Aboriginals lost the lot in one swallow of rum by Philip , no "please" or even "hey mate , gimme that". Could they perhaps be asked would they maybe have a small opinion or something about a treaty ? That they owned the mobile and wallet before the mugging. And answer " it's OK keep the thing if you need it so much"

Nick,

Struggling through the molasses of your probable wit, I have to point out that, from the 1840s, Aboriginal people had the explicit right to use the land as they had done since time immemorial -apart from the fact that they couldn't exclude anybody from what had been their exclusive control of land. But they could hunt, fish, gather and otherwise forage, make stone tools and fish traps, etc. to their heart's content. In South Australia, they could also gather around ration depots, particularly in the long and frequent droughts, passing on the culture.

If they had wished, they could have probably cultivated very-low-nutrition kangaroo grass seed as well, miles of it. Although, since it grows all over Australia, including Tasmania, I don't why they would want to. I suppose, once people get used to patrolling fence-lines day and night to keep out kangaroos, they find it's a habit hard to break.

Joe

Hi Nick,

Another thing: usually across all the Australian colonies, it was illegal to supply Aboriginal people with alcohol. It wasn't an offence for them to HAVE alcohol, but it would be taken from them.

Usually, in SA, men going out shearing from Missions would have their cheques (yes, equal wages) sent on by the grazier directly to the missionary, to pay for goods bought at the store etc. At Coranderrk Mission near Melbourne, the missionary pleaded with graziers to do the same: one season, the men from there earned the equivalent of about seventy thousand dollars and blew the lot in one night. Certainly they had nothing to bring back to their families.

People loved to play the game of evading the police: I recall that some sly-groggers would regularly park at the back of the Mission where my wife was born and hand over grog, for exorbitant prices. One time (at least), the blokes beat the daylights out of him.

Even after it was completely legal, people seemed to want to keep up the thrill of illegality: when I was young, cousins of my wife would come around - after 6 p.m., back in those days - and get me to come with them around to the sly-grogger. He had a huge fridge in his backyard and, yes, charged them exorbitant prices which they were happy to pay. There's nowt so queer as folk.

Joe

Joe
we've gone round and round on this.
If a man is mugged and his wallet is stolen, a doc gives him $10 for a train ticket home and the man gets drunk instead , he still had his wallet stolen. He shouldn't be told he must ignore it.
What you choose for lunch is not my business. What they choose on the matter of treaty is not my business , it's theirs.

Sorry Nick,

Sorry, who was mugged ? Who stole whose wallet ? Who gave whom $ 10 for a train ticket ? Who got drunk ? Whose lunch ?

Have you got the wrong thread ?

Joe

Hi Joe, you may well be a cuzzie bro, there are lots of em', will meet more on Saturday.

As for a 'Treaty of Bennalong', if such a document was warranted, and I still doubt that it is, I certainly would not model it on the 'Treaty of Waitangi', which was a "cut and paste" job of some documents the inexperienced treaty maker, poor old William Hobson had in his possession at the time.
Treaties then were a dime a dozen, how many treaties did the Great White Father in Washington make with the Native Americans, only to tear them up the next day. The most famous treaty of them of them all, was the you give me everything treaty, the 'Treaty of Versailles', and history shows that was not exactly a raging success.

Joe, what physically do you see as ideal, a formal document of some sort, I suppose that is has to be, eventually. Is it a 'Bill of Rights' or some other formal document, with lots of signings and pen swapping? Is it signed in pencil so the next incumbent can rub it out. Printed on thin paper so it is easy to tear up, invisible ink so no one can read it. I don't know.

cont