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(Continued ...)

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«... After 1842 stock owners had to pay $10 per annum for their runs regardless of its size as well as a tax per animal.

« For many years there were conflicts between the pastoralists and Aborigines. As their tribal lands were gradually taken over the Aborigines lost their natural food supplies. When they killed sheep or cattle the pastoralists retaliated by killing the Aborigines.

« Australia’s climate and vegetation were much more suitable for cattle and sheep grazing than the growing of wheat.

« With an increase in population and greater need for farming land, pressure mounted in Adelaide for closer settlement … »
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Evidently, Joe, it was not the crop farmers ( "tillers of the soil" ) who dispossessed the Aboriginal peoples of their traditional lands in South Australia. It was the squatters/pastoralists/graziers who took and occupied it for their livestock.

The British colonisers' argument that the Aboriginal peoples did not own their lands because they did not "farm" it ("till the soil") – if they really believed it – should have applied to themselves too !
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By the way, Joe, I forgot to mention that we also have dairy farms in Queensland and the people who run them call themselves dairy farmers.

I thought I should mention this as an example of Australian livestock owners who consider themselves to be farmers despite the fact that they do not "till the soil".

Apparently, farmers are not just people who "till the soil" – even in good-old outback Australian English !

Am I right in thinking you probably have dairy farmers in South Australia too ?

.

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Oops ! I should have written :

« South Australia’s climate and vegetation were much more suitable for cattle and sheep grazing than the growing of wheat. »

Sorry about that.

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Foxy, Banjo,

I'm sure that if one looks hard enough amongst the roughly 6000 tribes and 4m indigenous peoples you will find the odd instance of cultivation, dam building etc, but this does not apply to the vast majority. This is where the exceptions prove the rule.

Banjo,

Oy. Pastoralists don't own their stations, at least in civilised South Australia, they lease them. These days, a lease is for 42 years, renewable. Lessees pay up-front for any improvements to the lease that they are taking up, for house, yards, dams, fences, etc., and in turn are paid for any improvements when they surrender their lease. In that sense, pastoralists - in spite of the divine authority of the OED - not farmers.

And of course, farmers and pastoralists were moving out onto stolen land from the outset in SA. Huge 'grants' were made to both.

Otherwise, I don't understand the argument that you are making. What does it have to do with anything ?

Joe

Foxy,

Asseritur gratis, negatur gratis. Can you look that up, or do you need me to translate it for you ?

Alright then: she who asserts freely, i.e.without evidence, can be ignored without a second thought. If you assert, you provide evidence. Don't waste other people's time.

So what did 'Aboriginal farmers grow' ? Please don't say kangaroo grass. Any evidence of digging tools or harvesting tools ? Dreaming stories ? Storage pits, like in New Zealand ? Fencing, or evidence of some means of protecting growing crops ? Even early sightings of people gardening or farming ?

Joe

Hi SM,

Yes, it seems that in the earliest days of farming, for example around South-East Asia and Oceania - here:

https://webmail.internode.on.net/index.php/mail/viewmessage/getattachment/folder/INBOX/uniqueId/3054/filenameOriginal/austronesians.pdf

economic activity was often very mixed, with farming supplemented by foraging. After all, peasant farmers today don't just grow the one thing, but gow a great variety of food for themselves and for the markets, in addition to going out hunting and trapping where it's possible.

As farming people migrated, say from the Pacific to New Zealand, and as thy moved further south, where farming of tuber crops became much more difficult, the tribes there easily went back to hunting and gathering.

As well, many foraging societies have had close trading links with neighbouring farming societies for centuries or longer - in Malaya, Botswana and East Africa, and probably along the early frontiers of the farming push, in the early days across Europe. Occasionally, it seems, basic farming was taken up by foragers if it seems worthwhile - for example, in the Mississippi Valley and up into Ontario and Quebec.

So it was rarely ever 'all or nothing'.

Cheers,

Joe