Chapter 1: Colonial Processes of Enforced Mobility and Immobility

Occupier colonialism is characterised by the endeavour to dispossess First Nations peoples of their lands, cultures, families and laws. Occupiers seek not only the resources of the land but also the settlement of country. In the land now known as Australia – as well as other occupier colonial states of New Zealand (Aotearoa), Canada and the United States – First Nations peoples were forcibly moved off Country and their laws were subordinated to the British jurisdiction. Dispossession has been an ongoing process of containing First Nations mobility and with it, First Nations sovereign claims and connections to Country.

Colonisation of the land known as Australia is uniquely predicated on a failure of the colonisers to enter into treaties with First Nations peoples. While treaties in the United States, Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand between the colonisers and First Nations peoples were largely a ruse to colonise, they nonetheless constituted the formal justification (Edmonds, 2016). In relation to Australia, the British Crown relied on a notion of terra nullius (land without people) to colonise. This notion – although originally without reference to the words ‘terra nullius’ – was formalised with ‘The Proclamation of Governor Bourke 1835’ (UK), which was issued by the Colonial Office (Bourke, 1835). This proclamation was a response to a treaty negotiated between John Batman and the Dutigalla people of the Wurundjeri Nation in Victoria. It proclaimed the Crown's exclusive title to land and that ‘Aboriginal Natives’ have no rights to land to enliven a treaty.