Black Words Historical Events Calendar

The Australian Literature Resource

BLACK WORDS HISTORICAL EVENTS CALENDAR

Many of the significant dates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are the subject of some of the writing or author records listed in the Black Words subset.

Click on the time line to see what happened in a particular historical period and then check out the content in Black Words.

1788-1849

1788	Captain Arthur Phillip raises the Union Jack at Sydney Cove, New South Wales. Resistance is immediate. Search title: Pemulwuy. Search subject: Pemulwuy, Bennelong
1814	The establishment of the 'native institution' at Parramatta, New South Wales, by Governor Macquarie 'to civilise, educate and foster habits of industry and decency in the Aborigines'. Search subject: Cootamundra
1824	Conflict with Aboriginal people in the Bathurst, New South Wales, district becomes such a threat to white settlement that martial law was proclaimed. Search subject: Windradyne
1838	Myall Creek massacre, New South Wales. Search title: Myall Creek Massacre

1850-1879

1863	Labourers from the Pacific Islands introduced to Queensland
1868	One hundred and fifty Aboriginal people are killed resisting arrest in the Kimberleys, Western Australia First overseas cricket tour leaves Sydney, New South Wales, for England. The team is all Aboriginal
1871	The Coming of the Light begins on 1 July 1871 when missionary Reverend Samuel MacFarlane arrives in the Torres Straits. The day is celebrated annually on 1 July by Torres Strait Islander people and signifies the coming of Christianity. Many aspects of Christianity are incorporated into the Islanders' existing religious and spiritual ceremonies. There are many celebrations, gatherings and church services by community across the Torres Strait Islands. The re-enactment of the missionaries landing takes place on (Erub) Darnley Island. Search subject: Coming of the Light
1876	Tasmania's Truganini dies. Search title and subject: Truganini

1880-1919

1881	Protector of Aborigines is appointed in New South Wales. Search title: Protector
1888	The phrase 'White Australia' appears in William Lane's Boomerang in Brisbane, Queensland. Search title: White Australia and subject: White Australia
1890	Jandamarra (or Pigeon), an Aboriginal resistance fighter, declares war on white invaders in the West Kimberleys, Western Australia, and prevents settlement for six years. Search subject Jandamarra
1909	New South Wales Protection Act: Aboriginal children stolen. Search: Stolen Generations

1920-1949

1927	Aboriginal people are banned from central Perth, Western Australia, until 1948
1928	Conniston massacre, Northern Territory. Whites admit killing seventeen Aboriginal people after a white dingo trapper was killed
1938	On 26 January an Australian Aboriginal Peoples conference is held in Sydney, New South Wales. It is the first of many Aboriginal protest demonstrations against inequality and injustice. In the 'celebration' of New South Wales, Aboriginal people from Western New South Wales are trucked to Sydney and threatened with starvation unless they play their appointed role in the re-enactment of the events of 26 January 1788. Search title: Day of Mourning New South Wales Government changes Aboriginal policy from protection to assimilation. Search: Assimilation
1939	World War II: Aboriginal volunteers are rejected Protest by Aboriginal people at Cummeroogunga, New South Wales, over malnutrition and ill treatment
1943	Exemption certificates introduced to make Aboriginal people white
1950	Aboriginal children assimilated into local schools in New South Wales, if all other parents agree

1950-1969

1963	In July a bark petition against the mining on the Gove Peninsula, Northern Territory, is drawn up by senior men of the affected clans. On 28 August the petition is presented to the Governor General, and it is signed by more senior clan members. The Federal Parliament fails to recognise Aboriginal political structure and rejects the petition because of insufficient signatures
1965	The Federal Government adopts a policy of integration of Aboriginal people. Freedom rides by Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal students led by Charles Perkins through New South Wales protesting segregation. Search title: Integration Australian Labor Party drops the White Australia policy. Search title and subject: White Australia
1966	23 August: Aboriginal people awarded equal pay. In the Northern Territory this is deferred for three years on the grounds of hardship for employers Stockmen and women at Wave Hill, Northern Territory, walk off in protest against intolerable working conditions and inadequate wages. Walk-outs – strikes or fights between blacks and whites, as they were sometimes referred to – were recorded as far back as 1938 with the declaration of the Day of Mourning. The 1946 Pilbara Strike became famous as did a strike as late as 1973 in the Victoria River District. The most notorious and famed walk-off is the 1966 walk-off of the Gurindji people at Wave Hill The Gurindji Strike on Wave Hill Station began on 23 August 1966. The walk-off to Daguragu (Wattie Creek) was led by Vincent Lingiarri in response to the Arbitration Commission's decision to not pay Aboriginal pastoral workers equal wages. It would not be until 1968 that the poor conditions meted out by station owner Lord Vestey was recognised by the Government of the day. The Gurindji people were supporting their rights to equal wages and equal treatment of their people. Monies and basic food and health care given Lord Vestey by the Government for the provisioning of Aboriginal people on his property are withheld. These monies include child endowment, housing and wages. Food and health care are also withheld and are only given out on rare occasions In the early stages of the walk-off, the Government threatens to kick the Gurindji people off their land. In a turn of events the Government offers to build houses, but the Gurindji people stand firm. Public opinion begins to swing in the Gurindji's favour and with the success of the 1967 referendum they gather support. In 1972, after the election of the Australian Labor Party, land rights are back on the agenda and a small parcel of land is returned to the Gurindji people. The petition to the Government states Our people lived here from time immemorial, and our culture, myths, dreaming and sacred places have evolved in this land. Many of our forefathers were killed in the early days while trying to retain it. Therefore we feel that morally the land is ours and should be returned to us. Broome, 1982: 177 It is not until nine years later that the Gurindji people are recognised as the traditional owners and acknowledged by the newly elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam when he poured sand into Vincent Lingiarri's hand. Today a large section of this country is owned and maintained by the Gurindji people. Search any of the following subject headings: Land rights, Gurindji, Wave Hill, Vincent Lingiari. Search title: Vincent Lingiari, Wattie Creek
1967	Commonwealth Referendum Commonwealth Government now able to legislate on Aboriginal people Aboriginal people granted citizenship. Search title: Referendum. Search subject, title and author: Faith Bandler
1968	The Aboriginal community of Yirrkala, Northern Territory, brings action against Nabalco Pty Ltd and the Commonwealth that becomes known as the Gove Land Rights Case. The action seeks to prove the Doctrine of Communal Native Title that leases granted under the legislation are invalid and the company's operation unlawful. Search title and subject: Yirrkala Aborigines Welfare Board, New South Wales, abolished

1970-1989

1971	Gumatj Elders Millrrpum and others take on Nabalco Pty Ltd and the Commonwealth of Australia in the Gove Land Rights Case. Following on from the presentation of a bark petition, Noonkanbah, Western Australia, station workers walk off. Larrakia people 'sit-in' at Bagot Road, Darwin, Northern Territory, as a protest of the theft of their land. Search subject Noonkanbah
1972	Aboriginal people pitch their Tent Embassy outside Parliament House in Canberra. Search title: Tent Embassy. Search subject: Tent Embassy. Search author: Kevin Gilbert The Whitlam Government brings in a policy of self-determination. Search: Self determination
1978	Kevin Gilbert's oral history, Living Black, wins the National Book Council Award.
1980	The National Federation of Land Councils is formed giving a united voice to the Land Rights movement throughout Australia
1983	New South Wales Land Rights Act
1984	Prime Minister Bob Hawke announces the removal of Aboriginal Peoples' limited right to say 'yes or no' to mining on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory
1985	Uluru handed back to Traditional Owners
1986	Jack Davis's play, No Sugar, receives international acclaim when it represents Australia at the World Theatre Festival in Canada, and is co-winner that year of the Australian Writers' Guild award for best original stage play.
1987	Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody begins. Search: Aboriginal deaths in custody
1988	26 January: Survival Day March celebrating Aboriginal survival. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with supporters from around Australia converge on Sydney, New South Wales, to protest.
1989	Graeme Dixon wins the inaugural David Unaipon Award for Holocaust Island.
1990	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) comes. Doris Pilkington Gari Mara wins the David Unaipon Award for Caprice: A Stockman's Daughter. Jimmy Chi's musical Bran Nue Dae tours Australia.

1990-2007

1991	Final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody is released. Search subject: Custody, Aboriginal deaths Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation formed. Search subject: Reconciliation, title: Reconciliation Bill Dodd wins the David Unaipon Award for Broken Dreams. Bill Rosser wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for his book Up Rode the Troopers: The Black Police in Queensland.
1992	High Court Decision: The High Court of Australia brings down its decision that rewrites Australia's law on the impact of colonisation. Australia was not terra nullius when invaded by the British in 1788 but occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples who had their own laws and customs and whose 'native title' to land survived the Crown's annexation of Australia Each year since 1992 Mabo Day is celebrated on 3 June in respect of the Elders Eddie Mabo, James Rice, Father Paul Passi, Sam Passi and Celuia Mapo Salee who were the five plaintiffs in a landmark case brought against the Queensland Government in 1982. It is not until 1992 that the High Court declares that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985 contravenes section 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975). Mabo Day is a result of this landmark decision by the High Court of Australia that overruled the legality of terra nullius that failed to recognise Indigenous Peoples' prior occupation where Native Title had not been extinguished Mabo Day is named after Eddie Mabo a Meriam man from the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait. Mabo Day also marks the last day of Reconciliation Week and commemorates Indigenous voices and supports the co-existence of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people Australia wide. Search title and subject: Mabo, Native title, Terra nullius. Search author: Mabo Jack Davis wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for his play, No Sugar. Philip McLaren wins the David Unaipon Award for Sweet Water-Stolen Land.
1993	John Muk Muk Burke wins the David Unaipon Award for Bridge of Triangles.
1994	Valda Gee and Rosalie Medcraft win the David Unaipon Award for The Sausage Tree.
1995	Warrigal Anderson wins the David Unaipon Award for Warrigal's Way. Kevin Gilbert wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for poetry for his collection, Black from the Edge. Inquiry into the Stolen Children conducted by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Search title: Bringing Them Home and subject: Aboriginal family separation
1996	High Court Wik decision: Native Title co-exists with leasehold property rights but in the event of conflict, the rights of the leaseholder will prevail. Search title: Wik Reconciliation Week: Celebrated annually on 27 May. Reconciliation Week began nationally in 1996. It starts on 27 May and runs till 3 June every year. The week is designed to celebrate differences whilst bringing people together and making people aware of the disadvantages of Indigenous people. Reconciliation Week is also about celebrating our past and our future and in the process informing others of Indigenous history and culture. Search title: Reconciliation. Search subject: Reconciliation Steven McCarthy wins the David Unaipon Award for Black Angels Red Blood.
1997	John Bodey wins the David Unaipon Award for When Darkness Falls. John Harding wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for his play Up The Road. Bringing Them Home: The 'Stolen Children' Report delivered. Search title: Bringing Them Home and subject: Aboriginal family separation
1998	Ruth Hegarty wins the David Unaipon Award for Is that You, Ruthie? Kevin Gilbert is awarded, and refuses, the Human Rights Award for Literature. First Sorry Day on 26 May. The first national Sorry Day was a result of one of the recommendations from Bringing Them Home: The 'Stolen Children' Report by Sir Ronald Wilson. This day is in recognition of the inhumane treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders by the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families by government policies such as the 1905 Act. Sorry Day is now an annual event year with community activities such as marches, the signing of 'Sorry Day' books and the creation of websites and artworks marking the the beginning of Reconciliation Week. Search title: Sorry Day and Sorry
1999	Samuel Wagan Watson wins the David Unaipon Award for Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight. Kim Scott wins the Western Australian Premier's Book Award in both the fiction and overall categories for Benang: From the Heart.
2000	Vivienne Cleven wins the David Unaipon Award for Bitin' Back. Corroboree 2000 and the Walk for Reconciliation. Search title: Walk for Reconciliation Cathy Freeman wins gold at the Sydney Olypmics. Search Subject: Cathy Freeman Kim Scott wins Miles Franklin Literary Award (shared with Thea Astley) for his novel Benang: From the Heart. John Muk Muk Burke wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for his poetry collection Night Song and Other Poems.
2001	Robert Lowe wins the David Unaipon Award for The Mish. Kim Scott wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for his novel Benang: From the Heart.
2002	Larissa Behrendt wins the David Unaipon Award for Home. Jane Harrison and Dallas Winmar are joint winners of the Kate Challis RAKA Award: Jane Harrison for her play Stolen, and Dallas Winmar for her play Aliwa!.
2003	Fiona Doyle wins the David Unaipon Award for Whispers of This Wik Woman
2004	Tara June Winch wins the David Unaipon Award for Swallow the Air
2005	Yvette Holt wins the David Unaipon Award for Anonymous Premonition Alexander Brown wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for the poetry collection Ngarla Songs. Brown had worked with the linguist Brian Geytenbeek to collect, translate and assemble the most telling songs of the Ngarla people (who retain their ownership of these songs). In the resulting poems in English Brown gives us images, movement and gestures with a direct physicality. Larissa Behrendt wins the Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best First Book for Home. Ruby Langford Ginibi wins the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Special Award. Wesley Enoch wins the Patrick White Playwrights' Award for The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table.
2006	Vivienne Cleven wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for her two distinctive and accomplished novels Bitin' Back and Her Sister's Eye. These works challenge stereotypes and give a previously unexpressed voice to Indigenous experience in rural Queensland. Tara June Winch wins the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, Prize for Indigenous Writing for Swallow the Air, and is shortlisted for Arts the Queensland Steele Rudd Australian Short Story Award, and the Age Book of the Year Award, Fiction Prize. Tara is highly commended in the FAW Christina Stead Award and commended in the Kate Challis RAKA Award. She receives special mention in the Manning Clark House National Cultural Awards, Individual Category and is nominated in the Deadly Sounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment and Community Awards, Outstanding Achievement in Literature. Gayle Kennedy wins the David Unaipon Award for Me, Antman, and Fleabag . Wesley Enoch's play The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table, is produced in Tokyo as part of the Dramatic Australia Festival at the Repertory Theatre KAZE. Performed in Japanese with translation by Keiji Sawada and Rei Sudo. Ruby Langford Ginibi wins Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships, Writers' Emeritus Award.
2007	May 25: The 1967 Referendum is commemorated around Australia including a panel of writers at the Sydney Writers Festival with Anita Heiss, Richard Frankland, Ruby Langford Ginibi, Aden Ridgeway and Lilian Holt. Tara June Winch wins the Nita May Dobbie Award, and the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, UTS Award for New Writing for Swallow the Air. Tara is joint winner in The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist of the Year, and is shortlisted in the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Newcomer of the Year. Alexis Wright wins the Miles Franklin Literary Award, for Carpentaria. For the same epic novel she wins the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, The Age Book of the Year Award, Fiction Prize, the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Fiction Book, the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year. Carpentaria was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book, and was nominated for the Deadly Sounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment and Community Awards, Outstanding Achievement in Literature. Anita Heiss wins the Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Poetry for her collection I'm not racist, but ... a collection of social observations. She also wins the Deadly Sounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment and Community Awards, Outstanding Achievement in Literature for her chicklit novel Not Meeting Mr Right. Elizabeth Hodgson wins the David Unaipon Award for Skin Painting. Richard Frankland's Digger J Jones is nominated for the Deadly Sounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment and Community Awards, Outstanding Achievement in Literature. Search keyword: 1967 Referendum Jane Garlil Christophersen is nominated for a Deadly Sounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment and Community Awards, Outstanding Achievement in Literature for Kakadu Calling: stories for kids. Wesley Enoch's play The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table is produced by Griffin Theatre Company at SBW Stables Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Marion Potts. Tammy Anderson's solo show Itchy Clacker is presented by Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre at the Melbourne Comedy festival at Powder Room, Melbourne Town Hall. Black Words is officially launched at Sydney Writers Festival by Anita Heiss, Larissa Behrendt and Tara June Winch. A plenary session on Black Words and teaching Indigenous literature is held at the annual Association for the Study of Australian Literature conference at The University of Queensland in July. Ruby Langford Ginibi wins National NAIDOC Awards, Elder of the Year (Female). Search keyword: NAIDOC The documentary Kanyini, the story of author and storyteller Bob Randall is voted 'best documentary' at the London Australian Film Festival. Fiona Doyle's biography of her grandmother Whispers of this Wik Woman, premiers at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane, produced by Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts Company. Sam Watson makes his playwriting debut with The Mack, written in association with the Brisbane-based Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts Company, and first performed at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane.

2008

In an historic act of reconciliation on the first full day of the 42nd Parliament of Australia, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offers an apology to the Stolen Generations. Search keyword: Stolen Generations

The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature is published by Allen & Unwin and brings together for the first time 81 Aboriginal writers, songwriters, playwrights, poets, social commentators, journalists, cultural activists and political heroes in one volume. Marking the evolution of Aboriginal literature in English from Bennelong's letter in 1796 right through to Alexis Wrights' Carpentaria (2006), the anthology is targeted at the education sector with an on-line teachers' guide designed to assist use of the book in the classroom (http://www.macquariepenanthology.com.au/). The book has been published in Canada my McGill-Queens for the North American market.

Yvette Holt won the Scanlon Prize for Poetry and the Victorian Premier's Prize for Indigenous Writing for her poetry collection Anonymous Premonition

Tara June Winch was awarded the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative (2008) Literature Mentorship - to be mentored by Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka

The second national Indigenous Literacy Day was held to raise much needed funds for literacy projects in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Dr Anita Heiss, Alexis Wright and Tara June Winch are ILD Ambassadors.

Marcia Langton was awarded the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate at the 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards for her essay "Trapped in the Aboriginal Reality Show" published in Griffith Review.

Dallas Winmar wrote and Wesley Enoch directed, the play, 'Yibiyung'. Presented at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, the cast included: Jada Alberts, Jimi Bani, Sibylla Budd, Annie Byron, Russell Dykstra, Roxanne McDonald, David Page, Melodie Reynolds and Miranda Tapsell

Written by Scott Rankin and co-creator/key performer Trevor Jamieson, 'Ngapartji Ngapartji' was presented at the Belvoir St Theatre, in Sydney.

Marie Munkara won The David Unaipon for her collection of stories, 'Every Secret Thing'.

Kate Howarth was short-listed for the David Unaipon Award for her manuscript '10 Hail Mary's'.

Jeanine Leane was shortlisted for the David Unaipon Award for her manuscript 'White Elephant'

Wesley Enoch was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Play Award, for The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table, presented by HotHouse Theatre & Griffin Theatre Company.

Anita Heiss & Peter Minter won the 2008 Deadly Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature for the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature.

Anita Heiss releases the French edition of her children's novel on the Stolen Generations Who Am I? The diary of Mary Talence, Sydney 1937. Titled Qui suis-je? Journal de Mary Talence; Sydney 1937 and published by Au Vent des Iles, the book is being targeted at an adult literary audience in all French speaking territories.

Written by Rachel Perkins, Louis Nowra and Beck Cole, The First Australians television series chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia from the perspective of its first people. Over seven episodes the series explores the impact of invasion and colonisation on the oldest living culture in the world.