Hi Minotaur,

Nobody who wasn't a Christian could swear on the bible, and so couldn't give evidence. If anything, this got a lot of Aboriginal people off charges, at least in SA, since any Aboriginal witnesses couldn't give their evidence :) That regulation was modified in the late 1840s.

As well, there had to be an interpreter if they couldn't understand English, and the lack of interpreters also got quite a few people off very serious charges, at least here in SA.

Convicts were not a 'class', they were convicted felons, they had committed crimes. At least my ancestor-convicts did, bolts of cloth, sheep, etc. Some Aboriginal people had convicts assigned to them, the people on Flinders Island for example, and Maria Lock in Sydney. So they certainly weren't lower than convicts. Dreadfully sorry :(

As for convicts raping or abusing Aboriginal women, where's your evidence ? It's so easy to make assertions, as long as they sound sort of right. Prove it. Too late ? Then leave it in abeyance.

So Phillip's 'massacre' never happened ? Good to know.

Anything else ?

Joe

Once again Joe your response and knowledge are fatally flawed as you rely on your research in regard to the recorded (white) history of the South Australian experiences when it comes to colonization. My research clearly shows that Aboriginal people were victims of injustices due to the fact they could not defend themselves in court when accused of crime/s. Interpreters were virtually non-existent as very few whites took the time to learn ‘local’ language, of which there were hundreds. In essence, the majority of whites couldn’t give a toss about Aboriginal languages, cultures or peoples. In their ‘eyes’ they were the dominant class.

And ‘class’ it was. To believe that convicts didn’t know about ‘class’ due to them being felons is a false one. They came from a society that was divided by ‘class’ and informed by the ‘Great Chain of Being’. Aboriginal people were classified as being not better than apes. Of course the convicts took that as they being above them…and treated them accordingly. And to deny rapes and other atrocities occurred is to have your head in the sand.

You won’t find much, if anything, recorded about that happening though as the convicts who were allowed freedoms, or even given a ticket of leave, never recorded in writing what they did. Many were illiterate and of those who were literate they had nothing to write with or on. Your reliance on written evidence is completely flawed Joe…and ignores the realities of the times.

At best you are an apologist…and at worst a denier. You rely upon the whitewashed master narrative as your sources…and won’t acknowledge that events happened that were not recorded as there were reasons to not record them. Welcome to the world of the now completely discredited Keith Windschuttle.

Loudmouth requires proof for statements which makes this a little bit strange: " As you say, pretty soon, the Muslims would have been bringing labour (since they didn't do much of it themselves) ".
The general population of Indonesia was Muslim . Loud. Mouth.

I wasn't around at the time and my study of history is largely anecdotal and sporadic. That said, Minotaur's picture of the history of the times comes across as much more credible than Loudmouth's.

Notions of moral right and wrong have developed slowly over millennia, with a big boost from the analytical thinking of the giants of the European Enlightenment like Immanuel Kant.

The question of whether a convict had committed crimes is better judged from today's standpoint of decency than from the standpoint of the British judiciary which was even more corrupt then than now. To assert that people from Britain's grossly underprivileged "lower orders" who had been "convicted" in British courts were criminals makes no sense whatsoever. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family? Come ON.

The only convict I could find in my own ancestry was an Irishman who had been transported for gun-running. In view of the English occupation of Ireland then, I'd think the bloke was probably a patriotic hero.

And it still remains true that Aborigines were spared the horrific megadeath injustices and massacres that have prevailed in Moslem Indonesia in recent times, even to this day in captive West Papua.

Why do you say "spared"? What exactly is that?

Minotaur,

My god, you come out with some amazing rubbish, unsubstantiated BS. But I guess it fits the Grand Narrative, so who needs proof, eh, EJ ?

Of course, convicts knew about class. But where is your evidence that Aboriginal people were regarded as lower than convicts ? They were free British subjects. Where is your evidence that the lack of interpreters in court disadvantaged Aboriginal people ?

Of course, many people tried to learn the local languages, especially missionaries: often, the only text in a local language was written originally by a missionary. That would have been the case here in SA with Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna, Nauo, Diyari, Pitjantjatara, perhaps Booandik. Most early mission schools were taught in the local language. Of course, as people mixed around, later missions may have had to rely on their common language: English.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that convicts were usually illiterate, and therefore didn't write anything down. Actually, out of my eight or nine convict ancestors, I think most would have been quite literate - in fact, I doubt whether many of them were ever flogged, as in the stereotyped image. One was employed immediately on arrival in 1811 by Mrs Macarthur to help develop the Merino breed of sheep. I doubt that she ever flogged him. Another helped build some of the roads over the Blue Mountains, and even had a bay named after him.

A reliance on written evidence ? You've got me there, Minotaur, given that, by definition, no written evidence ends up effectively being no evidence. So how do you know about anything from those days if you ignore written sources ?

Yes, perhaps I'm a denier who won't rely on unwritten sources. So please present your unwritten sources so that we can get some 'balance'. Just ask the little fat bloke in the front bar, he's a great yarn-spinner, he'll know all about it.

Joe