PVC- Indigenous Strategy UNSWIS_Final_SIGN OFF_18 October 2018 low res for | Page 18

Fig.6 La Perouse Aboriginal mission 1927
The people of La Perouse were among those
who campaigned for Aboriginal civil rights in the
1930s, a period in which the Australian government
sought to ‘assimilate’ Aboriginal people. This civil
rights era culminated in the breakthrough gains of
the 1960s and 1970s. By then, UNSW had been
established (fig. 7) and played a national role in the
next phase of government law and policy making,
self-determination. Aboriginal self-determination saw
Aboriginal people enrolling to study at UNSW (fig. 8),
helping to set up the first Aboriginal Legal Service at
Redfern, and later the Indigenous Law Centre.
Military garrisons were established to claim territory
from local tribes who contested being alienated from
their traditional lands. Grave sites were recently
uncovered near UNSW during excavations for the
Sydney Light Rail project illustrating the impact of
colonisation on local clans.
The human population around the campus area grew
enormously between the late 1800s and early 1900s
as a tram line was extended to the new Kensington
racecourse. Europeans settled most of the land
previously occupied by local clans whose numbers had
been decimated by smallpox and frontier conflicts.
From the early twentieth century, government policies
restricted Aboriginal movement, and most coastal
Sydney people came to live on the La Perouse
Aboriginal mission (fig. 6). This was the period of
segregation or otherwise known as ‘protection’.
16
Fig.8 Dawn Magazine July 1971 p12
Fig.7 Aerial photo showing the location of UNSW campus, 1930
Over the past forty-five years the university has been
home to a growing number of Aboriginal students,
researchers and staff, and now houses the Nura Gili
Indigenous Programs Unit (fig.9). All are carrying on a
long, local tradition of Aboriginal teaching, learning and
innovation into the future.
Fig.9 Nura Gili, UNSW