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1907 telegram: "Send arsenic…exterminate aborigines"

In 1907, Charles Morgan of Broome Station sent this telegram to Henry Prinsep, the Chief Protector of Aborigines for Western Australia, in Perth: “Send cask arsenic exterminate aborigines letter will follow.”


Australia’s program of genocide was based on the official doctrine of terra nullius, in whose name the first people of Australia were slaughtered and subjected to humiliations, depredations, and worse.

As terrible as the Australian genocide was, its very existence has been widely agreed-upon for quite some time — in this regard, the Australians are significantly ahead of Canada, which admitted its own genocide less than a year ago.

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
POSTMASTER-GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

20 JUL 07

TELEGRAM from Broome Station
Addressed to H. Princep Esq, prot. of aborigines

Send cask arsenic exterminate aborigines letter will follow

Chas Morgan

Send cask arsenic exterminate aborigines [Letters of Note]

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

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