..of Waitangi of 1840 is often held up as an example of how to establish a more or less just relationship with the native inhabitants. Which it is, as unlike treaties with other indigenous peoples, it is largely honoured now.
The Treaty of Waitangi is short, consisting of a preamble and three articles. The preamble presents Queen Victoria "being desirous to establish a settled form of Civil Government", and invites Maori chiefs to concur in the following articles. The first article of the English version grants the "Queen of England" sovereignty over New Zealand. The second article guarantees to the chiefs full "exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties." It also specifies that Maori will sell land only to the Crown. The third article guarantees to all Maori the same rights as all other British subjects.
But five years before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, June 6th 1835 to be precise – less than 185 years ago - John Batman met with a group of Wurundjeri elders for the purchase of the lands around the Yarra. Where Melbourne, a city of four million, looms very large and prosperously today.
Treaty documents were signed and goods exchanged. About 2,000 square kms around the Yarra and another 200 square kms around Corio Bay were given by the Aborigines in exchange for ‘tomahawks, knives, scissors, flannel jackets, red shirts and a yearly tribute of similar items’. This might seem to be an unequal contract. The value in today’s money is debatable but good heavens the American Indians only got $1000 for Manhattan.
The treaty was significant as it was the first and only documented time when European settlers negotiated their presence and occupation of Aboriginal lands - and therefore Batman’s treaty was immediately deemed invalid by the colonial government in Sydney. The August 1835 proclamation by Governor Richard Bourke implemented the doctrine of "terra nullius" upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the concept that there was no land owner prior to British possession and that Aboriginal people could not sell or assign the land, and individuals could only acquire land through distribution by the Crown.
The proclamation was necessary as it had been noted that ‘if it was acknowledged that the Aborigines had the right to dispose of their land as they saw fit, then the Crown’s claim to all Australian lands would be in doubt.’
Ultimately, Batman’s treaty had no legal significance in the European settlement of Melbourne and the taking of Aboriginal land. It is symbolic of European relations with the aboriginal nations, in that self-interest and deceit were central to colonisation.
To this day, Batman’s treaty is the only land use agreement that sought to recognise European occupation of Australia, and pre-existing Aboriginal rights to the land. It probably lasted as long as it took for the news to get from Melbourne to Sydney.
We live across the Yarra River from a place called Black Flat which is now part of a State Park. It took a while for me to realise that it was not a reference to a gold prospect owned by a Mr Black but rather the fact that it was a part of a 19th Century aboriginal reserve and a ceremonial ground of the Woiworrung tribe who were part of the Wurundjeri nation. They were driven from it when gold was discovered in Warrandyte in the 1850’s. Once the land was scoured of any gold and the gums trees felled to power stamping mills the ruined land became an orchard before being acquired by the government.
In 1852 the Woiworrung gained 782 hectares along the Yarra at Warrandyte. The reserve was not a permanent camp, but acted as a distribution depot where rations and blankets were distributed, with the intention being to keep the tribes away from the growing settlement of Melbourne.
The discovery of gold and the aboriginal grant might seem like conspicuously bad timing and by 1862 the reserve was closed and the remaining Woiworrung forcibly moved to Healesville, naturally without compensation, and then moved in 1924 to Lake Tyers. Which was then, and still is, a convenient 360 kms away.
Mind you most had been killed by diseases, including venereal disease, introduced by the Europeans and the birth-rate was so low either because conditions were so bad that women were not conceiving or the infant mortality rate was incredibly high. How many survived? Well it seems that the present day Wurundjeri people are descendants of William Barak through his sister Annie Boorat and her son Robert Wandoon.
Let us perform a mind experiment and imagine that the aboriginal population had signed an equivalent of the Waitangi Treaty giving the British Crown sovereignty but guaranteeing exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties. And giving aborigines the same rights as other British subjects.
Good heavens, they might not have had to wait until 1962 to all have the right to vote – though they still had to wait until 1985 to vote in Queensland State elections.
They might not have had to watch their land being taken from them for pastoral leases or mines. They might not have been massacred. They might have had legal redress.
Now perhaps can you see why nobody in power will do anything to assist either Constitutional Recognition or a Treaty?