Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellygovernment and claimed the whole continent as uninhabited crown land. Thisaction was supported by a European political belief that;When the Nations of Europe, which are too confined at home, come upon landswhich the savages have no special need of and are making no present andcontinuous use of, they may lawfully take possession of and establish colonies inthem (De Vattel 1758 in Eckermann et al. 2006).Totally ignoring the 500 or more different Indigenous nations already living inAustralia, Australia was declared terra nullius, an empty land owned by no one 8 .This action went against every other European colonising activity since the 1600s,all of which involved some level of treaty negotiation (Eckermann et al. 2006;Morrissey & Fricke 2001).Loss through frontier violence, illness and displacementPlease note: these following paragraphs may be particularly distressing to read.Invasion and frontier wars began in Australia with the first settlement in Sydney in1788, and then continued throughout Australia well into the mid 1840s as Westernsettlement spread 9 . Frontier wars between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoplewere fairly evenly pitched until diseases, the repeater rifle, and the Native Policewere introduced (Broome 2002; Eckermann et al. 2006). Estimates of how manyAboriginal people lived in Australia pre-colonisation, and how many died postcolonisation,vary greatly. Lancaster Jones (1970) suggests that between 1788 and1947, 50 – 90% of the total Aboriginal population perished during the immediatestages of colonisation. With the arrival of white men on horses came brutalaccounts of poisoned water holes, massacres and shootings, with whole tribes beingslaughtered (Eckermann et al. 2006). Aboriginal women have told numerous storiesof horrifying violence against themselves and their families. One Aboriginalsurvivor told historian Jan Roberts;8 As described by Ashcroft (Broome 2002; Eckermann et al. 2006) links were drawn between Locke’sconcept of the child’s mind as a blank slate needing to be guided by an authoritative and knowingparent and the assumptions made by Imperial explorers and colonisers that ‘undeveloped countries’like Australia (both people and land forms) were a blank slate waiting for a more intelligent anddeveloped group to come and take over.9 In the Coorong area of South Australia, the Milmenrura people carried out resistance activities in theearly 1840s, raiding stations and settlements, in groups of up to 300 warriors. As a result, severalmilitary detachments were sent against them at this time (Peoples Health Movement 2008).35