A Short History of Notable Boats
Text + Drawings
HMS ENDEAVOUR, 1770
Captained by a murderous imperialist, James Cook. Through the settler-colonial fiction of Terra Nullius, Cook is later said to have ‘discovered’ a continent – already home to hundreds of Indigenous Nations.
The ship’s botanist, Joseph Banks, argues that ‘natives would speedily abandon the country’.
HMS SIRIUS & HMS SUPPLY, 1788
British invasion begins with the occupation of the Eora Nation. The ‘First Fleet’ brings epidemic diseases, white supremacist terror and a catastrophe of dispossession.
THE WANDERER, 1847
Coloniser Benjamin Boyd transports shiploads of enslaved South Sea Islanders to the occupied continent. Slavery is common throughout the colony.
Islanders as young as nine years old are ‘recruited’ through violent abductions. Countless Aboriginal people are also enslaved.
FISHING BOAT, 1900
During the Boxer Uprising, my Great-Grandfather escapes down the Yangtze River disguised as a fisherman.
Eventually, he reaches the colony as a refugee, just as ‘White Australia Policy’ is being codified into law. The Policy is a national eugenics program, designed to expand and preserve the dominance of whiteness.
EURIPIDES, 1914
Requisitioned to carry Australian soldiers to Europe, North Africa and South West Asia, at the behest of Britain, to participate in a war of imperialism.
The Anzacs earn a reputation for theft, rioting, racist assaults, rapes, summary executions and barbaric massacres.
HMS QUEEN, 1915
Delivers Australian soldiers to Gallipoli, where they fail to invade the Ottomans. At worst, the Anzacs embody the violence of British colonialism. At best, they are an abject footnote.
Nonetheless, the Anzacs are shoehorned, alongside James Cook, into a flimsy white Australian origin myth. Annual public rituals are contrived, and this nonsense becomes a national orthodoxy.
MAKASSAN PRAU
Makassan seafarers visit Aboriginal communities along the northern coast, predating European ‘discovery’ by centuries. This relationship is outlawed in 1901, with the passing of ‘White Australia Policy’.
MONTE CHRISTO, 1970
Re-registered as the ‘New Endeavour’ to re-enact the ‘discovery’ of Australia for the bicentennial of Cook’s landing. This pageantry proves enormously popular, attracting a crowd of 50,000.
Indigenous activists such as Oodgeroo Noonuccal lead a fierce and articulate protest against the event. They are scolded by journalists for ‘insulting white Australian heritage’.
HMAS TOBRUK, 1982
The first Australian Navy Vessel to visit the zionist occupation entity. The Tobruk docks at the port of Isdud, a village completely ethnically cleansed by zionists during the Nakba.
Recognising itself in the brutality and illegitimacy of Israel, Australia becomes one of the occupation’s earliest and most enthusiastic enablers. The false histories of colonial states are entwined.
HMAS ANZAC, 1982
Joins the attack on the Iraqi coastline. Australia’s habitual deference to empire has found continuity under the command of the United States.
The US and its allies massacre and displace countless people across multiple lands, in a war borne entirely of lies.
THE PALAPA 1, 2001
A sinking vessel, carrying 438 refugees, is rescued by Norwegian freighter The MV Tampa. The Australian military boards the Tampa to prevent the ship rom approaching the continent. Prime Minister John Howard imposes his ‘Pacific Solution’.
Refugees intercepted at sea are taken directly to Australia’s brutal offshore prison camps, where they suffer indefinite incarceration, torture and deliberate neglect.
Howard, an unapologetic racist and belligerent warmonger, attempts to dehumanise refugees by claiming that they had thrown their children overboard. This claim is proven to be a lie.
SAS INFLATABLE
The Australian government continues to deploy the military against refugees, drawing international condemnation, but winning majority approval from the Australian public.
SAMA-BAJAU FISHING BOAT
Sama-Bajau seafarers visit the northern coast for 900 years, establishing trade and cultural relationships with Indigenous Nations. Sama-Bajau are arrested and incarcerated by Australian Border Force, who burn their boats.
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SIEV X
Over 350 women, men and children are killed when the SIEV X sinks.
Resolutions calling for an independent enquiry into Australia’s culpability are repeatedly voted down by the Australian government. The tragedy remains uninvestigated.
TROPHY
Displayed in the Canberra office of Australian prime minister Scott Morrison. ‘Stop the Boats’ has become a politically successful rallying cry against refugees.
RUBY PRINCESS, 2020
Thousands of passengers are allowed to disembark from the Covid-19 infected cruise ship.
‘Stop the Boats’ was never about border security.
It was always about whiteness.
Australian Navy Vessel
Brendan Nelson, career warmonger and director of the Australian War Memorial, proposes that the institution’s $500 million expansion include a specific monument to honour navy troops who force back refugees.
Nelson, however, does not recognise the Frontier Wars, as they do not meet his criteria for ‘conflict’.
Nelson now works for a weapons manufacturer, continuing to profit from the very wars he championed.
REPLICA ENDEAVOUR, 1993-2020
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces a $60 million sestercentennial celebration of Australia’s ‘discovery’, including a grand re-enactment of James Cook’s circumnavigation of the continent.
(James Cook never circumnavigated the continent)
NAWI
Bark Canoe belonging to Bidjigal resistance fighter Pemulway. Indigenous sovereignty is ancient, ancestral and continuous.
