On this day 200 years ago, the NSW Governor made an emergency declaration of martial law – in a bid to quell brutal violence in the New South Wales central-west. It's a little known but important piece of Australia’s colonial history -- which the Wiradyuri traditional owners of the region want acknowledged and remembered. They've created a series of community truth-telling events Bathurst.
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00:00It's been a busy week on Wiradjuri country and I'm standing on a celebration site where
00:06young men would come to go through their initiation process, but today a really important corroboree
00:12is taking place.
00:14People have travelled from right across New South Wales to be here today for the Deloine
00:18Project, an event being led by Wiradjuri elders to mark 200 years since the martial law declaration.
00:26This week there's been a series of events including art exhibitions, tool making and
00:30weaving workshops, but Aunty Lianna Carr says at the heart of the event it's all about
00:35truth telling.
00:36Deloine is about standing in our truth.
00:38This is about, in our language we say gariyala, duliyala and deloine, which is talk straight,
00:48tell the truth and then standing in that truth.
00:51Many Australians don't know the history of martial law and as the British colony started
00:56to expand, Wiradjuri people here were trying to defend their homelands and as a result
01:01there were massacres and murders on both sides of the conflict and so martial law was declared
01:06to stop the violence, but historians say it was the first declaration of action against
01:11Aboriginal people in Australia and after it was declared it was rarely spoken about again.
01:16The Mayor of Bathurst, Jess Jennings says as someone who was born and raised in Bathurst,
01:22he only came to learn about the history recently, here's a little about what he had to say.
01:27I've got to confess I only heard about this historical event that is incredibly significant
01:32about five years ago.
01:34The significance of this event can't be underestimated.
01:37This was the New South Wales colonial government putting into legislation a state of emergency
01:46to basically be able to inflict violence upon Aboriginal people west of Mount York.
01:51So Wiradjuri elders leading the Deloine Project say they want justice but it all starts with
01:56truth telling to provide the opportunity to heal.