Greetings Joe.......low socio economic groups fall behind in all facets of the wider society no matter what race creed or religion. We embrace the struggle of those who have dragged themselves from the lowest strata of society to more secure strata. Predominantly this is accomplished via education or just through strength of character and struggle, but we applaud those very few who have risen from adversity.

Our first Australians had the skills to survive in a country with little natural resource, but the culture and community did not get past the Stone Age. There was absolutely no worth given to the dreamtime and its stories that helped the nations to survive in this arid continent because the settlers had technology to help overcome these hardships, so the indigenous peoples and their culture were deemed expendable.

In a society that had no concept of personal wealth, the notion of a grazier having more meat than they could consume in one sitting was foreign. The scant water resources of the inland that sustained the nations for 60 thousand years were now being muddied and fouled by the cattle and the elders railed against assimilation. As you mentioned the young were targeted by the missionary groups but the elders would not submit and were murdered indiscriminately for any violation that impacted the graziers.

But in saying all of this, we are not responsible; this society in modern Australia did not commit the acts. Australia day should be celebrated for what we are now, not what bones in a graveyard did centuries ago.

Hi SoG,

I would strongly dispute much of what you write. Where to start ?

First off, let's remember that all human societies were once hunter-gatherers, there is nothing unique about Indigenous Australian societies. All cultures are 'the oldest cultures in the world'. People in parts of Britain were living hunter-gatherer lives barely a thousand years ago. I read somewhere that some of the spears used at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 were stone-tipped.

One day, someone has to explore the impacts of long droughts on Indigenous population: I think that, many times in long droughts, populations would have been decimated, and some groups may have even been extinguished - although, of course, proof may be impossible. Old people, especially women, and young children, would have died quickly. So a drought that lasted for, say, ten years, even in a population that survived, would have had a age-gap of fifteen years or more between survivors and the next generation. Perhaps the old men may have passed on by then, so even cultural transmission may have been fraught.

You mention the scant water sources. Yes, but within a very short time, tens of thousands of bores were put down across pastoral land and, if anything, water was no longer a problem: feed for the animals was, again in droughts [such as the current long one in Queensland], the great conditioning factor in Australian history, just as feed for native animals during a drought would have been a problem for hunters.

I'm not sure what you mean by " .... the elders railed against assimilation ... " That plays well these days, but I'm not sure that it is accurate. The elders didn't mind living off rations from the beginning of contact, and it may have facilitated their sharing of knowledge and organising ceremonies all the more easily.

[TBC]

[continued]

Then you write, " .... the elders would not submit and were murdered indiscriminately for any violation that impacted the graziers." That also plays well these days, but you may need to find a skerrick of evidence :) On the other hand, many old fellas wore those plates around their necks - King Billy, King Jerry, etc.

I'm not even sure about this: ".... the indigenous peoples and their culture were deemed expendable.... " Young men were most certainly not expendable, they provided the backbone of the pastoral work-force for well over a hundred years.

It was customary for graziers to provide for all of their stockmen's dependants, and one reason for the laying-off of pastoral workers in the NT in the late sixties was the demand that accommodation be provided for entire families, not just equal wages, which most men were getting by 1967. You can read about this in the transcripts of national conferences in 1967 and 1968, all on my web-site, under 'Conferences'.

Some day, we will all have to face actual realities, not plausible stories. In the meantime, we can waste our time on wild-goose chases, they're so much more fun.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Joe, you take issue with my comment "not expendable"...they were certainly expendable to some. Wholesale genocide did not happen, but individual massacres did.

As I said I do not accept any responsibility even if it was a great great grandfather of mine doing the killing. But your whitwash of the treatment of Aboriginals with a bent towards we did them a favour is not factual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_of_Indigenous_Australians

Hi SoG,

I haven't said anything about massacres, yet. Of course, they probably occurred, certainly out beyond the reach of government, in NSW and Queensland. I typed up three Royal Commission transcripts from Queensland in the late 1850s and up to 1861, mainly on the conduct of the Native Police, and there certainly were massacres, in that SE corner of Queensland, east and south of the Dawson, in the Bunya and on the MacIntyre. You can find them on my web-site: firstsources.info, under 'Royal Commissions', I think, or maybe under 'Queensland'.

I'm indexing a massacre of a dozen people that occurred in 1927, near Forrest River in WA, supposedly carried out by trackers, but probably with the connivance of white police.

There was a pitched battle down this way, on the Rufus River, in 1841 (from memory) which had been shaping up for months. A massacre of 28 white people was carried out by Aboriginal groups on the Coorong at about the same time.

I would like to find the transcript of the Coniston Massacre in 1928, west of Alice Springs, during a major drought, if anybody has access to it.

During droughts, the people from the Gawler Ranges used to come down marauding as far as Port Lincoln, until the Protector set up a couple of ration stations in the north of the Eyre Peninsula, and then over time, a string of ration stations in the Gawler Ranges themselves. I mapped them, and those maps are on that web-site. Those ration stations stopped the massacres of whites down the Eyre Peninsula - the last one was, I think, in about 1862. Also on that web-site.

Another massacre in SA - around 1870 - was carried out by Aboriginal groups near Mt Eba, south of Coober Pedy, in which they exterminated a group who had supposed to have married wrong.

Bar-flies from one end of Australia to the other profitably spruiked their exploits in numerous massacres. It would be great if forensic studies could be made of supposed massacre sites, just to nail down some of the truth.

Joe

sonofgloin,

That site you quoted is dead suss. The dubious quality of the information is openly admitted.

As an example of far-fetched BS, it speculates a biological warfare atrocity against Aborigines in 1768 as a part of 'frontier wars'. Codswallop!

Check what this reliable academic and expert says about Wikipedia as a (dubious) source of information and a tool of astroturfing lobbyists for secondary gain of course.

"Astroturf and manipulation of media messages | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDxUniversityofNevada"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU