Batman's Treaty, 1835 treaty between John Batman and Aboriginal Australians
Batman's Treaty is a document from 1835 signed between John Batman and Wurundjeri elders near Merri Creek. The agreement was meant to give Batman rights to use roughly 240,000 hectares of land around present-day Melbourne in exchange for gifts including blankets, tools, and cloth.
John Batman arrived in Port Phillip in 1835 and sought to negotiate with local leaders after the colonial government rejected his land claims. Within weeks, Governor Richard Bourke declared the treaty invalid, asserting that the British Crown owned all land and Aboriginal people had no authority to sell it.
The treaty reveals how differently Europeans and Indigenous people viewed land. For the Wurundjeri, land was not property to buy or sell, but a place where their families belonged and lived together. Batman approached it as a European business deal, missing the deeper meaning of sharing and care that land held for them.
The treaty itself is not a place to visit but a historical document kept in archives. Visitors can explore Merri Creek and the area around Northcote, where the meeting likely took place, and learn more about Wurundjeri history at local sites and museums nearby.
The signatures on the treaty are strikingly similar and match patterns in other Batman documents, raising questions about their authenticity. Experts suspect the marks may have been forged or copied by translators Batman brought from New South Wales.
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