The Secret River

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Recommended: Native Americans and European colonization

In human history; past and present, when two groups of peoples meet each other for the first time, two different social standings form. One group always has a higher social standing than the other group does. Throughout the ages post-medieval history, this has always been the white European explorers and settlers. Such as Jacques-Cartier and the French colonizers in Canada, Spanish and Portuguese colonizers in South America or English explorers and the English settlers in India, Africa, North America and Australia. In The Secret River written by Kate Grenville the story follows a semi-fictional character William Thornhill through his journey as penal convict to Australia. During his voyage through the Australian colonization he meets many of …show more content…

They came from a land where disputes were fought out, with fists and swords. They did not come from a place where peaceful resolution of issued took place. The natives walking on the lands of the English colonizers were an obvious problem. They did not have the nomadic lifestyle that the Aboriginals did. The English lived a very regimented lifestyle of; This is mine, my house, my land, my stuff. They did not believe that all of the land that did not have obvious housing built up, or the trees cut away to permit farms was an inhabited piece of land. The settlers claimed this land as theirs and were shocked when the Aboriginals attempted to claim the land that the English were living on. In response to this, it created an outrage within the English settlers. The government of New South Wales was forced to step in a deal with the Aboriginal situation. They sent in Captain McCallum and a small squad of redcoats to go and kill the Aboriginals that were living around Darkey Creek. When this raid failed, a vice-regal proclamation was given and was handed out to the inhabitants of New South Wales. However it fails to mention that the Aboriginal peoples were informed of the proclamation, being one of the groups that it impacted. This proclamation lead to the colonizers believing that they could kill the Aboriginal peoples without any reason; And they did. They poisoned the water around Darkey Creek and wipped out one of the tribes, completely. The story ended off with the English settlers going and attacking the rest of the Aboriginals that lived around Thornhill point in a late night raid, while they were all sleeping. The contrast of the approaches to conflict resolution of these two groups is completely different and these differences make one of the two groups at a disadvantage. With two different styles of conflict resolution this is grounds for a disaster waiting to

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