The legal concept of terra nullius is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law, meaning "nobody's land". It is used in law to define a region which has not been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or any previous sovereign has relinquished power. Sovereignty over territory which is considered a terra nullius may usually be acquired through colonisation. However, historians also to use the term to showcase a set of opinions prevalent in colonial administrators. While the concept is not used openly in Governor Richard Bourke’s 1835 proclamation, the idea which was an international reason for justifying colonisation, was an underlying mentality towards its creation. Governor Bourke’s proclamation was created as the reaction to the actions
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Historians in this field have cited one unintentional defender of terra nullius as John Locke, with his Two Treatises of Government (1690), with which he argued that “as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property” . Locke’s claim was originally used in order to substantiate revocation of land from American Indians in the Thirteen States, but used by settlers in New South Wales to contend that the Aborigines were not working the land agriculturally, so they were not considered owners of Australian land. However, Locke’s ideal was an incompatible theory for the Aboriginal way of life, which was a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting, survival and the Dreamtime. In contrast to Locke, Historian Ronald Hill summarized that the Aboriginal people possessed a spiritual connection with the land that is also tied to their ancestral heritage, which contrasts sharply from the western standpoint of land as a natural resource. As such, the land is closely tied to Aboriginal culture, which the British at the time did not understand or explore. Locke’s scholarly argument pacified any conscience made uncomfortable by a blatant act of usurpation and portrays a miscarriage of the 16th & 17th European …show more content…
The term terra nullius has been traditionally used by historians to isolate this belief o the age, which was a theme within the words and actions of colonial personal like Bourke, that Australia was a land belonging to no one. However, some scholars like Sam Trubridge speculate whether the term was hypocritical. He argues against the concept of terra nullius, as Australia was inhabited by the nomadic people within its ‘empty space’, who culturally identify with the land they occupied. Yet the same can be similarly true for ‘squatters’ which were termed in Bourke’s proclamation as ‘trespassers’, who would be ‘liable to be dealt with in like manner as other intruders upon the vacant lands of the Crown’ , forcing the aborigines to the periphery of colonial
Historians in this field have cited one unintentional defender of terra nullius as John Locke, with his Two Treatises of Government (1690), with which he argued that “as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property” . Locke’s claim was originally used in order to substantiate revocation of land from American Indians in the Thirteen States, but used by settlers in New South Wales to contend that the Aborigines were not working the land agriculturally, so they were not considered owners of Australian land. However, Locke’s ideal was an incompatible theory for the Aboriginal way of life, which was a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting, survival and the Dreamtime. In contrast to Locke, Historian Ronald Hill summarized that the Aboriginal people possessed a spiritual connection with the land that is also tied to their ancestral heritage, which contrasts sharply from the western standpoint of land as a natural resource. As such, the land is closely tied to Aboriginal culture, which the British at the time did not understand or explore. Locke’s scholarly argument pacified any conscience made uncomfortable by a blatant act of usurpation and portrays a miscarriage of the 16th & 17th European …show more content…
The term terra nullius has been traditionally used by historians to isolate this belief o the age, which was a theme within the words and actions of colonial personal like Bourke, that Australia was a land belonging to no one. However, some scholars like Sam Trubridge speculate whether the term was hypocritical. He argues against the concept of terra nullius, as Australia was inhabited by the nomadic people within its ‘empty space’, who culturally identify with the land they occupied. Yet the same can be similarly true for ‘squatters’ which were termed in Bourke’s proclamation as ‘trespassers’, who would be ‘liable to be dealt with in like manner as other intruders upon the vacant lands of the Crown’ , forcing the aborigines to the periphery of colonial