Indigenous Interaction

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On February 13, 2008 Kevin Rudd said ‘Sorry’ to the indigenous people of Australia for the past injustices. This apology to the indigenous people of Australia existed as a recognition of how the indigenous people had been mistreated and separated by many previous governments and institutions of Australia. This mistreatment of the indigenous people began when the First Fleet settled in Australia in 1788 .

When Captain James Cook discovered Australia in 1770 he only met very few Aborigines along the Eastern coast. However, Cook noted that they did not grow crops and cultivate the land and assumed that there were no rivers for fishing inland and hence assumed that Australia was an empty country. The British also came to the conclusion that the ‘natives’ were primitive, barbaric and stupid and declared “terra nullius’. The British also did not anticipate that there were around 300 thousand indigenous people already living on the land and had been for many thousand years beforehand.

Upon the arrival of the British in Australia they expected to be able to colonise Australia without any resistance from the ‘natives’. The British were under the assumption that the indigenous would give up their rights to the land and leave. This assumption was disproved as the aborigines fought against the occupation and destruction of their home land as well as the destruction of their traditional social, religious, legal and communal systems. This wasn’t because the settlers thought they didn’t work, this occurred because they failed to see the existance of any systems at all.

While the Aborigines may have been primitive they had set sturctures in place which was the basis of their society and intelligence that was in different realms than the Europeans. When fifty soldiers were sent in to the bush to kill ten indigenous and capture two, they failed. The british lack of knowledge of the bushland alerted the indigenous to their approach and they were able to outsmart them and escape.

Whilst the indigenous put up a fight against the settlers and their changing way of life, they were not able to fight off the introduced diseases that the Europeans brought with them. Aborigines were faced with infections of the smallpox, colds, flu and measles. These diseases were foreign to the Aborigines and their bodies had no defence against them, having never had a history with them. Consequently, many indigenous people died from these diseases.

The European settlers failed to acknowledge that the Aborigines had their own culture and social structures which although were completely different from “civilised” Britain were equally rich, diverse and complex structures. The settlers also refused to acknowledge that whilst the Indigenous did not believe in the Western “white” God they had many spiritual bodies which they looked to in the same way.

The settlement of Australia sparked death, fighting, attempted genocide and a constant struggle for survival which lasted for more than two centuries. The pain and suffering inflicted is still deep in the hearts of indigenous people today. The indigenous way of life was replaced with war, dispossession, displacement, social upheaval and disease. Whilst the Government of Australia has now apologised to the indigenous people, this is a period of Australian history which will not ever be forgotten.

For further information check out this video on Indigenous Interaction.

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