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Holmes, Marcus --- "Book Review - Nyungah Land: Records of Invasion and Theft of Aboriginal Land on the Swan River 1829 - 1850" [2006] IndigLawB 53; (2006) 6(22) Indigenous Law Bulletin 8


Book Review

Nyungah Land: Records of Invasion and Theft of Aboriginal Land on the Swan River 1829-1850

Bevan Carter

Black History Series (Swan Valley Nyungah Community), 2005

review by Marcus Holmes

Bevan Carter, a former local government Mayor in suburban Perth, has compiled, with research assistance from Lynda Nutter, an array of historical information from letters, colonial records, diaries and newspapers which document the impact of contact between British officials, soldiery and settlers and Indigenous peoples in the wider Perth region in the mid 19th Century.

There is no doubt that this is an important and topical collection of records. In an era where the Federal Government’s leader and some historians robustly deny or discount the reality of a troubling ‘black armband’ view of history, such a collection is an important set of facts that must not be discounted. They are facts that are just as much a part of real Australian history as our intrepid white explorers, larrikin ANZACs and, of course, Sir Robert Menzies.

In addition, the book has come out at a time when the Federal Court has now determined that despite the impact of contact, there is a robust native title to Perth and its environs.[1]

The book appears at a time when it is clear that Nyungah People are as determined as ever to retain their culture, including their rights to protect and use country, despite the refusal of the Western Australian Government to ‘take it on the chin’ and accept the umpire’s verdict that native title has survived in the State’s Capital. As the Foreword highlights:

The harsh treatment there and then did not dishearten or weaken the grassroots Aboriginal People in their Culture and their Spiritual Beliefs and their Spiritual Dreaming which are still here today…[2]

Carter makes it clear from the outset as to who he thinks the ‘bad guys’ are in 1829 when the Swan River Colony was proclaimed. Discussing the proclamation in his Introduction, Carter states – with a degree of subjective spleen – that

by this time they [the British] had been stealing land so frequently that they must have believed “Might is Right”![3]

Carter’s thesis is that many British officials and settlers knew full well that they were wrongfully taking another People’s lands, and he and Nutter have assembled an array of records to support this. Carter maintains that the British understood the Indigenous relationship to country and there is a lesser amount of evidence to back this view. Australia’s politicians and courts are still grappling to understand that Indigenous link with country, and the contemporary notion of ‘native title’ captures only some of the interface between black and white laws; not the richness of true past and contemporary Indigenous connection with country.

The book presents much material from the 1830s but far less from the 1840s to 1850, almost as if troving through records – records that set out a strong culture under siege – became too burdensome. Through the records we read of the loss of the original Perth area Nyungah leaders; the start of welfare and increasing dependence through rationing – almost immediately in some areas – once local game had been killed or driven away; the taking of Nyungah women; the introduction of the Church; the application of the justice system; and the role of the military.

A minor criticism is the layout of the footnotes in text at the side of each page rather than at the foot of each page or at chapter ends, and a curious practice of showing photos of the front cover of particular books and manuscripts, often in print too small to easily read. In addition, some of the citations from documents would be better, and more effective, as extracts rather than lengthy quotation of the whole text. The anti-British invective of the author is not always backed by facts but baldly stated as fact nevertheless.

Nyungah Land is an important contribution to post-contact Australian history, collating in one slim volume some important records that help to flesh out more understanding of what really happened when the British decided to come. It should be a core part of the texts viewed by high school and university students studying Australian history, and, as the Foreword concludes, this ‘truth from the whitefellas’ own records’ should ideally ‘be read by everyone’.

Marcus Holmes taught Indigenous history at high school in the 1980s and later became a native title lawyer, acting for Nyungah people and other Indigenous people in Western Australia. Marcus is currently a Partner at Perth firm, Taylor Linfoot and Holmes.


[1] Bennell v State of Western Australia [2006] FCA 1243.

[2] Bevan Carter, Nyungah Land: Records of Invasion and Theft of Aboriginal Land on the Swan River 1829-1850 (2005) v.

[3] Ibid, x.


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