Mock Justice: World Conservation and Australian Aborigines in Interwar Switzerland
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Published:
Feb 25, 2008
Keywords:
Fernando, Aboriginal activist
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Abstract
On June 24, 1921, an Aboriginal man, Anthony Martin Fernando, walked into the offices of Der Bund, a leading progressive newspaper in Berne, Switzerland. Several days later, a highly critical account of colonial rule in Australia appeared in the pages of the newspaper, its centrepiece a letter written by Fernando himself. Encouraged by the idea of minority rights recently described by the League of Nations, Fernando appealed to the Swiss people for their support of self-rule for indigenous peoples in the settler colonies. Only through League of Nations mandate over reserve lands, governed by Switzerland or the Netherlands, he advised, could the just future of the Aboriginal race be assured in Australia.
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References
'A Call for Help from Australia', Der Bund, 30 June and 1 July, 1921, Transcript, Han Buser Papers, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra.
'Alleged Ill-Treatment of Australian Natives', The Times, January 11, 1907, p. 3.
'Bovril Australian Estates: Chairman's Visit to the Properties', The Financial Times, (November 18, 1913) Newspaper Clipping, Bovril Estates Ltd Papers, Noel Butlin Archives, Canberra.
'Complaint of the Six Nations Indians against the Government of Canada', R612, 28075/1923, League of Nations Archives, Geneva.
'Explanatory Memo: Accompanying the Invitation of the Swiss Federal Council to the Conference on the 17 November 1913', Political Dept, 24 e 7, Swiss Archives, Berne.
'Klaatsch and Clotten Visit Queensland', A9839/1, Control 87, National Archives of Australia, Canberra.
'Obituary for Paul Sarasin', Newspaper Clipping, State Archive of Switzerland, Schaffhausen.
'The Convincing Grounds', episode of Message Stick, ABC, broadcast on 25 January 2007.
Anthony Martin Fernando to Henry Prinsep, (10 October 1903) State Archives of Western Australia 255/557A/1903, Folio 5.
Attwood, Bain (2003) Rights for Aborigines, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Attwood, Bain and Marcus, Andrew (2004) Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press.
Basedow, Herbert (1925) The Australian Aboriginal, Adelaide, F.W. Preece and Sons.
Beinart, William and Coates, Peter (1995) Environment and History: The Taming of Nature in the USA and South Africa, London, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203295786
Bogue, Margaret Beattie (1993) 'To Save the Fish: Canada, the United States, the Great Lakes, and the Joint Commission of 1892', The Journal of American History, Vol. 79, no. 4 (March): 1429-1454. https://doi.org/10.2307/2080211
Bolton, G.C. (1988) 'Rason, Sir Cornthwaite Hector William James (1858-19270', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 11, Melbourne University Press. Bolton, Geoffrey (1992 [1981]) 'Towards Conservation' in Spoils and Spoilers: A History of Australians Shaping their Environment, Sydney, Allen and Unwin.
Bonyhady, Tim (2000) The Colonial Earth, Melbourne, The Miegunyah Press.
Campbell Jr, Charles S. (1961) 'The Ango-American Crisis in the Bering Sea, 1890-1891', The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Dec.): 393-414. https://doi.org/10.2307/1891985
Cronin, William (1991) Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, New York, W.W. Norton and Co.
Cronin, William (1992 [1983]) Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, New York, Hill and Wang.
De Costa, Ravi (2006) A Higher Authority: Indigenous Transnationalism and Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney.
Derek Whitelock (1985) Conquest to Conservation: History of Human Impact on the South Australian Environment, Adelaide, Wakefield Press.
Gibbs, Pearl (1938) General Secretary, Aborigines Progressive Association, to President, League of Nations, 4 July, 1938, 'Situation of Aborigines in Australia', Political Division, 1/34895/1 34895, League of Nations Archives, Geneva.
Goodall, Heather (1996) Invasion to Embassy: Land in Aboriginal Politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972, St Leonards, Allen and Unwin.
Goodall, Heather; Ghosh, Devleena and Todd, Lindi (2008) "Jumping Ship – Skirting Empire: Indians, Aborigines and Australians across the Indian Ocean", Transforming Cultures eJournal 3(1).
Grieves, Forest, L. (1972) 'Leviathan, the International Whaling Commission and Conservation as Environmental Aspects of International Law', The Western Political Quarterly, Vol 25, No. 4 (December): 711-725. https://doi.org/10.2307/446798
Griffiths, Tom and Robin, Libby (eds.) (1997) Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.
Grove, Richard (1995) Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Haebich, Anna (1992) For their own Good: Aborigines and Government in South West of Western Australia, 1900-1940, Nedlands, University of Western Australia Press.
Haebich, Anna (2004) '"Clearing the Wheat Belt": Erasing the Indigenous Presence in the Southwest of Western Australia', in Dirk Moses (ed.) Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History, Berghahn Books, New York.
Harmstorf, Ian (1979) 'Basedow, Herbert (1881-1933), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 7, Melbourne University Press.
Hundert Jahre, Der Bund, 1850-1950, Publication to Celebrate Der Bund's Centenary, 1950.
Jepson, Paul and Whittaker, Robert J. (2002) 'Histories of Protected Areas: Internationalisation of Conservationist Values and their Adoption in the Netherlands Indies (Indonesia)', Environment and History 8: 129-72. https://doi.org/10.3197/096734002129342620
Klaatsch, Herman (1907) 'Schlussbericht uber meine Reise nach Australian in den Jahren 1904-1907', Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 39, pp. 634-690.
Klaatsch, Herman (1913) The Evolution and Progress of Mankind, London, T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.
Klaatsch, Herman 'Some Notes on Scientific Travel Amongst the Black Population of Tropical Australia in 1904, 1905, 1906.' Paper read at the Adelaide Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held January 1907', National Library of Australia.
Langton, Marcia (1999) 'Why "Race" is a Central Idea in Australia's Construction of the Idea of a Nation', in Susan Magarey (ed.), Human Rights and Reconciliation, Special Issue, Australian Cultural History, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Lauren, Paul (1988) Power and Prejudice: the Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination Westview Press, Boulder.
Letter dated 8 June, 1916 from Fernando to the British Consul. 'Fernando, Attentionthe case of', NAA A11803/1, 14/89/475. National Archives of Australia, Canberra.
Lines, William J. (1991) Taming the Great South Land: A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Lyndon, Jane (2005) Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians, Durham, Duke University Press.
Macneil, Rod (2001) 'Time after time: temporal frontiers and boundaries in colonial images of the Australian landscape', in Lynette Russell (ed.) Colonial Frontiers: Indigenous-European Encounters in Settler Societies, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Mary Bennet to Travers Buxton, (21 February, 1929). In letters Travers Buxton, AntiSlavery and Aborigines Protection Society, Mss Brit Emp s19, Rhodes House Library, Oxford.
Mary Bennett to Travers Buxton, Honorary Secretary, (February 21, 1929) Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society Papers, MSS Brit Emp S 19, Rhodes House Archives, Oxford.
Maynard, John (2003) 'Vision, Voice and Influence: The Rise of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association', Australian Historical Studies, 34, 121 (April): 91-105.
Maynard, John (2005) '"In the Interests of Our People": The Influence of Garveyism on the Rise of Australian Aborigines' Political Activism', Aboriginal History, 29: 1-22.
McGregor, Russell (1997) Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1880-1939, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.
McKenzie, John (ed.) (1990) Imperialism and the Natural World, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Mirams, Sarah (2002) '"For their Moral Health": James Barrett, Urban Progressive Ideas and National Park Reservation in Victoria', Australian Historical Studies, 120 (October): 249-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314610208596218
Nettelbeck, Amanda and Foster, Robert (2007) In the Name of the Law: William Willshire and the Policing of the Australian Frontier, Wakefield Press, Kent Town. P.N. Hutton, P.N. 'The Importance of Being Ernst: The Forgotten First Australian Official Overseas Representative Outside the British Empire', MS 9523, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
Paisley, Fiona (2006) 'An "education in white brutality": Anthony Martin Fernando and Australian Aboriginal rights in transnational context', in Annie Coombes (ed.) Rethinking Settler Colonialism: History and Memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Pepper, David (1996) Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction, London, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203412244
Proceedings of the Berne Conference for the International Protection of Nature, 19 November 1913, Document No 9, Political Dept, 24 e 7, Swiss Archives, Berne.
Reece, Bob and Stannage, Tom (1984) European-Aboriginal Relations in Western Australian History, Studies in Western Australian History VIII, December.
Robin, Libby (1994) 'Nature Conservation as a National Concern: The Role of the Australian Academy of Science', Historical Records of Australian Science, 10 (1), June pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9941010001
Robin, Libby (2002) 'Nationalising Nature: Wattle Days in Australia', Journal of Australian Studies, 73: 13-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443050209387762
Sarasin, Fritz (1941) About a Happy Life, Frobenius, A.G. Basel.
Sarasin, Paul (1911) The Global Protection of Nature, Emil Birkhauser, Basle, BAR, E. 2200, 40, -123, Bd, p. 2, Swiss Archives, Berne.
Sarasin, Paul (1913) About the Tasks of International World Conservation. Expose read at the conference of all delegates of international conservation, Bern, 18 November 1913, Emil Birkhauser, Basel, Swiss Archives, Berne.
Spaull, Andrew (1986) 'McBride, Sir Peter (1967-1923)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 10, Melbourne University Press.
Spencer, Baldwin 'Preliminary Report of the Aboriginals of the Northern Territory', Bulletin No. 7, National Library of Australia.
Stehik, Brigitte (1986) 'Herman Klaatsch and the Tiwi, 1906', Aboriginal History, 10(1): 59-77.
Tabili, Laura (1994) "We Ask for British Justice": Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
Travers Buxton to M. Claparede, letter dated (2 July, 1924). Mss 22 Brit Empire, 471, International Bureau, Geneva. Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford.
Van Kirk, Sylvia (1983) Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870, Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press.
Van Toorn, Penny (2006) Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Venbrux, Eric (1999) '(Dis)closure: Baldwin Spencer's Collecting of Artifacts from Melville and Bathurst Islands (northern Australia), Focaal, 34: 59-78.
White, Richard (1994 [1991])The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wolfe, Patrick (1999) Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London.
'Alleged Ill-Treatment of Australian Natives', The Times, January 11, 1907, p. 3.
'Bovril Australian Estates: Chairman's Visit to the Properties', The Financial Times, (November 18, 1913) Newspaper Clipping, Bovril Estates Ltd Papers, Noel Butlin Archives, Canberra.
'Complaint of the Six Nations Indians against the Government of Canada', R612, 28075/1923, League of Nations Archives, Geneva.
'Explanatory Memo: Accompanying the Invitation of the Swiss Federal Council to the Conference on the 17 November 1913', Political Dept, 24 e 7, Swiss Archives, Berne.
'Klaatsch and Clotten Visit Queensland', A9839/1, Control 87, National Archives of Australia, Canberra.
'Obituary for Paul Sarasin', Newspaper Clipping, State Archive of Switzerland, Schaffhausen.
'The Convincing Grounds', episode of Message Stick, ABC, broadcast on 25 January 2007.
Anthony Martin Fernando to Henry Prinsep, (10 October 1903) State Archives of Western Australia 255/557A/1903, Folio 5.
Attwood, Bain (2003) Rights for Aborigines, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Attwood, Bain and Marcus, Andrew (2004) Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press.
Basedow, Herbert (1925) The Australian Aboriginal, Adelaide, F.W. Preece and Sons.
Beinart, William and Coates, Peter (1995) Environment and History: The Taming of Nature in the USA and South Africa, London, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203295786
Bogue, Margaret Beattie (1993) 'To Save the Fish: Canada, the United States, the Great Lakes, and the Joint Commission of 1892', The Journal of American History, Vol. 79, no. 4 (March): 1429-1454. https://doi.org/10.2307/2080211
Bolton, G.C. (1988) 'Rason, Sir Cornthwaite Hector William James (1858-19270', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 11, Melbourne University Press. Bolton, Geoffrey (1992 [1981]) 'Towards Conservation' in Spoils and Spoilers: A History of Australians Shaping their Environment, Sydney, Allen and Unwin.
Bonyhady, Tim (2000) The Colonial Earth, Melbourne, The Miegunyah Press.
Campbell Jr, Charles S. (1961) 'The Ango-American Crisis in the Bering Sea, 1890-1891', The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Dec.): 393-414. https://doi.org/10.2307/1891985
Cronin, William (1991) Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, New York, W.W. Norton and Co.
Cronin, William (1992 [1983]) Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, New York, Hill and Wang.
De Costa, Ravi (2006) A Higher Authority: Indigenous Transnationalism and Australia, UNSW Press, Sydney.
Derek Whitelock (1985) Conquest to Conservation: History of Human Impact on the South Australian Environment, Adelaide, Wakefield Press.
Gibbs, Pearl (1938) General Secretary, Aborigines Progressive Association, to President, League of Nations, 4 July, 1938, 'Situation of Aborigines in Australia', Political Division, 1/34895/1 34895, League of Nations Archives, Geneva.
Goodall, Heather (1996) Invasion to Embassy: Land in Aboriginal Politics in New South Wales, 1770-1972, St Leonards, Allen and Unwin.
Goodall, Heather; Ghosh, Devleena and Todd, Lindi (2008) "Jumping Ship – Skirting Empire: Indians, Aborigines and Australians across the Indian Ocean", Transforming Cultures eJournal 3(1).
Grieves, Forest, L. (1972) 'Leviathan, the International Whaling Commission and Conservation as Environmental Aspects of International Law', The Western Political Quarterly, Vol 25, No. 4 (December): 711-725. https://doi.org/10.2307/446798
Griffiths, Tom and Robin, Libby (eds.) (1997) Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.
Grove, Richard (1995) Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Haebich, Anna (1992) For their own Good: Aborigines and Government in South West of Western Australia, 1900-1940, Nedlands, University of Western Australia Press.
Haebich, Anna (2004) '"Clearing the Wheat Belt": Erasing the Indigenous Presence in the Southwest of Western Australia', in Dirk Moses (ed.) Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History, Berghahn Books, New York.
Harmstorf, Ian (1979) 'Basedow, Herbert (1881-1933), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 7, Melbourne University Press.
Hundert Jahre, Der Bund, 1850-1950, Publication to Celebrate Der Bund's Centenary, 1950.
Jepson, Paul and Whittaker, Robert J. (2002) 'Histories of Protected Areas: Internationalisation of Conservationist Values and their Adoption in the Netherlands Indies (Indonesia)', Environment and History 8: 129-72. https://doi.org/10.3197/096734002129342620
Klaatsch, Herman (1907) 'Schlussbericht uber meine Reise nach Australian in den Jahren 1904-1907', Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 39, pp. 634-690.
Klaatsch, Herman (1913) The Evolution and Progress of Mankind, London, T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.
Klaatsch, Herman 'Some Notes on Scientific Travel Amongst the Black Population of Tropical Australia in 1904, 1905, 1906.' Paper read at the Adelaide Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held January 1907', National Library of Australia.
Langton, Marcia (1999) 'Why "Race" is a Central Idea in Australia's Construction of the Idea of a Nation', in Susan Magarey (ed.), Human Rights and Reconciliation, Special Issue, Australian Cultural History, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
Lauren, Paul (1988) Power and Prejudice: the Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination Westview Press, Boulder.
Letter dated 8 June, 1916 from Fernando to the British Consul. 'Fernando, Attentionthe case of', NAA A11803/1, 14/89/475. National Archives of Australia, Canberra.
Lines, William J. (1991) Taming the Great South Land: A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Lyndon, Jane (2005) Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians, Durham, Duke University Press.
Macneil, Rod (2001) 'Time after time: temporal frontiers and boundaries in colonial images of the Australian landscape', in Lynette Russell (ed.) Colonial Frontiers: Indigenous-European Encounters in Settler Societies, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
Mary Bennet to Travers Buxton, (21 February, 1929). In letters Travers Buxton, AntiSlavery and Aborigines Protection Society, Mss Brit Emp s19, Rhodes House Library, Oxford.
Mary Bennett to Travers Buxton, Honorary Secretary, (February 21, 1929) Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society Papers, MSS Brit Emp S 19, Rhodes House Archives, Oxford.
Maynard, John (2003) 'Vision, Voice and Influence: The Rise of the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association', Australian Historical Studies, 34, 121 (April): 91-105.
Maynard, John (2005) '"In the Interests of Our People": The Influence of Garveyism on the Rise of Australian Aborigines' Political Activism', Aboriginal History, 29: 1-22.
McGregor, Russell (1997) Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1880-1939, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press.
McKenzie, John (ed.) (1990) Imperialism and the Natural World, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Mirams, Sarah (2002) '"For their Moral Health": James Barrett, Urban Progressive Ideas and National Park Reservation in Victoria', Australian Historical Studies, 120 (October): 249-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/10314610208596218
Nettelbeck, Amanda and Foster, Robert (2007) In the Name of the Law: William Willshire and the Policing of the Australian Frontier, Wakefield Press, Kent Town. P.N. Hutton, P.N. 'The Importance of Being Ernst: The Forgotten First Australian Official Overseas Representative Outside the British Empire', MS 9523, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
Paisley, Fiona (2006) 'An "education in white brutality": Anthony Martin Fernando and Australian Aboriginal rights in transnational context', in Annie Coombes (ed.) Rethinking Settler Colonialism: History and Memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa, Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Pepper, David (1996) Modern Environmentalism: An Introduction, London, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203412244
Proceedings of the Berne Conference for the International Protection of Nature, 19 November 1913, Document No 9, Political Dept, 24 e 7, Swiss Archives, Berne.
Reece, Bob and Stannage, Tom (1984) European-Aboriginal Relations in Western Australian History, Studies in Western Australian History VIII, December.
Robin, Libby (1994) 'Nature Conservation as a National Concern: The Role of the Australian Academy of Science', Historical Records of Australian Science, 10 (1), June pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9941010001
Robin, Libby (2002) 'Nationalising Nature: Wattle Days in Australia', Journal of Australian Studies, 73: 13-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443050209387762
Sarasin, Fritz (1941) About a Happy Life, Frobenius, A.G. Basel.
Sarasin, Paul (1911) The Global Protection of Nature, Emil Birkhauser, Basle, BAR, E. 2200, 40, -123, Bd, p. 2, Swiss Archives, Berne.
Sarasin, Paul (1913) About the Tasks of International World Conservation. Expose read at the conference of all delegates of international conservation, Bern, 18 November 1913, Emil Birkhauser, Basel, Swiss Archives, Berne.
Spaull, Andrew (1986) 'McBride, Sir Peter (1967-1923)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 10, Melbourne University Press.
Spencer, Baldwin 'Preliminary Report of the Aboriginals of the Northern Territory', Bulletin No. 7, National Library of Australia.
Stehik, Brigitte (1986) 'Herman Klaatsch and the Tiwi, 1906', Aboriginal History, 10(1): 59-77.
Tabili, Laura (1994) "We Ask for British Justice": Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
Travers Buxton to M. Claparede, letter dated (2 July, 1924). Mss 22 Brit Empire, 471, International Bureau, Geneva. Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford.
Van Kirk, Sylvia (1983) Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870, Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press.
Van Toorn, Penny (2006) Writing Never Arrives Naked: Early Aboriginal Cultures of Writing in Australia, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Venbrux, Eric (1999) '(Dis)closure: Baldwin Spencer's Collecting of Artifacts from Melville and Bathurst Islands (northern Australia), Focaal, 34: 59-78.
White, Richard (1994 [1991])The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Wolfe, Patrick (1999) Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London.