The 1788 British invasion of Australia marked the commencement of a campaign that would have a profound and lasting effect on the lives of Indigenous Australians. An overt condemnation of and disregard for the venerable systems of the Australian Aboriginal peoples is portrayed by British writer Anthony Trollope, ‘Of the Australian black man we may certainly say that he has to go. That he should perish without unnecessary suffering should be the aim of all who are concerned in the matter’ (Trollope, 1873). The Indigenous death toll brought on by disease, settler violence, warfare and the rape, abduction and murder of Aboriginal women was a by-product of the blatant cultural disregard shown by the British.
By 1900 the non-Indigenous population reached 3,774,000 (Caldwell, et al., 2001). The accompanying prejudice resulted in not only a rapid decline in Australian Aboriginal peoples but also the virtual disappearance of their shared knowledge, societal traditions and social customs. Pre-invasion (1788), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows the Indigenous population of Australia was 314,500. Subsequently, 83 years later (1872) the ABS shows the Indigenous population had fallen by 51% (155,285) and 145 years post invasion (1933) ABS shows only 23% (73,828) of Australian Aboriginal peoples had survived
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One noticeable difference is the profound sense of community within Australian Aboriginal groups and is exemplified in the communal approach to child rearing described as “the concept of ‘one community, many eyes,’ (Lohoar, et al., 2014), and a highlighted need for ‘grandparents and Elders to play a pivotal role in contributing to family life’ (Lohoar, et al., 2014). However, rather than embrace or even encourage existing traditional ‘family’ culture, the goal of Britain was to assimilate Indigenous Australians (Armitage,
Key events in Aboriginal Australian history stem from the time Australia was first discovered in 1788. For instance, when Federation came into existence in 1901, there was a prevailing belief held by non Aboriginal Australians that the Aborigines were a dying race (Nichol, 2005:259) which resulted in the Indigenous people being excluded from the constitution except for two mentions – Section 127 excluded Aborigines from the census and Section 51, part 26, which gave power over Aborigines to the States rather than to the Federal Government. Aboriginal people were officially excluded from the vote, public service, the Armed Forces and pensions. The White Australia mentality/policy Australia as “White” and unfortunately this policy was not abolished until 1972. REFERENCE
Struggles by Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people for recognition of their rights and interests have been long and arduous (Choo & Hollobach: 2003:5). The ‘watershed’ decision made by the High Court of Australia in 1992 (Mabo v Queensland) paved the way for Indigenous Australians to obtain what was ‘stolen’ from them in 1788 when the British ‘invaded’ (ATSIC:1988). The focus o...
As European domination began, the way in which the European’s chose to deal with the Aborigines was through the policy of segregation. This policy included the establishment of a reserve system. The government reserves were set up to take aboriginals out of their known habitat and culture, while in turn, encouraging them to adapt the European way of life. The Aboriginal Protection Act of 1909 established strict controls for aborigines living on the reserves . In exchange for food, shelter and a little education, aborigines were subjected to the discipline of police and reserve managers. They had to follow the rules of the reserve and tolerate searchers of their homes and themselves. Their children could be taken away at any time and ‘apprenticed” out as cheap labour for Europeans. “The old ways of the Aborigines were attacked by regimented efforts to make them European” . Their identities were threatened by giving them European names and clothes, and by removing them from their tra...
Reynolds, H. (1976). The Other Side of The Frontier: Aboriginal resistance to the European invasion of Australia. Queensland, Australia: James Cook University
Aboriginal spirituality originally derives from the stories of the dreaming. The dreaming is the knowledge and a sense of belonging that the Aboriginals had of the beginning of life and the relationship to the land and sea (Australian Museum, 2011). The dreaming stories are passed on from one generation to the next orally. These stories teach the following generations how to behave towards the land and other people. The dreaming stories give them a sense of duty to protect the land and appreciate it because the dreamtime stories indicate that the spirits have not died but are still alive in different forms as animals or humans, therefore the ancestor’s power is still felt through the landforms (Clark, 1963), (Australian Governement, 2008)
Aboriginal people groups depended on an assortment of unmistakable approaches to sort out their political frameworks and establishments prior to contact with Europeans. Later, a considerable amount of these establishments were overlooked or legitimately stifled while the national government endeavored to force a uniform arrangement of limitlessly distinctive Euro-Canadian political goals on Aboriginal social orders. For some Aboriginal people groups, self-government is seen as an approach to recover control over the administration of matters that straightforwardly influence them and to safeguard their social characters. Self-government is alluded to as an inherent right, a previous right established in Aboriginal people groups' long occupation
Germov, (2009) states that although Australian Aboriginal people had different cultures and languages long ago, they had similar social and emotional commitment and value of their land. They were nomads who lived on hunting and gathering and also migrated seasonally. They were also governed by rules of the land which they obeyed. When the Europeans colonised the Aborigions in about 1788, they totally enforced...
Within Australia, beginning from approximately the time of European settlement to late 1969, the Aboriginal population of Australia experienced the detrimental effects of the stolen generation. A majority of the abducted children were ’half-castes’, in which they had one white parent and the other of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Following the government policies, the European police and government continued the assimilation of Aboriginal children into ‘white’ society. Oblivious to the destruction and devastation they were causing, the British had believed that they were doing this for “their [Aborigines] own good”, that they were “protecting” them as their families and culture were deemed unfit to raise them. These beliefs caused ...
Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.
In the early 20th century, it was commonly thought that the Indigenous people in Australia would eventually die out. However the growing population of Aboriginal people of mixed race, led to the government to adopt the ‘assimilation policy’........... This was a new form of control, which was intended
The Australian Government believed that in the early 1900’s in order to maintain white culture they should subject all indigenous to their beliefs. The removal of children from Aboriginal parents was not a new idea, it had been happening for almost a decade before becoming the Stolen Generation. The removal policy was stepped up with the introduction of the assimilation policy. The whites believed that they were the dominant culture and their way of life and culture was the only way. Throughout the stolen generation the Australian public were led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their own homes and would benefit more in a white household. The “Aboriginal Protection Board” believed that if the children were living in white families being separated from their families, community, land and culture it would eventually phase out the indigenous peoples. However this decision to remove the children was not beneficial and has caused much hatred from the Aboriginals toward the Australian government.
Immigration is an important feature of Australian society. Since 1945, over six million people from 200 countries have come to Australia as new settlers. Migrants have made a major contribution to shaping modern Australia. People born overseas make up almost one quarter of the total population. About its ethics distribution, aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people totaled 410 003 at the last census, nearly 2.2 per cent of the population. Two thirds of the indigenous people live in towns and cities. Many others live in rural and remote areas, and some still have a broadly traditional way of life.(Ning)
During 1788, people in Australia were finding it hard to create a stable multicultural society, where ‘settler society’ took places. The ‘settler society’ required the dispossession of indigenous people in order for society to follow the political economy, which required society to do a lot of labour jobs. Therefore, during1788 there were other arrivals from different minority groups that had come to Australia, which some groups were welcome and some
This is an incredible paragraph extracted from Bora Ring. This poem depicts perfectly of the European invasion of Australia. It shows how the traditions and stories are gone, how the hunting and rituals are gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. This poem also describes that it seemed as if the tradition of Aborigines was ‘breathed sleeping and forgot’. These are powerful words Judith Wright used to show how they Aborigines were quickly invaded and ‘forgotten’. This poem is an excellent example of why Australian students should study her poetry.
“Daughters of the Dreaming” personally recounts the findings of Diane Bell during her 18 month field study of aboriginal women in central Australia between 1976 and 1978. The intent of her study was to observe the ritual practice of women, something not previously focused on by anthropologists in part that Bell’s predecessors were male and not particularly welcome into the world of female ritual and in part that it was believed women did not have as much to contribute to society as the men did. The focus of Bell’s research was in Warrabri, where she spent most of her time with Warlpiri and Kaytej groups, more so with the former. By centralizing her research on women’s ritual Bell learned how important the contributions made by women have been and continue to be in aboriginal culture. Her findings have concluded that aboriginal women are more independent and responsible for the care of the land than previously thought.