Hi Dan,

I owe you an apology, except for your allusion to Nietzsche.

Paul,

What ? Do you mean, why didn't I transcribe any letters from Aboriginal people on my web-site, www.firstsources.info ?

For a number of reasons:

1. I didn't find any in the state archives, although, on reflection, they would have been somewhere in the 160 boxes of letters to government officials. In any case, the Protector answered them.

2. If you mean, just private letters to individuals, how would I get hold of them ? Did the Aboriginal writer keep a copy ? Did the person he/she wrote to make a copy, or keep the letter ?

3. So how would I know where to look ?

Still, if you're genuinely interested, I'm sure you could find letters written by Aboriginal people to government officials, somewhere in your local state archives. Let me know how you go.

I spent eighteen months typing up the letters of the SA Protector. I found very little which could be called racist in any of them, quite the opposite. Surely, with your vastly deeper concern for Aboriginal people than I have, you could dedicate yourself to spend more time than that - a mere eighteen months - in finding out what they may have written about ? Off you go :)

Joe

Joe, throwing mud at others seems to be your forte at times. "They must piss themselves over their kale smoothies down at the Smashed Avo Collective." Who are "they"?

I did not say or imply "that it's no big deal to bash a wombat's head in with a rock may not seem all that funny to one of your other groups." read the earlier comment from me. Some try to denigrate Aboriginal people by association, ONE does something stupid and cruel, then ALL must be tared with the same brush. That's how the racists works.

Reading what I have of your Protectors letters, I can not recall ever coming across anything where one of these white controllers has admitted getting things wrong. Miracle men one and all.

Aboriginal people, if they bothered, must piss themselves reading that sanitised nonsense from their old colonial white masters on your web site.

Paul,

Anything constructive to say ? Never mind, just sit in your throne, passing judgment on others.

As for whether the Protector ever got things wrong, I was struck again and again that I didn't think I would have done much differently from what they did or proposed. In fact, i was surprised how innovative and thoughtful they were. For example, when men from the north-east used to come down, raiding huts and taking women from the Flinders Ranges people, their express purpose was to collect ochre around Parachilna. So the Protector promptly ordered a tonne of ochre to be delivered to them each year.

On another occasion, a woman was being mistreated by her husband on one mission. The Protector (Hamilton) asked her if she wanted to move back to her home country near Crystal Brook where he would ensure that she was provided with rations.

If you can find any racism in any of those letters (admittedly, with eight thousand letters to read, it could be an unnecessarily onerous job for you), let me know.

Any other idiocy ? You're losing it, old boy, maybe early dementia ? Puha is good for that.

Joe

That was a lie,
Paul1405,
Your cynicism seems to be boundless & as for your other trait Doris Lessing describes you best.

Doris Lessing argued that "there is no fool like an intellectual ... a kind of clever stupidity, bred out of a line of logic in the head, nothing to do with experience."

Indy, when you put it up, you need to back it up, something you can't do can you. Why? Because you made it up, all to puff yourself up, instead you stuffed yourself up.

Joe, great humanitarian acts by those white controllers. Reminds me of the great humanitarianism of the Japanese towards Australian POW's, they gave them Red Cross packages, sometimes, all heart those blokes. South Australia was a special case with only about 5% of the Aboriginal population.

Paul1405,
You really should seek help !