The history wars have been hotly debated in recent years. The following four publications are not setting out to participate in that debate, however the authors do enter its domain. The thing that binds these four volumes together is a history of Aboriginal affairs in Australia. They are all quite different in style, but all outline a history that many Australians would not be familiar with.
Rob Riley: An Aboriginal Leader’s Quest for Justice
By Quentin Beresford
Published by Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006
There are few biographies published of Aboriginal political leaders; Rob Riley was a prominent Aboriginal campaigner; he was articulate in confronting political leaders and he was very shrewd with the media. Riley was at the forefront of many highly charged political debates across a range of issues; then in 1996 he committed suicide at the age of forty one. This volume is very reader friendly in that it also describes the historical context and political environment in which Riley was working.
Given access to three generations of Riley’s family’s native welfare files, the author outlines how a boy, his mother and his grandmother were removed from their families and placed in institutions. Riley was taken from his mother at five months of age and was placed in Sister Kate’s; a home for “fair-skinned” Aboriginal children.
He was told his family was dead until a chance meeting with an Uncle led to him eventually being reunited with his family when he was twelve. The author outlines how this period was a struggle for Riley and how he found it very difficult to adjust to family life. The author argues cogently that his removal and institutionalisation deeply scarred Riley’s emotional wellbeing and also laid the foundations for his highly developed understanding of racism that was to emerge in his later work. In a 1984 media interview he was asked the inevitable question about his Aboriginality. When asked what percentage of Aboriginal blood he had, Riley replied that he was “as Aboriginal as an Aborigine can be.”
After time in the army, Riley joined the Aboriginal Legal Service (WA) as its Executive Officer. When the battle over mining at Noonkanbah occurred he was among the leadership; developing his views and forging strong friendships. Riley was elected to the National Aboriginal conference at 27 years of age and became its Chair within two years; this itself demonstrates his political acumen. While there he led the fight on two key issues: land rights and for an inquiry into Aboriginal deaths in custody.
Riley lobbied the Hawke government to introduce land rights legislation federally and was disgusted when Bob Hawke caved in to pressure from Western Australia’s Burke government. However, somewhat strangely, he later became a key adviser to Gerry Hand, the Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
After the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was established Riley worked on it with Pat Dodson, after which he returned to the Aboriginal Legal Service as Executive Officer. Riley then campaigned for implementation of the recommendations from the Royal Commission and for an inquiry into Aboriginal child removal.
After the 1993 federal election the prime minister, Paul Keating, said he wanted progress on land rights, Rob Riley joined a delegation of Aboriginal leaders to Canberra, where they met with Keating. Amongst contributions from other leaders Riley offered his essential philosophy: "You don’t stop fighting for justice simply because those around you don’t like it. We will not stop fighting."
Subsequently there was significant tension within the Aboriginal leadership about what the Native Title legislation would actually look like. The author suggests that Riley was caught in the middle of this and deeply distressed about it.
In 1993 while launching an ALS report on the Stolen Generatiions in WA at Sister Kate’s, Riley stunned those present when he revealed that he been raped by three boys when he was only nine. From then onwards his mental illness escalated, at times in a very public way.
At 41 years of age Riley took his own life. In a note he wrote: "Understand, white Australia, that you have so much to answer for. Your greed, your massacres, your sanitised history in the name of might and right." And he pleaded that the inquiry into the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, at which he was to give evidence, not be swept under the carpet.
The twin issues of his removal as a child and racism were at the centre of Riley’s life work and his demise. This biography is an important book for all Australians, particularly those with an interest in the history of Aboriginal affairs, from no matter what perspective.
Black Glass: West Australian Courts of Native Affairs 1936 - 1954
By Kate Auty
Fremantle Art Centre Press, 2005
From nearly twenty years special “Courts of Native Affairs” operated in Western Australia. They were set up by the Native Affairs Department and were run to the general applause of chief protector AO Neville and anthropologist AP Elkin. Operating outside the control of the WA Justice Department and beyond the usual checks and balances applicable to the judicial process, the special courts heard murder trials where the defendant and the victim were Aboriginal people.
The author, a Magistrate working in the Goldfields, Esperance and Western Desert region of WA, drawing from a number of cases outlines how Aboriginal people charged with murder were denied natural justice and stripped of basic rights that non Aboriginal Australians had held for decades. Cases discussed show how Aboriginal people appeared before courts comprised of doctors, local Protectors (who may have been police) and pastoralists; where legal representation was often provided by people such as hospital orderlies. The author shows how Aboriginal people were virtually compelled to give confessional evidence without any legal advice or protection.
Yet the courts themselves are only part of the story told here, which largely concerns reinterpretation of the scant recorded responses. The book challenges the concept of willing and compliant aboriginal people by highlighting subtle resistance techniques, principally silence. Black Glass explores the silence and discusses the strategic and defiant silences of the Aboriginal participants. It also confronts some long established paternalistic legal myths.
The fact that these courts elicited no protest from the press, the judiciary or the even general public is an indication of the then current mindset. The book will be of particular interest people researching the treatment of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system and those interested in the current Aboriginal history debate.
Nyungah Land: Records of Invasion and Theft of Aboriginal Land on the Swan River 1829 – 1850
Bevan Carter, with Lynda Nutter
Black History Series, 2005
This volume is a collection of documents written by the British colonists in relation to the first twenty one years of the Swan River Colony. It outlines measures taken by the Aboriginal people to convince the invaders to leave and the measures taken by the British to stay. It also reveals the disruption and loss caused to the lives of the original owners and it reveals the moral misgivings of some colonists at taking other people’s land and food. It discusses early colonists understanding of the system of Indigenous land tenure that was in place when the colony was established. It outlines Indigenous resistance and a “battle” on the site of Perth as early as May 1830; this is followed by notes on many incidents of violence and massacre as the colony developed. The author also documents the establishment of “ration depots” and attempts to “civilize the natives”. Its last chapter discusses in some detail some of the key Aboriginal people, their families and their various interactions with the colonists.
People considering the history debates will find this of interest in that it is a collection of source documents. It also brings a bit more detail to some of the principal players involved in the early years of the Swan River Colony. It is designed in a reader friendly format, but is at times frustrating in its style partly due to being arranged thematically rather than chronologically, and its, at times, polemic style.
No Free Kicks
Eric Hayward
Fremantle Art Centre Press, 2006
In this book the author tells the epic saga of his family, and in doing so provides a unique snapshot of Aboriginal Australia. He describes the hardships of extreme poverty, the bush and the city, the mission and camps to playing professional football and studying at University.
The book describes how the author’s family experienced an extensive period of colonisation in which their social and cultural autonomy were eroded. It demonstrates how the historical experience of Aboriginal Australians is vastly different to that of mainstream Australians.
The author was born in the Gnowangerup Mission in 1945, and later studied in Perth while living in a hostel run by the Native Welfare Department and later working in government. The author’s father his uncle were stars of the South Fremantle Football Club in the 1930’s and their involvement in football spread to the wider family.
The book suggests that with little access to education or to the mainstream community, sports like running, boxing and football provided a way for Aboriginal people to mix and meet people and to hear about work. The story notes how sport allowed Aboriginal people to show that they were talented and that they could do well.
This book tells the story of Aboriginal life in the central Great Southern from the point of view of people who lived it. It’s the story about how they coped and how they contributed to the development of their country. It draws attention to how Aboriginal people have been under-recognised and undervalued and under-rewarded.
