October 20.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
Invasion and dispossession
'...we descended as invaders upon this territory and took possession of the soil'
A central problem was the lack of any treaty or other form of negotiated agreement. The humanitarians were aware of the role of treaty-making in the colonisation of North America and venerated the memory of William Penn who had purchased land for settlement from the Indians in seventeenth century Pennsylvania. After 1840 they compared Australian experience with the signing of the treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand. 'There is no compact', declared R. M. Lyon, 'no covenant of any kind, between the British Government and the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia' who, he believed, were ever ready to negotiate for the sale of some of their land. [1]
The lack of a treaty presented legal difficulties and aroused moral doubts. 'We have taken possession of the country', Lyon declared, 'on the simple ground that might is right'. [2] The editor of The Colonist believed that Britain's title to Australia rested on 'no better foundation that that of might'. The country had been seized by main force 'utterly regardless of the question of right'. [3] John Saunders took the view that the settlers had robbed the Aborigines 'without any sanctions' that he could find 'either in natural or revealed law'. [4] In a letter to a friend in 1832 George Augustus Robinson explained that he had difficulty in finding any justification for the expropriation of Aboriginal land. He was 'at a loss to conceive by what tenure we hold the country for it does not appear to be that we either hold it by right of conquest or right of purchase'. [5] To strengthen his case he quoted a passage that he had found in John Locke's Civil Government to the effect that
no body has a right to take away a country which is the property of the original inhabitants without their own consent,* that if they do such inhabitants are not freemen but slaves under the force of war. [6]
Few humanitarians had any doubt that Australia was invaded although they were aware the process was quite different from the large-scale military assaults common in European history. 'We have invaded the territory of the New Hollanders', declared the editor of The Colonist, 'and have taken forcible possession of their rightful property'. John Saunders observed in similar vein that 'we descended as invaders upon this territory and took possession of the soil'. [7] In a letter to Governor Bourke in 1837 James Backhouse observed that it was
scarcely to be supposed that in the present day any person of reflection will be found who will attempt to justify the measures adopted by the British, in taking possession of the territory of these people, who had committed no offence against our nation; but who, being without strength to repel invaders had their lands usurped, without any other offer of reasonable compensation. [8]
R.M. Lyon, Australia: An Appeal to the World on Behalf of the Younger Branch of the Family of Shem, Sydney, 1839, p.xi.
ibid.
12 Dec. 1838.
ibid.
Robinson to Whitcomb, 10 Aug. 1832, ibid.
ibid.
The Colonist, 20 Oct. 1838.
Extracts from the Letters of James Backhouse, 3rd ed., London, 1838, p.80.
Acknowledgment: Henry Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts, pp.36-37, 255 n.43, n.44, n.45, n.46, n.47, n.48, n.49, n.50.
* Indigenous protestors at the 2018 Commonwealth Games held on the Gold Coast, in Queensland, held up placards referring to the 'Stolenwealth'. RB