Programa Pintia de Innovación Educativa (2009-2010).

Having sold their ownership ‘natives’ became tenants of the state on government land.478

Studies have shown that Indigenous Peoples tend to live off the land through complex use of farming, hunting, and fishing across Africa and with complex rituals and languages; but their cultures and languages were shattered by colonisation.479 _{Captain Arthur Phillip attests to the fact} that Indigenous Peoples in Australia (e.g., Cammerragal and Cadigal) are the original dwellers of Australia.480 _{In addition to Phillip’s account, archaeological and anthropological findings, as noted} above, show that Indigenous Peoples in Australia and Liberia inhabited the land long before settlers arrived. However, settler-colonists used discourse in the law to aid their justification for dispossessing Indigenous Peoples of their land.481 _{The historical legacy of dislocation and}

475 _{Ibid 138.}

476 _{The Referendum Council, ‘Final Report of the Referendum Council’ (Indigenous Employment and Recognition,}

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 30 June 2017) 183, 16 <https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/final- report>.

477 _{Ibid 17.}

478 _{Wily, above n 304, 73.}

479 _{Heather Douglas, Indigenous Crime and Settler Law: White Sovereignty After Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)}

37.

480 _{Reynolds, Aboriginal Sovereignty, above n 221, 24–25.}

481 _{Paul Keal, European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International} Society (Cambridge University Press, 2003) 113

<http://www.ourpgs.com/books/law/European%20conquest%20rights%20indigenous%20people.pdf>.

dispossession, characterised by social disadvantage482 _{and the forces that would see it continue, is} ever-present.483

According to Reynolds, the concept of terra nullius is ‘the single most important feature of the British expropriation of Aboriginal land’; it enabled the settler-colonists to convince themselves that they had a legal and moral right to the land.484 _{James Prichard opted for complete} extermination should ‘inferior and barbarous’ Aboriginal Peoples reject European civilisation. For exhibiting such inhumane attitudes, June Oscar (2015) calls English settler-colonists, ‘greedy to consume the worlds of others’.485 _{Fanon (1963) rebukes the philosophical ‘justification’ of the} settler-colonists in claiming ownership of what is not theirs:

The settler makes history; his life is an epoch, an odyssey. He is the absolute beginning: “This land was created by us”; he is the unceasing cause: ‘if we leave, all is lost, and the country will go back to the Middle Ages.’ Over against him torpid creatures, wasted by fevers, obsessed by ancestral customs, form an almost inorganic background for the innovating dynamism of colonial mercantilism. The settler makes history and is conscious of making it. And because he constantly refers to the history of his mother country, he clearly indicates that he himself is the extension of that mother country. Thus, the history which he writes is not the history of the country which he plunders but the history of his own nation in regard to all that she skims off, all that she violates and starves. The immobility to which the native is condemned can only be called in question if the native decides to put an end to the history of colonization – the history of pillage – and to bring into existence the history of the nation – the history of decolonization.486

Unfortunately, terra nullius was an idea so repeatedly endorsed that it became a ‘doctrine of discovery’,487 _{accepted first by the settler-colonists and now by most Australians because of a} distorted colonial curriculum taught in schools.488

European Australians, enamoured with false ideas founded in European common law and Christian beliefs, have attempted to address injustices done when they dispossessed Aboriginal Peoples of their lands. Moral and social justice approaches adopted by colonial Australians include (but are not limited to) apology489 _{and sorry}490 _{days. Decolonising approaches and efforts}

482 _{Australian Law Reform Commission, Aboriginal Customary Laws (30 July 2010) Australian Government:}

Australian Law Reform Commission 21 <http://www.alrc.gov.au/inquiries/aboriginal-customary-laws>.

483 _{Keal, above n 481, 113.}

484 _{Reynolds, Dispossession, above n 177, 67.}

485 _{June Oscar, ‘Encountering Truth: The Real Life Stories of Objects from Empire’s Frontier and beyond’ (Menzies}

Lecture Seminar: British Museum Exhibition at the Indigenous Australia Enduring Civilisation, King’s College, London, 29 April 2015) <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/eventrecords/2014-2015/MCAS/June-Oscar.aspx>.

486 _{Fanon, above n 247, 51.} 487 _{Webb, above n 135, 76.}

488 _{Ashley M Foley, Terra Nullius: The Aborigines in Australia (Bachelor Honours of Arts (Honours) Thesis, Salve}

Regina University, 2009) 40

<http://digitalcommons.salve.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=pell_theses>; Sarah Booth, Teaching Aboriginal Curriculum Content in Australian High Schools (Master of Education (Research), Edith Cowan University, 2014) 8 <http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2523&context=theses>; Commonwealth of Australia, ‘The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: History’ (Government Policy, National Curriculum Board, May 2009) 16, 8 <http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/Australian_Curriculum_-_History.pdf>.

489 _{Australian Broadcasting Corporation, National Apology for Forced Adoptions (2013)}

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVbokTpYeg>; Julia Gillard, National Apology for Forced Adoptions

(Attorney-General’s Department, Government of Australia, 2013)

<http://www.ag.gov.au/About/ForcedAdoptionsApology/Pages/default.aspx>.

490 _{Paul Keating, Prime Minister Paul Keating’s Speech at Redfern (AIATSIS, Government of Australia, 1992). A}

coalition of Australian community groups came together in 1998 and declared 26 May as ‘National Sorry Day’ – an annual day to be remorseful of colonial policies that stole some 50 000 Aboriginal children from their families between 1910 and the 1970s.

to reinforce claims to original land ownership include (but are not limited to) Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Country.491 _{Legal justice has taken the form of international law and} domestic land dispute settlements.492 _{International law efforts include founding the United Nations} Trusteeship Council and establishing the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples 1960. But according to Webb, none of these approaches rendered independence to Indigenous Peoples as they are not included in the ‘all peoples’ provision stated above.493 _{Domestic efforts include, but are not limited to, Terry v Wilson 1849,}494_{Mabo 1992}495 and Akiba 2013.496 _{These land settlement cases identify Indigenous Peoples as the First Peoples} of the land. However, implementation and acquisition of Native Title in Australia by virtue of being Indigenous is far from simple and direct ownership. Against this backdrop, a full acknowledgement of colonial possession of Indigenous land begs an assessment of what transpired when 427 convict vessels arrived on the shores of Indigenous lands between 1788 and 1868. Similarly, settler-colonists to Liberia found Indigenous peoples inhabiting the lands they ‘discovered’ and chose to inhabit.

As in Australia, appropriation of land by American colonists to settle African American Former Slaves in Liberia included violence against the land’s Indigenous inhabitants.497 _Although

491 _{Reconciliation Australia, ‘Welcome to Country Q & A Factsheet’ <http://www.unisa.edu.au/Documents/QA-}

welcome-to-country.pdf>. Welcome to Country is a ceremony performed (singing, dancing, smoking or a speech) by Aboriginal Australians to welcome visitors to their traditional land. Acknowledgement of Country is a way of showing awareness of, respect for and recognising continuing connection of Aboriginal Australians as original owners of the land on which a meeting or an event is being held. Matilda House-Williams, a Ngambri, Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri elder, was the first Indigenous invited to offer a ‘Welcome to Country’ at the opening of the 42nd

Federal Parliament of Australia on 12 February 2008 (see, http://genderinstitute.anu.edu.au/australian-inspring- women-matilda-house-williams-ngambri-ngunnawal-wiradjuri-elder).

492 _{Glen Cordingley, ‘Station Gives Yawuru a New Start’ The West Australian (Broome, WA), 3 September 2014}

<https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/wa/a/24881704/station-gives-yawuru-chance-to-rebuild/>.

493 _{Webb, above n 135, 82.}

494 _{Reynolds, Dispossession, above n 177, 67.}

495 _{Diane Bell, ‘Aboriginal Customary Law: What Is Law [and What Is Not]?’ (Seminar at the SA Law Society}

Seminar, Adelaide, South Australia, 29 July 2006); Greg McIntyre, ‘Mabo: A Catalyst for Social Change’ (Public Lecture at the Public Lecture with Greg McIntyre, Sparke Helmore 2, ANU College of Law, 13 May 2013) <http://ncis.anu.edu.au/events/past/index.php#greg_mcintyre>; Henry Reynolds, ‘After Mabo, What about Aboriginal Sovereignty’ [1996] (April) Australian Humanities Review

http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue; Lisa Strelein, Compromised Jurisprudence: Native Title Cases Since Mabo (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2nd ed, 2009) 116; Henry Reynolds, Why Weren’t We Told?: A Personal Search for the Truth About Our History (Penguin, 2000) 249; Reynolds, Aboriginal Sovereignty, above n 221, 1–2, 13–15; Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Penguin Books, 1992) 187; Telling Stories: Indigenous History and Memory in Australia and New Zealand, above n 354, 31; Richard Broome, Aboriginal Australians: Black Responses to White Dominance, 1788-2001 (Allen and Unwin, 3rd ed, 2002) 233, 235–240; Chris Cunneen,

Indigenous People and the Law in Australia (Butterworths, 1995) 108–118; Max Griffiths, Aboriginal Affairs: A Short History (Kangaroo Press, 1995); Sarah Keenan, ‘Moments of Decolonization: Indigenous Australia in the Here and Now’ (2014) 29(2) Canadian Journal of Law and Society 163, 239; An Unruly Child: A History of Law in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 1995) 11, 119–120; Martin Mhando, Liyarn Ngarn (2007)

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2199740/>; Practising Reconciliation?: The Politics of Reconciliation in the Australian Parliament, 1991-2000 (Department of Parliamentary Services, 2005) 47–77.

496 _{Lauren Butterly, ‘Unfinished Business in the Straits: Akiba v Commonwealth of Australia [2013] HCA 33’ (2013)}

8(8) Indigenous Law Bulletin 1.

497 _{Dunn and Holsoe, above n 104, xiii–xiv. Dunn and Holsoe list several disputes between the colonists and}

Indigenous Liberians in the early days of establishment. For example, in 1822, the first major armed conflict between repatriate and Indigenous Liberians takes place. In 1838, Dei-Gola war in which Liberia first attempts mediation, then sides with the Gola. In 1856 war breaks out between the independent colony of Maryland and the Grebo Confederation. That same year, the Kru Confederation attacks settlement in Sinoe County. An instance worth noting here regarding frontier battles and Indigenous land dispossession in Liberia. As Liberia HIStory has been mostly written by descendants of Afro-Americans and foreigners a logical reasoning points to distortions in favour of ‘his’ or ‘her’ story. A case in point is the Matilda Newport account of the Crown Hill Battle. Children of Liberia was thought

historical materials researched in this study do not point to a violent conflict between Indigenous Liberians and settlers, except for in the work of a few scholars such as Jeremy Levitt,498 _{neither is} there any written documentation (e.g., title or deeds) to evidence land purchase by treaty nor fair deal, apart from a limited anecdotal citing,499 _{including an expropriation narrative stored in the} Liberian National Archives.500 _{According to Fanon, conveniently distorting the history of violence} is the settler-colonists’ conscious effort to make and write the ‘history of his own nation’. Unfortunately, the gluttony of settler-colonists spoken of by Oscar (above) is no longer an event of the past perpetrated by white settler-colonists in Australia but rather a present-day occurrence displayed by Black African American settlers against Black Native Africans in Liberia.

Government-sanctioned land disposition continues to plague Indigenous communities in Liberia. For example, Liberia now accounts for 45 percent of West Africa’s remaining forest, over 60 percent of which has been offered to logging companies with no consultation or benefit to Native Peoples in Liberia.501 _{For example, Emmanuel Weedee narrates that when Chief Manjo} of the Kpelle Language Group was asked how did 90 000 hectares of their community-owned forest had been signed away to a logging company with nothing in return, he responded, ‘I don't know book’ (meaning he is not literate). However, a 13-page contract that shows the forests have been awarded to a Liberian company called Bopolu Development Corporation for the next 20 years carried Chief Manjo’s signature. Notwithstanding, the Chief claims ‘his hand’ did not sign the agreement.

This alleged forging of Chief Manjo’s signature to dispossess Native Kpelle People of their land is a serious offence that requires prosecution or at least investigation. But who will advocate for the Kpelle People if they have neither legal support nor educational aptitude to file a claim for such violation? As far back as 1926, Karnga wrote of settlers-colonists’ land-grabbing exploits in Liberia.502 _{Karnga was writing at the time when Firestone Rubber Plantation purchased} a million acres of Native Peoples’ land for six cents per acre for 99 years (see chapters 3 and 6

of her heroic feat in using a pipe to set-off a canon that wore off natives causing settler emigrates to defeat Indigenous Liberia. At present, this account is said to have been fabricated and distorted by African-American emigrates to elevate the persistent superiority and victory in conquering the fellow brothers and sisters.

498 _{Levitt, above n 105, 31–85.}

499 _{Karnga, above n 171, 21–27. Prior to their arrival on 15 December 1821, a small tract of land was bought by ACS}

from King Peter (probably Zolu Duma of Vai country), George, Yoda and Long Peter (of De/Dei and

Mamba/Mahnbahn ethnic groups) on Bushrod Island. After the acquisition of Providence Island (Cape Mesurado) by Eli Eyers and Captain Robert Stockton, on 7 January 1822, the settler-colonists built town houses on the mainland of Monrovia (named after James Monroe in 1824). On the 18 December 1832, 33 volunteers set out from Monrovia to establish a new colony called Edina. In 1835, another settlement was founded by the Pennsylvania Society, called Bass Cove. In 1837, Marshall (in honour of James Marshall, Chief Justice, USA) was built at the mouth of the Farmington River and Thomas Buchanan (first Governor of the ACS and cousin of former US President James Buchanan) built Bassa Cove. In 1838 Greenville (named after James Green) was built by the Mississippi

Colonisation Society and Bexley, on the St. John’s River was built by Lewis Sheridan. Cape Palmas was founded by the State of Maryland in the US through the Maryland Colonisation Society in 1927. Dr James Hall in 1831 bought land from King Jude and other Grebo Chiefs to establish the Maryland settlement. By 1854, Maryland becomes an independent republic and later acceded to the Commonwealth of Liberia in 1857.

500 _{Svend E Holsoe and Megan MacDonald, Liberian Government Archives, 1828-1911 (2016) Indiana University}

Archives Online <http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/findingaids/view?doc.view=entire_text&docId=VAB6927>.

501 _{Emmanuel Weedee, ‘Over 60 per Cent of Liberia’s Rain Forest Offered to Logging Companies’ Heritage}

(Monrovia, Liberia), 4 September 2012 <http://allafrica.com/stories/201209200720.html>.

502 _{Karnga, above n 171, x.}

for more details). For Indigenous Liberians, resistance to African American settlers-colonists’ control over their land finally comes through a new Land Rights Draft Bill in 2014. Although the 2014 Draft Bill is a small step in comparison to the Mabo case in Australia, it is as good as it can get, for now, subject to its actual passage and implementation.503

2.1.4 Theme 4: (Mental) Health, Education, Housing, Employment & Development