63 19 The Settled/Conquered Colony Debate. 0000006318 00000 n [cited 23 Jul, 3 Letters Patent for South Australia 19 February 1836. The right of occupancy asserted by Gippss examination of legal commentaries looks like native title as we understand it from Mabo, and the title in the Discoverer looks like radical title. Australian Court Case, Barwick, Chief Justice, Cooper V Stuart, Deane, Sir William, High Court of Australia, Murphy, Justice, Murphy, Justice, native title, Papua ON 3 APRIL 1889, the Privy Council delivered Cooper v Stuart [1889] UKPC 1 (03 April 1889). Post-Brexit Restructuring Proceedings: What Are the Implications for Luxembourg? /Resources << [33]id, 138. 10 The Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Bill 2018 https://www.vic.gov.au/aboriginalvictoria/treaty.html; South Australias new Government has just halted talks on a treaty The Guardian Australia 30 April 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2018/apr/30/south-australia-halts-indigenous-treaty-talks-as-premier-says-he-has-other-priorities. 0000001908 00000 n AC3bXEJV`!!uj4Cx5SVHJ}f2DK2 [46] But it does not follow that the position under international law in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was the same[47] or that the international law category unoccupied territory was synonymous with the settled colony of the common law, or even that the acquisition of the Australian colonies is appropriately re-classified as one by conquest. Arguments for the Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws, Arguments against the Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws, 9. 4 H. Robert, Paved with Good Intentions: Terra Nullius, Aboriginal Land Rights and Settler-Colonial Law , ACT: Halstead Press 2016 at 50. 0000008013 00000 n The contrary view was expressed, for example, by Justice H Zelling, Submission 369 (26 January 1983) 1, on the grounds that the settled colony rule was established practice for other colonies with indigenous inhabitants, and that it was in any event established, for South Australia at least, by statute (4 & 5 Wm IV c95), not merely by judicial decision. This law effectively stopped anyone WebWilliam Watson, Baron Watson, PC (25 August 1827 14 September 1899) was a Scottish lawyer and Conservative Party politician. 0000005562 00000 n 8 The case that recognised the Treaty of Waitangi principles was the Lands Case (New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General [1987] 1 NZLR 641). << The Governor of the colony, before 1824, had made a land grant that was subject to a reservation that the government could reacquire, at any time, a portion of the land that might be needed for public purposes. Aboriginal Customary Laws and Sentencing, Aboriginal Customary Laws and Sentencing: Existing Law and Practice, The Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws in Sentencing, Aboriginal Customary Laws and the Notion of Punishment, Sentencing and Aboriginal Customary Laws: General Principles, Taking Aboriginal Customary Laws into Account, Incorporating Aboriginal Customary Laws in Sentencing, Related Questions of Evidence and Procedure, 22. 0000000676 00000 n %PDF-1.6 % Brennan Js decision recognised the indigenous right to occupancy of the land, sovereignty over which was acquired by the British Crown.14 The occupancy of the Aboriginal people, in the absence of any claim to sovereignty, gave them ownership as first taker. ISSN: 1323-1391. Cooper is secretary of the League which campaigns for the repeal of discriminatory legislation and First Nations representation in the Australian Parliament. A more usual though not necessarily more fruitful approach to the question of common law recognition of customary law is through a reassessment of the way in which the basic common law rules with respect to colonial acquisition were applied to Australia in 1788 and thereafter. Aboriginal Land (Lake Condah and Framlingham Forest) Act, 1987, Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory), 1976, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, AMEC (Assoc' of Mining & Exploration Co's), ATSIC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, Department of Aboriginal & Islander Affairs (DAIA), FCAATSI Federal Council For Aboriginal Advancement, Ganalanja Corp v Queensland and Ors (1996), Hamlet of Baker Lake v Minister for Indian Affairs (1979), Miriuwung Gajerrong Peoples v Western Australia (1998), Oneida Indian Nation v County of Oneida (1974), Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act , 1985, Southern Rhodesia, Amodu Tijani V Secretary, 1921, Te Weehi v Regional Fisheries Office (1986), Teddy Biljabu and Ors v Western Australia (1995), The Administration of Papua v Daera Guba 1972-3, The Land Titles and Traditional Usages Act, Walley v State of Western Australia (1996), This is an NFSA Digital Learning resource. Web2019] COOPER V. AARON AND JUDICIAL SUPREMACY 257 such a mix of the laudable and contestable. This was the case, at least initially, in New Zealand. Stuart argued that the law of perpetuities was not a This was not because necessarily indigenous rights were ignored. to receive all of the latest news from the world of Law. 4 & 5 Win IV c95 s 1; and see Acts Interpretation Act 1915 (SA) s 48. [27] Justice Blackburn in Milirrpums case put the distinction thus: There is a distinction between settled colonies, where the land, being desert and uncultivated, is claimed by right of occupancy, and conquered or ceded colonies. 0 The Growth of Japanese Dispute Resolution, The Threshold for Perversity When Challenging the Assignment of Claims, Crime in Art Law: Digitalisation, Trafficking and Destruction, div#side-jobs-widget br {display: none;}div#side-jobs-widget strong{display:Block;}.slj-job.slj-job-sidebar{margin:0 0 25px;}, OSCAR HEALTH 72 HOUR DEADLINE ALERT: Former Louisiana Attorney General, UPSTART HOLDINGS 96 HOUR DEADLINE ALERT: Former Louisiana Attorney, OUTSET MEDICAL ALERT: Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. of 10% of the land fund being devoted to Aboriginal welfare. 0000005450 00000 n endobj As a result, neither conquest, cession by treaty nor settlement establish an uncontestable legal relationship to property of each State and Territory in the land those jurisdictions encompass. WebThis commentary explains the Privy Councils opinion in Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286, a case which continues to influence Australias constitutional framework. The third is the consequences of acknowledging now, as a result of an increased understanding of those laws and traditions, that the processes of territorial acquisition and application of law involved a classification of Australia which reflected the insensitivity shown (and perhaps aggravated the injustices caused) to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. mqF-iX=x&h0xT(n\Al |(J")Jb /01N@C4004jX;Ph P@8Hs)zNr\,\SX9oX3EjhJ [42], The assumption, which underlay the proclamation of British sovereignty over Eastern and later Western Australia and the subsequent gradual occupation of the continent, that Australia was legally uninhabited because it was desert and uncultivated[43] was, it has been argued, wrong as a matter of fact. But they also empowered him to take possession of uninhabited country, by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions as first discoverers and possessors. 0000061270 00000 n South Australia was not founded until 1836, and the relevant date of reception is 28 December 1836. The second is the application of British law to Australia, and the con sequences of that application for the continued existence and enforcement of Aboriginal customary laws and traditions. (1978) 18 ALR 592 (Mason J);. However it is desirable to deal with the issue at the general level at which it is raised. Had Australia been treated as a conquered colony, Aboriginal customary laws, to the extent that they had not been expressly abrogated, would presumably have been recognised, at least in their application to Aborigines. [50] The classification of Australia as a settled rather than a conquered colony may also have been an act of state; at least, it may now be a classification settled by legislative or judicial decision. Of course, deciding where nomadic peoples actually occupied the land was a nonsense, but it grounded the colonial project in Australia and New Zealand. Only then can the Crown in each of its capacities in Australia establish a legal relationship between its claims to sovereignty and rights in the land. 0000005665 00000 n endstream endobj 141 0 obj <> endobj 142 0 obj <> endobj 143 0 obj <> endobj 144 0 obj <>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]>> endobj 145 0 obj <> endobj 146 0 obj <> endobj 147 0 obj <> endobj 148 0 obj <> endobj 149 0 obj <> endobj 150 0 obj <> endobj 151 0 obj <> endobj 152 0 obj <>stream Queensland 4003. Phone +61 7 3052 4224 0000001065 00000 n The Governor of the colony, before 1824, had made a land grant that /Length 10 0 R [52]Two Hundred Years Later (1983) para 3.46. 0000038209 00000 n /Type /Page The last lingering doubts, if there were any, were firmly removed when the British authorities refused to give any form of legal recognition to John Barmans claim that he could acquire land rights by treating with Aboriginal tribes in the Port Phillip district.[37]. Difficulties of Application: The Status and Scope of the Interrogation Rules, 23. /Parent 5 0 R WebJ. enquiries. They were simply not relevant to the parties to the proceedings in the two cases. The Privy Councils explanation, which rested on NSW being a tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled law, stood as the legal authority for Australian nationhood for over a century. Rather than rewriting the judgment, the authors provide a commentary on the social history of the case and its impact on Australian constitutionalism. startxref 0000002726 00000 n 0000061065 00000 n F$E-:# That relationship to property in the crocodile was said to ground the Crowns right to prosecute an indigenous man who took that crocodile in accordance with his traditional laws and customs. /Font << 67. The Privy Council eventually held that the reservation was valid, but they first had to decide whether the laws of England operated in the colony at the time of the grant. [48]See I Hookey, Settlement and Sovereignty in P Hanks and B Keon-Cohen (eds) Aborigines and The Law, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1984, 16, 17. }AWG5{eNw RDJ2\d"h Part 2 will address this question, and explain how the assertion of the law was contextualised as part of the colonial project to ignore indigenous claims to ownership as first taker. For example, the classification of a country such as Australia was in 1788 as unoccupied territory (terra nullius) might well be incorrect if that classification had to be made by the standards of modern international law. This commentary explains the Privy Councils opinion in Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286, a case which Other Methods of Proof: Assessors, Court Experts, Pre-Sentence Reports, Justice Mechanisms in Aboriginal Communities: Needs, Problems and Responses, 28. [31]id, 129, citing Cooper v Stuart, Aickin J agreed: id, 138. This is an NFSA Digital Learning resource. When founded in 1952, the International and Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ) was unique. Supreme Court of the United States. But it is doubtful whether they were organised under `chiefs competent to represent them. [42]Justice JA Miles, Submission 263 (29 April 1981) 2-3. Despite being overturned by Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (Mabo [No 2]), the case remains important because of the Privy Councils justification for the application of English common law to the colony of New South Wales. endstream endobj 64 0 obj<> endobj 65 0 obj<>/Encoding<>>>>> endobj 66 0 obj<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB]>>/Type/Page>> endobj 67 0 obj<> endobj 68 0 obj<> endobj 69 0 obj<>stream Young Sheldon) je americk komedilny seril stanice CBS vytvoren Chuckom Lorreom a Stevenom Molarom.Seril, odohrvajci sa koncom 80. a zaiatkom 90. rokov 20. storoia, je spin-off Prequelom sitkomu Teria vekho tresku a predstavuje postavu Sheldona Coopera v jeho deviatich rokoch, ktor ije so svojou rodinou vo For the purpose of deciding whether the common law was introduced into a newly acquired territory, a distinction was drawn between a colony acquired by conquest or cession, in which there was an established system of law of European type, and a colony acquired by settlement in a territory which, by European standards, had no civilized inhabitants or settled law. h|y TSwbLuhEjqR(2( In Attorney-General v Brown, a landowner tried to take coal from his granted land where a reservation clause in the grant provided for Crown ownership of the coal. XCIC3MRM!t,k*8j7#`4 c`# 7A 0@ From the first days of settlement, the interaction of British administrative policies and legal principles relating to the colonies provided the foundation for asserting of English law at the expense of the customary laws and practices of Aboriginal groups. 10 0 obj ;:Da>C[D{n+)ptz]fm=X#(L60 uq!AffW+2M^:.zctt'TPmm;CH*Ox@AmMu. The Commissions Work on the Reference, Special Needs for Consultation and Discussion, 3. For more information, visit http://journals.cambridge.org. Indigenous Legal Judgments: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the law, Synot, E; de Silva-Wijeyeratne, R, Commentary: Cooper v Stuart (1889) 14 App Cas 286, Indigenous Legal Judgments: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making, 2021, 1. 2 See Select Committee on the State of the Colony of New Zealand Report (1844) reproduced in Accounts and Papers [of the] House of Commons, 1844 (9) vol XIII, Irish University Press series of British Parliamentary Papers, Colonies: New Zealand pp 5ff; see J Fulcher, The Wik judgment, pastoral leases and Colonial Office Policy and intention in NSW in the 1840s Australian Journal of Legal History, vol 4, no 1 1998, 33-56 at 41. Jonathan is regarded as one of Australias leading native title and cultural heritage lawyers and has been recognised by Chambers Asia Pacific every year since 2007 in addition to several other legal publications. %PDF-1.2 [45]See eg the discussion of initial European contact in Cape York in R Logan Jack, North West Australia, Simpkin Marshall, Hamilton Kent and Co Ltd, London, 1921. 0000065953 00000 n Despite Several propositions derived from the literature can be baldly stated, and then examined more closely. C. W. Beckham en 1915. }";K{ls}EZvM<5B dqP5)b l8"$yTbS,&s;L?NV;%gN\8E)Ee[- uwZ/ m\]c1sDoIhccP?RB[^@IBIcOlV0&`|?g7lv2CL! Legal and Moral Issues. Web1973-1985. But see para 109 for difficulties with compensation in this context. But the Maori experience suggests that such recognition would have been grudging and temporary. 2) (1992) FACTS - 5 - Queensland took ownership of the Islands to the north, including the Murray Islands - Meriam people were an established group of people with their own customs and Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. This is summed up by proposition 8: In Canada and America, the domestic dependent nation status of indigenous peoples produced perhaps no less injustice than in the south. Browns intrusion was a direct attack on the Crowns albeit fictional feudal right as ultimate holder of the title to the waste lands. Two of the four justices in Coe v Commonwealth[30] thought the point arguable, though two did not. The commentary ends by discussing a Makarrata Commission as proposed by the Uluru Statement from the Heart. 66. /hWj|]e_+-7 Milirrpum v Nabalco at 202, 7 Examples include S. Breanna et al, Treaty; M Mansell Treaty and Statehood: Aboriginal Self-Determination, Leichhardt, NSW: Federation Press 2016. 0000064207 00000 n There was no recognition of common law native title: only a recognition of a right of occupancy fatally qualified in the southern hemisphere colonies by the word actual. The effect was of course to force an actual occupancy by the policy mechanisms just described, thus wresting Aboriginal people from their spiritual connection to country. See all, colonialism, colonisation, Cooper V Stuart, crown land, doctrine of tenure, New South Wales, Privy Council, settlements, terra nullius, Australian Court Case, Barwick, Chief Justice, Cooper V Stuart, Deane, Sir William, High Court of Australia, Murphy, Justice, Murphy, Justice, native title, Papua New Guinea, Privy Council, United States of America, Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory)(1976), Australian Court Case, Brennan, Justice Gerard, Cooper V Stuart, Kakadu National Park, land rights, Mabo v Queensland No.2, Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, 1971 , native title, Northern Territory, Pitjantjatjara, recognition, reconciliation, resistance, South Australia, Uluru National Park, Australian Court Case, Blackburn, Justice, Cooper V Stuart, doctrine of tenure, Federal Court of Australia, Gove Case, Mabo v Queensland No.2, Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, 1971 , mining, Nabalco, Nettheim, Garth, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Privy Council, terra nullius, Yirrkala, Yolgnu, Australian Court Case, Common Law, Cooper V Stuart, crown land, New South Wales, plaintiffs, Queensland, Radical Title, sovereignty. 0000020755 00000 n [39]4 & 5 Win IV c95 s 1; and see Acts Interpretation Act 1915 (SA) s 48. There are other factors also. Despite the Treaty of Waitangi, this idea of actual occupation coupled with the labour theory of property was applied not just by British settlers but by the Crown in New Zealand as well as Australia (where no treaties were made by the Crown). [54]But see para 109 for difficulties with compensation in this context. They held that New South Wales should be treated as a settled colony as at 1788, such that applicable English law arrived with the first settlers. To use the Roman law concepts here, the occupancy of the Aboriginal people was not considered sufficient to make them first taker and thus property owner of the land in the new colony. www.vic.gov.au/aboriginalvictoria/treaty.html; Initially the concept was used to justify indigenous rights to land, because as early as the 16, In the scramble for Africa in the late 19, The justification by European powers for the acquisition of African territories using a concept of, The key Australian decision from the Privy Council in. It follows that Aborigines must be considered within the allegiance of the Queen and as entitled to her protection. But problems regarding its application led in 1828 to the passing of the Australian Courts Act,[38] s 24 of which provided that: all laws and statutes in force within the Realm of England at the time of passing of this Act shall be applied in the administration of justice in the Courts of New South Wales and Van Diemens Land respectively, so far as the same can be applied within the said colonies . 13. See also footnote 2 in Fitzmaurice, The Genealogy, 10 (1889) 14 App Cas 286 at 291; (1886) NSWR 1; Evening News, Sydney, Monday 17 August 1885 at 5; Darling Downs Gazette Saturday 6 April 1889; The Daily Northern Argus Rockhampton Monday 28 January 1889, 14 Exactly what the defendants counsel in Attorney-General v Brown had argued, see footnote 9. 0000021105 00000 n In practice, difficulties such as those encountered in Milirrpums case would be encountered, given the enormous changes in Aboriginal societies and traditions since settlement. 0000060797 00000 n 0000004467 00000 n Special Aboriginal Courts and Justice Schemes, Support Structures for the Aboriginal Courts, 30. His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane, then Governor-in-Chief of New South Wales and its Dependencies, on the 27th May 1823, made a grant to one William The issue for the Commission in the present Reference is the extent to which Aboriginal customary laws and traditions should be recognised by the Australian legal system now, nearly two hundred years after permanent European entry into Australia. /Length 18 0 R Section 24, in effect, reaffirmed that New South Wales was a settled colony, but provided a later date of reception for reasons of convenience. WebCooper v. Stuart.3 In this judgment Lord Watson had held that Australia, as a "set-tled" colony, had received transplanted British law "except where explicitly changed or 0000000987 00000 n 0000031538 00000 n WebON 3 APRIL 1889, the Privy Council delivered Cooper v Stuart [1889] UKPC 1 (03 April 1889).. 2023 Lawyer Monthly - All Rights Reserved. Current student The difference of course has been that where there were treaties a modern clawing-back has taken place to re-establish the honour of the Crown in Canada, America and New Zealand. id, 138. >> Webis generally regarded as settled, a legal principle laid down in Cooper v Stuart7 in 1889 and followed by Blackburn J in Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd in 1971. /ProcSet 2 0 R He shot the other deputy as he ran from his truck to the house. cf A Frame, Colonizing Attitudes towards Maori Custom (1981) NZLJ 105; MR Litchfield, Confiscation of Maori Land (1985) 15 Vict U Well L Rev 335. >> It is not difficult to see how Henry Reynolds could assert that native title was recognised by the Crown in the 1840s, through the provision of reserves, the insertion of reservation clauses in pastoral leases to recognise practically the right of occupancy on runs, and provision in clause 20 of the Waste Lands Act 1842 (Imp.) Level 8, Waterfront Place, 1 Eagle Street, Brisbane Qld 4000. Full case name. See para 68. WebOnline Library of Liberty The OLL is a curated collection of scholarly works that engage with vital questions of liberty. >> The lack of treaties in Australia is one more obstacle to such a reestablishment in Australia. The Australian Law Reform Commission acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, sea and community. JavaScript is disabled for your browser. WebCooper v. Aaron. [44]cf G Blainey, Triumph of the Nomads, rev edn, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1983, 67-83, and see further para 883-7. At law, commencing with Attorney-General v Brown8 and then by assertion in subsequent cases (see proposition 7), occupancy of the Crown by settlement of British subjects in the new colony of New South Wales grounded absolute beneficial ownership. [40] Except so far as it has been altered by Australian Parliaments or courts, or by Imperial Acts applying to Australia, British law as it existed at these dates is still the law applicable to all citizens, including Aborigines. But nevertheless Cooper v Stuart mandates the statement of proposition 6 because in 1971 Justice Blackburn still considered himself bound by it: 291) was heavily influenced by this reversal of argument previously used to protect indigenous rights in the face of colonial acquisition of territory. They so held on the basis that the land was 'practically unoccupied without settled inhabitants'. Its interest to a wider Australia is obvious; its own Cooks secret instructions had provided that he should acquire territory with the consent of the Natives. [46]Western Sahara Advisory Opinion ICJ Rep 1975, 12; J Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979, 181. As a result, neither conquest, cession by treaty nor settlement establishes an uncontestable relationship to property of each State and Territory in the land those jurisdictions encompass. Reminds. 0000063550 00000 n 0000020370 00000 n Aboriginal Customary Laws: Aboriginal Child Custody, Fostering and Adoption, Questions of Principle and Implementation, Federal, State and Territory Forums for Issues of Aboriginal Child Custody, Recognition of Customary or De Facto Adoption, Social Security and the Care and Custody of Aboriginal Children, 17. Securing Hunting, Fishing and Gathering Rights, Aboriginal Participation in Resource Management, Administrative and Political Constraints of the Federal System, The Framework of Religious Exemptions in Anti-discrimination Legislation, Australias Corporate Criminal Responsibility Regime. 6jJckD~"zv,%WZ[ZEIE)JMeo;[37njq7 wqoG erqB@JMx;lz~. That debate is of great importance, quite apart from any specifically legal consequences it may have. 0000032924 00000 n stream % 6 Cited in Mabo no 2 at 34-35. There was no other way of dealing with them, than that of keeping them separate, subordinate and dependent, with a guardian care thrown around them for their protection. The original Indian nations, despite being acknowledged by the discoverers as the proprietors of the soil, had no power of alienation except to the governing power of the discoverers. Web1889 case of Cooper v Stuart (Cooper),6 albeit in bald dictum, was accepted as binding. There are no files associated with this item. [51]GS Lester, Submission 468 (19 February 1985) argued that the only secure basis for asserting Aboriginal rights at common law is to accept that Australia was settled and to controvert the decision in the Nabalco case that the consequence of settlement was to vest all land (and associated rights) in the Crown. and the indigenous peoples of Australia on the other should now be actively debated by Australian society at large, not just by academics and elites. 0000005271 00000 n [32] Justice Murphy considered neither Cooper v Stuart nor Milirrpum to have settled the point: Although the Privy Council referred in Cooper v Stuart to peaceful annexation, the aborigines did not give up their lands peacefully: they were killed or removed forcibly from the lands by United Kingdom forces or the European colonists in what amounted to attempted (and in Tasmania almost complete) genocide. For differing views on the question of classification see GS Lester, Inuit Territorial Rights in the Canadian Northwest Territories, Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, Ottawa, 1984, esp 37-41, a summary statement of the arguments developed by the same writer in The Territorial Rights of the Inuit of the Canadian Northwest Territories: A Legal Argument, Ph D Thesis, York University, 2 vols, 1981; and MJ Detmold, The Australian Commonwealth, Law Book Co, Sydney, 1985, ch 4. 0000001680 00000 n It continues to offer practitioners and academics wide topical coverage without compromising rigorous editorial standards. 0000007196 00000 n 0000017101 00000 n Aboriginal Customary Laws and Anglo-Australian Law After 1788, Protest and Reform in the 1920s and 1930s, 6. f. endobj We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. 11 0 obj In Cooper, it was stated that the New South Wales territory consisted of a tract of Eventually the scramble for Africa in the late 19th century saw the English formulation temporarily win out.5 But by 1975, in international law, the anti-dispossession view of terra nullius was re-established: Occupation being legally an original means of peaceably acquiring sovereignty over territory otherwise than by cession or succession, it was a cardinal condition of a valid occupation that the territory should be terra nullius a territory belonging to no-one at the time of the act alleged to constitute occupation. Those territories inhabited by tribes or peoples having a social and political organization were not regarded as terra nullius.6 Thus we can state proposition 6. jemez pottery signatures, kwane stewart married,