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