Schadenfreude, Aboriginal history & Voyage of Cook.

These three unrelated threads have started to come together in unexpected ways. I’m beginning to be at a loss as to which thread to post to.

What role did schadenfreude play in Aboriginal massacres? Particularly in Tasmania.

What role did schadenfreude play in British military training? For example in the training of Cook.

I have never come across a mention of schadenfreude as part of Aboriginal culture, except as it relates to the most evil of the witch doctors.

There is an anecdote from chimpanzee research which suggests that at least one chimpanzee was capable of schadenfreude.

Among explorers, in mesoamerica I’d be prepared to lay odds that several of the Spanish conquistadores exhibited more than a touch of “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune”. There are hints that It may be a part of pre-modern Spanish culture.

I’m inclined to think that those explorations funded by and manned by the military would be for more likely to be affected by schadenfreude than others.

Now let’s digress to consider the psychology of early explorers. From what little I’ve read, early explorers were driven by only one of two motives – the prospects of enormous wealth or the missionary saving of souls. Neither of those involves schadenfreude. Cook was an explorer driven by the prospect of enormous wealth, on arriving back in Britain after the first voyage he apologised for not finding anything valuable. Banks was an explorer driven by the prospect of saving souls, in Tahiti he was very annoyed that he hadn’t managed to convert any of the natives to Christianity.

“Schadenfreude” and “psychopath” overlap, but are by no means synonymous. Both are found in high proportion in prisons. So there must have been a high proportion among those convicts shipped to Australia. A proportion that would have been even higher among those who committed major crimes after arriving in Australia, being exiled even further to places like Norfolk, Moreton bat and Port Arthur.

In Hobart, one of the early complaints was that some white residents were staging fights between aborigines. Schadenfreude? I think so.

I don’t recall stories of evil witch doctors.

roughbarked said:

I don’t recall stories of evil witch doctors.

Me either, until I encountered a group of evangelical right wing nutters.

mollwollfumble said:

“Schadenfreude” and “psychopath” overlap, but are by no means synonymous. Both are found in high proportion in prisons. So there must have been a high proportion among those convicts shipped to Australia. A proportion that would have been even higher among those who committed major crimes after arriving in Australia, being exiled even further to places like Norfolk, Moreton bat and Port Arthur.

I strongly disagree. A psychopath typically is egotistical, they don’t feel pleasure out of someone else’s misfortune, they absolutely do not care about other peoples emotions or experiences. Their motivations for their actions are for themselves, not to see others fall, but to gain their own self pleasure. It has nothing to do with how their actions affect others.

Perhaps a masochist is more the personality type you are looking for.

I don’t know of any studies that indicate high amounts of schadenfreude in prison populations. If you do I’d be genuinely interested to read them.
I suspect that the general public experience more schadenfreude from seeing antisocial people go to prison than most offenders experience from the crimes they commit (which for the most part are self indulgent in nature).

>“Schadenfreude” and “psychopath” overlap

I think that is the case (as qualified), though would talk about psychopathic tendencies, or characteristics, caution’s required with labels

roughbarked said:

I don’t recall stories of evil witch doctors.

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang

> Evil witch doctors in Australia.

You’ve never heard of “pointing the bone”? Or “kurdaitcha man”? I’m sure you have.
But I have two specific other Australian evil witch doctors in mind, from another two tribes, whom you won’t have heard of.

What do you call someone who benefits emotionally and financially from creating “fight or flight” in others?

Suggestions: warmonger, journalist, machiavellian, Jerry Springer, opposition leader, boxing manager. None of them quite fit the description.

Thanks Buffy for that photo of part of your bookshelf. I’ve been to the council library and come home with a big load of 20 large books from there. This will definitely suffice for a kiddies guide to Aboriginal History, when coupled with Trove newspaper articles.

mollwollfumble said:

> Evil witch doctors in Australia.

You’ve never heard of “pointing the bone”? Or “kurdaitcha man”? I’m sure you have.
But I have two specific other Australian evil witch doctors in mind, from another two tribes, whom you won’t have heard of.

What do you call someone who benefits emotionally and financially from creating “fight or flight” in others?

Suggestions: warmonger, journalist, machiavellian, Jerry Springer, opposition leader, boxing manager. None of them quite fit the description.

Thanks Buffy for that photo of part of your bookshelf. I’ve been to the council library and come home with a big load of 20 large books from there. This will definitely suffice for a kiddies guide to Aboriginal History, when coupled with Trove newspaper articles.

I see “Girt” in that lot. It’s a great read. Howitt will be much slower going.

:)

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Evil witch doctors in Australia.

You’ve never heard of “pointing the bone”? Or “kurdaitcha man”? I’m sure you have.
But I have two specific other Australian evil witch doctors in mind, from another two tribes, whom you won’t have heard of.

What do you call someone who benefits emotionally and financially from creating “fight or flight” in others?

Suggestions: warmonger, journalist, machiavellian, Jerry Springer, opposition leader, boxing manager. None of them quite fit the description.

Thanks Buffy for that photo of part of your bookshelf. I’ve been to the council library and come home with a big load of 20 large books from there. This will definitely suffice for a kiddies guide to Aboriginal History, when coupled with Trove newspaper articles.

I see “Girt” in that lot. It’s a great read. Howitt will be much slower going.

:)

I’m starting with Manning Clark. It says very little about aborigines, so should be quick to read and discard, while at the same time providing an accurate time frame in which to place more detailed information later. I’ve already found a paragraph in Manning Clark that looks very dubious, if not plain wrong. Luckily, Manning Clark gives references. It turned out that he’s copied the offending paragraph from “The Children’s Encyclopaedia”. LOL.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Evil witch doctors in Australia.

You’ve never heard of “pointing the bone”? Or “kurdaitcha man”? I’m sure you have.
But I have two specific other Australian evil witch doctors in mind, from another two tribes, whom you won’t have heard of.

What do you call someone who benefits emotionally and financially from creating “fight or flight” in others?

Suggestions: warmonger, journalist, machiavellian, Jerry Springer, opposition leader, boxing manager. None of them quite fit the description.

Thanks Buffy for that photo of part of your bookshelf. I’ve been to the council library and come home with a big load of 20 large books from there. This will definitely suffice for a kiddies guide to Aboriginal History, when coupled with Trove newspaper articles.

I see “Girt” in that lot. It’s a great read. Howitt will be much slower going.

:)

I’m starting with Manning Clark. It says very little about aborigines, so should be quick to read and discard, while at the same time providing an accurate time frame in which to place more detailed information later. I’ve already found a paragraph in Manning Clark that looks very dubious, if not plain wrong. Luckily, Manning Clark gives references. It turned out that he’s copied the offending paragraph from “The Children’s Encyclopaedia”. LOL.

You should ask the library if they will get in Lyndall Ryan’s book on Tasmanian aboriginal history too.

And yes, I was going to do a reply about pointing the bone and ‘singing’ and kurdaitcha men, but it was turning into a lengthy reply and I ran out of time.
I love the power of the mind to be able to affect the body, cultures everywhere use it!

Neophyte’s comment Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang, Walla walla, bing bang was good, it brought back all the mental pictures of old movies and the portrayal of native cultures with caricatures of witch doctors and backwards ways, and the oh so clever whiteys.
And this is the colonisers method, which enables them to lessen their guilt at aggressive invasion and dispossession of their land. That is why I focused on the ‘most evil of witch doctors’ comment…..our society still wants to assuage our history by believing bollocks, by making stuff up, by making others inferior. The fact is that only a select few took the trouble to learn a little about what was here. The mindset of a supposedly superior culture coupled with the need to feed a lot of people on a land they didn’t understand and the greed of a few people who wanted to replicate the estates of the rich from their home countries meant starvation, slaughter, slavery, going into hiding, begging or being herded into reserves where they were strictly controlled.
How about the hypocrisy of the missions who imposed their own beliefs of demons and evil spirits and hell and damnation while wiping out any practice or remembrance of other’s culture, let alone even enquiring and recording and showing any respect for it? We have been left with small tantalising glimpses from the few who did record things, but what a shame there is not more. I read that attempts by the first people in the Sydney area to learn each other’s language ended as the Aboriginals learnt english, but the whiteys were unable to learn their language….the Aboriginals gave up in disgust at how slow and feeble they were.

My grandmother was very vocal about the mistreatment of Aboriginals and the injustice. Her family along with others went into what was virgin bushland in Victoria to turn it into farmland, and they must have seen dispossession and mistreatment firsthand. She made comments to us, but being a child I had no reference points for what she was saying. I wish I could go back in time and have conversations with both sets of grandparents, as I also have tantalising glimpses of interesting stories of my other grandmother’s family (found via Trove)

territory, and taming

sounds like a good title for a book

everyone is recruited by the state in some way to the ends of the state, whether the explicit state or otherwise, even before you are born you are anticipated to serve it in some way

white man introduced the ways of the state to Australia, through religion, law, and wealth, not necessarily in that order

even today few talk about the state, it’s existence is largely denied in our culture, perhaps more-so in modern times, since most have internalized the denial of its existence, you only have to watch Star Wars or any number of other American movies to catch the ideological mind virus, that successfully inoculates against that reality

the state has special powers, even retrospective powers, it’s the master of all time machines

transition said:

territory, and taming

sounds like a good title for a book

everyone is recruited by the state in some way to the ends of the state, whether the explicit state or otherwise, even before you are born you are anticipated to serve it in some way

white man introduced the ways of the state to Australia, through religion, law, and wealth, not necessarily in that order

even today few talk about the state, it’s existence is largely denied in our culture, perhaps more-so in modern times, since most have internalized the denial of its existence, you only have to watch Star Wars or any number of other American movies to catch the ideological mind virus, that successfully inoculates against that reality

the state has special powers, even retrospective powers, it’s the master of all time machines

¿I’m wondering if I can mathematically model the massive decline in aboriginal populations in the southern mainland states of Australia from the 1790s through to the 1940s, and the rise in population after that, using only a single simple basic assumption – black women prefer rich men. It’s a hypothesis only, not tested against reality yet. Initially, because all white men were richer than aboriginal men, the interbreeding was determined by the availability of white men (and white women). Much later, as aborigines gained wealth, the aboriginal population stabilised and then increased.

It’s a simple enough hypothesis to test in Excel.

mollwollfumble said:

transition said:

territory, and taming

sounds like a good title for a book

everyone is recruited by the state in some way to the ends of the state, whether the explicit state or otherwise, even before you are born you are anticipated to serve it in some way

white man introduced the ways of the state to Australia, through religion, law, and wealth, not necessarily in that order

even today few talk about the state, it’s existence is largely denied in our culture, perhaps more-so in modern times, since most have internalized the denial of its existence, you only have to watch Star Wars or any number of other American movies to catch the ideological mind virus, that successfully inoculates against that reality

the state has special powers, even retrospective powers, it’s the master of all time machines

¿I’m wondering if I can mathematically model the massive decline in aboriginal populations in the southern mainland states of Australia from the 1790s through to the 1940s, and the rise in population after that, using only a single simple basic assumption – black women prefer rich men. It’s a hypothesis only, not tested against reality yet. Initially, because all white men were richer than aboriginal men, the interbreeding was determined by the availability of white men (and white women). Much later, as aborigines gained wealth, the aboriginal population stabilised and then increased.

It’s a simple enough hypothesis to test in Excel.

>black women prefer rich men.

if you did though, wouldn’t the results be so similar to non-white ladies prefer to be comfortable, if wealth equals comfort, or comforts(plural), that that’s really what you’re measuring, or representing, even of breeding opportunities

i’m attracted to comforts too. Mostly sleep, a comfortable sleep, serial comfortable sleeps. Some people are more attracted to wakefulness, indulging ideas about what should be done with wakefulness. A tyranny really

mollwollfumble said:

transition said:

territory, and taming

sounds like a good title for a book

everyone is recruited by the state in some way to the ends of the state, whether the explicit state or otherwise, even before you are born you are anticipated to serve it in some way

white man introduced the ways of the state to Australia, through religion, law, and wealth, not necessarily in that order

even today few talk about the state, it’s existence is largely denied in our culture, perhaps more-so in modern times, since most have internalized the denial of its existence, you only have to watch Star Wars or any number of other American movies to catch the ideological mind virus, that successfully inoculates against that reality

the state has special powers, even retrospective powers, it’s the master of all time machines

¿I’m wondering if I can mathematically model the massive decline in aboriginal populations in the southern mainland states of Australia from the 1790s through to the 1940s, and the rise in population after that, using only a single simple basic assumption – black women prefer rich men. It’s a hypothesis only, not tested against reality yet. Initially, because all white men were richer than aboriginal men, the interbreeding was determined by the availability of white men (and white women). Much later, as aborigines gained wealth, the aboriginal population stabilised and then increased.

It’s a simple enough hypothesis to test in Excel.

I don’t know what to say in response to that, so I’ll just post a song:

The drover’s boy

> You should ask the library if they will get in Lyndall Ryan’s book on Tasmanian aboriginal history too.

Thanks a million, Ruby. Yes they do, in a branch library I didn’t look at. I’ll copy the call number now before I forget it.

Tasmanian Aborigines : a history since 1803
by Ryan, Lyndall, 1943-
Publication Date 2012
Call Number 994.6 RYAN

I’m halfway through one of the Manning Clark books.
It’s a good writing style but the style can get annoying.
80% is political history. The rest is divided up randomly between between the history of aborigines, women, entertainment, technology, soldiers, ie specialist topics that readers would be interested in. Also, it’s divided up one chapter by year, which is excellent.

Annoying because, more often than not, the events referred to in a particular year did not occur in that year. For example, major aboriginal legislation completed in 1909-1910 make an appearance, undated, in Manning Clark’s year 1920. Another example of the annoyance is “By strange coincidence this (report related to a massacre of aborigines in NT) appeared just one day after the conference”, when the date, year, title and topic of the conference are never stated, and the conference has absolutely nothing to do with aborigines.

mollwollfumble said:

> You should ask the library if they will get in Lyndall Ryan’s book on Tasmanian aboriginal history too.

Thanks a million, Ruby. Yes they do, in a branch library I didn’t look at. I’ll copy the call number now before I forget it.

Tasmanian Aborigines : a history since 1803
by Ryan, Lyndall, 1943-
Publication Date 2012
Call Number 994.6 RYAN

Found it. And another book specifically about Tasmanian Aborigines.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

> You should ask the library if they will get in Lyndall Ryan’s book on Tasmanian aboriginal history too.

Thanks a million, Ruby. Yes they do, in a branch library I didn’t look at. I’ll copy the call number now before I forget it.

Tasmanian Aborigines : a history since 1803
by Ryan, Lyndall, 1943-
Publication Date 2012
Call Number 994.6 RYAN

Found it. And another book specifically about Tasmanian Aborigines.

Ahhh yes, Windschuttle. I have previously mentioned the well coordinated attacks on Lyndall Ryan when her book on Tasmanian Aboriginals came out. She had no agenda with her book apart from doing as much research as she could about what happened when people from one society came into contact with another. Which is what you say you want to do too.
She wanted to put aside the ‘primitive savage’ notion, or the notion of wandering hunter gatherers, and find contemporary accounts of interaction. When she discovered the accounts of the massacres, she was surprised to find that it was at odds with the belief that people of my generation had grown up with. She is a well measured person, and did not sensationalise this point, but merely recorded her findings. She was shocked to find the vitriol aimed at her. People like Andrew Bolt are very fond of speaking in outraged tones about her writings and praising people like Windschuttle. But read both for yourself and see what you think. I can assure you that Lyndall is not a lefty with a political agenda, her agenda is truth and meticulous research. But it will depend on whether you read to reinforce your existing views, or with an open mind I guess.

Wikipedia entry on Windschuttle is interesting, an excerpt -
Within a year Windschuttle’s claims and research produced a volume of rebuttal, namely Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, an anthology edited and introduced by Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University, with contributions by Australian academics from a range of disciplines. Manne, who called Windschuttle’s book “one of the most implausible, ignorant and pitiless books about Australian history written for many years”, himself summed up the case against Windschuttle, noting that Windschuttle’s evidence for Aboriginal deaths is derived from a scholar, Plomley, who denied that any estimate for them could be made from the documentary record; that a scrupulous conservative scholar, H. A. Willis, using exactly the same sources as Windschuttle, came up with a figure of 188 violent deaths, and another 145 rumoured deaths; that Windschuttle’s method excludes deaths of Aborigines who were wounded, and later died; that all surviving Aborigines transported by Robinson to Flinders’ Island bore marks of violence and gunshot wounds “perpetrated on them by depraved whites”; that Windschuttle cannot deny that between 1803 and 1834 almost all Tasmanian Aborigines died, and the only evidence for disease as a factor before 1829 rests on a single conversation recorded by James Bonwick, and that Aboriginal women who lived with sealers did not, however, die off from contact with bearers of foreign disease; that Windschuttle likened Aboriginal attacks on British settlers to “modern-day junkies raiding service stations for money”, whereas both colonial records and modern historians speak of them as highly “patriotic”, attached to their lands, and engaged in a veritable war to defend it from settlement; that by Windschuttle’s own figures, the violent death rate of Aborigines in Tasmania in the 1820s must have been 360 times the murder rate in contemporary New York; that Windschuttle shows scarce familiarity with period books, citing only 3 of the 30 books published on Van Diemen’s land for the period 1803–1834, and with one of them confuses the date of the first visit by the French with the publication date of the volume that recounted their expedition; that it is nonsensical to argue that a people who had wandered over an island and survived for 34,000 years had no attachment to their land; that Windschuttle finds no native words in 19th century wordlists for “land” to attest to such an attachment, when modern wordlists show 23 entries under “country”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Windschuttle

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

> You should ask the library if they will get in Lyndall Ryan’s book on Tasmanian aboriginal history too.

Thanks a million, Ruby. Yes they do, in a branch library I didn’t look at. I’ll copy the call number now before I forget it.

Tasmanian Aborigines : a history since 1803
by Ryan, Lyndall, 1943-
Publication Date 2012
Call Number 994.6 RYAN

Found it. And another book specifically about Tasmanian Aborigines.

Read Winschuttle with a skeptical mind turned on. And check references.

Oh, I see Ruby beat me to it.

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

> You should ask the library if they will get in Lyndall Ryan’s book on Tasmanian aboriginal history too.

Thanks a million, Ruby. Yes they do, in a branch library I didn’t look at. I’ll copy the call number now before I forget it.

Tasmanian Aborigines : a history since 1803
by Ryan, Lyndall, 1943-
Publication Date 2012
Call Number 994.6 RYAN

Found it. And another book specifically about Tasmanian Aborigines.

Ahhh yes, Windschuttle. I have previously mentioned the well coordinated attacks on Lyndall Ryan when her book on Tasmanian Aboriginals came out. She had no agenda with her book apart from doing as much research as she could about what happened when people from one society came into contact with another. Which is what you say you want to do too.
She wanted to put aside the ‘primitive savage’ notion, or the notion of wandering hunter gatherers, and find contemporary accounts of interaction. When she discovered the accounts of the massacres, she was surprised to find that it was at odds with the belief that people of my generation had grown up with. She is a well measured person, and did not sensationalise this point, but merely recorded her findings. She was shocked to find the vitriol aimed at her. People like Andrew Bolt are very fond of speaking in outraged tones about her writings and praising people like Windschuttle. But read both for yourself and see what you think. I can assure you that Lyndall is not a lefty with a political agenda, her agenda is truth and meticulous research. But it will depend on whether you read to reinforce your existing views, or with an open mind I guess.

Wikipedia entry on Windschuttle is interesting, an excerpt -
Within a year Windschuttle’s claims and research produced a volume of rebuttal, namely Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, an anthology edited and introduced by Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University, with contributions by Australian academics from a range of disciplines. Manne, who called Windschuttle’s book “one of the most implausible, ignorant and pitiless books about Australian history written for many years”, himself summed up the case against Windschuttle, noting that Windschuttle’s evidence for Aboriginal deaths is derived from a scholar, Plomley, who denied that any estimate for them could be made from the documentary record; that a scrupulous conservative scholar, H. A. Willis, using exactly the same sources as Windschuttle, came up with a figure of 188 violent deaths, and another 145 rumoured deaths; that Windschuttle’s method excludes deaths of Aborigines who were wounded, and later died; that all surviving Aborigines transported by Robinson to Flinders’ Island bore marks of violence and gunshot wounds “perpetrated on them by depraved whites”; that Windschuttle cannot deny that between 1803 and 1834 almost all Tasmanian Aborigines died, and the only evidence for disease as a factor before 1829 rests on a single conversation recorded by James Bonwick, and that Aboriginal women who lived with sealers did not, however, die off from contact with bearers of foreign disease; that Windschuttle likened Aboriginal attacks on British settlers to “modern-day junkies raiding service stations for money”, whereas both colonial records and modern historians speak of them as highly “patriotic”, attached to their lands, and engaged in a veritable war to defend it from settlement; that by Windschuttle’s own figures, the violent death rate of Aborigines in Tasmania in the 1820s must have been 360 times the murder rate in contemporary New York; that Windschuttle shows scarce familiarity with period books, citing only 3 of the 30 books published on Van Diemen’s land for the period 1803–1834, and with one of them confuses the date of the first visit by the French with the publication date of the volume that recounted their expedition; that it is nonsensical to argue that a people who had wandered over an island and survived for 34,000 years had no attachment to their land; that Windschuttle finds no native words in 19th century wordlists for “land” to attest to such an attachment, when modern wordlists show 23 entries under “country”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Windschuttle

> Read Winschuttle with a skeptical mind turned on. And check references.

Thanks. Will read with BS detectors turned on full strength.

I had previously looked for and failed to find any evidence in the Tasmanian newspapers for disease as a factor in the decline of Tasmanian aboriginal numbers. This is in stark contrast to top end Aborigines, where at least thousands and possibly as many as hundreds of thousands died from measles. A reason to be careful is that for the top end, too, I have so far found very few mentions of that disease.

It is clear even to me, with my extremely limited knowledge, that almost every, if not every, Tasmanian massacre was illegal according to white law. Therefore hidden.

> between 1803 and 1834 almost all Tasmanian Aborigines died

Yes. I even managed to plot a graph of tribe size vs time over that period suggesting a rapid and uniform decline. Only four data points but they were all on the same straight line.

Dang it, forgot to mention.

Sir Robert Menzies is starting to shape up as a poster boy for Schadenfreude.

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

Found it. And another book specifically about Tasmanian Aborigines.

Ahhh yes, Windschuttle. I have previously mentioned the well coordinated attacks on Lyndall Ryan when her book on Tasmanian Aboriginals came out. She had no agenda with her book apart from doing as much research as she could about what happened when people from one society came into contact with another. Which is what you say you want to do too.
She wanted to put aside the ‘primitive savage’ notion, or the notion of wandering hunter gatherers, and find contemporary accounts of interaction. When she discovered the accounts of the massacres, she was surprised to find that it was at odds with the belief that people of my generation had grown up with. She is a well measured person, and did not sensationalise this point, but merely recorded her findings. She was shocked to find the vitriol aimed at her. People like Andrew Bolt are very fond of speaking in outraged tones about her writings and praising people like Windschuttle. But read both for yourself and see what you think. I can assure you that Lyndall is not a lefty with a political agenda, her agenda is truth and meticulous research. But it will depend on whether you read to reinforce your existing views, or with an open mind I guess.

Wikipedia entry on Windschuttle is interesting, an excerpt -
Within a year Windschuttle’s claims and research produced a volume of rebuttal, namely Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, an anthology edited and introduced by Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University, with contributions by Australian academics from a range of disciplines. Manne, who called Windschuttle’s book “one of the most implausible, ignorant and pitiless books about Australian history written for many years”, himself summed up the case against Windschuttle, noting that Windschuttle’s evidence for Aboriginal deaths is derived from a scholar, Plomley, who denied that any estimate for them could be made from the documentary record; that a scrupulous conservative scholar, H. A. Willis, using exactly the same sources as Windschuttle, came up with a figure of 188 violent deaths, and another 145 rumoured deaths; that Windschuttle’s method excludes deaths of Aborigines who were wounded, and later died; that all surviving Aborigines transported by Robinson to Flinders’ Island bore marks of violence and gunshot wounds “perpetrated on them by depraved whites”; that Windschuttle cannot deny that between 1803 and 1834 almost all Tasmanian Aborigines died, and the only evidence for disease as a factor before 1829 rests on a single conversation recorded by James Bonwick, and that Aboriginal women who lived with sealers did not, however, die off from contact with bearers of foreign disease; that Windschuttle likened Aboriginal attacks on British settlers to “modern-day junkies raiding service stations for money”, whereas both colonial records and modern historians speak of them as highly “patriotic”, attached to their lands, and engaged in a veritable war to defend it from settlement; that by Windschuttle’s own figures, the violent death rate of Aborigines in Tasmania in the 1820s must have been 360 times the murder rate in contemporary New York; that Windschuttle shows scarce familiarity with period books, citing only 3 of the 30 books published on Van Diemen’s land for the period 1803–1834, and with one of them confuses the date of the first visit by the French with the publication date of the volume that recounted their expedition; that it is nonsensical to argue that a people who had wandered over an island and survived for 34,000 years had no attachment to their land; that Windschuttle finds no native words in 19th century wordlists for “land” to attest to such an attachment, when modern wordlists show 23 entries under “country”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Windschuttle

> Read Winschuttle with a skeptical mind turned on. And check references.

Thanks. Will read with BS detectors turned on full strength.

I had previously looked for and failed to find any evidence in the Tasmanian newspapers for disease as a factor in the decline of Tasmanian aboriginal numbers. This is in stark contrast to top end Aborigines, where at least thousands and possibly as many as hundreds of thousands died from measles. A reason to be careful is that for the top end, too, I have so far found very few mentions of that disease.

It is clear even to me, with my extremely limited knowledge, that almost every, if not every, Tasmanian massacre was illegal according to white law. Therefore hidden.

Nods. Illegal, but often not that well hidden. Maybe just hidden from people who prefer a just society and who like to pursue such things via the law. There is a certain section of society that is proud of such things.

You probably need a third book there for balance, written by a very left leaning person, a noble savage and all colonisers are evil type of book.
And don’t forget about the diseases that made people’s lives much harder if it wasn’t killing them. Sexually transmitted diseases, often acquired unwillingly. The idea of aboriginal women going after rich men made me shake my head in disbelief, as if they were ever given much say or agency in such things.

reading this

https://print.ispub.com/api/0/ispub-article/1455

transition said:

reading this

https://print.ispub.com/api/0/ispub-article/1455

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

roughbarked said:

transition said:

reading this

https://print.ispub.com/api/0/ispub-article/1455

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

“The Epidemiology Of STDs And AIDS In Early Australia”.

Major Illnesses Treated at Sydney Hospital one month of 1819
236 Ulcer
105 Abscess
81 Contusions
67 Wounds
64 Gonorrhoea
…
19 Syphilis

That’s a heck of a lot of ulcers – what would cause that?

Nice to see accident/violence making its way slowly down the list. That influenza / diarrhoea up near the top of the list in 1838. Venereal disease increases.

Among the aborigines of the top end, sexually transmitted diseases were considered to be worse than leprosy, despite them being curable.

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

transition said:

reading this

https://print.ispub.com/api/0/ispub-article/1455

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

“The Epidemiology Of STDs And AIDS In Early Australia”.

Major Illnesses Treated at Sydney Hospital one month of 1819
236 Ulcer
105 Abscess
81 Contusions
67 Wounds
64 Gonorrhoea
…
19 Syphilis

That’s a heck of a lot of ulcers – what would cause that?

Nice to see accident/violence making its way slowly down the list. That influenza / diarrhoea up near the top of the list in 1838. Venereal disease increases.

Among the aborigines of the top end, sexually transmitted diseases were considered to be worse than leprosy, despite them being curable.

Depends what type of ulcers.

roughbarked said:

transition said:

reading this

https://print.ispub.com/api/0/ispub-article/1455

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

visited on the natives, the disease landscape, was horrendous, you only get a glimpse from any official figures/records, likely unrepresentative of the scale of the problem

transition said:

roughbarked said:

transition said:

reading this

https://print.ispub.com/api/0/ispub-article/1455

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

visited on the natives, the disease landscape, was horrendous, you only get a glimpse from any official figures/records, likely unrepresentative of the scale of the problem

If you think about it. Visited upon the natives also applied to all of the flora and fauna.

roughbarked said:

transition said:

roughbarked said:

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

visited on the natives, the disease landscape, was horrendous, you only get a glimpse from any official figures/records, likely unrepresentative of the scale of the problem

If you think about it. Visited upon the natives also applied to all of the flora and fauna.

Common theme deliberate or otherwise

roughbarked said:

transition said:

roughbarked said:

Don’t know what it had to do with Captain Cook.

visited on the natives, the disease landscape, was horrendous, you only get a glimpse from any official figures/records, likely unrepresentative of the scale of the problem

If you think about it. Visited upon the natives also applied to all of the flora and fauna.

should point out I use the term native in a very friendly way, like I might refer to native intelligence

transition said:

roughbarked said:

transition said:

visited on the natives, the disease landscape, was horrendous, you only get a glimpse from any official figures/records, likely unrepresentative of the scale of the problem

If you think about it. Visited upon the natives also applied to all of the flora and fauna.

should point out I use the term native in a very friendly way, like I might refer to native intelligence

:)
they all ran wild.

roughbarked said:

transition said:

roughbarked said:

If you think about it. Visited upon the natives also applied to all of the flora and fauna.

should point out I use the term native in a very friendly way, like I might refer to native intelligence

:)
they all ran wild.

I was speaking more literally, you know, if you were IQ tested, someone could tease out the aspects birth gifted you, separate that some from the other type, anyway what birth gifted you could be called native intelligence

transition said:

roughbarked said:

transition said:

should point out I use the term native in a very friendly way, like I might refer to native intelligence

:)
they all ran wild.

I was speaking more literally, you know, if you were IQ tested, someone could tease out the aspects birth gifted you, separate that some from the other type, anyway what birth gifted you could be called native intelligence

Hence the smile in my reply.

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

Ahhh yes, Windschuttle. I have previously mentioned the well coordinated attacks on Lyndall Ryan when her book on Tasmanian Aboriginals came out. She had no agenda with her book apart from doing as much research as she could about what happened when people from one society came into contact with another. Which is what you say you want to do too.
She wanted to put aside the ‘primitive savage’ notion, or the notion of wandering hunter gatherers, and find contemporary accounts of interaction. When she discovered the accounts of the massacres, she was surprised to find that it was at odds with the belief that people of my generation had grown up with. She is a well measured person, and did not sensationalise this point, but merely recorded her findings. She was shocked to find the vitriol aimed at her. People like Andrew Bolt are very fond of speaking in outraged tones about her writings and praising people like Windschuttle. But read both for yourself and see what you think. I can assure you that Lyndall is not a lefty with a political agenda, her agenda is truth and meticulous research. But it will depend on whether you read to reinforce your existing views, or with an open mind I guess.

Wikipedia entry on Windschuttle is interesting, an excerpt -
Within a year Windschuttle’s claims and research produced a volume of rebuttal, namely Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, an anthology edited and introduced by Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University, with contributions by Australian academics from a range of disciplines. Manne, who called Windschuttle’s book “one of the most implausible, ignorant and pitiless books about Australian history written for many years”, himself summed up the case against Windschuttle, noting that Windschuttle’s evidence for Aboriginal deaths is derived from a scholar, Plomley, who denied that any estimate for them could be made from the documentary record; that a scrupulous conservative scholar, H. A. Willis, using exactly the same sources as Windschuttle, came up with a figure of 188 violent deaths, and another 145 rumoured deaths; that Windschuttle’s method excludes deaths of Aborigines who were wounded, and later died; that all surviving Aborigines transported by Robinson to Flinders’ Island bore marks of violence and gunshot wounds “perpetrated on them by depraved whites”; that Windschuttle cannot deny that between 1803 and 1834 almost all Tasmanian Aborigines died, and the only evidence for disease as a factor before 1829 rests on a single conversation recorded by James Bonwick, and that Aboriginal women who lived with sealers did not, however, die off from contact with bearers of foreign disease; that Windschuttle likened Aboriginal attacks on British settlers to “modern-day junkies raiding service stations for money”, whereas both colonial records and modern historians speak of them as highly “patriotic”, attached to their lands, and engaged in a veritable war to defend it from settlement; that by Windschuttle’s own figures, the violent death rate of Aborigines in Tasmania in the 1820s must have been 360 times the murder rate in contemporary New York; that Windschuttle shows scarce familiarity with period books, citing only 3 of the 30 books published on Van Diemen’s land for the period 1803–1834, and with one of them confuses the date of the first visit by the French with the publication date of the volume that recounted their expedition; that it is nonsensical to argue that a people who had wandered over an island and survived for 34,000 years had no attachment to their land; that Windschuttle finds no native words in 19th century wordlists for “land” to attest to such an attachment, when modern wordlists show 23 entries under “country”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Windschuttle

> Read Winschuttle with a skeptical mind turned on. And check references.

Thanks. Will read with BS detectors turned on full strength.

I had previously looked for and failed to find any evidence in the Tasmanian newspapers for disease as a factor in the decline of Tasmanian aboriginal numbers. This is in stark contrast to top end Aborigines, where at least thousands and possibly as many as hundreds of thousands died from measles. A reason to be careful is that for the top end, too, I have so far found very few mentions of that disease.

It is clear even to me, with my extremely limited knowledge, that almost every, if not every, Tasmanian massacre was illegal according to white law. Therefore hidden.

Nods. Illegal, but often not that well hidden. Maybe just hidden from people who prefer a just society and who like to pursue such things via the law. There is a certain section of society that is proud of such things.

You probably need a third book there for balance, written by a very left leaning person, a noble savage and all colonisers are evil type of book.
And don’t forget about the diseases that made people’s lives much harder if it wasn’t killing them. Sexually transmitted diseases, often acquired unwillingly. The idea of aboriginal women going after rich men made me shake my head in disbelief, as if they were ever given much say or agency in such things.

Thanks again.

I know of one case where a person person in old Australia did a murder and boasted of it – was caught – next murder was strongly suspected, had motive (the victim had ratted him out to the police) and the victim disappeared, but second time said absolutely nothing to anybody so couldn’t be caught.

At least 80% of books on aborigines are “noble savage and all colonisers are evil” types. I’m trying to avoid them. But I’m sure there are plenty in my metre-high pile here.

> The idea of aboriginal women going after rich men made me shake my head in disbelief, as if they were ever given much say or agency in such things.

Point made. I was thinking a a single anecdote where two aboriginal women went after a white-crewed lugger, and deliberately capsized their canoe so that the lugger had to either stop and pick them up or they would drown. The wind was such that the lugger couldn’t return them to shore within their tribal range.

But I know, a single anecdote doesn’t make a rule. And I’ve heard of at least three other anecdotes where the women had no choice at all.

So scratch that idea.

> Sexually transmitted diseases

The effect of that on aboriginal populations would be much more difficult to determine.

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Read Winschuttle with a skeptical mind turned on. And check references.

Thanks. Will read with BS detectors turned on full strength.

I had previously looked for and failed to find any evidence in the Tasmanian newspapers for disease as a factor in the decline of Tasmanian aboriginal numbers. This is in stark contrast to top end Aborigines, where at least thousands and possibly as many as hundreds of thousands died from measles. A reason to be careful is that for the top end, too, I have so far found very few mentions of that disease.

It is clear even to me, with my extremely limited knowledge, that almost every, if not every, Tasmanian massacre was illegal according to white law. Therefore hidden.

Nods. Illegal, but often not that well hidden. Maybe just hidden from people who prefer a just society and who like to pursue such things via the law. There is a certain section of society that is proud of such things.

You probably need a third book there for balance, written by a very left leaning person, a noble savage and all colonisers are evil type of book.
And don’t forget about the diseases that made people’s lives much harder if it wasn’t killing them. Sexually transmitted diseases, often acquired unwillingly. The idea of aboriginal women going after rich men made me shake my head in disbelief, as if they were ever given much say or agency in such things.

Thanks again.

I know of one case where a person person in old Australia did a murder and boasted of it – was caught – next murder was strongly suspected, had motive (the victim had ratted him out to the police) and the victim disappeared, but second time said absolutely nothing to anybody so couldn’t be caught.

At least 80% of books on aborigines are “noble savage and all colonisers are evil” types. I’m trying to avoid them. But I’m sure there are plenty in my metre-high pile here.

> The idea of aboriginal women going after rich men made me shake my head in disbelief, as if they were ever given much say or agency in such things.

Point made. I was thinking a a single anecdote where two aboriginal women went after a white-crewed lugger, and deliberately capsized their canoe so that the lugger had to either stop and pick them up or they would drown. The wind was such that the lugger couldn’t return them to shore within their tribal range.

But I know, a single anecdote doesn’t make a rule. And I’ve heard of at least three other anecdotes where the women had no choice at all.

So scratch that idea.

> Sexually transmitted diseases

The effect of that on aboriginal populations would be much more difficult to determine.

Why a supposedly intelligent and well educated person cannot find the wealth of information that deals with Aboriginal Evolution and their problems since White Settlement, but only finds derogatory comment and (white) documentation. Personally I think it speaks of your bias in no short measure.

Authorities in New South Wales are taking newborn Aboriginal children from their mothers in “flawed” and “unethical” ways, sometimes leaving no chance even for a photograph, a child welfare review has found.
Key points:

Professor Megan Davis found the system had lost sight of its goal of protecting children In some cases, newborns were taken without the mother having a chance to take a photograph of the baby Professor Davis recommended a triage system to identify women at risk early to help during pregnancy

The damning review by Megan Davis, an Indigenous law professor at the University of NSW, also called for a ban on adopting Aboriginal children from the care system.

Professor Davis’s report, commissioned by the State Government and released last week, makes 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system.

The bureaucracy “has in many ways, ‘lost sight’ of the actual goal of protecting children in its day-to-day operation,” Professor Davis found.

The review team discovered examples of the Department of Family and Community Services giving false and misleading evidence in court when arguing against parents’ ability to keep custody.

It also found “widespread non-compliance” with laws and policies by the department and the broader sector.

In some cases, “the location of young people under the care and protection of the Minister was unknown”.

Professor Davis’s report delved into 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.

It uncovered “multiple instances of poor and unethical newborn removal practices”.
A woman wearing glasses and smiling.
Photo: Professor Davis authored the report which calls for an end to Aboriginal adoption. (Supplied)

Nearly one in 10 Aboriginal children who entered care in the report period entered within two weeks of birth, government data showed.

“The current system of prenatal reporting, investigations and newborn removals is flawed and is having a significant impact on the number of Aboriginal children entering out-of-home care,” the report said.

Sometimes mothers had their babies removed with “no opportunity to take photographs, keep a memento (such as a cot card) or give anything special to the baby”.

In one case study, authorities knew a mother was homeless, abusing drugs and a victim of domestic violence early in her pregnancy but did not intervene to help before taking away her newborn baby.

In another, a first-time mother was deemed a danger for not giving details about her child’s lunch-time routine, despite the fact the baby was one day old.

Professor Davis recommended new policies around newborns, a triage system that would identify women most in trouble during pregnancy and more prenatal case workers.

Auntie Deb Swan of the activist group Grandmothers Against Removal NSW criticised the department for not working more with mothers before they gave birth.

“They would just turn up to the hospital and the next moment the baby’s gone,” she said.

Auntie Deb said her group welcomed the report, as unconscious bias and racism often led authorities to dismiss Aboriginal relatives as potential carers.
Report a ‘watershed moment’ for child welfare

According to the Davis “Family is Culture” review, another area needing major reform is adoption.

Last November, the Government successfully pushed for new laws that made for easier adoption of children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, and the numbers are expected to climb.

Professor Davis argued legislation should be changed to ensure that formal adoption “is not an option for Aboriginal children in “.

Among her reasons were the “alien nature of adoption to Aboriginal culture, the horrors endured by the members of the Stolen Generation and the enduring impact of the trauma and loss of connection to culture caused by forced removals of Aboriginal children”.

Other recommendations include scrapping regulatory bodies in favour of an independent Child Protection Commission, greater oversight of court proceedings and far more transparency across the sector.

Tim Ireland, chief executive of the Aboriginal welfare body AbSec, called the report a “watershed moment” for the sector.

“If the NSW Government wants to do better in its support of Aboriginal children in child protection, then the pathway is clear,” Mr Ireland said.

Communities Minister Gareth Ward said the Government would respond within the first half of next year.

Mr Ward said reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.

However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-15/newborn-aboriginal-children-being-taken-from-their-mothers/11705380

Dear Sarah’s Mum, I’ll read your last post shortly. My understanding is that the adoption processes for aboriginal children nowdays is exactly the same as adoption processes for white children. A criticism of one is a criticism of the other.

I’m starting to come across what is commonly called the “White Australia” policy. I’m only just starting to look into this. I find that in order to understand it and how it influenced aborigines, if at all, I have to split it into five separate components.

• Component 1. Motivation

The motivation is to stop hard working and intelligent immigrants from taking over the jobs of lazier and less intelligent locals.
This was supported Australia-wide by the Union movement.

• Component 2. Party policy

This was a cornerstone of Labor Party policy at Federation, because of Labor’s connection with the Unions. Not Liberal-Nationals. (to be continued, I have the full statement here) Essentially to exclude from Australia all coloured and other undesirable races.

• Component 3. Justification in the press

Stop decent people from being murdered by coloureds.

• Component 4. Legislation

Legislation at Federation. Ban on immigration of all asiatics. Ban on immigration of all south sea islanders, and forcing south sea islanders out of work in the Qld cane fields.

• Component 5. Implementation

eg. Mob violence against Yugoslavs in Coolgardie.

————-

As regards the aborigines, they come under the banner of only Components 2 and 3 of these. But, correct me if I’m wrong, it was never used either legislatively or by mobs as an excuse for attacking the aborigines?

mollwollfumble said:

Dear Sarah’s Mum, I’ll read your last post shortly. My understanding is that the adoption processes for aboriginal children nowdays is exactly the same as adoption processes for white children. A criticism of one is a criticism of the other.

“Dear Sarah’s Mum”- ALERT – I’m going to be totally condescending here

“I’ll read your last post shortly”- I’m not even going to bother with what you are saying because listen here.

“My understanding is that the adoption processes for aboriginal children nowdays is exactly the same as adoption processes for white children.” I’m even going to totally ignore what is happening because it doesn’t fit the way I want to think about things.Look at all the little white children that are taken away.

**wanders away shaking head*

When the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody investigated 99 deaths between 1980-1989, investigators were forced to exclude the police shooting of 29-year-old Aboriginal man David Gundy in his Marrickville home.

Just before dawn in April 1989, Gundy’s life was taken by the Special Weapons and Operations Squad, while his nine-year-old son was in his bedroom next door.

Ultimately, a family appeal to have Gundy’s death investigated was successful and the commission’s final report recommended that deaths at the hands of the police, whether they be on the streets, in a chase or at home, be classified as a death in custody. This recommendation is important because policing of Aboriginal communities blurs the public/private line.

The use of force outside of a police station can be just as deadly, and accountability and justice equally necessary.

Homes no longer a safe place

Fatal policing in the home was the fate of Kumunjayi Walker, a 19-year-old Warlpiri man from the central Australian Aboriginal community of Yuendumu.

Walker died after being shot by police in his home. A police officer has been charged with murder in connection with the shooting.

The tenuous line between public and private policing has been compromised in the Northern Territory since federal emergency laws were introduced in 2007.

These measures, referred to collectively as the Northern Territory Intervention, increased police numbers and police powers in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.

Such powers went beyond those lawfully sanctioned for the broader community.

A 2009 report that looked at policing in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities by the North Aboriginal Justice Agency and Central Australian Legal Aid Service identified frequent complaints about needless police searches of Aboriginal people’s houses without their permission.

This was due to police exceeding their powers as well as the extension of powers under the Intervention legislation.

Different rules for Aboriginal people

The Intervention legislation enabled police to search Aboriginal homes as if they were a public space.

The 2009 report cited Yuendumu, where Walker died, as an example of an Aboriginal community where private space is highly regarded with strict rules around who can enter certain spaces.

Aboriginal people told the researchers that they were concerned with police trespass of homes due to their increased “power to intrude into the lives of Aboriginal people as compared with non-Aboriginal people”.

The report cited one comment that reflects a wide perception that police entering homes is a breach of general laws and legal rights:

“Some people not happy about police. Meeting a couple of months ago, shouting at them to go away. Because police coming into houses without warrant paper. That’s against our law.”

The legislation, previously the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007, now the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012, enables police to enter a house without a warrant and apprehend a person if they reasonably believe that someone is drunk in their home.

Earlier this year, an Aboriginal woman in the relatively larger Northern Territory community was breath-tested and arrested for drinking alcohol in her home.
Not just an NT problem

The policing of homes and ensuing deaths in custody are not unique to the Northern Territory, but have occurred Australia-wide.

Deaths in custody have been set in train through policing homes and apprehending residents, as was the case with 22-year-old Yamaji woman Ms Dhu from Port Hedland in 2014, and the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Yamatji woman Ms Clarke from Geraldton in September this year following the police attending her home.

Other Aboriginal people who died due to the policing of homes include 44-year-old Mark Edward Mason in Collarenebri in NSW in 2010 and 31-year-old Patrick Fisher in Sydney last year.

The shooting of Kumunjayi Walker reveals that there are no spaces free from policing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Even on the edge of the Tanami Desert on Aboriginal Land, Aboriginal people are vulnerable living in a policing archipelago where the constraints on life “outside” police custody are potentially as harsh as those on the “inside”.

Unless there are clearer protections against police powers and accountability for police officers responsible for fatal actions, Aboriginal people will continue to be under siege in their own homes.

Thalia Anthony is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, with a focus on Indigenous people and the law.

*An earlier version of this story said the royal commission had been unable to investigate David Gundy’s death.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-14/kumunjayi-walker-raises-questions-policing-aboriginal-homes/11702332

sarahs mum said:

Authorities in New South Wales are taking newborn Aboriginal children from their mothers in “flawed” and “unethical” ways, sometimes leaving no chance even for a photograph, a child welfare review has found.
Key points:

Professor Megan Davis found the system had lost sight of its goal of protecting children In some cases, newborns were taken without the mother having a chance to take a photograph of the baby Professor Davis recommended a triage system to identify women at risk early to help during pregnancy

The damning review by Megan Davis, an Indigenous law professor at the University of NSW, also called for a ban on adopting Aboriginal children from the care system.

Professor Davis’s report, commissioned by the State Government and released last week, makes 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system.

The bureaucracy “has in many ways, ‘lost sight’ of the actual goal of protecting children in its day-to-day operation,” Professor Davis found.

The review team discovered examples of the Department of Family and Community Services giving false and misleading evidence in court when arguing against parents’ ability to keep custody.

It also found “widespread non-compliance” with laws and policies by the department and the broader sector.

In some cases, “the location of young people under the care and protection of the Minister was unknown”.

Professor Davis’s report delved into 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.

It uncovered “multiple instances of poor and unethical newborn removal practices”.
A woman wearing glasses and smiling.
Photo: Professor Davis authored the report which calls for an end to Aboriginal adoption. (Supplied)

Nearly one in 10 Aboriginal children who entered care in the report period entered within two weeks of birth, government data showed.

“The current system of prenatal reporting, investigations and newborn removals is flawed and is having a significant impact on the number of Aboriginal children entering out-of-home care,” the report said.

Sometimes mothers had their babies removed with “no opportunity to take photographs, keep a memento (such as a cot card) or give anything special to the baby”.

In one case study, authorities knew a mother was homeless, abusing drugs and a victim of domestic violence early in her pregnancy but did not intervene to help before taking away her newborn baby.

In another, a first-time mother was deemed a danger for not giving details about her child’s lunch-time routine, despite the fact the baby was one day old.

Professor Davis recommended new policies around newborns, a triage system that would identify women most in trouble during pregnancy and more prenatal case workers.

Auntie Deb Swan of the activist group Grandmothers Against Removal NSW criticised the department for not working more with mothers before they gave birth.

“They would just turn up to the hospital and the next moment the baby’s gone,” she said.

Auntie Deb said her group welcomed the report, as unconscious bias and racism often led authorities to dismiss Aboriginal relatives as potential carers.
Report a ‘watershed moment’ for child welfare

According to the Davis “Family is Culture” review, another area needing major reform is adoption.

Last November, the Government successfully pushed for new laws that made for easier adoption of children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, and the numbers are expected to climb.

Professor Davis argued legislation should be changed to ensure that formal adoption “is not an option for Aboriginal children in “.

Among her reasons were the “alien nature of adoption to Aboriginal culture, the horrors endured by the members of the Stolen Generation and the enduring impact of the trauma and loss of connection to culture caused by forced removals of Aboriginal children”.

Other recommendations include scrapping regulatory bodies in favour of an independent Child Protection Commission, greater oversight of court proceedings and far more transparency across the sector.

Tim Ireland, chief executive of the Aboriginal welfare body AbSec, called the report a “watershed moment” for the sector.

“If the NSW Government wants to do better in its support of Aboriginal children in child protection, then the pathway is clear,” Mr Ireland said.

Communities Minister Gareth Ward said the Government would respond within the first half of next year.

Mr Ward said reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.

However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-15/newborn-aboriginal-children-being-taken-from-their-mothers/11705380

Have read it now.

That’s startling. A fantastic project, methodology and result. 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system. Good.

I still don’t fully understand it, though. There seems to be somewhat of a conflict between:

• Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
  and
• 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.
  and
• However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.
  and
• Reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.
  and
• Children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

The ABC summary seems to be saying that 8 is only 35% less than 1,144. Clearly it’s not saying that.

This vigorous debate about wanting more or fewer adoptions of aboriginal children – does this only apply to 8 children a year?

“40% of out-of-home care children in NSW are Aboriginal” is huge. So huge as to be almost unbelievable. Does the report say why so huge? That seems to me to be a very serious issue, if it’s not a misprint.

—————

On an older aboriginal issue.

The “Report of the Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives”, headed by Walter Edmund Roth, formed in 1902 and reported in 1905. WA Government.

I need to see this. The Roth report is the most damning criticism of the condition and treatment of aborigines that I’ve heard of so far – anywhere at any time. Not just limited to mistreatment by whites, by the way. This is dated after the Western Australian protection of Aborigines legislation, which came into force in 1886. It’s before the protection of aborigines legislation of NSW and South Australia.

All I’ve seen so far is Manning Clark’s interpretation of the Sunday Times (Perth’s) interpretation of the report.

sarahs mum said:

mollwollfumble said:

Dear Sarah’s Mum, I’ll read your last post shortly. My understanding is that the adoption processes for aboriginal children nowdays is exactly the same as adoption processes for white children. A criticism of one is a criticism of the other.

“Dear Sarah’s Mum”- ALERT – I’m going to be totally condescending here

“I’ll read your last post shortly”- I’m not even going to bother with what you are saying because listen here.

“My understanding is that the adoption processes for aboriginal children nowdays is exactly the same as adoption processes for white children.” I’m even going to totally ignore what is happening because it doesn’t fit the way I want to think about things.Look at all the little white children that are taken away.

**wanders away shaking head*

I’ll come with you.

mollwollfumble said:

sarahs mum said:

Authorities in New South Wales are taking newborn Aboriginal children from their mothers in “flawed” and “unethical” ways, sometimes leaving no chance even for a photograph, a child welfare review has found.
Key points:

Professor Megan Davis found the system had lost sight of its goal of protecting children In some cases, newborns were taken without the mother having a chance to take a photograph of the baby Professor Davis recommended a triage system to identify women at risk early to help during pregnancy

The damning review by Megan Davis, an Indigenous law professor at the University of NSW, also called for a ban on adopting Aboriginal children from the care system.

Professor Davis’s report, commissioned by the State Government and released last week, makes 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system.

The bureaucracy “has in many ways, ‘lost sight’ of the actual goal of protecting children in its day-to-day operation,” Professor Davis found.

The review team discovered examples of the Department of Family and Community Services giving false and misleading evidence in court when arguing against parents’ ability to keep custody.

It also found “widespread non-compliance” with laws and policies by the department and the broader sector.

In some cases, “the location of young people under the care and protection of the Minister was unknown”.

Professor Davis’s report delved into 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.

It uncovered “multiple instances of poor and unethical newborn removal practices”.
A woman wearing glasses and smiling.
Photo: Professor Davis authored the report which calls for an end to Aboriginal adoption. (Supplied)

Nearly one in 10 Aboriginal children who entered care in the report period entered within two weeks of birth, government data showed.

“The current system of prenatal reporting, investigations and newborn removals is flawed and is having a significant impact on the number of Aboriginal children entering out-of-home care,” the report said.

Sometimes mothers had their babies removed with “no opportunity to take photographs, keep a memento (such as a cot card) or give anything special to the baby”.

In one case study, authorities knew a mother was homeless, abusing drugs and a victim of domestic violence early in her pregnancy but did not intervene to help before taking away her newborn baby.

In another, a first-time mother was deemed a danger for not giving details about her child’s lunch-time routine, despite the fact the baby was one day old.

Professor Davis recommended new policies around newborns, a triage system that would identify women most in trouble during pregnancy and more prenatal case workers.

Auntie Deb Swan of the activist group Grandmothers Against Removal NSW criticised the department for not working more with mothers before they gave birth.

“They would just turn up to the hospital and the next moment the baby’s gone,” she said.

Auntie Deb said her group welcomed the report, as unconscious bias and racism often led authorities to dismiss Aboriginal relatives as potential carers.
Report a ‘watershed moment’ for child welfare

According to the Davis “Family is Culture” review, another area needing major reform is adoption.

Last November, the Government successfully pushed for new laws that made for easier adoption of children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, and the numbers are expected to climb.

Professor Davis argued legislation should be changed to ensure that formal adoption “is not an option for Aboriginal children in “.

Among her reasons were the “alien nature of adoption to Aboriginal culture, the horrors endured by the members of the Stolen Generation and the enduring impact of the trauma and loss of connection to culture caused by forced removals of Aboriginal children”.

Other recommendations include scrapping regulatory bodies in favour of an independent Child Protection Commission, greater oversight of court proceedings and far more transparency across the sector.

Tim Ireland, chief executive of the Aboriginal welfare body AbSec, called the report a “watershed moment” for the sector.

“If the NSW Government wants to do better in its support of Aboriginal children in child protection, then the pathway is clear,” Mr Ireland said.

Communities Minister Gareth Ward said the Government would respond within the first half of next year.

Mr Ward said reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.

However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-15/newborn-aboriginal-children-being-taken-from-their-mothers/11705380

Have read it now.

That’s startling. A fantastic project, methodology and result. 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system. Good.

I still don’t fully understand it, though. There seems to be somewhat of a conflict between:

• Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
  and
• 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.
  and
• However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.
  and
• Reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.
  and
• Children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

The ABC summary seems to be saying that 8 is only 35% less than 1,144. Clearly it’s not saying that.

This vigorous debate about wanting more or fewer adoptions of aboriginal children – does this only apply to 8 children a year?

“40% of out-of-home care children in NSW are Aboriginal” is huge. So huge as to be almost unbelievable. Does the report say why so huge? That seems to me to be a very serious issue, if it’s not a misprint.

—————

On an older aboriginal issue.

The “Report of the Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives”, headed by Walter Edmund Roth, formed in 1902 and reported in 1905. WA Government.

I need to see this. The Roth report is the most damning criticism of the condition and treatment of aborigines that I’ve heard of so far – anywhere at any time. Not just limited to mistreatment by whites, by the way. This is dated after the Western Australian protection of Aborigines legislation, which came into force in 1886. It’s before the protection of aborigines legislation of NSW and South Australia.

All I’ve seen so far is Manning Clark’s interpretation of the Sunday Times (Perth’s) interpretation of the report.

3 points Moll:

- the other day you mentioned prostitution. In Aboriginal society trading sex for goods ( or after settlement, money) was not considered dishonourable or sinful. In fact it was quite common and the offspring of these interactions were openly raised by their father-figure in the full knowledge that he may not be the biological father.

- It was noted by Europeans that what we would now call domestic violence was quite common amongst Aboriginals. I don’t know how much different it was from European society at the time but it must be noted that violence was not a sign of family dysfunction.

- finally in assessing how clean Aboriginal settlements and missions were it must be understood how Aboriginal culture treated past events and the ongoing narrative. Obviously before settlement there was little but fire-pits and animal remains to be left to the elements but after the arrival of Europeans there was much more material possessions that after use was discarded with little regard for European ideas of cleanliness. Even today the idea that places of meeting and/celebration must be cleaned up after the event is sometimes not followed because doing so would be, in a manner of speaking, constitute an effort to erase the collective memory of cherished events.

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

On an older aboriginal issue.

The “Report of the Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives”, headed by Walter Edmund Roth, formed in 1902 and reported in 1905. WA Government.

I need to see this. The Roth report is the most damning criticism of the condition and treatment of aborigines that I’ve heard of so far – anywhere at any time. Not just limited to mistreatment by whites, by the way. This is dated after the Western Australian protection of Aborigines legislation, which came into force in 1886. It’s before the protection of aborigines legislation of NSW and South Australia.

All I’ve seen so far is Manning Clark’s interpretation of the Sunday Times (Perth’s) interpretation of the report.

3 points Moll:

- the other day you mentioned prostitution. In Aboriginal society trading sex for goods ( or after settlement, money) was not considered dishonourable or sinful. In fact it was quite common and the offspring of these interactions were openly raised by their father-figure in the full knowledge that he may not be the biological father.

- It was noted by Europeans that what we would now call domestic violence was quite common amongst Aboriginals. I don’t know how much different it was from European society at the time but it must be noted that violence was not a sign of family dysfunction.

- finally in assessing how clean Aboriginal settlements and missions were it must be understood how Aboriginal culture treated past events and the ongoing narrative. Obviously before settlement there was little but fire-pits and animal remains to be left to the elements but after the arrival of Europeans there was much more material possessions that after use was discarded with little regard for European ideas of cleanliness. Even today the idea that places of meeting and/celebration must be cleaned up after the event is sometimes not followed because doing so would be, in a manner of speaking, constitute an effort to erase the collective memory of cherished events.

Thanks. That makes perfect sense.

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

sarahs mum said:

Authorities in New South Wales are taking newborn Aboriginal children from their mothers in “flawed” and “unethical” ways, sometimes leaving no chance even for a photograph, a child welfare review has found.
Key points:

Professor Megan Davis found the system had lost sight of its goal of protecting children In some cases, newborns were taken without the mother having a chance to take a photograph of the baby Professor Davis recommended a triage system to identify women at risk early to help during pregnancy

The damning review by Megan Davis, an Indigenous law professor at the University of NSW, also called for a ban on adopting Aboriginal children from the care system.

Professor Davis’s report, commissioned by the State Government and released last week, makes 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system.

The bureaucracy “has in many ways, ‘lost sight’ of the actual goal of protecting children in its day-to-day operation,” Professor Davis found.

The review team discovered examples of the Department of Family and Community Services giving false and misleading evidence in court when arguing against parents’ ability to keep custody.

It also found “widespread non-compliance” with laws and policies by the department and the broader sector.

In some cases, “the location of young people under the care and protection of the Minister was unknown”.

Professor Davis’s report delved into 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.

It uncovered “multiple instances of poor and unethical newborn removal practices”.
A woman wearing glasses and smiling.
Photo: Professor Davis authored the report which calls for an end to Aboriginal adoption. (Supplied)

Nearly one in 10 Aboriginal children who entered care in the report period entered within two weeks of birth, government data showed.

“The current system of prenatal reporting, investigations and newborn removals is flawed and is having a significant impact on the number of Aboriginal children entering out-of-home care,” the report said.

Sometimes mothers had their babies removed with “no opportunity to take photographs, keep a memento (such as a cot card) or give anything special to the baby”.

In one case study, authorities knew a mother was homeless, abusing drugs and a victim of domestic violence early in her pregnancy but did not intervene to help before taking away her newborn baby.

In another, a first-time mother was deemed a danger for not giving details about her child’s lunch-time routine, despite the fact the baby was one day old.

Professor Davis recommended new policies around newborns, a triage system that would identify women most in trouble during pregnancy and more prenatal case workers.

Auntie Deb Swan of the activist group Grandmothers Against Removal NSW criticised the department for not working more with mothers before they gave birth.

“They would just turn up to the hospital and the next moment the baby’s gone,” she said.

Auntie Deb said her group welcomed the report, as unconscious bias and racism often led authorities to dismiss Aboriginal relatives as potential carers.
Report a ‘watershed moment’ for child welfare

According to the Davis “Family is Culture” review, another area needing major reform is adoption.

Last November, the Government successfully pushed for new laws that made for easier adoption of children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, and the numbers are expected to climb.

Professor Davis argued legislation should be changed to ensure that formal adoption “is not an option for Aboriginal children in “.

Among her reasons were the “alien nature of adoption to Aboriginal culture, the horrors endured by the members of the Stolen Generation and the enduring impact of the trauma and loss of connection to culture caused by forced removals of Aboriginal children”.

Other recommendations include scrapping regulatory bodies in favour of an independent Child Protection Commission, greater oversight of court proceedings and far more transparency across the sector.

Tim Ireland, chief executive of the Aboriginal welfare body AbSec, called the report a “watershed moment” for the sector.

“If the NSW Government wants to do better in its support of Aboriginal children in child protection, then the pathway is clear,” Mr Ireland said.

Communities Minister Gareth Ward said the Government would respond within the first half of next year.

Mr Ward said reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.

However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-15/newborn-aboriginal-children-being-taken-from-their-mothers/11705380

Have read it now.

That’s startling. A fantastic project, methodology and result. 125 recommendations to overhaul the way Aboriginal families are treated by the system. Good.

I still don’t fully understand it, though. There seems to be somewhat of a conflict between:

• Eight Aboriginal children were adopted from foster care in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
  and
• 1,144 case files to explore the lives of all Aboriginal children who entered foster care, care by relatives, group homes or emergency care arrangements in 2015-2016.
  and
• However, the number of Aboriginal children in the system has remained virtually unchanged.
  and
• Reforms had already reduced the number of Aboriginal children and young people entering out-of-home care by 35 per cent since 2015-2016.
  and
• Children in out-of-home care, 40 per cent of whom are Aboriginal.

The ABC summary seems to be saying that 8 is only 35% less than 1,144. Clearly it’s not saying that.

This vigorous debate about wanting more or fewer adoptions of aboriginal children – does this only apply to 8 children a year?

“40% of out-of-home care children in NSW are Aboriginal” is huge. So huge as to be almost unbelievable. Does the report say why so huge? That seems to me to be a very serious issue, if it’s not a misprint.

—————

On an older aboriginal issue.

The “Report of the Royal Commission on the Condition of the Natives”, headed by Walter Edmund Roth, formed in 1902 and reported in 1905. WA Government.

I need to see this. The Roth report is the most damning criticism of the condition and treatment of aborigines that I’ve heard of so far – anywhere at any time. Not just limited to mistreatment by whites, by the way. This is dated after the Western Australian protection of Aborigines legislation, which came into force in 1886. It’s before the protection of aborigines legislation of NSW and South Australia.

All I’ve seen so far is Manning Clark’s interpretation of the Sunday Times (Perth’s) interpretation of the report.

3 points Moll:

- the other day you mentioned prostitution. In Aboriginal society trading sex for goods ( or after settlement, money) was not considered dishonourable or sinful. In fact it was quite common and the offspring of these interactions were openly raised by their father-figure in the full knowledge that he may not be the biological father.

- It was noted by Europeans that what we would now call domestic violence was quite common amongst Aboriginals. I don’t know how much different it was from European society at the time but it must be noted that violence was not a sign of family dysfunction.

- finally in assessing how clean Aboriginal settlements and missions were it must be understood how Aboriginal culture treated past events and the ongoing narrative. Obviously before settlement there was little but fire-pits and animal remains to be left to the elements but after the arrival of Europeans there was much more material possessions that after use was discarded with little regard for European ideas of cleanliness. Even today the idea that places of meeting and/celebration must be cleaned up after the event is sometimes not followed because doing so would be, in a manner of speaking, constitute an effort to erase the collective memory of cherished events.

I cannot comment on the validity of the above as my area of interest has been with Aboriginal History, not customs and beliefs. However as there are over 400 different language groups and to infer all had the same attitude might be drawing a very long bow, also many conflicts were started by whites interfering with Aboriginal women.

PermeateFree said:

I cannot comment on the validity of the above as my area of interest has been with Aboriginal History, not customs and beliefs. However as there are over 400 different language groups and to infer all had the same attitude might be drawing a very long bow, also many conflicts were started by whites interfering with Aboriginal women.

Yes. It would be. Aborigines are known to kill one another over a woman, even over an affair that is long finished. The same would be true of white “interference”.

The more I read up about early Aborigines, the more the line between my understanding and my total lack of understanding becomes clearer.

I can accept – but not condone – their attitudes of underage sex, domestic violence, selective cannibalism, infanticide, belief in ghosts, etc.

I’m also starting to realise that the morality of the early Aborigine is practically identical to that of white Australian politicians:

• Start by begging
• If that doesn’t work try conman tricks
• If that doesn’t work try theft
• If that doesn’t work stage a coup
• If that doesn’t work – start a fire

As you can see, exactly the same morality as white Australian politicians.

The aspect of early aboriginal psychology that really and totally puzzles me is shared by some whites:

• Total lack of belief that it is possible to be killed by disease.
• Belief in death by witchcraft.
• Total lack of interest in farming.

I can follow that death by violence was vastly more common than death by disease, and that conman tricks fostered belief in witchcraft, but that really doesn’t suffice to explain it. Also, farming is at huge risk from theft, but that doesn’t suffice either.

And I still haven’t been able to understand why they were “a race of people whose moral and physical stamina gave way rapidly and completely upon contact with a white race”. A very large number of whites were puzzled by this, too. Contact with the Japanese, Malays and Torres Strait Islanders didn’t seem to have that effect.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

I cannot comment on the validity of the above as my area of interest has been with Aboriginal History, not customs and beliefs. However as there are over 400 different language groups and to infer all had the same attitude might be drawing a very long bow, also many conflicts were started by whites interfering with Aboriginal women.

Yes. It would be. Aborigines are known to kill one another over a woman, even over an affair that is long finished. The same would be true of white “interference”.

The more I read up about early Aborigines, the more the line between my understanding and my total lack of understanding becomes clearer.

I can accept – but not condone – their attitudes of underage sex, domestic violence, selective cannibalism, infanticide, belief in ghosts, etc.

I’m also starting to realise that the morality of the early Aborigine is practically identical to that of white Australian politicians:

• Start by begging
• If that doesn’t work try conman tricks
• If that doesn’t work try theft
• If that doesn’t work stage a coup
• If that doesn’t work – start a fire

As you can see, exactly the same morality as white Australian politicians.

The aspect of early aboriginal psychology that really and totally puzzles me is shared by some whites:

• Total lack of belief that it is possible to be killed by disease.
• Belief in death by witchcraft.
• Total lack of interest in farming.

I can follow that death by violence was vastly more common than death by disease, and that conman tricks fostered belief in witchcraft, but that really doesn’t suffice to explain it. Also, farming is at huge risk from theft, but that doesn’t suffice either.

And I still haven’t been able to understand why they were “a race of people whose moral and physical stamina gave way rapidly and completely upon contact with a white race”. A very large number of whites were puzzled by this, too. Contact with the Japanese, Malays and Torres Strait Islanders didn’t seem to have that effect.

Your ignorance and jumping to conclusions is beyond belief. Try reading the scientific studies and some of their own stories because they are not as stupid as you obviously think. But there again, you are behaving as a troll of the lowest kind and I well know you will do none of these and just continue make your racist statements to inflame the situation.

Mary Ann Bugg, the Aboriginal bushranger erased from Australian folklore

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-17/mary-ann-bugg-bushranger-partner-captain-thunderbolt/11699992

From: Peak Warming Man
ID: 1463140
Subject: re: November chat

Just found this good resource, cant find the aboriginal thread though.
https://eprints.usq.edu.au/4687/1/Parsons_Wadingh_Wadingh_Publ_version.pdf

Haven’t read it yet, but looks good and should provide a more realistic view of Aboriginal people than we have been getting.
https://eprints.usq.edu.au/4687/1/Parsons_Wadingh_Wadingh_Publ_version.pdf

Starting to read Lyndall Ryan. Just a quick run through a few early chapters so far.

I think Lyndall Ryan has missed almost all of the early massacres of Aborigines around Hobart. Not surprising, because the only direct evidence for them is sparse, such as staged fights between Aborigines in Hobart that Ryan fails to mention at all. And such as the quote “we shoot them” in Hobart that Ryan mentions only in briefest passing. And other hints such as the reduction in tribal sizes.

Ryan finishes the chapter quoting (on page 73) Thomas Bigge as saying in 1819 “Revenge arising from Risdon Cove … would not … offer resistance to settler families” following up with Ryan saying: “He could not have been more mistaken”.

My knee-jerk reaction is – Thomas Bigge is probably correct, the attacks by the aborigines aren’t revenge for Risdon Cove in 1804 at all. Risdon Cove is ancient history by the time of the worst attacks by aborigines in 1826. Not in opposition to settlement either. I strongly suspect that they are revenge for far more frequent and more recent illegal massacres of aboriginals in and around Hobart between 1804 and 1826.

mollwollfumble said:

Starting to read Lyndall Ryan. Just a quick run through a few early chapters so far.

I think Lyndall Ryan has missed almost all of the early massacres of Aborigines around Hobart. Not surprising, because the only direct evidence for them is sparse, such as staged fights between Aborigines in Hobart that Ryan fails to mention at all. And such as the quote “we shoot them” in Hobart that Ryan mentions only in briefest passing. And other hints such as the reduction in tribal sizes.

Ryan finishes the chapter quoting (on page 73) Thomas Bigge as saying in 1819 “Revenge arising from Risdon Cove … would not … offer resistance to settler families” following up with Ryan saying: “He could not have been more mistaken”.

My knee-jerk reaction is – Thomas Bigge is probably correct, the attacks by the aborigines aren’t revenge for Risdon Cove in 1804 at all. Risdon Cove is ancient history by the time of the worst attacks by aborigines in 1826. Not in opposition to settlement either. I strongly suspect that they are revenge for far more frequent and more recent illegal massacres of aboriginals in and around Hobart between 1804 and 1826.

I strongly suspect you are right about Hobart massacres, Moll.
And I know that Lyndall writes with an eye to the fact that she is cutting through a narrative that has been built up around preceding centuries of European expansionism and colonialism. She treads carefully, and when you are a woman academic, the path needs treading even more carefully lest you upset delicate egos, not to mention people’s empires and fortunes. And even though she made this book a very dry and factual read, and things needed to be edited out, the outrage once the book came out was huge. Her career took quite a hit at the time. But she is an amazing woman, and has kept going with her work. I am told that the massacre site work needs triple references before it goes on the database. I am hoping that there is also a database of single reference interactions somewhere.

And remember Moll, it is not just about people being killed, the story is also about people being dispossessed of their way of life, their way of feeding themselves, the taking of their women (imagine how you would feel if your wife and daughter was taken by invaders to be abused and mostly killed or enslaved afterwards, a lucky few would have had a kinder fate), disruption to their culture and being able to practice it (imagine your library and your lab is destroyed and your books and computer burnt). You fight back, but need to retreat to survive. If you move into a new area to regroup, you are going to disrupt those peoples and their resources, making the fight harder.
The imposition of the new culture happened really quickly. You need to be remarkably resourceful and adaptable to be able to go in living, and even more resourceful to keep your culture alive in the face of a determination to stamp it out entirely. I’m very grateful to the people who have documented and collected together and made available a wider part of Australia’s history. And I weep for what was lost, and is still being lost.
PWM’s history of the aboriginal people in Warwick is a must read. There is some of what my grandmother used to talk about echoed in there. Also things my stepfather told me about his family life in the Daintree, carving out new farmland there, and their attitudes to the aboriginal population.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/forced-to-build-their-own-pyres-dozens-more-aboriginal-massacres-revealed-in-killing-times-research?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2×57AzstlUQgjoh7Z1KOlzztTy7XJ6ux3IyER3Ib0rhMdF8NiBmgnekZQ

ruby said:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/forced-to-build-their-own-pyres-dozens-more-aboriginal-massacres-revealed-in-killing-times-research?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2×57AzstlUQgjoh7Z1KOlzztTy7XJ6ux3IyER3Ib0rhMdF8NiBmgnekZQ

The above gives an indication of the treatment handed out to Australia’s Aborigines. However, it does not cover the other areas of abuse at the hands of whites they had to endure for the period of white settlement. On top of that we destroy the land that provided them with sustenance for 60,000 years, plus devastated the wildlife and this we do within 250 years. Now tell me who are the most compassionate and intelligent? Clever as we are, we are really very stupid, yet we think we are of a superior intellect and treat all others that are not as technically advanced as being ignorant and sub-human. Strange how the world is as it is, we deserve no more!

PermeateFree said:

ruby said:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/forced-to-build-their-own-pyres-dozens-more-aboriginal-massacres-revealed-in-killing-times-research?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2×57AzstlUQgjoh7Z1KOlzztTy7XJ6ux3IyER3Ib0rhMdF8NiBmgnekZQ

The above gives an indication of the treatment handed out to Australia’s Aborigines. However, it does not cover the other areas of abuse at the hands of whites they had to endure for the period of white settlement. On top of that we destroy the land that provided them with sustenance for 60,000 years, plus devastated the wildlife and this we do within 250 years. Now tell me who are the most compassionate and intelligent? Clever as we are, we are really very stupid, yet we think we are of a superior intellect and treat all others that are not as technically advanced as being ignorant and sub-human. Strange how the world is as it is, we deserve no more!

It is the product of Imperialism or Colonialism. Certain wealthy families basically stole the world’s resources.

PermeateFree said:

ruby said:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/forced-to-build-their-own-pyres-dozens-more-aboriginal-massacres-revealed-in-killing-times-research?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2×57AzstlUQgjoh7Z1KOlzztTy7XJ6ux3IyER3Ib0rhMdF8NiBmgnekZQ

The above gives an indication of the treatment handed out to Australia’s Aborigines. However, it does not cover the other areas of abuse at the hands of whites they had to endure for the period of white settlement. On top of that we destroy the land that provided them with sustenance for 60,000 years, plus devastated the wildlife and this we do within 250 years. Now tell me who are the most compassionate and intelligent? Clever as we are, we are really very stupid, yet we think we are of a superior intellect and treat all others that are not as technically advanced as being ignorant and sub-human. Strange how the world is as it is, we deserve no more!

Isn’t is suggested they killed off the mega-fauna, worked out that was bad and then modified behaviour to be less destructive.

[Certain wealthy families basically stole the world’s resources.
——

Still.

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

ruby said:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/forced-to-build-their-own-pyres-dozens-more-aboriginal-massacres-revealed-in-killing-times-research?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2×57AzstlUQgjoh7Z1KOlzztTy7XJ6ux3IyER3Ib0rhMdF8NiBmgnekZQ

The above gives an indication of the treatment handed out to Australia’s Aborigines. However, it does not cover the other areas of abuse at the hands of whites they had to endure for the period of white settlement. On top of that we destroy the land that provided them with sustenance for 60,000 years, plus devastated the wildlife and this we do within 250 years. Now tell me who are the most compassionate and intelligent? Clever as we are, we are really very stupid, yet we think we are of a superior intellect and treat all others that are not as technically advanced as being ignorant and sub-human. Strange how the world is as it is, we deserve no more!

Isn’t is suggested they killed off the mega-fauna, worked out that was bad and then modified behaviour to be less destructive.

Not really. It was more coincidence that the last of the megafauna died out around the time of the first Australians arriving. However, no one is quite sure of the exactitude in dating either.

sarahs mum said:

They made the laws and subjugated the people.

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

ruby said:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/18/forced-to-build-their-own-pyres-dozens-more-aboriginal-massacres-revealed-in-killing-times-research?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR2×57AzstlUQgjoh7Z1KOlzztTy7XJ6ux3IyER3Ib0rhMdF8NiBmgnekZQ

The above gives an indication of the treatment handed out to Australia’s Aborigines. However, it does not cover the other areas of abuse at the hands of whites they had to endure for the period of white settlement. On top of that we destroy the land that provided them with sustenance for 60,000 years, plus devastated the wildlife and this we do within 250 years. Now tell me who are the most compassionate and intelligent? Clever as we are, we are really very stupid, yet we think we are of a superior intellect and treat all others that are not as technically advanced as being ignorant and sub-human. Strange how the world is as it is, we deserve no more!

Isn’t is suggested they killed off the mega-fauna, worked out that was bad and then modified behaviour to be less destructive.

Whatever happened to the mega-fauna, we in our very short period on this continent have killed off large numbers of flora and fauna and are heavily involved with a very likely 6th mass extinction event, and this we have done in a couple of centuries. So which way of life was the most intelligent, especially when they learnt by their mistakes, whilst we carry on regardless?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-18/dozens-of-massacre-sites-added-to-map-of-aboriginal-killings/11707916

https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/introduction.php

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

Starting to read Lyndall Ryan. Just a quick run through a few early chapters so far.

I think Lyndall Ryan has missed almost all of the early massacres of Aborigines around Hobart. Not surprising, because the only direct evidence for them is sparse, such as staged fights between Aborigines in Hobart that Ryan fails to mention at all. And such as the quote “we shoot them” in Hobart that Ryan mentions only in briefest passing. And other hints such as the reduction in tribal sizes.

Ryan finishes the chapter quoting (on page 73) Thomas Bigge as saying in 1819 “Revenge arising from Risdon Cove … would not … offer resistance to settler families” following up with Ryan saying: “He could not have been more mistaken”.

My knee-jerk reaction is – Thomas Bigge is probably correct, the attacks by the aborigines aren’t revenge for Risdon Cove in 1804 at all. Risdon Cove is ancient history by the time of the worst attacks by aborigines in 1826. Not in opposition to settlement either. I strongly suspect that they are revenge for far more frequent and more recent illegal massacres of aboriginals in and around Hobart between 1804 and 1826.

I strongly suspect you are right about Hobart massacres, Moll.
And I know that Lyndall writes with an eye to the fact that she is cutting through a narrative that has been built up around preceding centuries of European expansionism and colonialism. She treads carefully, and when you are a woman academic, the path needs treading even more carefully lest you upset delicate egos, not to mention people’s empires and fortunes. And even though she made this book a very dry and factual read, and things needed to be edited out, the outrage once the book came out was huge. Her career took quite a hit at the time. But she is an amazing woman, and has kept going with her work. I am told that the massacre site work needs triple references before it goes on the database. I am hoping that there is also a database of single reference interactions somewhere.

And remember Moll, it is not just about people being killed, the story is also about people being dispossessed of their way of life, their way of feeding themselves, the taking of their women (imagine how you would feel if your wife and daughter was taken by invaders to be abused and mostly killed or enslaved afterwards, a lucky few would have had a kinder fate), disruption to their culture and being able to practice it (imagine your library and your lab is destroyed and your books and computer burnt). You fight back, but need to retreat to survive. If you move into a new area to regroup, you are going to disrupt those peoples and their resources, making the fight harder.
The imposition of the new culture happened really quickly. You need to be remarkably resourceful and adaptable to be able to go in living, and even more resourceful to keep your culture alive in the face of a determination to stamp it out entirely. I’m very grateful to the people who have documented and collected together and made available a wider part of Australia’s history. And I weep for what was lost, and is still being lost.
PWM’s history of the aboriginal people in Warwick is a must read. There is some of what my grandmother used to talk about echoed in there. Also things my stepfather told me about his family life in the Daintree, carving out new farmland there, and their attitudes to the aboriginal population.

My mother’s family went to the Dandenong area near Melbourne in the 1850s. Some years ago I asked my mother about Aboriginal people, because her family are good talkers. She said they had all been moved before the Gills got there, probably to Lake Tyers I would think, although there was a “blacktrackers’ camp” at the nearby “Police Paddocks”. I think. I should have asked more questions. And written it down.

I worked at the last Police Station in NSW to have a Black Tracker. He retired four years before I got there, but he still lived in Walgett. Tracker Walford. His daughter was called by the nickname “Tracker” by virtually everyone in Walgett. I got on with Tracker Walford very well, in part because we both worked in the Police Department, but weren’t Police, so were somewhat ostracised by both society and Police.

Was his daughter a tracker as well?

dv said:

Was his daughter a tracker as well?

No.

I’ve been reading “Chronicle of Australia”. I knew it was a good book, but hadn’t realised that it includes accounts from all four of Captain Cook’s lesser known direct predecessors: Byron in 1764, Cartaret, Wallis and Bougainville in 1766. All preceding Cook who sailed in 1768.

Like Cook, Wallis and Cartaret also received secret orders. In their case to search for “that Land or Islands of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any European power may be found between Cape Horn and new Zealand, in Latitudes convenient for navigation”. Unlike his predecessors, Cook followed his instructions diligently.

Cook became more erratic and violent in his last voyage.

Another piece of trivia from about the same period is that Botany Bay was not the first choice for a location to send British convicts after the American rebellion in 1775-6 but the third. The first choice was Gambia in west Africa. The second choice was Das Voltas Bay near the mouth of the Orange River in SW Africa. But reports back from both places were extremely unfavourable. So the British went for the third choice, Botany Bay, following what was called the “Matra Plan” after its proponent James Mario Matra, who had sailed with Cook on the Endeavour.

Things we aren’t taught in history at school.