Batman's Treaty Final
The proclamation was approved by the ColonialOffice on 10 October 1835. The official objection to the treaty was that Batman had attempted to negotiate directly with the Aboriginal people, whom the British did not recognise as having any claim to any lands in Australia. Also, Batman had purchased the lands for the Association, and not for the Crown.
The validity of the treaty has been widely disputed. It is possible that the marks which Batman claimed were the signatures of the eight Wurundjeri elders were instead made by one of the five Aboriginal men he had brought with him from Parramatta,since they resemble marks commonly used by Aboriginal people from that area.
Furthermore,since neither Batman, the Sydney Aboriginal men or the Wurundjeri men spoke anything approaching the same language, it is almost certain that the elders did not understand the treaty, instead probably perceiving it as part of the series of gift exchanges which had taken place over the previous few days amounting to a tanderrum ceremony which allows temporary access to and use of the land.
In any case, the European system of understanding property was entirely alien to almost all Aboriginal peoples. Nevertheless, the treaty has been praised as the only documented attempt to reach an agreement for land use between white colonists and the local Aboriginal people.
The treaty is significant more broadly as it is the first and only documented time when Europeans in Australia have negotiated their presence with Aboriginals.Batman maintained until his death in 1839 that the treaty was valid.
Some historians continued to assume that the treaty was a forgery, but the recollections of the Aboriginal elder Barak, who was present at the signing of the treaty as a boy, established that Batman, with the aid of his NewSouth Wales Aborigines, did in fact participate in a signing ceremony.
All the same, although the document has come to be known as "Batman's Treaty", it does not classify itself and its key terminology is of private rather than of public law: "Do for ourselves our Heirs and Successors Give Grant Enfeoff and confirm unto the said John Batman his heirs and assigns". It is—or, more exactly, is the deed which records—what later came to be termed a "private treaty", a sale between private parties on negotiated terms.
Artist's impression from the1 880s of the Treaty being signed1835 map showing the area of Port Phillip, stating that this is the land"Acquired by Treaty with the Native Chiefs, 6 June 1835"
Note:The so-called treaty was implicitly declared void on 26 August
1835 bythe Governor of New South Wales, RichardBourke.
