To mark this year’s NAIDOC theme of Get Up, Stand Up, and Show Up, we are profiling the life of perhaps the most elusive figure in the history of early Indigenous activism.
From the turn of the 19th century, Anthony Martin Fernando, an Aboriginal man from Woolloomooloo, exposed the genocide of Indigenous Australians occurring under British rule, in Australia and Europe. After being taken from his mother as a child, he led a tumultuous life in Australia and afar. He experienced racism, violence, poverty, imprisonment, internment during WW1, homelessness, and being admitted into a mental hospital in his old age.
Despite such unthinkable hardships, underpinning his life was his love for his mother, whom he is quoted as calling his ‘guiding star’, and his ‘God sent’ mission of publicising the injustices against his people in Australia. In a time when Aboriginal people lived under the constant threat of death, physical and sexual violence, dispossession, and exploitation, Fernando - a self-educated man - risked his life when condemning the genocide occurring across the nation.
After being denied giving a testimony when he witnessed the murder of an Aboriginal man by a white man, Fernando travelled to Europe, never to return to Australia. Throughout his time in Europe until his death, Fernando protested in the streets, parks, church steps, and even in the courtroom during his own trials. He made headlines in Europe, which in turn made headlines in Australia. What remains of his life are only a few handwritten notebooks, personal letters to friends in Europe, a letter published in a Swiss newspaper, and many articles written about him. He never had a birth certificate, and his gravesite has never been located.
What follows is a brief summary of the key places and events of Fernando’s life:
1864 – Birth and childhood
Fernando was born in Woolloomooloo, Sydney on 6 April 1864, to a Sarah, an Aboriginal woman, and Mariano Silva, most likely a South Indian seaman. Fernando said his people came from a small community at Woolloomooloo close to the Sydney Harbour.
In the late 1860s or early 1870s Fernando was taken from his mother and placed in the care of a white family. Later in life, he describes his experiences as being treated as less than a dog.
1903 – Western
Australia
Fernando first enters the historical record in 1903, when, now living in Peak Hill, Western Australia, he writes a series of letters to Henry Prinsep, Chief Protector of Aborigines of Western Australia, protesting the treatment of Aboriginal people at New Norcia mission and at the hands of Peak Hill police.
Fernando also states that during his time in Western Australia, he was refused
to give a testimony in court after witnessing the murder of an Aboriginal man
by a white man.
1913 to 1918 – Vienna,
Trieste, and WW1
By 1913 Fernando was living and working as a labourer in Vienna.
In 1916, after the outbreak of the first world war, and now living in Trieste, he was declared an ‘enemy alien’ and lived under forced house arrest for a year, before being taken to internment camps for the remainder of the war.
Early 1920’s – London
Fernando works as a
servant and street trader in London.
1921 – Switzerland, ‘A
Cry for Help from Australia’, and Australian headlines
Fernando pens ‘A Call
for Help from Australia’ and gets it published in the Swiss newspaper Der
Bund after meeting with the publication’s editors. In his letter he exposes
the genocide of Indigenous people occurring in Australia, as well as
championing a self-governing Indigenous state in the Northern Territory. Local
readers are outraged, and letters criticizing Fernando are published in
subsequent editions of Der Bund. The letter makes headlines in
Australia, and the Brisbane Courier publishes an article dismissing Fernando
and his statements under the heading ‘A Joke’.
1925 – Protest in Rome,
London
During the 1925 Catholic Jubilee in Rome, Fernando protests at the doors of St Peter’s cathedral, handing out fliers further exposing the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Australia. He is soon arrested.
In the late 1920’s, donning a black cloak pinned with little rubber skeletons, Fernando protests at the steps of Australia House in London. Pointing to the skeletons he proclaims, ‘This is all that Australia has left for my people’.
1929 to 1938 – Arrest
and Courtroom Protest
In 1929, 1935, and
1938, Fernando stands trial for various charges of assault, that he claims were
a response to the daily racism he was victim to on the streets of London.
Turning the courtroom into a stage, Fernando uses his hearings to voice his
plea for Aboriginal people
1942 to 1949 –
Claybury Hospital and Death
Age 79, Fernando is admitted into Claybury Hospital, a former insane asylum that had been redeveloped into a mental hospital with aged care facilities.
Still living in Claybury, Fernando dies on 9 January 1949, aged 84. His grave has never been located.
Learn more
This is only a brief outline of Fernando’s life, and further research gives readers rare insight into the life of an Aboriginal man in the late 1800s, and early 1900s in Europe.
If you would like to learn more about Anthony Martin Fernando, you can borrow a copy of The Lone Protestor: A M Fernando in Australia and Europe, a biography written by cultural historian Fiona Paisley, available in print from our libraries on our Nguma-bada and Bebegu Yumba campuses and online.
You can find copies of Fernando’s notebooks in AIATSIS’s digital collection, and a podcast about Fernando by Dan Browning on ABC Radio’s Awaye! program.
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