Cummeragunja Walk-off
Cummeragunja walk-off in 1939 was the first massive resistance of Aboriginal people in Australia. About 150 residents of the Cummeragunja Aboriginal station protesting against the mistreatment and exploitation of Aboriginal people located there with an excerpt from the Cummeragunja mission. The mission station was located on the border of New South Wales along the Murray River and on the border of Victoria at Barmah.
It was the first strike in which Aboriginal people participated massively.
Cummeragunja mission station
The Cummeragunja mission station, which was founded in 1881, was inhabited by the Yorta Yorta - Aboriginal, and provided itself through the cultivation and sale of agricultural products. Many of the Aboriginal people living there came from the nearby Maloga mission, which was organized in a strictly religious. As 1915, the Aboriginal Protection Board of New South Wales took over control of the mission and the people, the situation worsened. The economic revenue went to the Board of New South Wales and no funds were reinvested. In the 1930s, many residents left because of this situation, the station or their relatives wandered off.
Living conditions and strike
On food and essential goods was saved on the instructions of the new Head of Mission McQuiggan, she had to sleep with blankets on the floor and were dressed in rags. Due to the poor conditions there were cases of tuberculosis and whooping cough; the health of Aboriginal people living there worsened. Jack Patten came to Cummeragunja the end of January 1939 and wanted to talk to the protesters and called for the dismissal of McQuiggan, the manager of the mission, then the manager called the police, who took him and his brother in prison. In protest against this situation changed from Cummeragunja 150 people across the border from New South Wales to Barmah in Victoria and there built a camp on. Any change of location of Aborigines was at that time ruled by the Aboriginal Protection Board and had to be approved.
The officials were completely surprised by this rebellion and the measure found numerous sympathizers who stood behind this strike. They collected food and financial resources and put them to the protesters on the Murray River are available. When the press reported on the mistreatment began a discussion about the living conditions and treatment of Aborigines, who provided the impetus for policy changes that the Aborigines Act of New South Wales was expressed later.
Anniversaries
200 years after the beginning of the conquest by the British colonizers took in 1988 the first 100 people at the so-called Cummeragunja Walk On commemorating the protest of 1939 in part; and in 2004, the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal - given the right parts of their original land and the Barmah - Millewa Forest to be managed in cooperation with the state.
On 3 and 4 February 2009 took place a Erinnungsmarsch than 81 kilometers from the Yorta Yorta Cummeragunja Church National Office Barmah 70th anniversary.
Personalities from Cummeragunja
- Sir Douglas Nicholls, Governor of South Australia.
- William Cooper, founder of the Australian Aborigines League and main instigator of the Day of Mourning Aboriginal, which takes place parallel to the Australia Day.
- Jack Patten, founder of the Aboriginal Progressive Association and organizer of the Day of Mourning.