According to the international law of Europe in the late 18th century, there were only three ways that Britain could take possession of another country:

• If the country was uninhabited, Britain could claim and settle that country. In this case, it could claim ownership of the land.
• If the country was already inhabited, Britain could ask for permission from the Indigenous people to use some of their land. In this case, Britain could purchase land for its own use but it could not steal the land of the Indigenous people.
• If the country was inhabited, Britain could take over the country by invasion and conquest- in other words, defeat that country in war. However, even after winning a war, Britain would have to respect the rights of Indigenous people.

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Secret instructions contained in the letterbook carried on the Endeavour included instructions which authorised James Cook to take possession of 'a Continent or Land of great extent' thought to exist in southern latitudes. The document instructs Cook: "You are likewise to observe the Genius, Temper, Disposition and Number of the Natives, if there be any and endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a Friendship and Alliance with them, making them presents of such Trifles as they may Value inviting them to Traffick, and Shewing them every kind of Civility and Regard... You are also with the Consent of the Natives to take Possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain: Or: if you find the Country uninhabited take Possession for his Majesty by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions, as first discoverers and possessors".

Cook reached the southern coast of New South Wales on 20 April 1770. He sailed north, landing at Botany Bay one week later, before continuing to chart the Australian coast all the way north to the tip of Queensland. Along the way he recorded signs that the coast was inhabited, noting a great number of fires on the land and islands around them, "a certain sign they are Inhabited", but even so, on Possession Island, just before sunset on Wednesday 22 August 1770, he declared the coast a British possession.

If James Cook did gain the consent of the Aboriginal peoples, it is certain that due to language barriers they could not have known what was being asked of them. It is more likely however that Cook claimed ownership under the doctrine of 'terra nullius' (land belonging to no one), thereby failing to recognise the existence of the country's Indigenous people.

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Download a transcript of the secret instructions

In 1901, 98% of people in Australia were 'white'. At this time trade unions became keen to prevent labour competition from Chinese and Pacific Islander migrants who they feared would undercut wages. That same year the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, making it very difficult for Asians, Pacific Islanders or 'people of colour' to migrate to Australia.

The Act stated that if a person wanted to migrate to Australia they had to be given a dictation test. Officers were given powers to exclude any person who 'when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of the officer, a passage of 50 words in length in a European language directed by the officer'.

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 represented the formal adoption by the Commonwealth of Australia of racist policy resulting in a form of immigration apartheid.

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When the Constitution came into effect in 1901 it contained several specific references that allowed governments to discriminate against Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The most glaring discrimination occurred in Section 51 of the Constitution:

"The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to... the people of any race, other than the aboriginal people in any State, for whom it is necessary to make special laws".

Additionally, Section 127 stated: "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted".

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Some of the following police functions may shock you. Reflect on the 12 functions below and think how you would react if police officers had these powers over you and your family.

Policing Functions 1914 - 1934 were to:

1. Issue rations to 'Aborigines'.
2. Reduce the ration lists by investigating all applicants and issue rations only to 'deserving' cases.
3. Force children to attend school by withholding rations if they did not comply.
4. Refuse rations to 'Aborigines' if necessary, in order to 'persuade' them to go to another locality or to move on to an Aboriginal reserve or station.
5. Decide whether or not an 'Aborigine' was sick enough to see a doctor.
6. Patrol and maintain order on unsupervised Aboriginal reserves.
7. Recommend on the disposal of reserve land.
8. Expel 'trouble makers' from Aboriginal reserves.
9. Remove children from their parents and send them to the Board's 'training homes', on the grounds that they were 'neglected' or that they were 14 years of age.
10. Institute proceedings against Aboriginal parents who took their children away from Aboriginal reserves or from school in an attempt to escape the Board's decision that their children be removed from them and 'trained'.
11. Expel light-coloured people from Aboriginal reserves and stop them from returning to their families still living on reserves.
12. Institute proceedings to remove whole Aboriginal Communities from certain localities, under Section 14 of the Act.

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"Assimilation was a policy in the ascendancy in Indigenous affairs from the 1930s to the 1960s. The standard definition now of assimilation dates back to the 1963 statement by Aboriginal affairs ministers:

The policy of assimilation means that all Aborigines and part-Aborigines will attain the same manner of living as other Australians and live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians. This seemingly simple statement belies the many assumptions that render 'assimilation' an extremely complex concept to define.

As Russell McGregor contends: 'assimilation' had no single meaning. It was a discourse which was informed by a diversity of intellectual currents and which produced significantly divergent visions of the Aboriginal destiny One cause for the confusion surrounding 'assimilation' lies in the fact that the term was used in relation to two distinct forms of integration.

The first could be called 'biological absorption', or the desired removal of Indigenous physical characteristics. The second can be termed 'social integration', whereby Indigenous cultural or social practices would yield to non-Indigenous social and cultural practices.

Some of the authorities on Aboriginal affairs in the states and territories - for example, A O Neville in Western Australia and Cecil Cook in the Northern Territory - were keen advocates of the active 'breeding out' of Aboriginality.

Others, most famously the Sydney anthropologist A P Elkin, championed the 'social integration' version of assimilation. To complicate matters further, some of the experts in the 1930s who did not advocate the active attempt by authorities to 'breed out' Aboriginality were nevertheless of the 'dying race' view, and held that social integration would facilitate the eventual demise of Indigenous peoples.

The 'dying race' view was on the wane by the start of the Second World War; nonetheless, it further complicates any attempt to give a clear definition of the policy of assimilation."

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"From the 1940s, in most parts of Australia, the state governments issued thousands of these certificates. The granting of a certificate gave its Indigenous recipient citizenship rights that they otherwise did not possess, yet which were enjoyed by the non-Indigenous majority of Australian society. They included 'privileges' such as being allowed to vote, attend school, go into hotels, and be exempted from the restrictions of state protection laws. However, while many Indigenous Australians were able to apply for and obtain such a certificate, they were not easily granted, had to be carried at all times, be produced on demand, and in some states could be revoked at any time without any rights of appeal.

The conditions and requirements placed on applicants for certificates were also not easily satisfied. Applicants had to agree to abandon association with the Indigenous community, give up their traditional culture, including connections with Country, and to break off contact with their Indigenous kinship, except for their closest family.

If any of these culturally and personally alienating conditions were ever broken, the certificate could usually be revoked without warning. In addition to these requirements, applicants also had to demonstrate that they kept their home clean and in good repair, that they were of a 'sober disposition', that they were law-abiding individuals that stayed out of trouble - the list goes on.

Seeing the certificate as their only chance to obtain a level of freedom and a more comfortable life, some Indigenous Australians nonetheless decided to apply for a certificate, despite all the sacrifices that it required.

Others, without their knowledge, had received them as children after being forcefully removed from their families and placed in institutions; while still others decided that the injustice of it all outweighed the benefits and never applied."

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