March 31.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Our lives have been wrecked...
“Every shape and form of murder, yes, mass murder, was used against us…”
If the voice of one indigenous leader resounds more than any other, it is surely that of Yorta Yorta activist William Cooper. In 1934, Cooper drafted a petition to King George V. The message was unambiguous. Indigenous lands had been "expropriated' [1] by successive Australian governments and their inhabitants' legal status unjustly "denied". He wanted a voice for Aboriginal people and he asked the King that they be granted the power to "propose a member of parliament".
Cooper delivered the petition to the Commonwealth government, led by Joseph Lyons, in September 1937. It carried over 1800 signatures. Two months later, with fellow campaigners Doug Nicholls and William Ferguson, Cooper called for a "Day of Mourning" on Australia Day 1938, to protest the white man's seizure of their land and to demand full citizenship rights. In March, the Lyons government informed Cooper that it would neither support his demand for parliamentary representation nor forward his petition to King George VI. Incensed by the hypocrisy of a supposedly Christian nation's refusal to accept the equal humanity of Indigenous Australians, Cooper wrote a stinging response to Lyons.
White men...claimed that they had "found" a new country – Australia. This country was not new, it was already in possession of and inhabited by millions of blacks, who, while unarmed, excepting spears and boomerangs, nevertheless owned the country as their God given heritage... Every shape and form of murder, yes, mass murder, was used against us and laws were passed and still exist, which no human creature can endure. Our food stuffs have been destroyed, poison and guns have done their work, and now white men's homes have been built on our hunting and camping grounds. Our lives have been wrecked and our happiness ended. Oh! Ye whites... How much compensation have we had? How much of our land has been paid for? Not one iota. Again, we state that we are the original owners of the country. In spite of force, prestige, or anything else you like, morally the land is ours. [2]
Much of what Cooper said bears a remarkable resemblance to the demands of Indigenous leaders today. He asked for recognition and acknowledgment. He petitioned for a voice in parliament.* And he wanted the truth told. At the heart of his campaign was what he called the "horror and fear of extermination" [4] that in one way or another had touched every Aboriginal community in the country.
"expropriated", "denied", etc.: The best analysis of Cooper's activism is Bain Atwood's Rights for Aborigines, Allen & Unwin, 2003, pp. 54-78; Cooper's letter to Lyons (written with trade unionist and fellow Christian Arthur Budeu) can be found in Andrew Markus (ed.), Blood from a Stone: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines League, Monash Publications in History No. 2, 1986, pp. 77-83.
"White men": Cooper's letter to Lyons, 31 March 1938 (written with trade unionist and fellow Christian Arthur Budeu) is discussed in Bain Atwood's Rights for Aborigines, pp.74-6; original in National Archives (Canberra), A659, 1940/1/858. Cooper had the idea for a Day of Mourning on Australia Day and it was discussed by Cooper, Burdeu and Bill Ferguson at a meeting in November 1937 (Attwood, pp. 69-70).
"horror and fear of extermination", in Attwood, Rights for Aborigines, p. 69; see also https//aiatsis.gov.au/exhibitions/day-mourning-26th-january-1938.
Acknowledgment: Mark McKenna, Moment of Truth, pp. 2-3, 80 notes referring to pp.2-3.
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* Almost eighty years later, on 26 October 2017, the federal cabinet of the Australian Coalition Government rejected the call in the Uluru Statement for an Indigenous ‘Voice to Parliament’ be voted upon in a referendum and, if passed, be enshrined in the Australian Constitution.
In the Uluru Statement, Indigenous leaders called for "the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution". For the text of the 'Uluru Statement from the Heart' , visit https://ulurustatement.org and note entry for May 7 in this volume.