Archie Barton


Archie Barton was an Aboriginal Australian political activist and land-rights campaigner. He played a key role in the 20-year campaign in the Maralinga Tjarutja people regaining ownership of their land, following the British nuclear tests at Maralinga, South Australia, and having the test sites cleaned up, and establishing Oak Valley with funds provided as compensation for the dispossession of the Maralinga people from their lands

Work

Archie Barton had a varied work history:
The Maralinga Tjarutja Council was established in 1984 with funds provided as compensation for the dispossession of the Maralinga people from their lands following the Nuclear tests.
In 1995, the Australian Government admitted it had been complicit in the testing and paid $13.5 million into a trust fund for compensation and to cover further clean-up.

Recognition

He was born to a Pitjantjatjara woman at the Barton Railway Siding, South Australia on the east-west Trans-Australian Railway line in March 1936, his father is not known but is believed to have been a white railway worker. As a child he also spent time at Ooldea, a nearby Aboriginal mission in the Maralinga area.
He was a victim of the Stolen Generations. At the age of five years he was placed into the care of the Christian Brethren's Umeewarra Children's Home at Port Augusta, one obituary states that 'When captured he was hiding behind the skirts of the legendary Daisy Bates'.
He was a gifted Australian Rules footballer.
By his 30s he was addicted to alcohol to such that a doctor gave him six months to live, in response he gave up drinking. At one time he contracted tuberculosis and spent a year in a sanitorium.
He had a long relationship with Mary Harrison. After that relationship ended, he lived in sheds in Whyalla and Port Augusta.
Archie Barton died on 18 October 2008 in Ceduna and was buried at Oak Valley.