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The Forum > Article Comments > Re-thinking Aboriginal history > Comments

Re-thinking Aboriginal history : Comments

By Joe Lane, published 25/11/2013

In SA there is no evidence for many of the claims made of systematic government ill-treatment of Aborigines.

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Lego,
Ion Idriss wasn't a historian in that sense. He was a writer who based his novels on actual happenings. You can not use his material as historical reference.
Posted by individual, Wednesday, 27 November 2013 11:45:39 AM
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Individual,

I'm not so sure - precisely because Idriess was NOT an academic, a historian, but simply, naively, recording what he was witnessing or hearing, suggests that he wasn't going to be constrained quite so much by ideological blinkers, that he was persuaded by what he heard about, by the possibilities of reality rather than theory.

Arthur Upfield also commented a great deal on Aboriginal issues, without quite as ideological weight but as empirical observation - he lived out there, after all, and didn't have a particular axe to grind. And more importantly, he wasn't the captive of some group, beholden to it - and forced to keep on its good side - in order to keep his job, like so many academic concubines.

Yes indeed, we can't rely too much on oral accounts, but if something can be corroborated independently of those accounts, with forensic or documentary evidence, preferably from more than one or two sources, then we might be onto something.

But I think I can see where you are coming from :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 27 November 2013 12:04:31 PM
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Individual.

The bloke was there when a very interesting and now contentious part of Australian history was being made. Your premise implies that we must not believe anything Idriess said about his experiences being Billy Sing's spotter at Galliipli because he was not a historian. (Billy who? says Individual)

Could I remind you that our left wing historians have been discovered to be outright liars who airbrushed history in order to make it conform to their black armband ideology? When an ideology pushed by already discredited sources is contradicted by eye witness accounts from people who were there and who recount their stories without seeming to push any ideological position themselves, and when their accounts cross connect with other reliable sources, then the weight of credibility rests with the eye witness.

Read his books, Individual, and be proud of how your pioneering ancestors treated aboriginal people. Then get angry about how you were naively conned by the lefties into thinking the opposite.

The most amazing aspect of trendy lefty viewpoints is their advocacy of the "stolen generations." The removal of mainly half caste aboriginal children from dysfunctional tribal life in order to teach them hygiene and to equip them for the modern world was a LEFT WING IDEA that was advocated by lefties including members of Australia's Communist Party. It is utterly incredible that today's lefties are trying to use something that their predecessors advocated to try and claim that this is proof of how ghastly Australians treated aboriginal people.

Don't believe anything I say. Pick up some books on Australian history and start reading.
Posted by LEGO, Thursday, 28 November 2013 3:51:39 AM
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Lego,
I frequent a part of the country Idriess wrote about. For example the Drums of Mer were heavily coloured in so to speak. As I said earlier Ion Idriess was a writer who wrote novels with a major content of factual happenings.
Real historians would never write history in the first person as some leftie historians tend to sneak in by pretending to know what a character actually thought.
As a matter of fact I find Idriess's writing very interesting with a true sense of romance & history, a liitle like Hector Holthouse. My greatest admiration for an historian goes to the late Captain Brett Hilder on his book "The voyage of Torres". This man was incredible in his achievements & competence & integrity.
Posted by individual, Thursday, 28 November 2013 9:34:20 AM
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Thanks, Individual, I fully agree with you.

Hi LEGO,

When you write

"The removal of mainly half caste aboriginal children from dysfunctional tribal life in order to teach them hygiene and to equip them for the modern world .... "

From the Protector's letters (at least up to the end of Hamilton's tenure in 1908), it seems that, as long as a 'half-caste' child, or the child of a 'half-caste woman, was being looked after, he didn't involve himself in any attempt to 'take the children away' - quite the reverse.

In any case many 'half-caste' children and 'quarter-caste' children of 'half-caste' mothers, were not living in any way connected to traditional life, usually they were in towns or on missions. One deserted wife with four or five children was provided with rations in Adelaide for at least nine years. Another widowed woman with a big family, who had taken over the lease of 160 acres from her late husband, obviously couldn't look after the land AND raise her kids, so the Protector had her provided with rations by the local district Council for many years. As long as kids had a caring mother, the family was provided with rations. There seems to be no evidence of families or children being compelled to go to Missions.

But if a 'half-caste' mother died, or if a child was otherwise an orphan, the Protector had an obligation to take care of that child, and usually sent them to a Mission, where they could be looked after by the Matron of the dormitory, fed and clothed, and enrolled in the Mission school. In that period 1840-1912, there don't seem to have been any exceptions to this guiding principle.

[TBC]
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 28 November 2013 3:18:03 PM
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[continued]

Of course, the focus was om female children - male children, even orphans (if they were old enough) were assumed to be more able to make their way, and didn't need protection so much - in fact, I have come to think that the policy of 'Protection' really related to female children and single women, who, after all, had very few options for employment, apart from domestic service under the eagle-eye of the mistresses of the household. Marriage was basically their only other option, and this really would have been the situation until after the second world war - as it was for the female children of working-class families all over Australia.

We have to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking that what system and conditions apply now, was what the situation was like back then. Unemployment benefits weren't introduced until the Depression, and even old-age pensions weren't thought of until just over a hundred years ago, pretty much anywhere in the world. Everybody was on their own far more than they are now.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 28 November 2013 3:19:05 PM
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