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Talk:Anthony Fernando

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Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Biographical details

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  • born in northern New South Wales in 1864 (Goodall)
  • born on 6 April 1864 at Woolloomooloo, Sydney (Holland & Paisley)
  • son of an Aboriginal woman, probably of the Dharug people(Holland & Paisley)
  • may have been descended from John Martin, an African-American convict in the First Fleet who had children with Dharug women (Holland & Paisley)
  • taken away from his family as a child (Goodall)
  • He claimed to have been brought up in the home of a white family who denied him an education and treated him like a pet. (Hindsight)
  • separated from his family he (Anthony) worked as an engine driver in Sydney (Holland & Paisley)
  • struggled his way back,
  • By the time he returned to his people, his mother had diedHolland & Paisley)
  • identifying strongly with his Aboriginal family (Goodall)
  • 1880s he attempted to give evidence at the case of two white men who were accused of murdering Aborigines. He was unable to do so and so he saw them go free (Goodall)
  • In 1887 he witnessed the murder of an Aborigine by two White men, but was refused the opportunity to give evidence; the murderers were acquitted.(Holland & Paisley)
  • Fernando left New South Wales in the 1880s after he was refused the right to give evidence in a case against two white men accused of murdering Aborigines. He then spent decades living and working in Europe, using street protest to publicise the conditions faced by indigenous people in Australia. (Paisley)


  • worked his passage in the boiler room of a ship (Goodall)
  • from about 1890 .. he travelled through Asia to Europe, working as a welder, toymaker, jewellery-maker, trader and servant (Holland & Paisley)


  • settled in Milan (Goodall)
  • lived for a time in Italy where he adopted an Italian workingman's name ie "Fernando" (Holland & Paisley)
  • By 1910 'Fernando' was in Austria (Holland & Paisley)
  • British authorities repeatedly denied his claims to be a British subject


  • caught up during the First World War in a displaced persons camp (Goodall)
  • Interned in Austria during World War I, in June 1916(Holland & Paisley):
he requested prison relief through the consul for the United States of America in Vienna.
The British Foreign Office referred the matter to the Australian government, which found no evidence of his birth, and his appeal was rejected.
  • After the war Fernando settled in Milan, Italy, where he worked in an engineering workshop.
  • In 1921 he attempted to see the Pope but was turned away because he did not have nationally accredited papers (Goodall)
  • 1921 .. cablegram from Bern, re Aboriginal State (Courier)
  • According to surveillance reports, he attempted to present a private petition to the Pope, interviewed members of the League of Nations in Geneva and protested in a German newspaper against Australian injustice towards Aborigines(Holland & Paisley)
  • turned his attention to the Swiss government suggesting an autonomous area in northern Australia where Aboriginal people's independence and their safety would be guaranteed by an international power under the control of the League of Nations (Goodall)
  • marched the streets of Milan with placards, handed out pamphlets and talked about what was happening in Australia until Mussolini interned him as an enemy of an ally of fascist Italy. (Goodall)
  • he was arrested for distributing pamphlets declaring that the British race was exterminating his people. (Holland & Paisley)
  • In 1923 he was deported to Britain ((Holland & Paisley)
  • In 1923, mixed up with Facist Government in Italy (Courier)
  • Fernando was kept in goal without trial for many months, then deported to England. (Goodall)
  • In London he was offered what amounted to a pension by a barrister he had met, but Femando refused. (Goodall)
  • took up one of his old occupations as a toy-maker (Goodall)
  • began picketing Australia House [where] he covered himself with toy skeletons and pointed to them as he called out to passers-by: "This is what they are doing to my people in Australia! (Goodall)
  • 1928 he was back in London where he continued his crusade by picketing Australia House,(Holland & Paisley)
'his long grey beard damp with mist, his frail elderly frame wrapped in a large overcoat'. Pinned to his coat were scores of small, white, toy skeletons and he wore a placard proclaiming: 'This is all Australia has left of my people'.
  • He also spoke at Hyde Park.(Holland & Paisley)


  • through 1920's Australians had him arrested on many occasions and even attempted to have him certified insane The doctors refused to certify him, one of them writing:(Goodall)
"He holds strong views about the manner in which his people are treated, but that is a sign not of insanity but of an unusually strong mind."
  • 1929 he was again in front of the courts. A white man had abused him because he was black so Fernando had drawn a gun on him. He was given a bond and used opportunity to make speech recorded by the international press.(Goodall)
  • In January 1929, described as a toy hawker, he appeared at the Old Bailey, charged with drawing a revolver in response to a racial taunt.(Holland & Paisley)
"I have pleaded my people's cause since 1887", he declared, "I have seen whites in Australia go unpunished for murdering and ill-treating Aborigines. I have been boycotted everywhere. Look at my rags. All I hear is 'Go away, black man" but it is all Tommy rot to say that we are savages. Whites have shot, slowly starved and hanged us!"
  • Given a gaol sentence, suspended on two years probation, he briefly worked as a cook in the barrister's employment.(Holland & Paisley)


  • 1938 he was again before the [English] courts after a similar incident. Fernando was 74 years old, but this time he attacked the whole structure of British colonialism (Goodall):
"We are despised and rejected, but it is the black people who keep this country in all its greatness".
  • January 1938 Fernando was back before the courts, accused of assaulting a fellow lodger. Unrepentant, once more he protested at the treatment of his people. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment.(Holland & Paisley)
  • Anthony Martin Fernando died shortly after.(Goodall)
  • Later Fernando retired to an old men's home. He died on 9 January 1949 at Ilford, Essex.(Holland & Paisley)

Achievements

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  • Anthony Martin Fernando died shortly after. He had sustained his struggle against enormous odds, alone but unfailingly presenting his people's case on the other side of the world, in the heart of the land of the colonizers.(Goodall)
  • it is an account of the Aboriginal political struggle in its tenacity and its courage. .. when Fernando attacked the Empire from the dock of a London court, Aboriginal activists in New South Wales clipped the press accounts of his words, taking them as inspiration for their campaign/ movement (Goodall)
  • Fernando spoke to Mary Bennett, who visited his cell while he was awaiting trial. She reported a small man with a gentle demeanor, self-educated, well spoken, with a command of many languages and a good knowledge of the Bible.
  • "Fernando's most significant protest came by leaving Australia without attracting official reaction. The act of exile was expressive and creative. His appearance in Euro­pean cities celebrated his personal opposition to empire. European civilization was confronted by a "savage", not at the periphery of the known world but on its own streets and claiming its rights – British justice – as his own." (Paisley)
  • "Fernando's self-conscious use of modern forms of international resistance – street protests and courts of law – extends accepted notions of coloni­sation and Aboriginal activism. Typically, indigenous Australians were historically absent until the 1930s. Yet Fernando's example indicates that Aboriginal activism has played a significant role for much longer." (Paisley)
  • A religious man who could quote tracts of the Bible, he believed that God had entrusted him with a mission to save Aboriginal people from the colonial system that oppressed them. (Hindsight)



Bruceanthro (talk) 07:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

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