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Editors --- "Proclamation of Ngarrindjeri Dominium" [2000] AUIndigLawRpr 9; (2000) 5(1) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 97

Indigenous Statements - Australia

Proclamation of Ngarrindjeri Dominium

Kumarangk/Hindmarsh Island, South Australia
22 November 1999

This proclamation was made by Ngarrindjeri leader Matt Rigney on Sunday 22 November 1999, at the construction site of the Hindmarsh Island bridge on Kumarangk/Hindmarsh Island in South Australia in the presence of more than three hundred Ngarrindjeri people and their supporters, as well as police and project security.

While the proclamation was read, a specially designed Ngarrindjeri flag was raised for the first time by many other Ngarrindjeri leaders, as hundreds of smaller flags were also handed around.

At the official South Australian Proclamation Day ceremony held in the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg on 28 December 1999, the South Australian Governor, Sir Eric Neale, accepted a declaration from representatives of the South Australian Aboriginal community. This statement echoed this Ngarrindjeri proclamation in denouncing the unlawful nature and genocidal impact of colonisation, and in asserting ongoing Aboriginal sovereignty in South Australia.^[1]

TO THE NON-ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF ‘THE STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA’.

Greetings!

1. WHEREAS by statute assented to in 1834, the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain proposed to declare certain lands wrongly presumed by Preamble to be ‘waste and unoccupied’ in a ‘province of South Australia’ to be established without notice to its Indigenous inhabitant proprietors, to be ‘open to purchase by British subjects’ upon its establishment [s 6, South Australia Act 4&5 William IV, cap 95];

2. WHEREAS in December 1835 at London, the South Australian Colonizing Commission denied on behalf of the promoters of the said Province ‘this declaration of the legislature as absolutely rebutting, the title of any aboriginal inhabitants of the proposed Colony to the occupation of the Soil’ [CO 13/3];

3. WHEREAS on 6 January 1836 at London, the South Australian Colonizing Commission agreed to submit ‘arrangements for purchasing the lands of the natives of the province of South Australia’ to the Colonial Office at the request by letter of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Glenelg;

4. WHEREAS in their First Report to the Parliament of the said United Kingdom the South Australian Colonizing Commission agreed that ‘the locations of the colonists will be conducted on the principle of securing to the natives [sic] their proprietary right to the soil’— so as to require cession of any territory to be ‘perfectly voluntary’ [First Annual Report of the South Australian Colonizing Commissioners, House of Commons, 1836 Sessional Papers 36 No 491; 39 No 426, 8-9];

5. WHEREAS the said arrangements proposed that the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain allow the opening for public sale in England of ‘those lands uninhabited or not in the occupation and enjoyment of the Native race’ in ‘the province of South Australia’;

6. WHEREAS the said arrangements proposed that –

‘should the Natives occupying or enjoying any lands comprised within the surveys directed by the Colonial Commissioner not surrender their right to such lands by a voluntary sale’;

Then in that case the Colonizing Commissioners have two duties, namely:

ONE [The first Duty]
‘to secure to the Natives the full and undisturbed occupation or enjoyment of those lands’,

and

TWO [The Second Duty]
‘to afford them legal redress against depredations and trespasses’;

7. WHEREAS by Letters Patent of 1836 issued to Governor Hindmarsh in London the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain purported to allow the said Colonizing Commissioner to begin embarking British subjects upon certain commercial terms on ships and sail for South Australia on condition:

‘that nothing in these Letters Patent contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any aboriginal Natives of the said province to the actual occupation or enjoyment in their persons or in the persons of their descendants of any lands now actually occupied or enjoyed by such Natives’[CO13/3];

8. WHEREAS clause 34 of the Instruction to the Resident Colonizing Commissioner guaranteed that:

‘no lands which the natives may possess in occupation or enjoyment be offered for sale until previously ceded by the natives’ [The Select Committee on the Aborigines, Report, 19 September 1860, Legislative Council of the Parliament of South Australia, 5];

9. WHEREAS clause 35 of the said Instructions to the Resident Colonizing Commissioner required that:

‘the aborigines are not disturbed in the enjoyment of the lands over which they may possess proprietary rights, and of which they are not disposed to make a voluntary sale’ and required ‘evidence of the faithful fulfillment of the bargains or treaties which you may effect with the aborigines for the cessation of lands’ [op cit];

NOW TAKE NOTICE THAT

NGARRINDJERI HAVE ALWAYS OCCUPIED THIS PLACE

NGARRINDJERI HAVE NEVER CEDED NOR SOLD THIS LAND.

Accordingly I, Matt Rigney of Ngarrindjeri, having been properly authorised in the Ngarrindjeri way to make this proclamation on behalf of all Ngarrindjeri, do hereby

declare and proclaim

this place and this land as shown on the attached map of the Lands Titles Office of the State of South Australia and delineated as D28145 of the Hundred of Nangkita, and all Crown Land appurtenant thereto, including all waters, foreshore and riverbed thereof,

is now and always has been occupied by Ngarrindjeri.

THEREFORE WE HUMBLY REQUIRE THAT YOUR CROWN FORTHWITH RECOGNISE THE DOMINIUM OF NGARRINDJERI IN THE SOIL, AS IS THEIR ORIGINAL RIGHT AND DOMINION EVIDENCED BY THEIR NATIVE RIGHT, AND;

ONE

Transfer the particular Certificate of Title to the said land from the Crown to Ngarrindjeri [in order to ‘secure to Ngarrindjeri the full and undisturbed occupation or enjoyment of this land’ as set out in clause 4 above — The First Duty],

and

TWO

Stop the construction of the proposed Hindmarsh Island Bridge [so as to ‘afford Ngarrindjeri legal redress against depredations and trespasses’ to this particular place and this particular land as set out it clause 4 above — The Second Duty].

Given under my hand and the Public Seal of Ngarrindjeri

at the said land at Goolwa on Sunday the 21^st day of November 1999.

..................[signed MG Rigney]...............

Matt Rigney

Recorded in Register of Ngarrindjeri Proclamations, Vol 1, Page 1, Record no 1. [initialised MGR]..........................................................

Copies transmitted this day to

• Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
• The Governor of South Australia [the Representative of the Crown, acting with the advice and consent of the Executive Council].

The Ngarrindjeri Nation calls on the SA Government to meet with the Ngarrindjeri leaders and Elders to negotiate a Treaty between both governments.

^[1] For an account of the Ngarrendjeri campaign to halt construction of the Hindmarsh Island bridge, see ‘Unfinished Business: a history of flawed decision-making’[1999] IndigLawB 95; , [1999] 4 (25) Indigenous Law Bulletin 19; G Ogle, ‘Defamation processes and the Hindmarsh Island bridge campaign’[2000] IndigLawB 2; , [1999] 4 (26) Indigenous Law Bulletin 7.