'His Majesty's most gracious and benevolent intentions' : South Australia's foundation, the idea of 'difference' and Aboriginal rights

Resource Information

The work 'His Majesty's most gracious and benevolent intentions' : South Australia's foundation, the idea of 'difference' and Aboriginal rights represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

'His Majesty's most gracious and benevolent intentions' : South Australia's foundation, the idea of 'difference' and Aboriginal rights

Title remainder

South Australia's foundation, the idea of 'difference' and Aboriginal rights

Statement of responsibility

Robert Foster

Creator

• Foster, Robert

Subject

• Law - Equity
• Rankine, George
• Settlement and contacts - Colonisation - 1788-1850
• Unaipon, David, 1872-1967
• Wilson, Mark
• Government policy - Initial period and protectionism - 1788-1850

Language

eng

Summary

" On 28 December 2007, I attended the annual Proclamation Day ceremony at Glenelg, South Australia's formal anniversary of European settlement. Official guests were seated on a podium beneath the iconic Old Gum Tree that marks the place where South Australia's first Governor, Sir John Hindmarsh, witnessed the reading of the Proclamation symbolically inaugurating the colony in 1836. As the current Governor walked through an honour guard of men dressed in the uniforms of colonial police, a pair of modern-day mounted police rode forward to shield a small group of Aboriginal protesters who waited on the footpath opposite the entrance gate. Once all the dignitaries had taken their places, the event began, as it had begun for generations, with the reading of the Proclamation. As the Chief Executive Officer of the Holdfast Council read the passage of the Proclamation which promised 'to punish with exemplary severity all acts of violence and injustice ... against the natives', an Aboriginal protester called out: 'what justice?' The protesters carried placards calling for a treaty, and stood before a banner that read: Aborigines were wrongfully deprived of their just dues. We must, as far as we can, right those wrongs.." [author's abstract]; Letters Patent; establishment Aboriginal State; States' responsibility towards Indigenous Australians; Proclamation Day

Is part of

• Journal of Australian Colonial History

Cataloging source

AIAS

Index

no index present

Literary form

non fiction