Words in action | Reflecting on Australia’s Day of Mourning

The date the Union Jack was planted on Gadigal land and British sovereignty was proclaimed over the “new Southern Land”.

A date that signifies the beginning of the invasion by British colonisers: an invasion given legal sanction by the notion of terra nullius — the lie that the country belonged to nobody and could be taken without payment or treaty.

Terra nullius conveniently ignored the existence of over 250 sovereign nations across the continent — who had been here for over 60,000 years — all interconnected by trade, sharing of knowledge, cultural values and spirituality.

January 26, 1838 — 50 years later.

Another January 26 of significance, but one most of us know little about.

It was the date that Major James Winniett Nunn, Lieutenant George Cobban and their party of 26 mounted police, and several stockmen and settlers, rode into Snodgrass Lagoon (known as Waterloo Creek) with their guns blazing.

They were coming to the end of a month-long campaign against the Gamilaraay people and, while estimations vary on the number of deaths, it was another significant slaughter.

It is one of over 403 massacres that occurred across the nation, all painstakingly recorded by the University of Newcastle’s Centre for 21st Century Humanities.

Massacres to facilitate what has been described as the biggest single act of land theft in world history.

Consolidating control over these lands required a genocidal war to remove the original inhabitants to make way for sheep and cattle.

It was a war that lasted almost 150 years and left hundreds of thousands of First Nations people dead from murder, starvation and disease.

January 26, 1938 — 100 years to the day after the Waterloo Creek massacre.

Aboriginal leaders Jack Patten and William Ferguson published the pamphlet titled Aborigines* Claim Citizens Rights. (*This term is now considered outdated and offensive.)

The pamphlet described the conditions for Aboriginal people in Australia from their own perspective.

It is worth reading what was written back then.

“The 26th of January 1938 is not a day of rejoicing for Australia’s Aborigines; it is a day of mourning.

This festival of 150 years’ so-called ‘progress’ in Australia commemorates also 150 years of misery and degradation imposed upon the original native inhabitants by the white invaders of this country.

We, representing the Aborigines, now ask you, the reader of this appeal, to pause in the midst of your sesqui-centenary rejoicings and ask yourself honestly whether your ‘conscience’ is clear in regard to the treatment of the Australian blacks by the Australian whites during the period of 150 years’ history which you celebrate?

You are the New Australians, but we are the Old Australians. We have in our arteries the blood of the Original Australians, who have lived in this land for many thousands of years.

You have come here only recently, and you took our land away from us by force.

You have almost exterminated our people, but there are enough of us remaining to expose the humbug of your claim, as white Australians, to be a civilised, progressive, kindly and humane nation.

By your cruelty and callousness towards the Aborigines, you stand condemned in the eyes of the civilised world.

We ask only for justice, decency and fair play.”

January 26, 1938.

The 150th anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet — a day of great celebration.

In Sydney, there was a parade and re-enactment of the original landing.

But on that day, there was another gathering of people.

It was not a celebration, rather the continuation of a struggle that began 150 years earlier, in 1788.

On that hot January day, many attendees wore formal black dress as a symbolic sign of mourning.

Led by Jack Patten and William (Bill) Ferguson of the Aborigines Progressive Association, with the support of William Cooper from the Australian Aborigines League, the meeting declared that January 26 would now be known as the Day of Mourning.

Jack Patten was the first speaker:

“On this day the white people are rejoicing, but we, as Aborigines, have no reason to rejoice on Australia’s 150th birthday. Our purpose in meeting today is to bring home to the white people of Australia the frightful conditions in which the native Aborigines of this continent live.

This land belonged to our forefathers 150 years ago, but today we are pushed further and further into the background.

The Aborigines Progressive Association has been formed to put before the white people the fact that Aborigines throughout Australia are literally being starved to death.”

Bill Ferguson was the next speaker to rise:

“We have been waiting and waiting all our lives for the white people of Australia to better our conditions, but we have waited in vain. We have been living in a fool’s paradise.

I have travelled outback and I have seen for myself the dreadful sufferings of our people on the Aborigines Reserves…”

Doug Nicholls spoke on behalf of the Aboriginal people of Victoria:

“I want to say that we support this resolution in every way. The public does not realise what our people have suffered for 150 years.”

Mr Connelly, from the south coast of NSW, highlighted the dispossession suffered by his people:

“In 150 years the white men have taken away the hunting grounds and camping grounds of our people, and left us with nothing.”

Later, in early February 1938, Pearl Gibbs addressed a meeting of the Housewives’ Progressive Association:

“You white people awoke on Anniversary Day [January 26] with a feeling of pride at what you had done … but did you not think of the Aborigines’ broken hearts, and that for them, it was a day of mourning?”

January 26, 1972.

On the eve of January 26, the McMahon Government announced it would not recognise First Nations peoples’ land rights.

Sydney activists Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey responded by driving to Canberra and setting up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House (now the Old Parliament House).

Called the ‘Aboriginal Embassy’, the protest symbolised the fact that Aboriginal people had never ceded sovereignty and had no treaty with the crown.

The government’s announcement made First Nations Australians, in the words of activist Gary Foley, “aliens in our own land, so like other aliens, we needed an embassy”.

The Aboriginal Embassy is still there today.

January 26, 2025 — this year.

To many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people there is still little to celebrate.

January 26 represents a day of profound sadness — loss of sovereign rights to land, loss of family, loss of children, loss of languages and of the right to practise culture.

This view is also held by many non-Aboriginal people who view January 26 not as a celebration, but as a day to reflect on our history and to continue the work towards the long overdue “justice, decency and fair play’’ requested back in 1938.

A day to recognise the strength of the resilience of First Nations peoples and how this has ensured their survival in the face of almost overwhelming and systematic injustices.

It is also a day when non-Aboriginal people might consider how they would feel if they were asked to celebrate on a day that represented such deep sorrow and loss.

What can you do?

We invite you to join us on the eve of what many know as Australia Day, to stand as an ally with First Nations people as we gather to acknowledge the profound grief and loss experienced since the invasion of their unceded lands.

Together, let us honour truth, memory and resilience as we walk the path of reconciliation.

Honouring the Day of Mourning, Saturday, January 25 — 5:45pm for a 6pm start, William Cooper Statue, Queen’s Gardens, Shepparton. Bring a chair.

Dawn Service Day of Mourning, 5:30am Kaieltheban Park off Archer St, Mooroopna.

Day of Mourning event, 10am to about 1pm, Queen’s Gardens, Shepparton. Bring a chair or picnic rug.