“Forms of Engagement”: the Varied Responses of Black Diggers on Their Return to White Australia

Many thousands of colonial soldiers were conscripted during World War One to fight for one or other of the Imperial powers. Other Indigenous men, although officially banned from enlisting, nevertheless did so, as was the case of the “Black Diggers”, Aboriginal soldiers, in Australia. This article explores the experience and the varied responses of these soldiers on their return to post-war Australia, where they and their families continued to face discrimination, including forced residency and segregation, lack of social and political rights, while the situation of Aboriginal communities as a whole tended to worsen. The context for intervention on behalf of themselves and their communities was not promising: the Constitution of Australia that enshrined racial hierarchy in the founding documents of the nation; the soldiers’ particular experience of army service; prevalent theories around the characteristics of the Indigenous population and their status as a “doomed race”; and the solutions put forward to solve the “Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ problem,” all these factors constrained the discursive and political space within which they could operate. The article draws on newspaper reports, veterans’ letters to the papers and biographical archives, and publications by Aboriginal-led organisations, to illustrate and explain the varied forms of social and political campaigning in which some of the ex-soldiers nevertheless engaged.