It began with William the Conqueror who had Papal authority to own England and this kept Napoleon and Hitler off private property. Then one day after breakfast George said he owned New South Wales as well.

Williams v. Attorney-General NSW. In 1913, Isaacs J. said it was unquestionable that "when Governor Phillip received his first commission from King George III on 12 October 1786, the whole of the lands of Australia were already in law the property of the King of England".

Phillip's 1st Commission 12 Oct 1786.
" Phillip to be our Governor-in-Chief over our territory called New South Wales"

1786 - The colony of New South Wales was proclaimed by King George III.

The colony of New South Wales was established by an Act of the Parliament in 1787 of King George III :
"And whereas his Majesty, by two several Orders-in-Council, 1786, certain offenders, , should be transported to New South Wales, ."

And now numbers of people want to snatch this land from the Crown, the property of the monarchy. How would you feel if you owned it and a mob did a house invasion? At the very least the cost of the First Fleet with extra wine purchases and gifts of shovels to freed convicts should be repaid . Donations may be lodged with the Pom House in Canberra.

You really need help.

Please be so kind as too translate into plain English what your point is.

Convicts stole rabbits and now want to steal the whole continent from
the British owner.

Hi Philip S,

The point is so obviously clear! Do not mix your whites with your coloreds when doing the wash!

So you feel an Aboriginal declaration of Australian republic is the way to go? Could work. Needs a committee to draw up the paper work.
The US may have some spare funny hats , wigs and muskets.

Charles could get some sacks of grain ,1 stallion. 3 mares. 3 colts. 2 bulls 5 cows. 29 sheep. 19 goats.49 hogs. 25 pigs. 5 rabbits. 18 turkeys. 29 geese. 35 ducks. 122 fowls. 87 chickens .

"18 turkeys. 29 geese. 35 ducks. 122 fowls. 87 chickens"

NNN, when me old grandma would tell me to go feed the fowls, when I would get to the pen I would find nothing but chickens. Before we can have a deep and meaningful discussion on this, could you please firstly explain the difference between fowls and chickens?
The rest of the barnyard collection you mentioned I am rather clued up on, having one of those little ABC books on the subject, so no explanation of differences is necessary, well not for me, maybe for others.

In my little ABC book it did say 'C' is for Chicken, but alas no joy at the letter 'F', it said 'F' is for Fox! Now having some experience with both chickens and foxes, I say with some authority a chicken is not a fox, but is it a fowl?

Over to you.

What's the difference between a hog and a pig?

Gamefowl, landfowl, Waterfowl, all are poultry?

The difference between a hog and a pig?

Size and age mostly.

A hog is an old big swine. A pig is a young smaller swine.

Poultry! The dickens you say Foxy... now... a chicken can be a poultry, and a fowl can be a poultry, but can a chicken be a fowl. or a fowl be a chicken? Why did NNN separate the fowls from the chickens. I believe you should only separate the sheep from the goats.

Toni, we have been discussing the pigs and hogs in Canberra and their snouts in the trough on another thread. Do pigs and hogs wear suits?

Foxy, when I played footy, we had Fat Mick in the front row, whenever Fats got the ball he wouldn't pass it and get tackled, the other kids would yell.. "FATS YOU HOG!" That is another interesting fact about hogs, they don't pass the ball when they play footy!

Nick,

In your inimitable way, (I think), and laden with so much impenetrable sarcasm as to drown your argument, I think you're suggesting an Aboriginal Republic. Is that right ?

Assuming that the Australian people would vote for such a move - and I'm sure there are many who would like to see Indigenous radicals all comfortably and permanently housed at Yalata or Papunya or Wadeye or Doomadgee - there are a few undecided issues:

* 80 % of the Indigenous population lives in large towns and cities. Would they be forcibly moved ? Of course, like you, they can move any time now if they wished, so the fact that they don't, does suggest that they are not willing to spend their lives at the sorts of places mentioned above; nor would their skills be of much use; nor would they be welcomed; yes, seriously.

* where would it be ? Presumably, in areas of 'predominantly Indigenous population', otherwise, in a presumably democratic Indigenous republic, non-Indigenous people could out-number and out-vote Indigenous people and run the place. What am I saying, they would be running the place anyway.

* what economic base would it have (sorry, that the Marxist in me) ? We would be talking about the most barren, dysfunctional, ghastly parts of the Indigenous geography. Currently, that strip of country, mostly desert, has no economic base, or economic anything.

* would the eighty thousand or so, across a million square kilometres, have to police themselves ? Would customary law in relation to, say, child marriage and wife-beating, be enforced ? Would spearing be brought back as a punishment ?

* why the hell should Canberra, i.e. the rest of Australia, fund it ? You want it, you may get it, but you fund it. That raises a crucial issue: how many would be alive after a month without welfare ?

This is Apartheid, a prescription for genocide, pure and simple,

Joe

//The difference between a hog and a pig?

Size and age mostly.

A hog is an old big swine. A pig is a young smaller swine.//

Allow me to revise my question: what is the difference 'twixt pig, hog, swine and sus scrofa domesticus?

//Toni, we have been discussing the pigs and hogs in Canberra and their snouts in the trough on another thread. Do pigs and hogs wear suits?//

The Third Commandment from Animal Farm is 'no animal shall wear clothes'.

*SPOILER ALERT*

But the pigs, and possibly the hogs, perhaps even the swine - do wear suits. Maybe they escaped from Animal Farm and took up residence in our Parliament. It would explain a lot.

I don't know how many of our politicians have read Animal Farm. Probably most of them think it's too long, with too many big words. Maybe if a few more of them were sufficiently literate to read it, and properly understood what it has to say about the corrupting influence of power, they wouldn't be such gross, sweaty pigs gorging themselves on the taxpayer's hard-earned.

Paul
It seems that 'chooks' covers most tame bird life , from Yorkshire "chickens", Cockney "fowls" merging as Cornish " chowks". We must also add:
5 Rabbits
Gov. Phillip’s Greyhounds
Rev. John’s Cats ( although Charles may have no title to them)
(rabbits are his , except 10 yr old kids' pets).

Joe
The Aboriginal Revolutionary Royalists would lead a joint One Nation-CFMEU Forest-Green ticket for all of Windsor-Land , Tasmania and Nauru Arab resort.

So in 1786 the majority of this nation inhabitants (being indigenous) voted to recognise King George III?
Geez thats new...
If you want to make an argument it helps to helps to start with your feet on the ground and to then apply some basic logic...
Outlining your ideas a little more clearly might help the rest of us understand what the hell you're on... or on about at least.

NNN,

Wad're yer smokin?
Wa'ever it is it's effective!!

NNN, well done, you actually managed to slip this "thread" past GY for approval, and also suck in a few of the "oh so serious brigade" to go along with your funny humor.But most just couldn't understand it.

Hi Paul,

Oh, I think we 'understand' it all right, it's laid on so thick
that we can almost see it coming.
A bit like making a salad with dressing, but forgetting the salad.
Yum, says Nick.

AC, it's possible that, in a very clumsy way back in the eighteenth century, the British differentiated between political sovereignty on the one hand and forms of land tenure on the other - that, elsewhere in their imperialist experiences over hundreds of years, when they seized a territory, the British Crown replaced the former sovereign power, but the land remained undisturbed, the peasants going about their work with no change in their relationship to their land.

So, when the British gained a dim awareness of the unique relationship between Aboriginal people and their land, claiming political sovereignty over all of eastern Australia, even declaring Aboriginal people to be British subjects, were the easy parts: what to make of the relationship that Aboriginal people had with the land ? Certainly, from the outset, recognise, loosely, their continuing right to hunt and fish and gather, but what else ?

And we've been working on that ever since. In SA (and presumably all of Australia), under the direction of the British Colonial Office, all pastoral leases (and unreserved Crown Land) was, from about 1849, subject to a clause recognising the traditional rights of Aboriginal people. Those rights are still recognised in SA. Not the right to exclude, however. Clearly, otherwise there would still be nobody else here.

So it would not have been legal to try to drive people off their land, both as fellow-British subjects AND as having their rights to use their lands as they always had done enshrined in colonial law. Of course it was done, often brutally, although a bit of proof of that would be useful.

Cheers,

Joe

Ah, found it:

From 1851, all pastoral leases in South Australia had to contain this clause:

“And reserving to aboriginal inhabitants of the said State and their descendants during the continuance of this lease full and free right of egress and regress into upon and over the said lands and every part thereof and in and to the springs and surface waters therein and to make and erect and to take and use for food, birds and animals ferae naturae in such manner as they would have been entitled to if this lease had not been made.”

I've found this intriguing: " ... in such manner as they would have been entitled to if this lease had not been made." i.e. on all non-reserved, non-granted, non-sold Crown Land.

But that begs the question: if people had rights to use the land, why didn't they exercise them ? What was stopping them ? Official policy allowed it, it was written into leases (i.e. contracts), co-existence was possible on pastoral leases (and still is). So why not ?

One possible, partial, answer may have been the ration system: if people could get rations, enough for a loaf of bread and a pound of meat etc., etc., per day, then why go out foraging ?

Incidentally, if you think those rations were pathetic, try it for a week: a loaf of bread each day and a pound of meat each day, a packet of tobacco each week, matching tea and sugar (now, THERE's a hands-on research project for all those kids doing Aboriginal 'Culture). A blanket per year, fishing gear (lines, hooks, netting twine), children all being schooled (at least in Adelaide) in their own language ?

And camping right next to the comparative bright lights of a growing town (yes, there was a time when Adelaide was quite vibrant). That ration system was set up right across agricultural and pastoral South Australia, up until well after the War.

{TBC}

[continued]

No wonder people 'came in', as some courageous (and retired) anthropologists have pointed out, and exchanged the relentless search for food for .... well, doing nothing really. As a leftist, I always imagined and strongly asserted without evidence, that as the Frontier moved out, people moved further out, causing all manner of havoc between groups. White capitalist bastards.

But actually no. In SA, most ration-issuers by 1900 were pastoralists, doing the work free, including building and maintaining a ration store-room. And, of course, using the labour of the able-bodied without which they probably couldn't have survived. Some pastoralists in very hard country even built locks on their ephemeral creeks in order to attract Aboriginal people, for the labour of their young people. We've worked together in harmony for quite some time now, all over the country, haven't we ? Tell me about low- or no-wages :)

So possibly, land became vacant by being de facto vacated, which suited aspiring farmers. Of course, this would have been a prior assumption of colonial authorities: otherwise what did settlement mean ? The question is: was a ration system adequate compensation for vacating the land ? Were Aboriginal people entitled to both ? Which would they have rather foregone ?

Joe

paul,
"you actually managed to slip this "thread" past GY for approval "
yes , a few of them failed but he's just given up trying..

Hi Nick,

When you set up this thread, called 'land grab', I assumed it would have something to so with land grab. Instead, somebody goes off talking about pigs and poultry. Oh gosh, I do believe it was you.

Oh well, BTT: if we are to talk about 'land grab', then we need to explore the relationship that Aboriginal people had to the land. As an ex-Marxist, it still seems to me that that means primarily economic relations - how people used the land, i.e. foraged over it, and the impact that relationship would have had on their camping patterns, i.e. their social relationships.

Amongst the Ngarrindjeri, in very fertile areas and with no shortage of food or water, therefore no threat of droughts, they differentiated into about a hundred extended family groups, each of fifteen to fifty people, as people did elsewhere across Australia. Each group jealously guarded its foraging territory. In the case of Ngarrindjeri, this could be as small as twenty square kilometres, each group having access to ready fresh water, grassy plains, bush, swamps, etc. In much harsher country such as the northern deserts, with much smaller family groups, the territory needed for sustenance might exceed ten thousand square kilometres. So there may have been anything upwards of ten thousand family groups, territories, 'sovereignties', 'nations' in the very old language of eighteenth century political scientists, across Australia.

We can talk about the 'sovereignty' or autonomy of the family group given that they guarded their lands ceaselessly, against neighbouring families and marauding groups from the drier country, especially during droughts. Necessarily, groups had to communicate, mainly for marriage partners. Thus groups, especially those close to each other, had inter-family ties. Further out, fewer ties, and thereby more suspicions and hostility. So there was limited reason for contact between more distant groups, even those within the same dialect group or 'tribe'. 'Government' such as it was, was thus usually no more than family business. No group had power over any other group. No family had power over other families.

[TBC]

[continued]

Occasionally groups came together, after careful negotiations, to share ceremonies and to exchange young women. With inevitable feuds over wife-snatching, there were usually battles as well, to settle old scores and initiate new ones.

There you have it: autonomy of families, each numbering in low double-figures, each patrolling sufficient territory to feed their numbers. In drier country of course, droughts would have been catastrophic, forcing people either to live with related neighbours, or to raid their resources, perhaps take over their country, depending on relative numbers.

Land was used as needed, 'government' was primarily a family affair. Such systems occupied seven million square kilometres for tens of thousands of years, some of it constantly and some intermittently. Then along came the British .....

Joe

Incidentally, and speaking of 'land grabs', where do simpletons get the idea that everything, every land boundary, the continued dexist4ence of every group, was unchanging ? 'We had the oldest culture in the world', except of course for every other human group in the world. So people move to: 'We mean "unchanging" culture', which is posed unquestioningly as a virtue. Perhaps, in people's perception, there was no need to change anything, and anybody who suggested some refinements was summarily subtracted.

So do people mean 'the world's most stagnant culture' ? Cultures, of course: it may come as a surprise, including to many Indigenous people, including radicals, to learn that there were very many different, usually environment-oriented, cultures across the country. Is stagnation good ? Live and learn.

Anyways, land grabbing: group family size fluctuated with resource availability, droughts, and chance: if a group had, by chance, many daughters but few sons, it could be more easily incorporated into inter-marrying groups and disappear. If it had many sons and few daughters, it may have been seen as a threat to neighbouring groups and exterminated, and its territory incorporated into those of neighbouring groups, or its men could alleviate the sense of threat by migrating on marriage to other groups.

So there was nothing 'unchanging' about traditional society. Environments changed rapidly with droughts. Relative strength of groups varied rapidly over time. Large family groups might split into two 'brother' groups, occupying different even distant, territories, eventually losing the sense of being related and going to war. Change was, in many ways, unavoidable. But it's always easier for fools to presume that nothing happened.

Joe

Captain Cook's old man lived when England and Scotland were 2 countries. Wiradjuri country NSW is bigger than Scotland and is free from bag-pipes. Europe was never united and may be grabbed by Papua New Guinea which is a united nation. As our landlord Charles will need to be paid out for family expenses funding the First Fleet we need to put a value on:

10 Forges
700 Iron Shovels
747,000 Nails
40 Corn Mills
12 Smith’s Bellows
330 Iron Pots
4 Timber Carriages
1 Small Cask of Raisins
1 Printing Press
6 Bullet Moulds
1 Portable Canvas House (Gov. Phillip)
Kittens
Puppies
700 Gimlets
700 Wooden Bowls
8,000 Fish Hooks
1 Piano
1 Set of Candlestick Makers.

Starving convicts lived on kangaroo, rats and fish and the buildings they made are not Crown property unless the king gets feral . George got the land at bargain price and the kittens and pups are not numbered , say 5 each and we're done

Hi Nick,

I always approach one of your efforts like Brer Rabbit about to be thrown, tarred and feathered, into a thorn bush of incomprehensible non sequiturs.

It interesting that, among the items you list, probably very comprehensively, there are few references to any weapons, big guns, a thousand sabres and muskets - you know, machinery for outright war. Did you leave them out ?

Cheers,

Joe

Scotland never had a sane government except Robert the Bruce who used a waddy on the king and became king but his relatives were English convicts. Philip probably heard requests for his convicts to be armed and defend the New South Wales republic but Eureka Stockade did that.
Sirius was armed with six carronades, short cannons used to fire large objects to smash ships. She also had four six-pounder guns. There were another ten six-pounder guns in the cargo hold to be used to protect the new settlement. Four companies of marines, comprising 213 men had muskets and gents had swords. George got all his guns back for some king-hits against Yanks on royal territory 1812.

Hi Nick,

Thank you for a direct answer, but I may have missed your point of a link between poultry in early Australia and Robert the Bruce. I suggest that his relatives may have been Scottish, rather than English, convicts, and perhaps a good deal after his time.

Actually yes, many convicts were armed: for a time, they formed much of the Sydney police force. Philip and the Eureka Stockade were active at different times and places, by the way.

So no artillery on the First Fleet which could be transported from place to place, on land ? So perhaps no thought, no intention, to use large guns on innocent and harmless locals ? Just enough muskets for the soldiers on board the Fleet to keep the convicts in line, and no spares ?

Now that you mention guns, in the Letters of Rev. Threlkeld up on Lake Macquarie in 1825, he reports encountering Aboriginal men on the track who ask him for powder for their guns. He has none spare but gives them other supplies. Maybe like in SA, in NSW it has always been legal for Aboriginal people to have and use guns ?

But thank you for that brief historical kaleidoscope.

Joe

"Scots Dumpy poultry breed is possibly one of the most ancient in the United Kingdom - with reports going back before Roman times - the Picts are meant to have carried them to battle camps where they were used to warn of approaching strangers. Tradition has it that they were brought to Scotland by the Phoenician traders [333 B.C.] .. galley slaves were usually prisoners of war. . In enormous sail-and-oar vessels, the Phoenicians, "

Bruce paid for chooks brought by convicts and no doubt used them to warn that English soldiers were crossing Bannockburn .
.." dinners and suppers consumed seventy deer, five oxen, and seventy-four sheep, plus 'melons, grapes, fish, poultry, and so forth'. ... in 1633, when Charles travelled north for his Scottish coronation." Poultry includes fowls and chickens. Bruce's family were convicts of the English.

" 1306, Robert the Bruce sent his wife Elizabeth, his daughter Marjorie , his sisters Mary and Christina to Kildrummy Castle, under the protection of his brother Niall. The English hanged, drew and quartered Niall Bruce, along with all the men from the castle. King Edward imprisoned Bruce's sister Mary.. in wooden cages on the walls of Roxburgh , Elizabeth was imprisoned for eight years by the English,".

"In 1803, the death of Constable Joseph Luker of the Sydney Foot Police., the Constable was attacked and killed. His body was found the following morning with the guard of his cutlass embedded in his skull." "The Marines remained as the first garrison of Sydney Town between 1788 and 1792 when they were at last relieved by this specially formed army unit – the NSW Corps."

Maybe the convict cops used cutlass swords and not muskets. The Marines no doubt took their guns , bat and ball and went home, so no need to pay Charles for the expense of muskets.

" In 1789 a gunpowder magazine, or store, was constructed on Dawes Point, at the northern end of George Street. ; this led to the construction of a series of fortifications, including Dawes Point Battery, around Sydney harbour.
Dawes Point Battery, completed in 1791, was initially armed with guns taken from HMS Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet. It was armed with six carronades and four 6-pounders, with ten more 6-pounders in its hold for use in the new settlement.
On Sunday 2 November 1788 Governor Phillip and others, including marines, established a military redoubt . The detachment was to include a captain, two officers and 25 noncommissioned officers and 40 or 50 convicts The marines were to protect the new settlement from attacks by the Aborigines. A redoubt is a small fortification, ." it has no kaleidoscope.

Thanks Nick,

Jut to add the obvious: a redoubt, and even more so a fort, are stationary structures; their roles are to protect those inside them, not to go forth and aggress against innocent locals.

And is it possible that the big guns at Dawes Point, taken from the Sirius, were pointed more or less out to sea ? At the menacing French, and perhaps the Spanish ships which would have been expected at any time ? Just as sixty or seventy years later, when big guns were installed even down here in Adelaide, pointing out to sea against the imminent arrival of the Russian Fleet ?

Just clarifying :)

Joe

The cannon were landed and could have travelled to Parramatta but military research data shows that boomerang throwers moved more rapidly than gun-aimers could alter the cannon's range and bearing. Gum trees were a particular hazard for NSW Marine Corps Detachment.

It appears that some Indigenous Ratepayers were indignant and irate at footpath maintenance by Parramatta Colonial Good Works and Charity Settlement. Along with central links for welfare and gold digging on the family farm , this led to Aboriginal customers lodging complaints,spears and the occasional friendly bullet.

Nick,

Fascinating. Can you cite that research ? In any genuine academic journal ?

Funny, I don't recall any mention of footpaths, even after fifty thousand years. Why were they irate ? Were they laid with too little irony and sarcasm ?

Joe

"fort , .. are to protect those inside them, not to go forth and aggress against innocent locals. "
Did Edward I build castles in Wales for showcasing English arts and crafts ? Was Stirling castle for highland bagpipe and haggis Grand Final , where Robert Bruce kept his poultry, fowls and chickens.?

Sadly the "military data " about boomerang troops was dud , sorry about that. They did have cannon at Parramatta redoubt which had Aboriginals but not Russians . Dunno , English tended to make Welsh and Scots chuck things , quite unreasonable.

"In July 1788 Lieutenant William Dawes was directed by Governor Phillip to construct a redoubt
near present day Macquarie Place. This was completed in November and a flagstaff and two 6
pounder brass cannons from HMS Sirius emplaced.. It is highly likely that the 6
pounder brass gun at Victoria Barracks is one of the guns emplaced at the redoubt in 1788
and hence is of very high significance to the history of European settlement of Australia.
The first recording of brass SBML 6 pounder guns appears in 1788 when two were emplaced in a
redoubt near present day Macquarie Place, Sydney. By 1801 there are four 6 pounder brass field
piece guns recorded. Two at Barrack Parade and one each at Sydney Guard House and Parramatta."

OK then Charles what do you put on the 2 cannon ? A$ please not pom pounds .

Isn't it amazing what we take for granted ? It just truck me, being of fairly feeble brain in today's 41-degree heat, that I always assumed that the vast majority of the SA Aboriginal population came from Missions (and government settlements). It struck me like a smack in the chops only a few years ago, working on the Protector's Letters, that this may not have been so, although it fitted the notion of people being herded onto Missions.

But looking back at the 1971 Census, I vaguely noticed that there were supposed to be about nine thousand Aboriginal people in South Australia. Going back just a few years, there were about five Missions/settlements around the State, Pt McLeay of course, Pt Pearce, Umeewarra at Port Augusta, Koonibba west of Ceduna and Ernabella up in the North-West. I knew that, at a maximum, none of them had a population over three hundred. Okay, that's a maximum of fifteen hundred back in, say, 1950, out of maybe eight thousand back then.

So even bending the figures a bit, barely 20 % of the Aboriginal population were based at Missions or settlements. The other 80 % were scattered around in country towns, and in Adelaide - and there were probably many more in Adelaide than anybody realised.

My point is that one can accept something without thinking of it too deeply, even when it glaringly conflicts with another aspect of reality, if one thought about it. Two different realities, in other words, in the one head.

If we have no particular reason not to, we believe what we hear or are told: if it sort of makes sense, we run with it. We don't carefully analyse everything before we accept it.

Just ruminating in the infernal heat ......

Joe

win, win. Yes some were in missions and some not. One line of reasoning is gunpowder and Brown Bess used in American discussions in 1776. A typical broadside of a Royal Navy ship of the late 18th century could be fired 2–3 times in approximately 5 minutes, .

We don't know the rate of fire at Parramatta during shire council votes.

Brown Bess
Cartridge 0.69 inches (18 mm) musket ball, undersized to reduce the effects of powder fouling
Action Flintlock
Rate of fire User dependent; usually 3 to 4 rounds a minute
Muzzle velocity Variable
Effective firing range Variable (50–100 yards)

The first frontier war began in 1795 when the British established farms along the Hawkesbury River west of Sydney. Some of these settlements were established by soldiers as a means of providing security to the region. The local Darug people raided farms until Governor Macquarie dispatched troops from the British Army 46th Regiment in 1816. These troops patrolled the Hawkesbury Valley and ended the conflict by killing 14 Indigenous Australians in a raid on their campsite.Indigenous Australians led by Pemulwuy also conducted raids around Parramatta during the period between 1795 and 1802. These attacks led Governor Philip Gidley King to issue an order in 1801 which authorised settlers to shoot Indigenous Australians on sight in Parramatta, Georges River and Prospect areas."

Cannon don't have sights , a bit hit or miss.

Thanks Nick,

Of course, the next step in promoting an assertion which may conflict with one compartment of one's brain but is accepted by another, is to get it up on Wikipedia. It looks authoritative up there. It doesn't have to have any back-up evidence. And just being up there, makes it even more certain in one's schema. It has gained cachet.

Then along comes Nick ....

Joe

Not sure wot I done, Joe, or wot you are saying like. What's this "mission" stuff, is that good or bad and why?

Hi Nick,

Missions: at least here in South Australia, mission societies set up missions to the Aboriginal people, providing schooling for their kids, cottages for families, medical attention, rations, etc. (all funded by the state government) and salaries for staff (provided by parish contributions), around the Province/State.

The major ones, Pt McLeay and Pt Pearce, were taken over by the government at the beginning of 1917 (i.e. their centenaries have just passed) and renamed settlements. Other missions continued but eventually were all taken over by governments and eventually handed over to community councils in the seventies. In SA, between them, the southern settlements now cover around fifty thousand acres, mostly unutilised.

Most of us, even myself, assumed that the great bulk of the Aboriginal population, at least up until about 1950, was based, even physically confined, to Missions and settlements. Total Aboriginal population in SA back then would have been around eight or nine thousand. But a further analysis of total population on those settlements in about 1950 would have noticed a population of barely fifteen hundred. i.e. the great majority of Aboriginal people lived, and had always lived, way from settlements. Certainly they may have come and gone for brief visits to relatives, as they pleased, but most Aboriginal people didn't live, and hadn't lived, in church or government settlements. They made do on their own around the state.

My point is that we can 'know' one thing - 'that most Aboriginal people lived in settlements' - AND be vaguely aware of something else - that, looking at the figures, the great majority didn't. And we can hold those two conflicting ideas in our heads at once, as long as we don't reflect on or analyse the subject. We don't put two and two together. And so we go on, working with the dominant, conventional assumption, and ignoring that background reality.

[TBC]

[continued]

So it is with some of the major planks of the Conventional Narrative - that Aboriginal people were driven off the land, and that they were herded onto Missions, minus any evidence.

Evidence to the contrary, that there were ration depots all over the State (there goes 'driving people off their land'), and that there has never been a fence around any Mission (there goes 'herding people onto Missions'), plus the legal recognition of people's rights to use the land as traditionally from earliest days, tend to destabilise those planks somewhat.

Plus the facts that the 'Department' consisted of one employee, and that Mission staff seldom numbered more than four or five, all flat out as farm supervisors, builders, teachers, store-keepers, administrators, doing the medical work and Sunday preaching, etc.

One employee in the Aborigines Department ?! Well, yes. Then, you may say, how come so many ration depots all over the State ? Good question: they were provided, build and maintained without cost to the Department by pastoralists, missions and the Police Department. One bloke up past Oodnadatta issued rations to the local people for thirty seven years.

Conventional assumptions can be so strong that they override common sense, and even knowledge of actual data. Sorry, Nick.

Joe

sorry for what. The "missions" , rural properties, whatever, gave rations..towns didn't . People eat so the lack of fenced missions doesn't mean a lot , they would climb over a fence to reach the food.
Yes land was promised and written into nice declarations . Boats. Guns. Lovely.

South Aust was taken over 50 years after NSW at no cost to George, George & Sons. Not even tobacco with health warnings on the packet.
George didn't even pay for Parliament's SA Colonisation Act so the NSW cannons are the last offer . Brass weight 1200lbs, price $1.50-$2.50kg so two cannon are say $1000.

Hi Nick,

No, actually many ration depots were in towns, i.e. where there were towns, and usually in the yard of the local police trooper. On Missions, rations were given out at the store, along with other goods that people might like to buy.

On that point: in the Superintendent's Letters from Pt McLeay, around 1896 from memory, he writes to the agent in Adelaide [see below * ] asking for the price of fruit and veg at the central markets in town, because that's what he sells them for at the Mission store. Another time, he asks the agent not to send any more oranges for a while, to send cherries instead, because the people are tired of oranges [see: www.firstsources.info on the Taplin and Pt McLeay Page].

* Missions and pastoral stations usually had agents in Adelaide, and used the very efficient mail system (one day inwards, one day outwards) to ask for goods or items to be sent out, and the cost put on their account. One time at Pt McLeay for example, a complex part for the flour mill was needed, and it was there within a week. The Mission agents knew their Missions well, sometimes over many decades. Again, that function was over and above their day jobs, i.e. they did it free.

Guns ? I'm glad you mentioned that. In SA, Aboriginal people have always had the right to buy, use and carry guns of all sorts. One time in 1864, according to Taplin in his Journal at Pt McLeay, one young bloke, Nipper, had a row with his father and set fire to his wurley, destroying or damaging a rifle and a shotgun, among many other things. Against the father's wishes, Taplin got the police to come over by boat from Goolwa and charge the boy. I think he did three months.

The Protector paid half the costs of repairing guns for able-bodied people, but paid all costs for those who couldn't work.

Bastards !

Joe

Selling goods at the mission for which Aboriginals had the right to pay? Further, the right to give Victoria's currency to buy a gun?
Joe, I'm speechless.

( By the way, that's $1000 each cannon , not the pair). Unless some Ngarindjeri need them for duck-shooting with buck-shot but obviously Cadigal of Sydney Cove get first option from Charles .

Hi Nick,

No, the Mission didn't sell guns as far as I can tell. People bought them in the local towns. And as British subjects like everyone else, the thought of some impediment to their right to buy guns wouldn't have arisen.

" .... some Ngarrindjeri need them for duck-shooting .... " Yes, of course. But by the 1890s, whites were devastating the duck populations around the Lakes (i.e. for sale in Adelaide), by using what they called punt-guns, i.e. a punt or flat boat on which a shooter could lie flat and use a sort of semi-machine gun fixed on the bow, and so get up very close and bring down great numbers of birds.

Aboriginal people complained, so the government here banned the use of punt-guns, and passed the Game Act which declared 'closed seasons' for most native animals and set up Game Reserves. Aboriginal people were exempt from the restrictions of 'closed seasons' and could hunt and fish in Game Reserves, provided they did so only for their own consumption and not in order to sell any catches. That's still the law.

And before you jump in and declare that, by allowing people to hunt, fish and gather, governments were treating Aboriginal people like flora and fauna, no, Aboriginal people were allowed to exercise their traditional rights to hunt, fish and gather, no more and no less:

Some dick found out that at one time, the same Minister was responsible for the Environment and for Aboriginal Affairs. Oh, he said, so we're just part of the flora and fauna ? No, dirk-wad, the Minister for Aboriginal affairs is also the Minister for the Environment. Often ministers have multiple portfolios, especially at State level but even at Federal level. Check it out.

Joe

Hi Nick,

While we're at it, somebody mentioned kangaroo grass being grown by Aboriginal people, a nine-mile stretch of it being observed ready for harvesting by Thomas Mitchell, presumably in the late 1820s. Of course, as you would rightly point out, harvesting does not mean that it was planted by Aboriginal people, just gathered as required, as hunter-gatherers would do.

Anyway, here's the relevant bits of what Wikipedia says:

"Themeda triandra is a perennial tussock-forming[2] grass widespread in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Pacific. In Australia it is commonly known as kangaroo grass. In eastern and South Africa it is known as red grass and red oat grass, rooigras in Afrikaans. It does not do well under heavy grazing pressure, but benefits from occasional fire.[3] ....

".... Distribution

"Themeda triandra is found across Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific region. Within Australia it has a widespread distribution, being found in all of the states and territories.... It grows predominantly in grassland and open woodland communities. Within Australia is a significant species in temperate grasslands in Australia, a habitat considered to be endangered or threatened in various parts of the country.

"Habit

"The species has a tufted habit and can reach up to 1.5 metres tall and half a metre across. It flowers in summer, producing large red-brown spikelets on branched stems. The leaves are between 10 and 50 centimetres long, and 2-5 millimetres wide....

"Uses

"The young growth is palatable to stock.... T. triandra seed has been used as a famine food in Africa.... It also serves as a food source for several avian species, including the long-tailed widowbird. It is also occasionally used as an ornamental plant."

Cheers,

Joe

All set for duck-shooting. The 1860 data for 6lb cannon is gunpowder charge of 1 1/4 lbs, bore 3.5 inch, muzzle velocity 1437 ft/sec.

Fire Arms Registry. NSW Police.

" Does the cannon require registration? Yes. A cannon, as described in clause 15 of Schedule 1, is classified as a prohibited firearm and requires registration. Acquisition and disposal of firearms must be conducted by a licensed firearms dealer. (Although Charles may license himself?)
SECTION I - FEE The prescribed fee for this permit is $75. Your payment must accompany the application. ', 'Permit to Acquire - 'Schedule 1 Prohibited Firearms - Safe Storage Levels 1,2."
-

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Nick,

The gift that keeps on giving.

In the nineteenth century and beyond, Aboriginal people on waterways in South Australia often continued their hunting, but with modern technology - 15-ft boats, fishing gear, netting twine for nets, guns including shotguns. Why do you find that strange ?

As far as I can tell, no government in South Australia used cannon against Aboriginal people - is that what you're trying to get at ? It's so hard, and probably pointless, to try to understand your comments.

In South Australia, the Protector provided those boats to people on pretty much all waterways, coastal and rivers, including Cooper's Creek. One time, he ordered twenty seven boats for the people around Pt McLeay: in the indexes to his Letters that I have typed up (www.firstsources.info), you can see the names of Aboriginal people who received boats. Able-bodied people had to pay half the cost of any boats.

The Protector paid for half the cost of repairs to boats given out to able-bodied people, and all the costs of those who weren't.

He sent out about a tonne of netting twine each year. He sent a batch to the copper at Goolwa to make one big net for the people there, but the men demanded an allocation each, since they didn't want to share with any other blokes. The Protector remarked on the extreme individualism of the people there. He knocked back their request.

The men at Encounter Bay were given a much larger boat, for sea-fishing with a crew of six men: the men at Goolwa asked for a similar boat. The Encounter Bay men demanded to be paid to use the boat, so the Commission (the Protector's boss) took it off them and gave it to the Goolwa blokes.

White bastards !

Joe

So we have South Australia valued at 2 large fishing boats , small boats, bundles of twine, shotguns and bags of flour , with 1/2 paid for by the destitute peasants. Price fixed by the new residents . 1 cannon is not too much over-payment.

Hi Nick,

I think a fifteen-foot boat is not that small, and at any one time, in, say, 1890, there would have been about 120 of them in the bays and rivers of South Australia.

And frankly, no, I don't think people were destitute: in photographs, they often look quite prosperous. Since they had the complete freedom to hunt and fish and gather food, as well as - for those who were not able-bodied - to receive rations, perhaps the Lutheran missionary up in the north-east at Killalpaninna was on the button when he wrote that many of the women 'are now enormously stout'.

And of course, the able-bodied could work as well as forage, hunt and fish. And yes, at least down this way, people worked for standard wages: even during the Depression, the men refused to go off rations and onto 'susso' unless they got paid standard wages. Shearers were paid standard rates. Farm-hands were paid ordinary wages.

Thanks, Nick, for giving me these opportunities :)

Cheers,

Joe

Oh, oh , wages were paid to Aboriginals..for working..( wipes tears from keyboard.)
And bought stuff at half price as well .( weeps again)
So now South Australia is about 1mill sq kms of which 200,000 is pastoral land.
2 sea boats 6-man at $6000. $12000.
60 boats 2-man at $2500 150000.
1 ton jute twine , 10 years 420000.
-
total $582,000.( today's values).
Square km of land price : $2.90. Sorry it's not reliable as I'm not sure if goods were used second-hand and how much was half-price contribution. Pastoral and town land at $3.45 or $16.39 a square km is pretty reasonable and displays charity and sound economics.

Hi Nick,

I'm not sure what your point is. But I suppose you hear that a lot.

I'm not sure what 150 years of flour, meat, tea, sugar, clothing, hats, boots, rabbit-traps, guns, etc., etc., etc., (plus, as you mention, boats) for three thousand people might crack out to. You may be able to do the maths :)

Back to land matters, since the topic is 'land grab': there is a fascinating article by Henry Reynolds and Jamie Dalziel on imperial and colonial land policy in the crucial years between 1825 and 1850:

http://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/17_reynolds_1996.pdf

It seems that traditional use-rights are recognised under British common law, i.e. the right to hunt and fish and gather, camp, carry out ceremonies, etc., and that these were explicitly written into law in each colony, particularly in relation to pastoral leases: co-existence of the two land uses was perceived as possible, which of course it is, even now, if people wished to exercise those rights.

Of course, if people DON'T make use of their rights to use land, adverse possession kicks in after, I think, fifteen or twenty years. i.e. use it or lose it.

Above and beyond using the land for such sustenance, how else was Aboriginal people's ownership demonstrated ?

Joe

Anyone can receive welfare during 150 years . However the Crown paid nothing to establish South Australia and private British capital funded land purchases so no need to pay-out the monarch for Turnbull's republic. The Law guaranteed Aboriginal land possessions but was ignored. Hunting on a sheep-run sounds good but stockmen weren't happy and tribal life was not realistic on some-one else's farm.

Sovereignty does not depend on being industrialised or being a large nation. At his birth Capt Cook's England had almost no factory machines and Europe has several tiny sovereign states. British explorers described Aboriginal stone-based houses with rooms and forming villages , large stretches of tilled land and clay-lined stone bins for grain harvests. This includes the kangaroo grass you described. Aboriginals don't have to justify possession, they possessed territories with Law , tools and population like any humans.

My point is that NSW definitely needs to refund Charles for the First Fleet where SA may get a republic free of charge...like in 1836.

Hi Nick,

Turnbull is South Australian ? You may get some disagreement down this way. And SA is a republic ? Really ? Well, I suppose you know these sorts of stuff.

When you write,

" .... British explorers described Aboriginal stone-based houses with rooms and forming villages , large stretches of tilled land and clay-lined stone bins for grain harvests. This includes the kangaroo grass you described...."

can you provide some evidence ? As I recall, modern archaeologists describe stone wind-breaks, up to a couple of feet high: I don't think they constitute villages.

And my point about the millions of hectares of kangaroo grass was, why cultivate when you can just collect ? And if it's there month after month, why do you need to build storage bins ? That's simply not what hunter-gatherers do anywhere in the world. Check out Peter Bellwood's 'First Farmers' to trace the hostility between farmers and foragers - actually between farmers and pastoral societies too.

It took the early British five thousand years to switch from hunters and gatherers to early farmers. Innovation has been incredibly slow in human history in the distant past.

Am I wrong in suspecting a shift in Aboriginal 'thinking' away from the hunting and foraging past of their distant ancestors, to some fictionalised agricultural society ? i.e. to a devaluing of the relationship between foragers and the land ?

Cheers,

Joe

Charles is not yet king but Turnbull's republic is planned for that reign. South Australia could stay in Aust due to its name (dunno about Qld ). NSW owes the most cash to the king.

Themeda triandra kangaroo grass flowering period is from December to February. Seeds generally begin to ripen in early December. So storage bins were used for the winter-spring time.

IN WA kurumi seed was planted ( Dix, Lofgren) as in Victoria (Morieson) and katoora barley in Qld (Duncan-Kemp).

During 1834-1835 Charles Coxen travelled through the sparsely settled country between the Hunter and Namoi Rivers and reported 45kg of grain in a clay and grass chamber. Howitt , Sturt and Giles reported grain storage . Capt John Hunter said in 1788 that Sydney people depended on their yam gardens. Isaac Batey and Edward Page in Vic said that this gardening produced terraces . When Charles Sievwright , Protector in Vic , showed how he ploughed a hill, the Aboriginals immediately used their hoes to break down the clods to protect their fertile soil against erosion .

1861 George Goyder SA Surveyor General confirmed Sturt's observations and found a house at lake Blanche holding 30-40 people. Sturt saw a village of 1000 on the Darling and Duncan-Kemp saw 3000 at Brewarrina.
refs:

Dix, Lofgren "Kurumi . WA Museum" 1974
Morieson"Aboriginal Stone Arrangement" 1994
Coxen in Ashwin " From Australia to Port Darwin" 1871.
Hunter "An Historical Account" 1793
Batey in Frankel "An Account of Aboriginal Use" 1982.
Goyder 1857 in Gerritsen "Australia and the origins of Agriculture" 2008.
Duncan-Kemp "Our Sandhill Country" 1934.

Hi Nick,

Three thousand in a village at Brewarrina ? A fixed village ? All going out each day to hunt and fish and gather ? I would have thought that they could have picked a more abundant place than Bre (no offence), perhaps closer to the Ranges, or strung out along, say, twenty km up and down both sides of the Barwon. Oh, wait, that's probably what they did do, in a multitude of what they called 'camps'.

I suppose if we define a house as a line of stones a couple of feet high, then we can build up entire urban geographies right across Australia, perhaps with a network of roads along which different groups exchange kangaroo grass seed, and women. There was probably a central town, or small city, perhaps even a network of them, linked up to a major metropolis. It's all possible if we dispense with evidence. Or make it up.

After all, a rough-hewn plank has recently been excavated near Proserpine, in sediments dated back five hundred years. Clearly, it was part of a system of piers and wharves for trade between Polynesians and Aboriginal people. Lines of rocks were clearly the basis for a vast network of warehouses, mainly for kangaroo grass, which Polynesians coveted. A huge flat area on the outskirts of the present town was clearly a vast ceremonial ground where welcoming ceremonies were held, or makarrata, as they were known. Bark tablets have been found a few miles away with some form of pictographic tabulations of goods bought and sold. Clearly too, Aboriginal people had a coinage system, and were working on a paper money alternative. Proof ? Feh ! Who needs proof ?!

Have I got that right, Nick ? Am I a good boy ?

Cheers,

Joe

They were able to 1) grow grain and yams in fields 2) walk to the kangaroo and goanna patch. Today some S Aust farmers can 1) live in a house and 2) go on holiday. You may have observed city people leave houses each morning and "commute" or even travel to Port Pirie.
Sturt sketched houses he saw such as at Strzelecki Creek 1845 at 14 metres wide and 2 metres high with clay plaster on roof.

I have given facts and references as you asked. They are no good to you.

Hi Nick,

So what happened after ? Did people keep building such structures, right up to the present ? Houses nearly fifty feet wide, held up by ?desert mallee posts with enough room for people to walk upright ? That's something that all the archaeologists and anthropologists since Sturt have missed. And out in the Strzelecki Desert ? Why, although who are we to ask ? Aren't people amazing ?

Why do people believe the most outlandish stories ?

Joe

Archaeologists see the remains of houses, storage bins and the outlandish reports of many British explorers, officers and pastoralists. Like you they refuse to comprehend what they know.

Hi Nick,

Oy. If people have to travel about in search of food, not necessarily every day but regularly, even in the best environments, then they are not going to build permanent structures. In less favourable environments, it is even less likely. In environments where people have to move about every single day, it is very unlikely. Strzelecki Creek, righto.

If grass seed is available although of low calorific value, the women may not want to move but man does not live by kangaroo grass alone, one needs protein from animals, and if the animals are getting scarce and moving away, then one must follow them. Who carries stuff in foraging societies ? The women: kids, grinding stones, etc. An extra ten or twenty kilo is a lot to lump around, and for no particular reason if the seed is available wherever one goes.

Has any systematic anthropological study been done anywhere to verify that storing food actually happens or habitually happened until recently ? Foragers usually consume food on the spot, that day, they don't keep anything much for tomorrow, except perhaps a bit of damper. That goes along with the boom-bust, starve-gorge cycle of people in foraging societies. If it's there, consume it; if not, starve. Good times, bad times.

Just by the way, even if there were such artifacts as storage pits in Australia somewhere, it would not mean that anybody has deliberately cultivated some sort of crop, merely that stuff has been harvested and stored.

Joe

"merely that stuff has been harvested and stored."
well, that's progress at least for you Joe.
hooray ,leave it there.

Hi Nick,

Just a couple of points for the unwary: you mentioned Lake Blanche, up on the Strzelecki Track. It's a salt lake, in a desert: plenty of bird life when it's got water, pretty useless otherwise.

The most productive environments in pre-contact Australia were the river valleys. Along the banks of the lower Murray and Lakes were more than a hundred camping sites. Some were fairly permanent, although people were liable to pack up and move somewhere else on a whim, or out of boredom with the same old food - not bloody duck again ! - or to spend time with the in-laws. People built wurlies, ('pulgis') out of branches and leaves, often with seaweed as well when it was around. They were, it seems, usually less than 1.5 metres in maximum height, and less than 3 metres across. A dozen people could squeeze in there, plus a few drying bodies, and their dogs. They often burnt down. No worries: build another one. Or go somewhere else, we're sick of the bloody neighbours anyway. Even if it 's my own brother.

In foraging societies, people don't waste superfluous energy. Even now. If you can get by with a 2-metre-wide pulgi, you do. Eat if it's there, go without if it's not. The Rev. Taplin called it an 'Epicurean' life. On Coranderrk in Victoria, the missionary learnt not to give out the week's allowance of 7 lb of meat on the one day, it would all get eaten on that one day, but to give it out daily. Taplin found the same with the tobacco issue, the old blokes would smoke the week's allowance of 2 ounces all on the same day, then get their wives'. He worried incessantly about respiratory troubles, especially TB.

Fascinating !

Joe