The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
Director: Fred Schepisi
Starring: Tommy Lewis (Jimmie Blacksmith), Freddy Reynolds (Mort Blacksmith), Ray Barrett (Farrell), Angela Punch McGregor (Gilda Marshall), Steve Dodds (Tabidgi), Peter Carroll (McCready), Ruth Cracknell (Mrs. Heather Newby), Don Crosby (Newby), Elizabeth Alexander (Petra Graf), Peter Sumner (Dowie Steed), Tim Robertson (Healey), Ray Meagher (Dud Edmonds), Brian Anderson (Hyberry), Jane Harders (Mrs. Healey)
aborigine follows the white rules but no matter what he does he can't get ahead
Historical Background:
1770 -- Captain James Cook of Great Britain took possession of the east coast of Australia and named it New South Wales.
1788 -- the beginning of British colonization of Australia.
1788-1900 -- through disease, violence and lost of land, 90% of the numbers of Aborigines died.
1824 -- in the Bathurst massacre in New South Wales about 100 Aborigines were killed (following the killing of seven Europeans).
1833 -- Yagan, leader of the Noongar of south-western Australia who resisted the white invasion, was killed.
1833-1834 -- one of the largest massacres in Victoria occurred in Portland and was called the Convincing Ground massacre.
1834 -- at the Battle of Pinjarra, Western Australia, 14 (and possibly more) Aborigines were killed.
1835 -- escaped convict William Buckley found after living for 32 years with the Aborigines (the Wautharong people) near Melbourne.
1838 -- Sydney mounted police carried out the Waterloo Creek massacre at an encampment of Kamilaroi Aboriginals.
1838 -- 28 Aborigines killed at the Myall Creek massacre.
1841 -- responding to the spearing of a white man by an Aborigine at Capel, Western Australia, led to the Wonnerup Massacre in which over 250 Aborigines were killed.
1850s -- large numbers of white farm workers left the stations for the Australian gold rushes.
1864 -- at the Richmond River massacre, 100 people were killed in New South Wales.
1865 -- during the La Grange expedition in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, 20 Aboriginal people were killed.
1867 -- first Australian cricket team to tour England; it was made up of Aborigine players.
by the 1870s -- all the fertile areas of Australia appropriated; the Aborigines now lived in poverty on the fringes of white communities.
1881 -- ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition; John King lived with an Aborigine tribe for two and a half months after the expedition.
1884 -- a massacre of over 200 Kalkadoons of Queensland occurred at Battle Mountain.
1890-1920 -- in what became known as The Killing Times, about half of the Aborigines in East Kimberley were massacred (in response to cattle spearing and payback killings).
1906-1907 -- in the Canning Stock Route an unknown number of males of the Mardu peoples were massacred and a number of their women raped.
1915 -- at Mistake Creek, East Kimberley, 7 Kija people were killed by men under the control of Constable Rhatigan.
1924 -- in the Bedford Downs Massacre, a group of Kija men were jailed for spearing a bullock; later they were poisoned and had their bodies burned.
1926 -- in the Forrest River Massacre, a police party massacred 11 Aborigines.
1928 -- massacre at Coniston in the Northern Territory in which 32 Aborigines were shot.
as late as the 1930s -- some Aborigine communities in the most arid areas survived with their traditional lifestyles intact.
World War II (1939-1945) -- quite a few Aborigines served in the Australian military.
1962 -- Aborigines were given the right to vote in Commonwealth elections.
1967 -- the referendum of this year that allowed for Aborigines to be included in the count to determine electoral representation was passed..
1968 -- the Federal Pastoral Industry Award required the payment of a minimum wage to Aborigine station workers; this was followed by mass layoffs of Aborigine workers across northern Australia and consequent poverty.
1972 -- a group of activists representing the Aboriginal peoples established a kind of tent city (called the Aboriginal Tent Embassy) on the steps of Parliament House in Canberra. It constitutes a kind of permanent protest and has stayed in existence for over thirty years. One of their demands is for sovereignty for Aboriginal peoples.
1975 -- the Whitlam government drafted the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Its aim was to start granting "inalienable" freehold title to some traditional lands.
1976 -- the first of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act was passed; it established a basis for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory to claim rights to land based on traditional occupation.
1992 -- the Australian High Court in the Mabo Case decided to legally recognize some Aborigine land claims prior to British Settlement.
1998 -- the forced removal of indigenous children from their families caused a great deal of damage to the Aborigine peoples; a National Sorry Day was instituted.
1998-2000 -- the life expectancy of an Aborigine male was 21 years less than that of an average Australian; for the female it was 20 years less..
(Source: Wikipedia)
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