Minotaur,

I did write:

"I should clarify that I do think it's very likely that a range of killings took place, from single to multiple murders. After all, invasions provoke responses, and those responses provoke further killings - that's in the very nature of invasions, whether by the Romans, or the Normans, or by the Muslims, or any other colonial powers.

"But where, and how often, and how violent - these have to be demonstrated. Without evidence, I would suspect that, for all that, there were massacres out beyond the reach of government in all states."

I'll repeat: "Without evidence, I would suspect that, for all that, there were massacres out beyond the reach of government in all states."

I don't know Clements, or Lehman, or what happened at Risdon Cove. Lehman's review of Clements was on Google.

Research and primary sources may still not be enough in this case unless primary research includes evidence of something. Otherwise 'research' is just surmise, backed up by rumours and further surmise. In these sorts of cases, that may be hard, or impossible to find, but how can one believe without evidence ? Just by gut feeling ? A plausible narrative ? Sorry, not enough.

'Records of massacres' ? Or just reports, rumours, barfly accounts ? Yes, of course, there may have been many, many massacres, as I suggested above, but evidence of at least a few out of many would clinch it.

I don't have to refute anything: if someone asserts that something happened, then it is their obligation to provide evidence. As the Romans declared, 'asseritur gratis, negatur gratis' - he who asserts without evidence can be ignored and his assertions set aside.

Upfield's novels were just novels, yes. But he was extremely meticulous and accurate with his background detail: it indicates how things were and why, but doesn't prove anything.

But when you have something of substance, get back to me. No rush :)

Joe

God, I'm a slow learner.

For the last few years, I've been trying to map the droughts across Australia since 1788, AND to try to understand what happened to Aboriginal groups in marginal country when droughts took hold, especially long droughts such as the 1890s drought, followed quickly by the Federation drought.

Many groups had relations with neighbouring groups - probably clan to clan, which might partly explain how and why groups like the Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri seem to control such huge areas of country: that, during droughts, outlying clans were able to move into the better country of related clans near headwaters and ranges, and away from the waterless plains.

Still, during a severe drought, young children could no longer be nursed, so they died. dearly on. Groups fragmented and scattered. Old women died, with nobody to provide for them. If the drought went on long enough, the middle-aged women and older men would have begun to die. And it would take many years for the population to build up again.

So, say, a five-year drought affected most of southern Queensland, like the present one, any young children under four would have died, as would any women over, say, fifty. If a drought lasted five years, it would take another year or two before groups were sure enough of better times to begin to have children again. That takes nine months. So with a five-year drought, there may be up to a twelve-year gap in the age-structure of a group. In other words, the gap in a group's age-structure may be seven or more years longer than the drought itself. And one drought, about eight hundred years ago, lasted 32 years.

Kangaroos can have multiple births in the first good year after a drought, and young females can be bearing within a couple of years. Humans take a bit longer to re-build populations.

So, across Australia, any estimate of population before 1788 has to take all of this into account - and take into account, not the very highest number in the very best of times, but

{TBC}

[continued]

of the 'highest' numbers given the alternations of droughts and good times.

So perhaps three hundred thousand may be a rough estimate of average total population across the entire continent, pre-1788.

PART TWO

I've tracked the Censuses since 1971, and was a bit sceptical about sudden, 50 %, rises in numbers from, say, 1981 to 1986, and from a third increase from 1991 to 1996, and almost as much from 2006 to 2011. But I didn't do much about it until this last holiday period. I tracked later age-groups back to when they were born - for example, the 35-39 age-group in 2011 who were born in the period just before the 1976 Census - and was struck by how that age-cohort, the same people, had GROWN in number, sometimes almost double.

How could this be ? An age-cohort can't grow, it can only decline with mortality. So I thought, bugger it, I'll re-adjust those figures back to previous Censuses, and back to the time when they were born. With a bit of very rough and creative doodling, one could re-build earlier, older age-cohort numbers as well. Then I added them up, Census by Census.

Officially, the 1971 Census counted around 106,000 Indigenous people. But with my crude adjustments, the figure was more like 300,000. So the population may not have risen from 106,000 in 1971 to 548,000 in w2011 - five times as many ! Wow ! Fantastic ! - but barely doubled, from 300,000 to 548,000. I put it in a paper:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1796

The original data and the adjusted data are there, in easy-to-read Tables.

And if slightly higher mortality estimates are made, the 1971 population is correspondingly higher, around 330,000.

Of course, re-identification is probably the main factor causing that growth. Fair enough, that's people's right, to identify or not. But if there is anything in those figures, then the growth in the birth-rate has been far lower than I used to take for granted, probably barely any higher than the birth-rate growth for Australia as a whole.

[TBC]

[continued]

If anything, the Indigenous population has risen since 1971, to a large extent, not because of high birth-rates but due to people living longer, i.e. a massive growth in the older age-groups.

PART THREE

So could the Indigenous population have been around 300,000 back in 1971, not 106,000 ?

And if (from the first part, above), the Indigenous population in 1788 was also around 300,000, when was the dip and when was the renewed rise ? If there were catastrophic impacts on population due to massacres, epidemics, grog, etc., when did the population start to recover ?

OR [this is where I have to contemplate emigrating], has the Australian Indigenous population hovered around 300,000 ever since 1788 ? With not much of a dip, and not much of a rise ?

Just trying to tease out a couple of dynamics, and provide some constructive food for thought.

Joe

Really, Joe? Keith Windschuttle?

And here I was starting to warm to you as a potential authority on indigenous history. I warned myself. I've always been sceptical of right-wing historical revisionists like yourself because they only ever have a nationalist political agenda for their re-writing of history and they always turn out to be wrong.

But no, I started to give you the benefit of the doubt, and now you're citing a dishonest piece of crap like Windschuttle. Now I feel naive and stupid again. Thanks for that.

No political agenda there, eh Joe?!

Serves me right, I suppose.

Hi AJ,

No need to be so tactful, let it all out :) But I was quite hurt to be called right-wing: I was born on the Left and I'll die on the Left, only it isn't the same Left these days. I suppose I'm old Old Left.
.
As for Windschuttle's work, some of the most exhaustively researched work I've ever read. perhaps you can give an example of where he might have fudged or mis-quoted or fabricated anything ?

As for revisionism, yes. So much of Indigenous 'history' needs to be re-assessed. If you're interested, you could start with the primary documents on my web-site: www.firstsources.info That should keep you busy for a few years.

But it'll be a bumpy ride :)

Joe