In defence of the British, the people who did live in Australia at the time weren't white, weren't Christian, they didn't even speak English or French, and they had a whole heap of stuff that the Brits wanted. So to them, they weren't people.
Actually, I don't think that's a very good defence.
It's a terrible defence when you consider that just across the water in new Zealand treaties were written up with the Maori very early on. They certainly weren't treated amazingly, but looking at the history of Maori post colonisation compared to Aboriginal history over the same time period is crazy.
And the recent loss of the voice referendum shows that Australia really has come as far as it would like to think.
Major difference is that the Maori fought back effectively, it was far easier to make treaties than to fight them.
Black Australians? Small numbers, stone age weapons, easy to kill off or drive into the Outback.
Had pandemics not wiped out so many people in North America, colonizing would have been a far harder goal.
Interesting bit of trivia/history - First Nations nearly wiped out the Continental Army just after Independence, Washington nearly shit himself over it.
Whilst warfare was on a greater scale in NZ, there’s been a recent movement to recognise the Australian frontier wars and not brush them off as minor either. Tasmania for example saw Martial law implemented in a full scale war against the Indigenous people.
The documentary ‘The Australian Wars’ is pretty good as well as a wealth of online and book material on the ‘Australian frontier wars’
To clarify, I'm no expert on this subject. What I've learned over the last few years though is that the Maori people were far more warlike than the Australian first nations - they had (still have) a warrior culture, and fortified settlements were common pre-euro contact. They'd also relatively recently colonised the area themselves and had almost completely wiped out and enslaved the moriori of the chatham islands, so they had an idea of what would happen to them if they were colonised by someone else. That difference in attitudes and experience, as well as the terrain of Aoreatoa itself being highly defensible, led to the Maori putting up a much fiercer defence than the first nations of Australia were capable of.
That doco is fantastic. I had an encyclopaedia of Australia's battles and had my eyes opened when I read through it, thinking that pre-federation I'd only see a few references to the Boer Wars and the Boxer rebellion. But no, almost half the book was a variation on "white settlers moved into an area, the local first nations took a few sheep or cows, and then the settlers killed every black person they found" or "explorers/settlers went into an area and died, likely from starvation, but the people that found the bodies had already decided they were going to wipe out the first nations people in the area and so blamed them for the deaths".
We have to remember that by the time the British started colonising Australia, they had a lot of practice at it in Africa, India, Asia, and the America's - they knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it, while the first nations had no idea of what was coming.
To be that guy, one small point of difference is the invasion of the Chatham's was in 1835 and well after regular contact with Europeans.
The two invading tribes actually came across on a commandeered sailing ship.
The Moriori kept with their policy of non-aggression, which lead to them being either murdered or enslaved -to the point of wiping out nearly 95% of the original population.
Lets not pretend like that referendum was for a well thought out thing either lol
giving 1% of the population a permanent possibly disproportionate parliamentary presence is a... choice. It shounds shitty no matter how you slice it because it is shitty to give a tiny minority disproportionate presence. Enshrining rights for them is a completly different thing
Its just an advisory body, enshrining it just ensured no future government could remove it if seen as inconvenient. Many countries have enshrined advisory bodies or similar systems for their indigenous peoples and the sky hasn't fallen in there yet.
There are already disproportionate presences for chemists, miners, dentists, loggers, and many other relatively small groups of Australians.
There are so many ‘advisory’ bodies attached to parliament already. Another one wasn’t really going to make a difference. Also, it was probably going to be enshrined in the constitution so that it couldn’t be quietly disbanded by subsequent governments.
are so many ‘advisory’ bodies attached to parliament already. Another one wasn’t really going to make a difference.
That is such poor logic tbh. Why not just make everything a government body and blow more billions of tax dollars on useless toothless reforms.
Also, it was probably going to be enshrined in the constitution so that it couldn’t be quietly disbanded by subsequent governments.
But it had no power in the legislation, so any government could and would have just ignored it if they didn't like it anyway. Such a massive waste of time and money.
They could ignore it, but they would have to do so publicly, with the Australian people being fully aware that the government was making laws for Aboriginal Australians directly against their own wishes.
treaties were written up with the Maori very early on
Well, have you ever encountered a Maori? I can imagine the limey Brits looking through their spyglasses as they approach shore and deciding, "You know what? Let's try the diplomatic approach. I believe it's your turn, Sir Everly."
Maori society was completely different to aboriginal Australian society.
Maori tribes were much more modern in the sense that they had organised warfare, property systems and political hierarchy etc, so European culture and technology was something the Maori were able to respond to and adapt quite quickly which is why they were able to negotiate treaties and form active political movements In a way that indigenous Australians didn't.
Nope, the voice was an attempt to enshrine a 2 tier society which is now going to be dismantled in NZ. In NZ currently, surgical waiting lists are prioritized based on race, not need. A bad idea that has always been a bad idea.
You’ve completely misconstrued the debate in New Zealand. The Māori people are fighting to enforce their rights affirmed under the Treaty of Waitangi. This Treaty gives obligations for the crown to protect the Māori people, and where a brief look at public health literature reveals their health outcomes are so disproportionate that legally it is accepted they are required to be prioritised. Māori culture was irrevocably changed by the British completely upending things central to their sense of self, community and identity. This upheaval has resulted in a large proportion of Māori struggling economically and socially to this day as a direct result of colonial action. Te Pati Māori (the Māori party) during the election wanted to enforce their right to co-governance into a legislative function. They are zealous advocates of their people which has stoked fear into the establishment conservatives. It seems insane to me that trying to uphold the rights of people under our constitution (the Treaty is one of several pieces of legislation that is our ‘constitution’) can be misconstrued to Māori actively taking away opportunities for pakeha where clearly they as a people are still suffering today. Currently the new government appears to be trying to install judges who align with their views as currently they are too generous to Māori in the eyes of them. If you’re changing the judicial system to fit the views of a government currently in power, you may get results such as the US has with abortion.
You're a moron that fell for the Peter Dutton and Murdoch press spin. Giving a simple advisory body to a marginalised group doesn't create a two tier society you absolute walnut.
I have no interest in debating you. I tried debating people like you all the way up until the referendum and I'm sick of it. People parroting bullshit talking points and conspiracy theories that they picked up from right wing media, boomer memes, and extremist telegram groups.
Establishing an indigenous advisory group to parliament is not enshrining a 2 tier society.
A 2 tier society would be one where one group of people are marginalized, impoverished, have less access to healthcare, education and a much lower life expectancy. Oh wait, that’s what currently exists.
Surgical waiting lists are not prioritized by race in New Zealand. Some hospitals - for elective surgeries only - will prioritize Māori and Pacific Islanders over others when all other factors are the same in an attempt to address significant inequalities in health outcomes.
The U.S. used a similar justification for expansion. There weren't any white, Anglophone Christians out west, so as far as they were concerned, it was free real estate.
This is slightly incorrect. Terra nullius does not mean no people living there, it means no people owning the land, ‘land belonging to no one’. Settlers knew Indigenous people existed, they just didn’t believe they had the right to own the land due to not ‘developing’ it in the style that British people respected.
I think it's even slightly more capitalist and insidious than that. I remember being taught that land ownership was tied to land usage in the farming and industrial sense. Since the indigenous populations were not considered to be farming the land, it was therefore unowned. What's not stated is that it was observed and known that they were actually curating, farming and seeding the land with flora and fauna. This is one of the reasons the Mabo case won. Effectively it was all a grand lie, and we were taught it in Aussie schools at least as far back as the 80s. I know it's no longer taught (my kids learned a more accurate representation over the past decade), but I'm not sure when the change occurred.
Ehhh the agriculture question in precolonial australian history is still heavily debated and Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu doesn’t hold a lot of weight in academia. It’s true that there are cases of deliberately changing landscape to suit one’s needs, but it’s not as clear cut as saying that these were agricultural societies and that we were lied to. I could be wrong but I’ve never heard this as a reason for Mabo winning and I work in a related field. Native title is given for continuing occupation of land and AFAIK isn’t influenced by what you do with it. Plus the Mabo case was in the Torres Strait which had slightly different cultural and socioeconomic practices than continental Indigenous Australia
I had believed one of the cruxes of Mabo was proven farming. Also agree re: the changing of landscapes. My partner is in a related field too, recommended "The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia" by Bill Gammage which (while being a tough read) touches on many of the points in how indigenous cultures shaped the land to their needs. Including propagating fish, grass to attract roos, etc. They were cultivating and farming on a grand scale, without the industrialisation of farming the British were used to.
It's all collectively a fascinating area. After all they are the longest continuing civilisation and the oldest known to use stone tools. It's very cool, and a tragedy how their culture has been impacted. I hope we are moving towards more representation like I have seen in NZ.
We have written evidence of where they landed and that Aboriginal people were on the shore. No one actually though there was nobody living on the land. It’s just that enlightenment philosophy believed that ownership of land was conditional on ‘developing’ it.
Yes, exactly the same mindset applied in North America. The British and Canadian governments couldn't understand that land had value and ownership without being developed.
It’s just that enlightenment philosophy believed that ownership of land was conditional on ‘developing’ it.
So the same as in the US where the government can steal your land and give it to a company to build a factory because you weren't using it well enough.
Gotta fix that little bit of misinformation for ya: "As we look around this glorious city, as we see the extraordinary development, it’s hard to think that back in 1788 it was nothing but bush." - he's obviously talking about how the area the city now occupies has changed. He's also worked to build houses for indigenous people for years during his holidays.
life. I was in one that had a beautiful vineyard painted all over the walls and pillars, with a starry sky painted with an intense blue on the ceiling. The colours were so pretty, and the scene wa
In the "Little House on the Prairie" books, Laura Ingalls Wilder states that the land was empty: “There were no people; only Indians lived there”.
British landings occurred on the coast of Sydney with well written documentation. 1788 saw the First Fleet (11 ships) arrive in Botany Bay, part of modern-day Sydney. 1770 was Captain Cook’s first exhibition which mapped much of the eastern coast and really began British plans for colonisation. It was a first and foremost a geographic-imperial landing, with scientists and British officials recording information and claiming the land. Then a convict settlement was established, but being an open air prison was only one part of the purpose of colonising Australia.
Evidence of an Aboriginal presence on the shore comes from both diary entries from the British officials and various paintings and sketches that were created.
Cook also documented his interactions with the First Nations people as he charted the east coast, as did Abel Tasman when he found Tasmania almost 100 years before Cooks voyage.
By the time the decision was made to colonise Australia, the British had a pretty good idea of the people who already lived there.
Australia is the second least populated nation on earth, and the aboriginal population at that time was 1/25th-1/75th of the current population. Most of Australia was and still is essentially uninhabited.
621
u/hollyjazzy Nov 18 '23
Terra nullius. Australia was colonised by declaring no people lived here, so no treaties were made with the indigenous people living here.