Oktadea Herda Pratiwi 114214108

Relation between Aborigines and White Settlers The First Australians Aborigines, who arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago over a route that took them out of Africa, through India, Malaysia, Borneo and Papua New Guinea were the first human inhabitants of Australia. They are a dark-skinned people. They were nomadic hunter-gathers, which meant they roamed from place to place, hunted animals with spears and boomerangs, and gathered fruits, nuts, and yams for their food. Before the first white settlers arrived in Australia in 1776, there were around 300,000 aborigines in about 250 tribal groups. Each of the group had its own, tradition, custom, territory, beliefs, and language. All of the Aborigines believed in the Dreamtime which is the centrepiece of aboriginal culture. White Settlers as the First Encounter in Australia In 1770, English explorer Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay. He claimed the eastern portion of the Australian continent in the name of King George. The British considered the Australian continent to be a terra nullius under English law. Terra nullius is a Latin term which means 'land belonging to no one.' During the time he sailed from Botany Bay to Cape York, Captain Cook recorded in his journal the interactions with the Indigenous peoples of Australia. At first, the Aborigines were shocked with white people using their strange clothes. When the Aborigines saw ships of the First Fleet in Botany Bay in 1778 with so many white skinned people, they thought the whites were the spirit of their dead ancestors. In fact, these were the first European settlers led by Captain Arthur Phillip. Actually, at the first time the Aborigines were friendly towards the visitors. But then they were very confused at the way white foreigners behaved, such as why the foreigners walked on aborigine sacred sites and dug up aborigine graves, why they bossed each other around and beat and hanged people, why they chopped down trees and took food without asking, and why they were mean and selfish towards each other and not sharing. The First Misunderstanding between the Aborigines and the White Settlers When Captain Arthur Phillip explored the new settlement, he befriended with an old aborigine man. When he returned to camp he met the old man again and gave him some beads and a hatchet. At night, Captain Phillip discovered the old man taking one of his shovels. He slapped the old man on his shoulder and pushed him away while pointing to the spade. The old man was very upset and could not understand why his friend was acting this way. Actually, it was their culture that Aborigines share what they have with their friends and they have very little concept of personal property. Captain Phillip was actually very careful not to offend the aborigines but Aborigine and the Settlers cultures were so different. They didn't understand each other. Violent Conflicts Once the aborigines realised that the whites were not the spirits of their old ancestors, they began to fight back. They found out that the settlers took more of their land and destroyed the trees and

wild life. The aborigines killed a number of the settlers and wounded Captain Phillip in an attack. The settlers then slaughtered and poisoned the aborigines, and they systematically destroyed the land and wild animals they lived on. The 1834 Battle of Pinjarra in Western Australia, the 1838 Myall Creek Massacre in New South Wales, and the 1843 Warrigal Creek Massacre in Victoria are three infamous confrontations in Australian history. There were massacres committed in all parts of the country, by both the Aboriginal people and the white settlers (supported by the white authorities, including soldiers and the police). The white settlers had the superior firepower and in later times, as more and more Aboriginal people died from disease, the greater numbers. Sometimes the Indigenous were forced to do work and the settlers abandoned their farms and moved on, but then the settlers found new ways of eliminating the threat posed by the Aboriginal people. Instead of going out and fighting them, the settlers began poisoning their water sources, or giving them poisoned food. Another method the settlers used to 'disperse the natives' was by setting up the Native Police Forces. This force was made up of only indigenous men who were trained by the colonists' troops. The settlers used tribal rivalries to instigate violence between different clans of Aboriginal people. Violence against the Aboriginal peoples continued in some parts of Australia until the third decade of the twentieth century. It has been estimated that between 1788 and 1900, violence, dispossession and disease caused the Indigenous population to decrease by around 90 percent. Diseases White settlers brought a number of European epidemic diseases the aborigines had never had before, such as chickenpox, smallpox, typhoid, measles, and influenza. Aborigines did not have immunity to these diseases, and they died in large numbers. Within two years smallpox had killed almost half the aborigine population around Sydney. Depravation The British colonists claimed that the entire continent was terra nullius (uninhabited by humans). Actually, this was just their excuse for taking whatever they wanted from Australia. While more white settlers moved in to Australia and used the fertile lands, the aborigines were pushed further away from their traditional lands into the harsh infertile lands. As the result, their families were broken up, their children were taken away from them and sent to be "civilised" (to be workers or slave), their sacred sites were destroyed, and their wild animals were hunted. The white settlers had taken over their necessities for living. The killing and exploitation of aborigines by whites continued until the twentieth century. While many Aboriginal people were killed in violent fights over the rights to settle on the land, the other also died from malnourishment. They were unable to access clean water or nutritious supply of foods, and made them more vulnerable to fatal diseases. The violation over Aborigines continued for generations. A number of Aboriginal people were forced into government reserves and church missions. Around the middle of the 20th century, many reserves were closed because of overcrowding and increasing maintenance expenses. Aboriginal people were forced into cities and towns where they were had no other option but to live on the outskirts, or in public housing (subsidised by State governments). The aboriginal population decreased from the original

300,000 when the first white settlers arrived to Australia, to only about 60,000 people. Aborigines became second class citizens in their own land. They only got the right to vote in 1967. Impact of the violent on the surviving Aboriginal people European settlement had a big impact on the entire Aboriginal population. This is despite the fact that some white settlers, including colonial government officials and Christian missionaries, tried to help Indigenous people. They believed that the Aboriginal people were primitive and uncultured, and without their help they would die out. Their attempts to help the Indigenous people are known as paternalism, which means looking after someone and taking care of their interests in the belief that they cannot do it themselves. The Europeans thought they could make that process better for Aboriginal people by placing them on government reserves or in church missions where they could die in peace (protection policy). But then, rather than protect their freedoms or their way of life, the protection policy only helped to further destroy them. Their traditional way of life was vanished as they became more and more dependent on handouts from the government and the church just to survive. From the first time they arrived in Australia, the white settlers attempted to 'civilise' the Aboriginal people. The settlers made them wear clothes and attend church. The Native Institute was set up in 1814 by Governor Macquarie to educate Aboriginal children in the European way. Macquarie believed that if you educated some of the Indigenous population then they would take back what they had learned to their community. By the 1930s, white Australians were no longer trying to provide the Indigenous population with an education that they could take back to their community. A policy of assimilation was beginning to come out. It was designed to combine Aboriginal people into white society by forcing them to live in the same way and hold the same beliefs and values as white Australians. This led to the even further reduction of traditional Aboriginal culture. The most unfortunate aspect of the assimilation policy was that it led to many children being forcibly taken away from their parents and families and placed in foster care or group homes. These children have become known as the Stolen Generation. Reconciliation On the 13th February 2008 the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, made a formal apology to the Indigenous Australians for their past mistreatments. They are the single most disadvantaged group of people in Australia. Sources: http://panique.com.au/trishansoz/aborigine/aborigin.html http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-56_u-426_t-1075_c-4149/WA/10/Impact-of-European-settlementon-Indigenous-people/_tb-p