Conversation

On 1 January 1901, 6 British colonies, established by force on unceded Lands of 250+ nations, united to form the Commonwealth of Australia.

And on this day, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 became effective. Before the invasions were even over.

British invasions and colonisations of this continent was not a single event. There were waves of brutal invasions and wars lasting over one hundred years.

The last recorded State and/or settler massacre of Aboriginal people took place in 1928. Since then, smaller groups of people have been murdered by white people. The frontier wars never ended.

There were Aboriginal people still unaware of the existence of white people in mid to late 1900s. In 1964, a group of Martu women and children saw a plane for the first time, then a car, and later white people. The last First Contact occurred in 1984, when nine Pintupi people found white people camping on the fringe of their ancestral lands. This is not long-ago history we speak of.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders [the sovereign peoples of this continent] were not formally recognised as citizens until 1967; along with inclusion in census data.

1 January 1901, the invaders declared victory whilst the battles still raged. Fuck those "founding fathers" and the mothers that nurtured them.

The fight still isn't over.

#Indigenous #Aboriginal #FrontierWars #LandBack #AboriginalRights #Colonisation