Fact of the Day

Fact of the Day : What does 'terra nullius' mean? (from The Oxford Companion to Australian History) Terra nullius has two meanings, according to Henry Reynolds: ‘both a country without a sovereign recognised by European authorities and a territory where nobody owns any land at all, where no tenure of any sort existed’. The distinction between senses is politically significant: to assert Aboriginal land rights is not necessarily to challenge Australian sovereignty.

These distinct meanings of terra nullius structure
Reynolds's revision of Australia's history in The Law of the Land (1987) . Reviewing the policies and practices of British colonisation from 1788 to the 1840s, he did not question British sovereignty, but reinterpreted its significance. Colonial practice did not live up to British law in that Aboriginal people were not attributed property rights but were gradually, and controversially, dispossessed. Correspondence between the British Colonial Office and colonial governors and administrators in the 1830s and 1840s showed London's unsuccessful effort to bring Australian colonial practice into line with British understanding of international law, and with practices elsewhere in the Empire.

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How to cite this entry: Tim Rowse "Terra nullius" The Oxford Companion to Australian History. Ed. Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart Macintyre. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 16 December 2011