine of History 5, 3, Agriculture and Rural Life, (1991), 46–51. 136 A. Hopi (Moqui) petition signed by all the chiefs and headmen of the tribe asking the federal government to give them title to their lands instead of individually allotting each tribal member, Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, 1849–1947. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives. gov/id/300340. For further reading see also, Richard O. Clemmer, Roads in the Sky: The Hopi Indians in A Century of Change (Boulder: Westview Books, 1995); Harold Courlander, Fourth World of the Hopi (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987); Edna Glenn, John R. Wunder and Willard Hughes Rollings, eds., Hopi Nation: Essays on Indigenous Art, Culture, History, and Law (Lincoln: Ebook, 2008); Frank Waters, The Book of the Hopi (New York: Penguin, 1977); Frank Waters, Masked Gods: Navaho and Pueblo Ceremonialism (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1950); Ohio University Press, (1984). 137 Letter of F. L. Plummer, accompanying the Moqui Petition. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives.gov/id/300340 138 Ibid.

Notes

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139 A. Hopi (Moqui) petition signed by all the Chiefs and headmen of the tribe asking the Federal Government to give them title to their lands instead of individually allotting each tribal member, Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, 1849–1947. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives. gov/id/300340 140 Letter of F. L. Plummer, accompanying the Moqui Petition. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives.gov/id/300340. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid. 145 Ibid. 146 Susie Aiteri, Moqui Petition. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https:// catalog.archives.gov/id/300340 147 Ma-cai-jam-ti-wa and accompanying totem image. Moqui Petition. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives.gov/id/300340 148 A. M. Stephen, Thomas Keam, H. R. Vosh and Moqui Petition. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives.gov/id/300340 149 Letter of F. L. Plummer, accompanying the Moqui Petition. Accessed 6 September 2017. Retrieved from https://catalog.archives.gov/id/300340 150 Joseph Poquiantup, Memorial of Joseph Poquiantup to the Connecticut General Assembly Requesting Leave to Sell Land (10 October 1793). Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotatedtranscription/digcoll101878 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid. 154 Petition of John Tantaquidgeon, Solomon Cooper, and Lucy Cooper to the Connecticut General Assembly Requesting Leave to Sell Land (1 May 1806). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll1018585 155 Ibid. 156 Ibid. 157 Petition of Simon Choychoy, Solomon Cooper, and Mary Cooper to the Connecticut General Assembly Concerning Leave to Sell Land (11 May 1807). Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotatedtranscription/digcoll1018601 158 Petition of Benoni Occom and Tabitha Cooper to the Connecticut General Assembly concerning Leave to Sell Indian Land (12 May 1807). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale. edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll1018591

198

Notes

159 Elijah Wampey, Solomon Mossuck and Samuel Adams (Tunxis). Memorial of Elijah Wampey, Solomon Mossuck, Samuel Adams and the Rest of the Tunxis (19 May 1774). Accessed Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/ digcoll2597 160 Ibid. 161 Robert Ashbow and Mohegan Tribe. Petition of Robert Ashbow and Other Mohegan Indians to the Connecticut General Assembly Requesting Leave to Sell Land (20 April 1795). Yale Indian Papers Project (Yale University). Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/ digcoll1018812 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Petition of Robert Ashbow and John Cooper in Behalf of the Mohegan Tribe to the Connecticut General Assembly Requesting Leave to Sell Land (28 April 1804). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll1018562 166 Ibid. 167 Tribe of Wangunk. Wangunk Petition to the Connecticut General Assembly (29 May 1765). Yale Indian Papers Project (Yale University). Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/digcoll2452 168 Ibid. 169 Ibid. 170 Ibid. 171 Memorial of the Mohegan Indians to the Connecticut General Assembly Requesting Leave to Sell Land (3 October 1795). Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/annotated-transcription/ digcoll1018798 172 Ibid. 173 Ibid. 174 Petition of the Mohegan Indians to the Connecticut General Assembly concerning Indian Land Held in Severalty (14 October 1799). Yale Indian Papers Project, Yale University. Accessed 21 March 2017. Retrieved from http://yipp.yale.edu/ annotated-transcription/digcoll1018538 175 Ibid. 176 Ibid. 177 Ibid. 178 Bernd Peyer, American Indian Nonfiction: An Anthology of Writings, 1760s-1930s (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 3. 179 Joanna Brooks, ed., The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, Mohegan: Leadership and Literature in Eighteenth-Century Native America (Oxford & New York: Oxford

Notes

180 181 182

183

184 185 186

187

188

199

University Press, 2006); C. Wigginton. ‘Extending Root and Branch: Community Regeneration in the Petitions of Samson Occom’, Studies in American Indian Literatures 20, 4 (2008), 24–55; William DeLoss Love, Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1899); Bernd Peyer, ‘Samson Occom: Mohegan Missionary and Writer of the Eighteenth Century’. American Indian Quarterly (1982), 208–17. Peyer, American Indian Nonfiction, 3, 5. Brooks, ed., The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, 142. William Apes, Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts, Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, the Pretended Riot explained (1835); as cited in The Cherokee Nation. The Cherokees’ Appeal. Teach US History: Indian Removal petitions. Accessed 11 April 2017. Retrieved from http://www.teachushistory.org/ indian-removal/resources/cherokees-appeal Israel Amos, Isaac Coombs and Ezra Attaquin, The Mashpee Indians Defend William Apess (March nineteenth 1835). Teach US History: Indian Removal Petitions. Accessed 11 April 2017. Retrieved from http://www.teachushistory.org/ indian-removal/resources/cherokees-appeal Israel Amos, Isaac Coombs and Ezra Attaquin, The Mashpee Indians Defend William Apes (19 March 1835). Ibid. Charles Beatty-Medina and Melissa Rinehart, eds., Contested Territories: Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2012). Melissa Rinehart, ‘Miami Resistance and Resilience during the Removal Era’. Chapter Six in Charles Beatty-Medina and Melissa Rinehart, eds, Contested Territories: Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2012). Dawn Marsh, Old Friends New Territories: Delaware’s and Quakers in the Old Northwest Territory, Chapter Four in Charles Beatty-Medina and Melissa Rinehart, eds, Contested Territories: Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2012).

Chapter 5 1 Karen O’Brien, ‘“With my Eyes, my Heart and with my Brain I am Thinking”: Testimony, Treaty and Decolonising First Australian History from Images’, Australia and New Zealand Law and History E-Journal 1 (2011), 1–27. 2 The Ngurrara Canvas, Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency Aboriginal Association, Fitzroy Crossing, Kimberley, Western Australia. I thank the artists for giving me permission to refer to the images and narrative of the paintings.

200

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3 O’Brien, ‘With my Eyes, my Heart and with my Brain I am Thinking’, 1–27. 4 Karen O’Brien, ‘Forerunners of Change’, Hereby Make Protest Exhibition, History Australia 11, 3 (December 2014), 218–20. 5 ‘Gwalwa Daranaki: Land Rights Struggle on Record,’ Your Memento, Issue 3, June 2011. 6 The Uluru Statement from the Heart, https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/ Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_ Guides/UluruStatement. Accessed 17 November 2017. 7 Megan Davis, ‘To Walk in Two Worlds: The Uluru Statement is a Clear and Urgent Call for Reform’, The Monthly Australian Politics, Society and Culture (July 2017). Accessed 4 July 2017. Retrieved from https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/ july/1498831200/megan-davis/walk-two-worlds 8 Marcia Langton, Honour Among Nations: Treaties and Agreements with Indigenous People/[Edited by] Marcia Langton, et al. Trans. Marcia Langton (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2004). 9 National Congress of American Indians, An Introduction to Indian Nations in the United States, http://www.ncai.org/, 18. Accessed 24 October 2017. 10 Langton, Honour Among Nation; Langton and Palmer, ‘Modern Agreement Making and Indigenous People in Australia: Issues and Trends’, Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 8, 1 (2003), 1–3. Marcia Langton, Odette Mazel, Lisa Palmer, Kathryn Shain and Maureen Tehan, Settling with Indigenous People: Modern Treaty and Agreement-making (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2006). 11 Office of Treaty Settlements, https://www.justice.govt.nz/maori-land-treaty/officeof-treaty-settlements. Accessed 24 October 2017. 12 British Columbia Treaty Commission, http://www.bctreaty.ca. Accessed 24 October 2017. 13 British Columbia Treaty Commission, http://www.bctreaty.ca. Accessed 24 October 2017. 14 James Munson, INAC Finding Success with New Treaty Negotiations, IPolitics, 8 November 2017. http://ipolitics.ca/2017/11/08/inac-finding-success-with-newtreaty-negotiations/. Accessed 9 November 2017. 15 Lynne Brown, The Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850 167 years on. https://saultonline. com/2017/09/the-robinson-huron-treaty-of-1850-167-years-on/. Accessed 25 October 2017. 16 Ibid. 17 National Congress of American Indians, An Introduction to Indian Nations in the United States, http://www.ncai.org/, 18. Accessed 24 October 2017. 18 Jenni Monet, Linking Arms, Marching Forward: Cherokee Nation Accepts Ruling on Freedmen. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/author/jenni-monet/. Accessed 3 September 2017.

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19 Leon Terrill, ‘Indigenous Land Reform: An Economic or Bureaucratic Reform?’ Indigenous Law Bulletin 7, 17 (March 2019), 3–7. 20 Terrill, ‘Indigenous Land Reform’, 6. 21 Ibid., 5. 22 Australian Government, Indigenous Home Ownership Issues Paper, (2010), http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/indigenous/pubs/housing/indig_home_ownership/ Documents/Indigenous_Home_Owne rship_Issues_Paper.pdf (accessed 8 June 2010). Australian Government, Indigenous Economic Development Strategy: Draft for Consultation, (2010) http://resources.fahcsia.gov.au/IEDS/ieds_strategy_v4.pdf (accessed 8 June 2010). 23 Terrill, ‘Indigenous Land Reform’. 24 Tom Calma, ATSIC Social Justice Commissioner, Native Title Report 2009, https:// www.humanrights.gov.au/our-work/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-socialjustice/publications/native-title-report-2009. Accessed 6 November 2017. 25 Terrill, ‘Indigenous Land Reform, 3–7. 26 Ibid., 6. 27 June Oscar, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, 2017 Narm Oration, University of Melbourne, 16 November 2017. 28 John C. Hoelle, ‘Re-Evaluating Tribal Customs of Land Use Rights’, University of Colorado Law Review [Vol. 82], 552–94. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1995119. Accessed 6 November 2017. 29 Dustin Frye, ‘Leasing, Law and Land Tenure: Measuring the Impact of the LongTerm Leasing Act of 1955 on Indian Land Holdings’, University of Colorado, Boulder, 11 December 2012. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2181724. Accessed 6 November 2017. 30 Corbett, ‘Parliamentary Petitions’, 222. 31 Megan Davis, Twitter@mdavisqldr, Law reform [is]never easy. 4:51 a.m. 30 October 2017.

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Theses Gamboz, Chiara, Petitions from Indigenous Australians: Emergence and Negotiations of Indigenous Authorship and Writings, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW, 2012. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/52311 Finny, Guy, New Zealand’s Forgotten Appellate Court? The Native Affairs Committee, Petitions and Māori Land: 1871 to 1900, Honours Thesis, Faculty of Law Victoria University of Wellington (2013), 3. http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/xmlui/ bitstream/handle/10063/3235/thesis.pdf?sequence=2 Holland, Robin C., The Impact of “Doomed Race” Assumptions in The Administration of Queensland’s Indigenous Population by The Chief Protectors of Aboriginals from 1897 To 1942 (MA thesis., Queensland University of Technology, 2013). Kostine, Amy M., ‘“Urge Everywhere the Importance of Petitioning!” Jeremiah Evarts’s Petition Campaign against Indian Removal.’ In M.A. thesis: Rediscovering Lost Stories Landmarking Trail of Tears Sites in East Tennessee. Middle Tennessee State University, Department of History. http://library.mtsu.edu/tps/lessonplans&ideas/ Kostine_Article.pdf McMillon, Ovid Andrew, ‘Cherokee Indian Removal: The Treaty of New Echota and General Winfield Scott.’ (Thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2003). Retrieved from http://dc.etsu.edu/etd/778

Index Aboriginal Advancement League 47 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 88 Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship 69–71 Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship Petition 70 Aboriginal Housing Commission 160 Aboriginal Land Act 1991 (Qld) 77 Aboriginal Land Rights Act 87 Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) (ALRA) 77, 153, 157 Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW) 77 Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Bill 1976 75 Aboriginal Lands Act 1995 (Tas) 77 Aboriginal Progressive Association 68 Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 41 Aboriginal Protection Board (APB) 67 Aboriginal Tent Embassy. See Tent Embassy ‘Aboriginal Treaty for Independence’ petition 83 Aborigines Act, 1905 34 Aborigines (Training of Children) Act 1923 38 Aborigines Act 1971–1979 78 ‘Aborigines Administration Board’ 68 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders’ Affairs Act 1965 75 Aborigines’ Friends Association 56 Aborigines Progressive Association 68–9, 150–1 Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic) 31 Aborigines Protection Board 67 activism First Nations Petitions as documents of 144–8

international black-consciousness 69 for land rights 63–4, 72 political 8, 115, 150 woman’s 115 Adams, Samuel 139 Adams, William 59 agreement making Australia 153 Canada 154–8 New Zealand 153–4 agricultural colonisation burden of 5 and resistance 97–9 Alexander, Alfred 27 American Civil War 17, 119, 126, 147 American Revolutionary War 119 Amos, Israel 142 Anderson, Ian 28–9, 63, 64 Anderson, Tim 64, 69 Angic, Henry 59 An Unsettled History: Treaty Claims in New Zealand Today (Ward) 102 Apes, William 142–3 Apsley Mission 26 Arthur, George 28, 35 Articles of Peace 124–5 Ashbow, Robert 128, 139–40, 146 Ashbow, Samuel 128, 146 Atsé na people 17 Attaquin, Ezra 142 Attkinson, Wayne 56 Attwood, Bain 56–8, 63, 66, 70–1 Australia agreement making 153 colonisation of 99–101 geopolitical assessment of petitioning in 3–4 socio-legal implications of colonial dominance 12

Index The Australian 72 ‘The Australian Abo Call’ 68 Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association 56–68, 151 Australian Aborigines’ League 50, 62, 65–6, 68–9 Australian Constitution 9, 64, 69, 83 Australian Federal Court 150 Australian Heritage Commission’s National Estate 87 Australian Parliament 66 Auty, Kate 49–50 Avery, James 131 Avery, Thomas 141 Backus, Ebenezer 131 Baker massacre 17, 166 n.37 Bandler, Faith 70 Banks, Joseph 99 Barak, William 57, 150 Barbour, James 118–19, 145 Bark petitions 83–4 Barunga petition 79–80 Barunga Statement 51, 79 Batman, John 23 Batman Treaty 23. See also Dutigullar Treaty; Melbourne Deed Beatty-Medina, Charles 143 Beecher, Catharine 115 Behrendt, Larissa 62–3, 84 Belmessous, Saliha 48–9, 56 Betty Ann, Queen of Pamunkey Nation 121–2, 133, 146 Blackfoot diplomacy 17 Black Glass (Auty) 49 Black War 18 Black War massacres 28. See also Meander River massacres Blake, Thom 41 Blood from a Stone (Markus) 50 Board for the Protection of Aborigines, Victoria 30–1 Bolgobrough, chief of Botany Bay 23 Bon, Anne 33 Bö nisch-brednich, Brigitte 100 Boomerang petition 88 Brandis, George 88 Bray, William 1, 37 Brigg, Morgan 51

215

British colonisers economic expansion by 3 First Australians and 22–3 violence between First Australians and 22–3 British Crown. See Crown British Empire 148 British monarchy 29 British Navy 99 Brough, Mal 86 Bruce, Stanley 67 Buchanan, Nicholas 11 Bureau of Indian affairs 92, 118, 133 Bush Muschetta. See Musquito (First Australian resistance leader) Cadigal First Australians 24 Cadzow, Allison 55, 59 Cairns Aboriginal and Islander Advancement League 71 Calder vs. Attorney-General of British Columbia 154 Calma, Tom 83, 157 Calvert, Paul 82 Cameron, Bessy 33 Campbell, John Thomas 20, 24, 25 Campbell, Leonard 38 Camp Sovereignty 51 Canada Aboriginal Action Plan 154 agreement making 154–8 Cherokee court ruling 156–7 Huron-Robinson treaty 154–6 land tenure reform 157–8 legally enforcing treaty rights 156–7 Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 99 Canadian treaties 93–7 Cass, Lewis 110 Central Land Council 85 Chanter, JM 55 Cherokee Constitution 113 Cherokee court ruling 156–7 The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History (King) 109 Cherokee Nation 108–13, 122, 126, 148, 156–7 Cherokee petitions 1, 4, 7, 108–15, 116, 122–3, 126

216 Cherokee Phoenix 111, 148 Cherokee political writings 114 Cherokee Trail of Tears 116. See also Trail of Tears Cherokee women 115 Cherokee writings 109 Chicohominy Nation 124 Chin, Jow 34 Chippewa tribe 95 Choctaw Nation 116, 118 Choctaw people 116 Choychoy, Simon 138 citizenship Cherokee 156–7 petitions to attain 67–9 Coates, Ken S. 98 Cobell Agreement 159 Cockacoeske, Pamunkey chief 125 Cohen, Steve 75 colonialism 15, 49, 69, 129, 143 Pequot people’s rejection of 130 colonial legal systems land ownership under 121 land protection under 121–2 oppressive 145 repressive 121 colonial structural violence 28 colonial violence 33 Aboriginal European relations in Western Australia and 33 First Nations women and 1 petitions opposed to 28–30 in Queensland 39 colonisation agricultural 97–9 petitioning in the early years of 120 resistance to 97–9 Coloured Progressive Association 69 Commonwealth Constitution 70, 75 Commonwealth Constitution Section 127 75 Commonwealth Parliament 51, 80 Commonwealth petitions 74–8 justice and constitutional change 74–8 recognition of prior land ownership 74–8 reconciliation 74–8

Index Connecticut General Assembly 124, 127–30, 132, 138–9, 141, 147 Connell, John 23 constitutional change 74–8 contemporary petitioning 149–62 Contested Territories: Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850 143 Cook, James 99 Coombs, Isaac 142 Cooper, John 140 Cooper, Lucy 138 Cooper, Solomon 138 Cooper, Solomon Mary 138 Cooper, Tabitha 138 Cooper, William 29, 50, 55, 62–3, 65–6, 69 Coranderrk petitions 47 Corbett, Niamh 52 Creighton Uniapon 1, 36 Crown ceding and surrendering land to 97 petitions to 122–3 treaties between United States Government and 92–5, 108 Treaty Three and 95 cultural justice 52 cultural rights 11, 16, 79, 96 Daly, G. 33 Darian-Smith, Eve 11 Davey, Thomas 20–1 Davis, Humphrey 43 Davis, Jack 74 Davis, Megan 152 Davis, William M. 110 Dawes Act 8, 161 Day of Mourning Conference 150 ‘Day of Mourning’ petition 68 Dearborn, Henry 118 death sentence England and 27 petition from New South Wales to prevent 27 De Costa, Ravi 15, 106 Dei Corp 160 Delaware Nation 7 Denson, Andrew 113–14 Department of the Interior 159

Index Dixon, Chicka 71 Drammacho Mongai, the chief ruler of Chickahominy people 124–5 Dutigullar Treaty 23. See also Batman Treaty; Melbourne Deed Ellingford, Karen 52 Evarts, Jeremiah 114, 191 n.36 Eva Valley Statement 80–1, 152 Everett, Pallawah Jim 28 Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement 69–70, 71. See also Federal Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advancement Federal Council for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advancement 70, 71. See also Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders 74 Federal Court of Australia 77, 153 Fergusson, James 56 Fifteen Thousand Cherokee Petition 109–11, 144, 148 First Australian Native Title land claims 4 First Australian negotiating for rights 9–12 First Australian petitioning in early to mid-twentieth century 59–60 historiography of 47–53 in mid- to late-twentieth century 69–74 petitions and land rights 47–53 for residence on reserves 60–1 Uluru Statement of intent, 2017 151–3 First Australians land rights, petitioning and resistance 61–3 legal and political recognition 63–7 narrative and contemporary commemoration of petitions 150–1 political organisation 63–7 violence between British colonisers and 22–3

217

First Nations American petitions continuity and cultural cohesion 44–5 early petitions of hardship, loss and endurance 42–4 First Nations Petitions as documents of activism 144–8 First Peoples agreement making with 153–62 pre-colonial rights of 108 resistance and violence 16–18 treaties between the British Crown and 106 Western law tradition and 10 First Tasmanian culture 28 Foley, Gary 64, 69 forced removal Cherokee people and 108–15 Cherokee petitions and 108–15 opposing 37 petitions against 116–19 formal land rights Larrakia petition and 74 petitioning for 89–90 Freeman, Cathy 83 French-Indian War 93 Furphy, Samuel 57 Gamboz, Chiara 50 Gawler, George 35 General Allotment Act 133 ‘genocide’ 27 George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland 93 George V, King of the United Kingdom 29, 50, 66–7 Giblet, Stephen 72 Gibson Desert 150 Gillard, Julia 87 Glover, John 23 Gö cke, Katja 99 Goggey, Jonathon 58–9 Goodall, Heather 55, 59, 67, 72 Gouger, Robert 35 Graham, Douglas 100 Great Sandy Desert 150 Great Victoria Desert 150 Green, Mary Smith Benton 57 Greene, John 57 Grey, Sir George 101

218

Index

Griswold, Matthew 131 Groves, Bert 71 Gurindji strike 73 the Gurindji walk-off 51 ‘Gwalwa Daranaki: land rights struggle on record’ 150 Hamond, Manwaring 120–1 hardship 32–3 Harquip, Mangai 120, 145 Haskins, Victoria 52 Hawaiian Patriotic League 92–3 Hawdon, John 25 Hawke, Bob 79 Hawkins, Will 43 Hawthorne, William 42–3 ‘Hereby Make Protest’ exhibition 150–1 Herman A. 114 Hershberger, Mary 115 Hewitt, Israel, Jr 131 Hill, Richard S. 100 Hitler, Adolf 62 Hobson, William 100 Hokotehi Moriori Trust 101 Holt, Harold 71 Horner, Jack 74 Howard, John 41, 84, 86 Howe, Michael 25 Hui Aloha Aina for Men 93 Hui Aloha Aina for Women 93 human rights 11, 62, 70, 75, 79, 81, 83, 85 Huron-Robinson Treaty 8, 154–6, 155 Indian Removal Act 7 Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) 155 interstate petitioning for social justice 21–2 Jackson, Andrew 109, 114 James, Andrea 57 James City County Assembly 122 James City County Court 121–2, 124, 146 James City County General Assembly 121, 146 Jandamarra (Indigenous Australian of the Bunuba tribe) 33 Jeanneret, Henry 28 Jefferson, Thomas 118

Jews 62 John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation 110, 113–14 justice 74–8 Commonwealth petitions and 74–8 cultural 52 legal 4 political 52 prior land ownership and 82 social 5, 10, 13, 15, 21–2, 42, 44, 47, 107, 148–9, 151 Keam, Thomas 137 King 109 King, Philip Gidley 19 Kootenays people 17 Kropinyeri, Ellen 50 Kulin people 1, 31–2, 49, 54, 57–8 Lacey, Tom 67 Lac Seul tribe 95 Lake Tyers Mission 51, 52 Lake Tyers petition 50 land ceding and surrendering to the Crown 97 Mā ori petitioning for 104–5 nineteenth-century petitioning 53–4 requests to sell 132–3 ‘Land Cession Treaties’ 94 land patents, petitions requesting 120–1 land petitions 142–4 scholarly literature 142–4 land rights achieving 149–50 early petitions for 123–5 petitioning and 61–3 petitioning for 121–2 petitioning for formal 89–90 petitions and 47–53 resistance and 61–3 socio-legal perspectives 149–50 Land Rights (N.T.) Act 80 land tenure reform buy-back scheme 158–9 Canada 157–8 Tent Embassy 159–62 United States 158–62 legal justice 4

Index legislative reform 38 Lind, A. E. 60–1 London Lives Petitions Project

163 n.6

Mabo v Queensland (No 2) 12, 51, 62, 80 MacArthur, John 24 Macquarie, Lachlan 21 Maddison, Sarah 51 Makarrata Commission 152 Maloga petition 63 Mandatory Sentencing 83 Manton, Annie 33 Maori of New Zealand 1, 65, 94 Mā ori people 99–102 Mā ori petitioning 104–5 Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984 (SA) 77 Markus, Andrew 50, 63, 66, 70–1 Marsden, Samuel 19 Marshall, John 113 Mason, John 130–1 massacre of Amskapi Pikuni 17–18, 166 n.37 Maumee 1, 118 Maynard, Fred 67, 69 Maynard, Ricky 28 McGinness, Joe 71 McGrath, Ann 62 McKinley, William 93 McMillon, Ovid Andrew 110 Meander River massacres 28. See also Black War massacres Melbourne Deed 23. See also Batman Treaty; Dutigullar Treaty Menzies, Robert 71 Metcalfe, Alexander 27 Mé tis people 96 Meyers, Gary 74 Miles, Tiya 115 Mohegan tribe 120, 131, 138, 139, 141 Montgomery Montour 116–17 ‘The Moonbird People’ and ‘Portrait of a Distant Land’ (Maynard) 28 Moore, Clive 39 Moorhouse, Matthew 35 Moqui 1, 133–4, 136–7 Moqui petition 133–41 Moqui women 133 Morgan, James 131

219

Moriori people 1, 101 Moriori petitions 101 Mosquito. See Musquito (First Australian resistance leader) Mossuck, Solomon 139 Moulton, Gary E. 113 Muhheakunuk Nation 118 Mullet, David 60 Mullett, Kate 32 Muskito. See Musquito (First Australian resistance leader) Musquetta. See Musquito (First Australian resistance leader) Musquito (First Australian resistance leader) ‘mischief and depredations’ 18–21 Nairn, J. 33 Nanni, Giordano 57 Narragansett tribe 120, 123 Native Claims: Indigenous Law against Empire, 1500-1920 (Belmessous) 48 Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) (the NTA) 9, 80–1, 153 Native Title land rights 12 Nazi 62 New South Wales (NSW) 10 colonial dominance in 6 Committee for Aboriginal Citizenship and 67 death sentence and 27 petition from, to prevent a death sentence 27 petitioning in early colonisation of 10–11 violence between British colonisers and First Australians in 1792 to 1809 22–3 New South Wales Land Act (1842) 30 New South Wales Legislative Council 11 New South Wales Supreme Court 11 New Zealand agreement making 153–4 Native Affairs Committee 103 treaties 99–101 New Zealand Parliament 102 Nez Percé s people 17 Ngā ti Kauwhata people 102

220

Index

Ngā ti Raukawa tribe 102 Nicholls, Doug 71 The 1967 Referendum: Race, power and the Australian Constitution (Attwood and Markus) 70 nineteenth century petitions in 125–6 self-sufficiency in 54–9 nineteenth-century petitioning 53–60 land 53–4 self-sufficiency in the nineteenth century 54–9 Noongar people 33 Northern Land Council 85 Northern Territory Emergency Response petitioning against 85–6 Northern Territory Intervention Response 157 Northern Territory Legislative Assembly 76 Notoway tribe 122 Occom, Benoni 138 Occom, Samson 139, 142 Oneida tribe 139 Onus, Bill 71 Oscar, June 158 Owran, Doug 94 Parker, JSW 34 Parliament of Australia 10 Parliament of South Australia Act 50 Parry, Naomi 18 Patten, Jack 150 Peltier, Ogimaa Duke 155 Pend d’Oreilles people 17 Pequot tribe 1, 120, 129, 147 petitioning contemporary 149–62 in early years of colonisation 120 for formal land rights 89–90 interstate 21–2 and landmark decisions 12–16 land rights and 61–3 for land rights and protection under colonial legal systems 121–2 nineteenth-century 53–60 against Northern Territory Emergency Response 85–6

for provisions 23–7 from reserves 30–2 petitioning for citizenship rights 63–74 in mid- to late-twentieth century 69–74 petitions to attain citizenship 67–9 political organisation, and legal and political recognition 63–7 petitions. See also individual titles to ascertain legislative reform 38 to attain citizenship 67–9 challenging life on reserves 36–7 Cherokee 108–15 to the Crown 122–3 in eighteenth and nineteenth century 125–6 First Australian narrative and contemporary commemoration of 150–1 implementation of ‘Model Aboriginal State’ 64 land 142–4 on land encroachment, dispossession and rights 127–30 and land rights 47–53 Moqui 133–41 from New South Wales to prevent death sentence 27 opposed to colonial violence 28–30 post-treaty 102–4 requesting land patents 120–1 requesting new overseer 130–1 against treaties and forced removal 116–19 treaties vs. 105–6 Phelps, Charles 131 Philip, Arthur 99 Pipe, Macaulay 25 Piper, John 19, 24 Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act 1981 (SA) 77 Plummer, E. H. 133, 137 Poelzer, Greg 98 Point McLeay Mission 1, 36, 38, 56 political justice 52 Polk, James 119 Poonindie Mission 36 Poquiantup, Joseph 138 Portnoy, Alisse 115

Index post-treaty petitions 102–4 Powell, Michael 21 Price, Richard T. 98 Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon 47, 74 prior land ownership 82 ‘Protest by Petition: Jeremiah Evarts and the Cherokee Indians’ (Prucha) 114 Prucha, Francis Paul 106, 114 pseudo-slavery 2 Quakers 143 Quaquaquid, Henry 128, 146 Queen Elizabeth II 74 Queensland 38–9 opposition to removal 40–2 opposition to unjust working conditions 40 Queen Victoria 28–9 Read, Peter 74 reconciliation 74–8, 82 Reece, Bob 17, 74 The Register 38 reserves First Australian petitioning for residence on 60–1 petitioning from 30–2 petitions challenging life on 36–7 resistance, and First Peoples 16–18 Reynolds, Henry 22, 39 Ridley, William 30 rights constitutional 7, 161 cultural 11, 16, 79, 96 divine 11 First Australian negotiating for 9–12 human 11, 62, 70, 75, 79, 81, 83, 85 land (see land rights) wage and labour 41 Rinehart, Melissa 143 Robinson Huron Treaty 156 Rowley, John 58–9 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 80 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Status and Conditions in Western Australia 34

221

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 154 Royal Proclamation of 1763, Canada 93–4 Rudd, Kevin 83 Russell, Billy 61 Ryan, Lyndal 21, 28 Sacred Sites Protection Act (1989) 80 Salish people 17 Sampson, Mary 1 Saulteaux tribe 95 Sayers, Ogimaa Dean 155 self-sufficiency in the nineteenth century 54–9 Seneca-Cayuga Nation 7 Simpson, James 22 slavery 2, 40, 101, 107, 126, 147 social justice 5, 10, 13, 15, 21–2, 42, 44, 47, 107, 148–9, 151 Sorell, William 25 South Australia 35 Specific Claims Resolution Act 2003 154 Springs, Alice 37 Stephens, A. M. 137 Student Action for Aborigines 71 Supreme Court of Canada 154 Swampy Cree tribe 95 Sydney Gazette 19 Tantaquidgeon, John 138 Tasman, Abel 99 Tasmania 27–8 Tent Embassy 51 petitions 86–7 United States 159–62 Terrick, Winifred 61 Torres Strait Islander Act 1971-1979 78 Torres Strait Islander Land Act 1991 (Qld) 77 Tovias, Blanca 17 Trail of Tears 7, 108, 109–10, 113, 114 Training of Children Act 1 treaties America’s broken treaty system 91–3 Canadian 93–7 challenging 107–48 Cherokee petitions 108–15 early petitions for land rights 123–5

222

Index

First Nations Petitions as documents of activism 144–8 land encroachment, dispossession and rights and 127–30 land petitions 142–4 Moqui petition 133–41 New Zealand 99–101 vs. petitions 105–6 petitions against 116–19 petitions against treaties and forced removal 116–19 petitions in eighteenth and nineteenth century 125–6 Treaty 1988 campaign 51 Treaty at Judith River 17 Treaty Eight, Canada 96 Treaty Eleven, Canada 97 Treaty Nine, Canada 97 Treaty of Middle Plantation 125 Treaty of New Echota 108, 109–10, 144 Treaty of Waitangi 99–100, 102 Treaty One, Canada 97 Treaty Seven, Canada 98 Treaty Ten, Canada 97 Treaty Three, Canada 97–8 Treaty with the Cherokee 157 ‘Treaty with the Natives’ 22 ‘tribal lands’ 72, 113 Tunxis tribe 120, 139 Turoa, Raniera 103 twenty-first century petitioning 82–3 Uluru Statement of intent 8, 151–3, 158, 160, 161 Uncas, Benjamin 131 United States broken treaty system 91–3 buy-back scheme 158–9 Congress 92, 113–15 land tenure reform 158–62 Tent Embassy 159–62 United States Code, Title 25 92 United States Supremacy Clause 7 United States Supreme Court 113 US Constitution 156 van Toorn, Penny 16, 23 Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines 14, 31–2, 52 Victorian Parliament 52

violence between British colonisers and First Australians in NSW 22–3 colonial 1, 28–30, 33, 39 colonial structural 28 First Peoples and 16–18 petitions opposed to colonial 28–30 Vipperman, Carl J. 109 Vosh, H. R. 137 Walker, Kath 71 Wampey, Elijah 139 Wanganeen, Robert 59 Wangunk tribe 140 Ward, Alan 102–3 Ward, Charlie 73 War of Independence 125, 127 Watson, William 26, 62–3 Wawowos, James 127 Wayte, John 43 Western Australia 33–5 Western Australian Aboriginal Association 74 Western Australian Courts of Native Affairs 49 Western law tradition 10 Whitlam, Gough 73 Wilkins, David E. 113 Wilkinson, Charles 27 William Cooper and the 1937 Petition to the King (Markus) 50 William Cooper’s 1937 Petition to the King 66 women Cherokee 115 Moqui 133 ‘Women of Broome’ 1 Wood Cree tribe 95 Worcester v. Georgia 113 Writing Never Arrives Naked (van Toorn) 16 Wyandotte Nation 7 Wyoke, Joseph 128 Yellow Quill tribe 95 Yirrkala bark petitions 4, 47, 51, 72–3, 83–5, 149, 152, 161 Yorta Yorta people 1, 55–6, 149 Yunupingu, Galarrwuy 83