Many people today take advantage of the land of which we are on today. However, many Australians are un-aware of the historical events which have led Australia to this day. A large part of both Australian and indigenous Australian history is the 1938 Day of Mourning. 26th January 1938, the 150th anniversary of white settlement in Australia, the day Captain Arthur Phillip planted the British flag at Port Jackson (Robert Darlington, 2012). The state premiers had gathered in Sydney, as well as crowds gathering for a spectacular show in the city. What an exciting day it would seem, a day of celebration, fun and coming together as the white Australian colony.
However, there was a dark side to this 150th anniversary, a day of mourning. All indigenous…show more content… The British took over the colonisation of Australia and continued to ship convicts and British residents, forming their own country. Their efforts in taking over Australia evolved into ruling over the native Australians. Stripping them of life, taking all they had. It was not a case of just taking their things. It was a case of brutal injustice. Removing children from their families, removing their sense of heritage, ‘training’ them to be like the Brits meaning they were forced to forget their traditional dances, lifestyles and cooking. They forced the indigenous Australians to work on farming crops, tree loping and construction, so that their new found land of Australia was liveable with sufficient food, housing and general supplies. But this seemed normal to the Brits as they assumed that by claiming the land, they had claimed the people, colonies and everything on the land. And although we know what they did was wrong and unjust, the general population of the white settlers thought this was normal, the way of life. With little to no idea of the effects it had upon Indigenous Australians (Lamplough,