Tera Nullius the national identity of the Australians | Assignment Help
How did the term Tera Nullius shaped the national identity of the Australians?
Introduction:
Today, there aren’t any Aboriginals left in the world but Australia is one of those countries that still have a few percent of Indigenous living in the country. The Aboriginals are still a marginalized community in the country and aren’t given the appropriate rights. They are discriminated at every step of the way and aren’t considered a part of the Australian community. However, they are the true residents of the country. Before colonization the country didn’t have large population but Australia involved few locals that didn’t have any connection with other countries. The country only included three hundred thousand Aboriginals that were scattered over the whole continent. On each land few groups of Indigenous individuals lived in the country, each group consisted of three to four individuals. It is considered that the term terra nullius has shaped the national identity of Australia, terra nullius is a concept used for a land that didn’t belong to any one. The Aboriginals living in Australia have been given attention for a few years now and before that they weren’t given their equal rights. Many policies have been introduced to help the Indigenous of the country to be out of poverty and get the basic necessities that an individual needs to survive. The essay will discuss with the help of the literature that how did the term shaped the national identity of the Australians or not. It will argue that if the term is a myth or not with the help of academic evidence.
The true meaning of Tera Nullius means “a land belonging to no one” , Australia was the only country that was named ‘terra nullius’ after the colonization by the British empire from 1788 to 1992. The country is best defined as terra nullius before and after British colonization and the term is still used for a few areas of Australia that are purely unoccupied. Australia was truly terra nullius, after the expedition of James Cook who set out to find any land that exists in the South. He came across Australia that was sparsely populated which means people used to live in groups along the coast line. The Aboriginals weren’t good in trading, farming and cultivation, this country was appropriate for a colony. However, Cook was ordered not to conquer the land without the consent of the Aboriginal living over there. The British government was all set to send Arthur Phillip to New South Wales in 1780 to take over the land but Cook stated that they didn’t need to take over the land by force. The reason was that the Aboriginals were the most senseless and stupid among all the Aboriginals around the world. The Britishers perceived them as the ugliest of all and compared them to a monkey. The true meaning of the term terra nullius applied to Australia as the population was very low and the people had no autonomy over the continent. The term terra nullius is not a myth but it was made a part of the internal law by Camille Piccioni at the end of the 18th century. In other words, terra nullius was used for an “absence of no property” along with autonomy as it is self explanatory that a land with no property has been exploited enough to create autonomy.
The term terra nullius had some part in shaping the national identity of the Australians, the Aboriginal individuals in the country are still the marginalized community. This all started when the British empire colonized the country at the end of the eighteenth century. The British empire didn’t take over any land by force but the Australian land was unique as the population was low and was sparsely allocated around the country. Australia did not have any laws or regulations, even the country didn’t have a sense of autonomy. It was easy for the Britishers to conquer this continent and implemented a doctrine that stated the “property of ownership” which means the Aboriginal had no authority over the lands. This doctrine was implemented on the bases of John Locker’s seventeenth century concept. There was some political sense in the Aboriginal Australians, the one with some political authority were called hordes that were around seven to eight thousand. They didn’t align with other territories or traded with others, they just lived amongst themselves and took pride in their lands and traditions. From 1910 to 1970, the country implemented a policy that would take Aboriginal children from their families and allocated them to the white European families living in Australia, to mix the races and help the children to be more white. This would tarnish the culture of the Aboriginals and make them even more marginalized. This happened until 1970, many other policies were also implemented to get rid of the Aboriginal individuals from Australia. However, in 1999 the children were united with their families and the Commonwealth apologized to these individuals. Moreover, in 2008 the Prime Minster apologized for all the inconvenience the Aboriginals faced.
The concept of terra nullius has impacted the Australians greatly and their effects are still visible today, when settlers came to settle in the new colony, they would simply take over any piece of land with little or no force. This country was termed as ‘terra nullius’ that gave way to many settlers to take control over any land they like. The Aboriginal weren’t considered human, their feelings or culture weren’t given any attention and the new settlers disregarded them due to the brutal colonization. The new settlers were mostly English-speaking Britishers. The way of life of Aboriginals weren’t considered as the Australian way of life and today a normal Australian is white, maintaining a middle class status in the society. Any individual apart from this image isn’t considered an Australian, the Aboriginals were marginalized since the beginning due to their personality, their color and they represented themselves to the world. They first census of the Aboriginals were counted in 1971, this means that they weren’t even considered as a part of the population. Australia wasn’t fertile before colonization as it is today, the country had very few Indigenous animals used by the individuals. The literature portrays that the Indigenous Australians weren’t like other Aboriginals around the world, these Indigenous individuals didn’t have any authority on their lands. The right to their lands weren’t considered by the states they didn’t have the sense of sovereignty due to which it was easy for the British Empire to take over these lands. Cook termed the sparsely populated country as terra nullius that means no man’s land in simple words.
Conclusion:
The term terra nullius means a land that belongs to no one, this term is said to shape the national identity of Australians that is true in some way. Terra nullius is said to be a myth but it is a reality, this term is also a part of the international law. Australia is truly called terra nullius because before colonization this country was meagerly populated, the locals at that time didn’t have any sense of politics or sovereignty. The country didn’t entail any law or regulation to own a piece of land, they weren’t fond of trading or cultivation; the Aboriginals were only proficient in hunting and gathering. The Britishers found it easier to colonize these lands without any force and politicize the state according to them. The Indigenous were marginalized from the start in terms of color, caste, culture, ownership of any kind and employment until today. The country has time again made the Aboriginals lives unbearable by introducing policies that take their children away from them and allocate them in some white European race house. This was intended to make the children act and sound like the white individuals. The Aboriginals were seen as the ugliest indigenous around the world, they were even compared to monkeys. The Abdominals have fought for their rights and are still fighting for it; however, they aren’t accepted in different sectors of the countries. The root cause of all this is terra nullius.
Reference List:
Banner, S., Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia. Law and History Review, vol. 23, no. 1, 2005, p.95–131
Fitzmaurice, A., The genealogy of terra nullius. Australian Historical Studies, vol. 38, no. 29, 2007, p. 1-15.
Foley, A., Terra Nullius: The Aborigines in Australia’. Pell Scholar and Senior Theses, 2009, p. 1-144.
Geisler, C., New Terra Nullius Narratives and the Gentrification of Africa’s” Empty Lands”. Journal of World-Systems Research, vol.18, no.1, 2012, p. 15-29
Peters, A., Moondani Yulenj: An examination of Aboriginal culture, identity and education artefact and exegesis, PhD thesis, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, 2017.
