Publisher's Synopsis
Winner, New South Wales Premier's Australian History Prize 1997
Shortlisted, National Non-Fiction Award, Festival Awards for Literature 1998
Invasion To Embassy challenges the conventional view of Aboriginal politics to present a bold new account of Aboriginal responses to invasion and dispossession in New South Wales. At the core of these responses has been land: as a concrete goal, but also as a rallying cry, a call for justice and a focal point for identity.
This rich story is told through the words and memories of many of the key activists who were involved in the struggles on the lands and in the towns of NSW. By exploring interactions between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people over land, this book enables us to understand our history through the reality of the conflicts, tensions, negotiations and cooperation which make up our experience of colonialism.
Invasion To Embassy is unique in presenting NSW Aboriginal history as a history of activism, rather than a saga of passivity and victimisation. In telling this engrossing story, Heather Goodall reveals much about white Australians - not only as oppressors, but as allies and as newcomers who must in turn sort out their relations to the land.
'Return to us this small portion of a vast territory which is ours by Divine Right.'
William Cooper, Cumeragunja, 1887
'The Australian [Aboriginal] people are the original owners of this land and have a prior right over all other people in this respect.'
Fred Maynard, Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, 1927
'We should have land, this is our land. We are hungry for our land.'
Milli Boyd, Woodenbong, 1972
