I used to always associate neck chains in my mind with slavery and chain gangs, They are uniformly described as “cruel”.

Hence it was with some shock that I read that neck chains are the most humane way of transporting prisoners. (Reference deliberately withheld). It is much less cruel than handcuffs, ball and chain, ankle cuffs. It is more humane than cages and more humane than leaving them untethered but guarding them with whips or clubs.

It makes sense. handcuffs inhibit just about everything, ball and chain inhibits walking. On the other hand, neck chains leave the prisoners hands free to eat, free to pick up things from beside the track, free for going to the toilet. It leaves arms and legs free to be used for balance on bush paths There is even sufficient freedom for sex, which is why wives went along with their men in the following photograph.

If the prisoners attempt to make a run for it at night then the noise of the chain wakes the guards, so the guards can sleep peacefully. It stops prisoners from escaping by climbing a tree, and for some reason slows down the speed of running sufficiently for guards to catch up.

We use neck chains on dogs when we take them for a walk, not because it’s cruel but because it’s the most humane method of stopping them from running off.

Now I await a video of people doing parkour in neck chains.

———

It was widely publicised that Truganini was that last full-blood Tasmanian Aborigine. Plenty of times it has since been claimed that she wasn’t the last. But it occurred to me yesterday that she may not have been full-blood.

Consider. When she first enters the contemporary literature she is a prostitute of uncommon beauty (in white eyes) living in a sealers camp on Bruny Island with an estimated age of about 17. Some 17 years earlier, circa 1812, the colony at Hobart was well established and sealers and muttonbirders were already starting to visit the site. (we discussed in an earlier thread about muttonbirds on Bruny Island). She survived influenza that killed off more than half of the original Bruny Island aborigines, perhaps because of genetic advantage.

Nah, I think if she was half-caste then it would have been mentioned before now.

mollwollfumble said:

I used to always associate neck chains in my mind with slavery and chain gangs, They are uniformly described as “cruel”.

Hence it was with some shock that I read that neck chains are the most humane way of transporting prisoners. (Reference deliberately withheld). It is much less cruel than handcuffs, ball and chain, ankle cuffs. It is more humane than cages and more humane than leaving them untethered but guarding them with whips or clubs.

It makes sense. handcuffs inhibit just about everything, ball and chain inhibits walking. On the other hand, neck chains leave the prisoners hands free to eat, free to pick up things from beside the track, free for going to the toilet. It leaves arms and legs free to be used for balance on bush paths There is even sufficient freedom for sex, which is why wives went along with their men in the following photograph.

If the prisoners attempt to make a run for it at night then the noise of the chain wakes the guards, so the guards can sleep peacefully. It stops prisoners from escaping by climbing a tree, and for some reason slows down the speed of running sufficiently for guards to catch up.

We use neck chains on dogs when we take them for a walk, not because it’s cruel but because it’s the most humane method of stopping them from running off.

Now I await a video of people doing parkour in neck chains.

———

It was widely publicised that Truganini was that last full-blood Tasmanian Aborigine. Plenty of times it has since been claimed that she wasn’t the last. But it occurred to me yesterday that she may not have been full-blood.

Consider. When she first enters the contemporary literature she is a prostitute of uncommon beauty (in white eyes) living in a sealers camp on Bruny Island with an estimated age of about 17. Some 17 years earlier, circa 1812, the colony at Hobart was well established and sealers and muttonbirders were already starting to visit the site. (we discussed in an earlier thread about muttonbirds on Bruny Island). She survived influenza that killed off more than half of the original Bruny Island aborigines, perhaps because of genetic advantage.

Nah, I think if she was half-caste then it would have been mentioned before now.

I think it likely, of the picture of the people tethered together, that someone had a gun to help arrange that, and that the use of a gun may have been demonstrated at some point, and that the people all being tied together makes them easy to shoot

And I have a Q re the use of the word caste, what exactly does that mean, or should it mean?

and while i’m at it, on the subject of civilized man, how different is a picture (with words) in modern times, put up wherever, of news etc, compared to being tethered to be shot, even like a firing squad, by anyone, sort of a scaled up version of pointing the bone.

and everyone encouraged to leave their spearheads in a rotting carcass

transition said:

I think it likely, of the picture of the people tethered together, that someone had a gun to help arrange that, and that the use of a gun may have been demonstrated at some point, and that the people all being tied together makes them easy to shoot

And I have a Q re the use of the word caste, what exactly does that mean, or should it mean?

Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

As for the word “caste”, that is a challenging one. I use it here in the sense that I was used in Jamaica, where there was a distinction between full-blood, 1/2, 1/4, 3/4 and 1/8 black, with 1/8 black being legally white, but no finer distinction than that with everything else being “coloured”. I find it useful in Australia, even though I have never come across anything other than full-blood, half-caste and quarter-caste here. In Australia, the use of “caste” was absent from most legal documentation, and I was surprised to learn that the modern definition of aboriginal as “an aborigine is anyone who wants to call themselves an aborigine, regardless of ancestry” was used continuously from the very early days of colonial Australia, except in Victoria.

I started this thread because it ties in with Roth (1905). https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/intranet/libpages.nsf/WebFiles/Royal+Commissions+-+Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+on+the+condition+of+the+natives/$FILE/Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+on+the+condition+of+the+natives.pdf

It was said to be the most damning report on the condition and treatment of aboriginal natives. It led directly to the aboriginal protection legislation that was implemented in all states and territories within the next five (wikipedia says six) years. This is the same legislation that was later condemned by aboriginal activists in 1937 to 1940 and is almost universally hated today.

The contemporary newspaper report on the Roth (1905) is reproduced in “Chronicles of Australia”, and is included below. I sincerely hope it was wrong on all four points:

• The banning of neck chains. Some 35 years later, neck chains were still used by police in the same region, being the most humane transport method.
• Aborigines without a contract. If they mean “written contract”, what use is a written contract to someone who can’t read?
• The mention of pearling boats is pure anti-Chinese racism.
• The legislation against paedophilia was heavily resented by underage aboriginal children who wanted to engage in sex. Paedophile marriages are part of tribal culture.

Could it be that the Roth (1905) report is pure white cultural bias? Or is it just being misrepresented? I musty read it.

1/4 black etc? The fuck do you work that out? With a Pantone chart?

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Since when is a metre-high stack of books “selective”?
In addition to all newspaper reports (NSW 1910 to 1950 and Tas 1815 to 1840) from Trove that relate to Aborigines.
And the occasional Royal Commission on the condition of aborigines.
And both first hand observation and fiction books by Idriess.

What books would you like me to read?

I totally agree that I’ve barely scratched the surface. I totally skipped 2 of the 5 Manning Clark books I borrowed. And have only read 5 1/2 of the books so far, mostly just to get a time frame.

ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Inflexible?

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Since when is a metre-high stack of books “selective”?
In addition to all newspaper reports (NSW 1910 to 1950 and Tas 1815 to 1840) from Trove that relate to Aborigines.
And the occasional Royal Commission on the condition of aborigines.
And both first hand observation and fiction books by Idriess.

What books would you like me to read?

I totally agree that I’ve barely scratched the surface. I totally skipped 2 of the 5 Manning Clark books I borrowed. And have only read 5 1/2 of the books so far, mostly just to get a time frame.

Why not read them all and draw a conclusion from the entirety?

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Since when is a metre-high stack of books “selective”?
In addition to all newspaper reports (NSW 1910 to 1950 and Tas 1815 to 1840) from Trove that relate to Aborigines.

I’ve got a metre-high of books on eating for your blood type, not a quack in any of them.

How many Sydharbs have you read today?

> ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Ruby, I apologise. Perhaps the order in which I read the books is adversely affecting my judgement.
And perhaps my BS detector and my “but what if …” subroutine are leading me strongly awry.

I do change my beliefs on a daily basis. A lot of what I’ve claimed, I no longer believe.

In terms of sequence. Back in the 1990s I learned that my ancestors kept slaves, I was horrified. I couldn’t even claim that they were good masters, because the second wife (not my direct ancestor) of one of my direct ancestors was infamous for mistreating her slaves. In the early 2000s I met two of my relatives who still employ blacks. That helped to understand, partially, so did my discovery of the enormously high death rate of slave owners. There is so much said about the enormously high death rate of slaves, but no-one mentions that their owners died just as fast. I could say more about misconceptions concerning slavery, for example that by the time of abolition fully 50% of slaves were owned by law companies, but that would take me too far astray.

Even before that I had read the book on aborigines “My crowded solitude”.

The failure of all the court cases of Stolen Generations claimants made my BS detector kick in when anybody said “Stolen Generations”. So I read up everything I could from the NSW newspapers about missions, the Aborigines Protection Board and the Aborigines Welfare Board. Anyone who wants to retain sympathy for aboriginal activists should not read the minutes of the Aborigines Progressive Association, the aboriginal activist group in NSW. The Aborigines Progressive Association managed to wangle four seats on NSW Aborigines Welfare Board for themselves and two friends, so it, together with the Board of Works (in charge of building houses for Aborigines) effectively ran the State Government’s handling of Aborigines.

Nearly everything that was said about the missions was positive, nearly everything said about the Aborigines Protection Board was negative, but none of the thousand or so complaints that I read in the newspapers even hinted at the existence of a Stolen Generation.

I tracked the original claim of Stolen Generations down to Peter Read. Every reference to Stolen Generation originally leads back to Read. An example of extremely bad scholarship. His ignorance was astounding, almost as bad as mine. I went to the trouble of doing a complete rewrite of half of his paper before giving up, fully half of his stuff was in the wrong chapters for starters. My original bias based on the failure of the court cases was confirmed, Peter Read’s claims of a stolen generation in NSW before 1964 are completely false.

On reading the newspaper report into the enquiry that toppled the Aborigines Protection Board, I found that one of the key witnesses, perhaps the most important, was Ion Idriess. (Ion Idriess’s statement to the enquiry was not particularly relevant because his personal experiences from the Coral Sea and the Kimberleys where inappropriate for NSW for several reasons). So I set to read everything I could read that he’d written about aborigines. Ion Idriess’s books range from nearly pure fiction to nearly hard fact. The books “Over the Range”, “In crocodile land” are pure hard fact, fist hand accounts. His other books on aborigines: “Nemarluk”, “Man Tracks”, “Red Chief”, “Coral sea Calling” are largely second-hand accounts, less accurate.There are still some Idriess books on aborigines that I haven’t read.

That was my background on starting the current look into a timeline for aborigines in Australia. My first step was setting up the timeline using Manning Clark and the Chronicle of Australia. But I digressed into Lyndall Ryan and Keith Windschuttle on Tasmanian Aborigines.

Skipping forward to the present moment, I’ve been reading newspaper reports from 1964 about the origins of Aboriginal Land Rights. The aborigines at first certainly had right on their side. It boiled down to mining on aboriginal reserves, the miners claimed that the aborigines didn’t have mineral rights to the reserve, the aborigines had no wish to move their houses to accommodate the mines. It’s the same old set of complaints that occurs every time there’s a major construction, for example in the demolition of Arthur Dent’s house in HHGTTG. The mining companies handled it badly, the courts handled it badly, and it snowballed.

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

Some, but I’ve just found out not all, of the protection legislation originated with the Roth (1905) royal commission. I’ve just learnt that it had limited scope limited to the previous 3 years, to top end WA (the area in which Idriess had greatest knowledge), limited to the condition of natives and violence against natives. So it wouldn’t have dealt with, well, a lot. On quick browse (allow for me to change my mind here, I haven’t got anywhere near reading it all the way through), it had a favourable opinion of missions, and treatment of aborigines in settled areas, but was highly critical of the treatment of aborigines in unsettled areas. It bemoaned the fact that the official Protector of Aborigines had no power to help the aborigines against their will.

I can see why the legislation was hated in later years (allow me to change my mind here).

roughbarked said:

Why not read them all and draw a conclusion from the entirety?

If you think that I can hold 10,000 plus pages of text in my head all at once …

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Since when is a metre-high stack of books “selective”?
In addition to all newspaper reports (NSW 1910 to 1950 and Tas 1815 to 1840) from Trove that relate to Aborigines.
And the occasional Royal Commission on the condition of aborigines.
And both first hand observation and fiction books by Idriess.

What books would you like me to read?

I totally agree that I’ve barely scratched the surface. I totally skipped 2 of the 5 Manning Clark books I borrowed. And have only read 5 1/2 of the books so far, mostly just to get a time frame.

I’d like you to read and comment on PWM’s History of the Aboriginal People in the Warwick area, for a start.
https://eprints.usq.edu.au/4687/1/Parsons_Wadingh_Wadingh_Publ_version.pdf
It would have been good for you to properly read Lyndall Ryan’s book to grasp the history, rather than try to nitpick.
You are selectively reading from material from around the 1900s…..150 years after white people decided this country was here for their benefit, and no one else’s, and that is a long time for land and resource grabbing to already be underway, and for laws to be framed to justify brutality and very questionable practices. People in chains? Their fault for trespassing on white people’s herds and killing one to feed themselves……their land had been stolen to put those herds on in the first place, but yeah, stone age blacks come steal ma property. So let’s chain them up for years and put them to work making roads for us in brutal heat. Let’s steal most of the allowance for feeding them properly while we are at it. And let us make fun of any bleeding heart that says there might be an injustice in what we are doing, because we really need to turn a blind eye to all the other injustices, like stealing children to work on stations unpaid, like sexual exploitation of women and children (and don’t give me the absolute shit that is your comment about underage aboriginal children, that is really worrying)

mollwollfumble said:

> ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Ruby, I apologise. Perhaps the order in which I read the books is adversely affecting my judgement.
And perhaps my BS detector and my “but what if …” subroutine are leading me strongly awry.

I do change my beliefs on a daily basis. A lot of what I’ve claimed, I no longer believe.

Thanks Moll.
My last post was made as you were making yours.

This country is moving on a bit, but there is still so much of what has gone on the past still going on today.
And there is still dispossession happening. There are a few extremely wealthy people who are eyeing off the meagre scraps that aborigines were given, when people thought those areas were worthless…they want them now. The Kimberley for example.

ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

^

What she said.

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

> ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Ruby, I apologise. Perhaps the order in which I read the books is adversely affecting my judgement.
And perhaps my BS detector and my “but what if …” subroutine are leading me strongly awry.

I do change my beliefs on a daily basis. A lot of what I’ve claimed, I no longer believe.

Thanks Moll.
My last post was made as you were making yours.

This country is moving on a bit, but there is still so much of what has gone on the past still going on today.
And there is still dispossession happening. There are a few extremely wealthy people who are eyeing off the meagre scraps that aborigines were given, when people thought those areas were worthless…they want them now. The Kimberley for example.

Moving Wilson security and attack dogs in Kalgoorlie in the last few weeks.

I suppose it’s a nice way of enslaving people and does allow them to work without being able to escape.
I don’t imagine it was done out of altruism

>Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

just thinking if they were so willing to have chains on, volunteering for confinement, the chains wouldn’t be necessary, so there’s an instrument of force at work somewhere, a potentially deadly instrument to encourage compliance

it’s true by the way, tying people together makes it difficult for the tethered to coordinate an escape, also makes them easy to shoot. I dug deep into my white superiority, considered the long history of whites using guns, it wasn’t a great leap

unless of course they considered the chains to be what, adornment, like jewellery maybe

moving on to some philosophy….

what would the state be without subjects, infringements of its ways (laws) to correct, make good

I ask because, native communities had ways to incline acceptable behaviors, norms, and punishments, but never a state, nothing like the state of modern times.

so i’m thinking white man anticipated infringements, and anticipated the natives would be made subjects of the state this way

transition said:

>Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

just thinking if they were so willing to have chains on, volunteering for confinement, the chains wouldn’t be necessary, so there’s an instrument of force at work somewhere, a potentially deadly instrument to encourage compliance

it’s true by the way, tying people together makes it difficult for the tethered to coordinate an escape, also makes them easy to shoot. I dug deep into my white superiority, considered the long history of whites using guns, it wasn’t a great leap

unless of course they considered the chains to be what, adornment, like jewellery maybe

moving on to some philosophy….

what would the state be without subjects, infringements of its ways (laws) to correct, make good

I ask because, native communities had ways to incline acceptable behaviors, norms, and punishments, but never a state, nothing like the state of modern times.

so i’m thinking white man anticipated infringements, and anticipated the natives would be made subjects of the state this way

Going by the people I see in the courts, they are mostly Aboriginals and bogans and what I have read poor education and crap upbringings.
It’s likely assumed they are our criminals but the rich criminals have the advantage society was set up to protect them and rarely get punished.
Government make laws but don’t follow them themselves

Cymek said:

transition said:

>Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

just thinking if they were so willing to have chains on, volunteering for confinement, the chains wouldn’t be necessary, so there’s an instrument of force at work somewhere, a potentially deadly instrument to encourage compliance

it’s true by the way, tying people together makes it difficult for the tethered to coordinate an escape, also makes them easy to shoot. I dug deep into my white superiority, considered the long history of whites using guns, it wasn’t a great leap

unless of course they considered the chains to be what, adornment, like jewellery maybe

moving on to some philosophy….

what would the state be without subjects, infringements of its ways (laws) to correct, make good

I ask because, native communities had ways to incline acceptable behaviors, norms, and punishments, but never a state, nothing like the state of modern times.

so i’m thinking white man anticipated infringements, and anticipated the natives would be made subjects of the state this way

Going by the people I see in the courts, they are mostly Aboriginals and bogans and what I have read poor education and crap upbringings.
It’s likely assumed they are our criminals but the rich criminals have the advantage society was set up to protect them and rarely get punished.
Government make laws but don’t follow them themselves

You could even surmise that governments set up laws/rules, etc that deliberately target marginalised people to use a scapegoats and a distraction whilst they themselves, big business and the ultra rich commit the real crimes against humanity and rarely get punished.

Cymek said:

Cymek said:

transition said:

>Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

just thinking if they were so willing to have chains on, volunteering for confinement, the chains wouldn’t be necessary, so there’s an instrument of force at work somewhere, a potentially deadly instrument to encourage compliance

it’s true by the way, tying people together makes it difficult for the tethered to coordinate an escape, also makes them easy to shoot. I dug deep into my white superiority, considered the long history of whites using guns, it wasn’t a great leap

unless of course they considered the chains to be what, adornment, like jewellery maybe

moving on to some philosophy….

what would the state be without subjects, infringements of its ways (laws) to correct, make good

I ask because, native communities had ways to incline acceptable behaviors, norms, and punishments, but never a state, nothing like the state of modern times.

so i’m thinking white man anticipated infringements, and anticipated the natives would be made subjects of the state this way

Going by the people I see in the courts, they are mostly Aboriginals and bogans and what I have read poor education and crap upbringings.
It’s likely assumed they are our criminals but the rich criminals have the advantage society was set up to protect them and rarely get punished.
Government make laws but don’t follow them themselves

You could even surmise that governments set up laws/rules, etc that deliberately target marginalised people to use a scapegoats and a distraction whilst they themselves, big business and the ultra rich commit the real crimes against humanity and rarely get punished.

You could.

Ruby, I’m beginning to suspect that my cynicism has got the better of me, has started to cloud my rationality.
That was a problem that Windschuttle had, too much cynicism, I don’t want top make the same mistake.

Will try to do better, starting with Roth (1905).

mollwollfumble said:

> ruby said:

Moll, your reading is selective, if you find anything that does not agree with your views you reject it, and your ‘conclusions’ seem to be heading in an ever more worrying direction.

Ruby, I apologise. Perhaps the order in which I read the books is adversely affecting my judgement.
And perhaps my BS detector and my “but what if …” subroutine are leading me strongly awry.

I do change my beliefs on a daily basis. A lot of what I’ve claimed, I no longer believe.

In terms of sequence. Back in the 1990s I learned that my ancestors kept slaves, I was horrified. I couldn’t even claim that they were good masters, because the second wife (not my direct ancestor) of one of my direct ancestors was infamous for mistreating her slaves. In the early 2000s I met two of my relatives who still employ blacks. That helped to understand, partially, so did my discovery of the enormously high death rate of slave owners. There is so much said about the enormously high death rate of slaves, but no-one mentions that their owners died just as fast. I could say more about misconceptions concerning slavery, for example that by the time of abolition fully 50% of slaves were owned by law companies, but that would take me too far astray.

Even before that I had read the book on aborigines “My crowded solitude”.

The failure of all the court cases of Stolen Generations claimants made my BS detector kick in when anybody said “Stolen Generations”. So I read up everything I could from the NSW newspapers about missions, the Aborigines Protection Board and the Aborigines Welfare Board. Anyone who wants to retain sympathy for aboriginal activists should not read the minutes of the Aborigines Progressive Association, the aboriginal activist group in NSW. The Aborigines Progressive Association managed to wangle four seats on NSW Aborigines Welfare Board for themselves and two friends, so it, together with the Board of Works (in charge of building houses for Aborigines) effectively ran the State Government’s handling of Aborigines.

Nearly everything that was said about the missions was positive, nearly everything said about the Aborigines Protection Board was negative, but none of the thousand or so complaints that I read in the newspapers even hinted at the existence of a Stolen Generation.

I tracked the original claim of Stolen Generations down to Peter Read. Every reference to Stolen Generation originally leads back to Read. An example of extremely bad scholarship. His ignorance was astounding, almost as bad as mine. I went to the trouble of doing a complete rewrite of half of his paper before giving up, fully half of his stuff was in the wrong chapters for starters. My original bias based on the failure of the court cases was confirmed, Peter Read’s claims of a stolen generation in NSW before 1964 are completely false.

On reading the newspaper report into the enquiry that toppled the Aborigines Protection Board, I found that one of the key witnesses, perhaps the most important, was Ion Idriess. (Ion Idriess’s statement to the enquiry was not particularly relevant because his personal experiences from the Coral Sea and the Kimberleys where inappropriate for NSW for several reasons). So I set to read everything I could read that he’d written about aborigines. Ion Idriess’s books range from nearly pure fiction to nearly hard fact. The books “Over the Range”, “In crocodile land” are pure hard fact, fist hand accounts. His other books on aborigines: “Nemarluk”, “Man Tracks”, “Red Chief”, “Coral sea Calling” are largely second-hand accounts, less accurate.There are still some Idriess books on aborigines that I haven’t read.

That was my background on starting the current look into a timeline for aborigines in Australia. My first step was setting up the timeline using Manning Clark and the Chronicle of Australia. But I digressed into Lyndall Ryan and Keith Windschuttle on Tasmanian Aborigines.

Skipping forward to the present moment, I’ve been reading newspaper reports from 1964 about the origins of Aboriginal Land Rights. The aborigines at first certainly had right on their side. It boiled down to mining on aboriginal reserves, the miners claimed that the aborigines didn’t have mineral rights to the reserve, the aborigines had no wish to move their houses to accommodate the mines. It’s the same old set of complaints that occurs every time there’s a major construction, for example in the demolition of Arthur Dent’s house in HHGTTG. The mining companies handled it badly, the courts handled it badly, and it snowballed.

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

Some, but I’ve just found out not all, of the protection legislation originated with the Roth (1905) royal commission. I’ve just learnt that it had limited scope limited to the previous 3 years, to top end WA (the area in which Idriess had greatest knowledge), limited to the condition of natives and violence against natives. So it wouldn’t have dealt with, well, a lot. On quick browse (allow for me to change my mind here, I haven’t got anywhere near reading it all the way through), it had a favourable opinion of missions, and treatment of aborigines in settled areas, but was highly critical of the treatment of aborigines in unsettled areas. It bemoaned the fact that the official Protector of Aborigines had no power to help the aborigines against their will.

I can see why the legislation was hated in later years (allow me to change my mind here).

roughbarked said:

Why not read them all and draw a conclusion from the entirety?

If you think that I can hold 10,000 plus pages of text in my head all at once …

Why don’t you read the facts as recorded by Anthropologists and Archeologists, plus many others with a DIRECT involvement with Aborigines? Do you really think newspapers are the pinnacle of truth and high morality?

What the fuck is the matter with you that you deliberately seek out second and third hand information that is controlled by a highly biased public attitude. Is this your idea of scientific investigation?

For gods sake man get real and look at the facts, not opinions and reports from people who had no interest in the truth becoming known.

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

Cymek said:

transition said:

>Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

just thinking if they were so willing to have chains on, volunteering for confinement, the chains wouldn’t be necessary, so there’s an instrument of force at work somewhere, a potentially deadly instrument to encourage compliance

it’s true by the way, tying people together makes it difficult for the tethered to coordinate an escape, also makes them easy to shoot. I dug deep into my white superiority, considered the long history of whites using guns, it wasn’t a great leap

unless of course they considered the chains to be what, adornment, like jewellery maybe

moving on to some philosophy….

what would the state be without subjects, infringements of its ways (laws) to correct, make good

I ask because, native communities had ways to incline acceptable behaviors, norms, and punishments, but never a state, nothing like the state of modern times.

so i’m thinking white man anticipated infringements, and anticipated the natives would be made subjects of the state this way

Going by the people I see in the courts, they are mostly Aboriginals and bogans and what I have read poor education and crap upbringings.
It’s likely assumed they are our criminals but the rich criminals have the advantage society was set up to protect them and rarely get punished.
Government make laws but don’t follow them themselves

You should consider why so many Aborigines are a blot on our law and order, especially in light of their upbringing and their entire families upbringing and treatment by whites since European Settlement. I do not make excuses for them and many of the things they do, but in light of their history there are reasons for their attitudes towards white society. Personally I’m surprised they have not rebelled in a far more violet manner. Perhaps we are just very lucky.

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

I don’t think a slave workforce was an option. It had been long established that Islanders made much better (grossly underpaid) workers.

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

This is the 1909 NSW legislation:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/apa1909n25262.pdf

I read it many years ago when I worked in the Police Department at Walgett (a highly racist small town in northern NSW with two nearby former missions – Gingie and Namoi).

Tamb said:

I don’t think a slave workforce was an option. It had been long established that Islanders made much better (grossly underpaid) workers.

Still do…

poikilotherm said:

Tamb said:

I don’t think a slave workforce was an option. It had been long established that Islanders made much better (grossly underpaid) workers.

Still do…

Are the European backpackers undercutting them?

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

This is the 1909 NSW legislation:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/apa1909n25262.pdf

I read it many years ago when I worked in the Police Department at Walgett (a highly racist small town in northern NSW with two nearby former missions – Gingie and Namoi).

See also:

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

and:

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

And many references in those pages.

>For gods sake man get real and look at the facts, not opinions and reports from people who had no interest in the truth becoming known.

are there really any facts to be extracted from looking back, I wonder, a person would probably be better off making it up

I mean if I asked was white man ever officially at war with natives in Australia, you might get a different answer to the question did (any of) the natives ever feel like they were at war (threatened so, under siege)

of course the truth is the war was real, is real, and continues, evidenced in the tendency to talk about natives as a category(type), rather than using their names

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

To a large extent, the protection of Aborigines has always been the top level official government policy. It is based on the (false) assumption that one the natives got to experience European culture they would automatically see it as superior and abandon their own culture and imitate and integrate with the settlers. It never worked of course, and the top level policy was not shared by those on the front lines of settlement either.

transition said:

>For gods sake man get real and look at the facts, not opinions and reports from people who had no interest in the truth becoming known.

are there really any facts to be extracted from looking back, I wonder, a person would probably be better off making it up

I mean if I asked was white man ever officially at war with natives in Australia, you might get a different answer to the question did (any of) the natives ever feel like they were at war (threatened so, under siege)

of course the truth is the war was real, is real, and continues, evidenced in the tendency to talk about natives as a category(type), rather than using their names

There have many scientific studies, early settler reports from people who lived alongside them, people who were accepted into a tribe, and from Aborigines themselves. Information is not always easy to come by and needs people interested in finding it, not those who set out to denigrate any they accidentally encounter. There have been far too many armchair experts with absolutely no direct knowledge themselves and would not have any idea as to the validity of information supplied.

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

transition said:

>Shot – no. The aborigines imaged above were arrested for their part in the murder of a white. They even have their wives with them. They haven’t gone to trial yet. If acquitted or just let off with a warning, which happened more often than not, they would be released.

just thinking if they were so willing to have chains on, volunteering for confinement, the chains wouldn’t be necessary, so there’s an instrument of force at work somewhere, a potentially deadly instrument to encourage compliance

it’s true by the way, tying people together makes it difficult for the tethered to coordinate an escape, also makes them easy to shoot. I dug deep into my white superiority, considered the long history of whites using guns, it wasn’t a great leap

unless of course they considered the chains to be what, adornment, like jewellery maybe

moving on to some philosophy….

what would the state be without subjects, infringements of its ways (laws) to correct, make good

I ask because, native communities had ways to incline acceptable behaviors, norms, and punishments, but never a state, nothing like the state of modern times.

so i’m thinking white man anticipated infringements, and anticipated the natives would be made subjects of the state this way

Going by the people I see in the courts, they are mostly Aboriginals and bogans and what I have read poor education and crap upbringings.
It’s likely assumed they are our criminals but the rich criminals have the advantage society was set up to protect them and rarely get punished.
Government make laws but don’t follow them themselves

You should consider why so many Aborigines are a blot on our law and order, especially in light of their upbringing and their entire families upbringing and treatment by whites since European Settlement. I do not make excuses for them and many of the things they do, but in light of their history there are reasons for their attitudes towards white society. Personally I’m surprised they have not rebelled in a far more violet manner. Perhaps we are just very lucky.

We got the military in the NT and Wilson security in the goldfields and we have taken the greater part/all the cash from them.

Michael V said:

Michael V said:

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

This is the 1909 NSW legislation:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/apa1909n25262.pdf

I read it many years ago when I worked in the Police Department at Walgett (a highly racist small town in northern NSW with two nearby former missions – Gingie and Namoi).

See also:

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

and:

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

And many references in those pages.

Aside. In 1976/7 I was in Walgett with the beautiful June, We had a drink at the pub and we didn’t like that. Decided to drive through to Bre. Decided we would find the local copper first to tell him where two 18 year olds were heading west in case something went amiss. We tried to hunt him down but he was at a poker game. We pushed a note under the door.

party_pants said:

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

To a large extent, the protection of Aborigines has always been the top level official government policy. It is based on the (false) assumption that one the natives got to experience European culture they would automatically see it as superior and abandon their own culture and imitate and integrate with the settlers. It never worked of course, and the top level policy was not shared by those on the front lines of settlement either.

I think that’s true, but only part of the picture.

In NSW, the (false) assumptions were that Aborigines were likely another (earlier) species, and clearly less intelligent (stone-age hunter-gatherers). They were to be protected for their own good, and for the preservation of their species. Caucasians were not to interbreed with them, nor they with Caucasians.

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

Cymek said:

Now I’m just starting to look into the 1905 to 1910 legislation on Aboriginal Protection. Is it as bad as everybody claims? Or is it a product of its time, necessary in the short term but wrong for the long term? Or was it really very good but maligned?

I wonder why they shifted from genocide to “Aboriginal Protection” was killing suddenly unpalatable and controlling them but keeping them alive a better option, perhaps as a slave workforce.

To a large extent, the protection of Aborigines has always been the top level official government policy. It is based on the (false) assumption that one the natives got to experience European culture they would automatically see it as superior and abandon their own culture and imitate and integrate with the settlers. It never worked of course, and the top level policy was not shared by those on the front lines of settlement either.

I think that’s true, but only part of the picture.

In NSW, the (false) assumptions were that Aborigines were likely another (earlier) species, and clearly less intelligent (stone-age hunter-gatherers). They were to be protected for their own good, and for the preservation of their species. Caucasians were not to interbreed with them, nor they with Caucasians.

I think the main thought was the full bloods would die out and the young ones would be assimilated into white culture.

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Michael V said:

This is the 1909 NSW legislation:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/apa1909n25262.pdf

I read it many years ago when I worked in the Police Department at Walgett (a highly racist small town in northern NSW with two nearby former missions – Gingie and Namoi).

See also:

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

and:

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

And many references in those pages.

Aside. In 1976/7 I was in Walgett with the beautiful June, We had a drink at the pub and we didn’t like that. Decided to drive through to Bre. Decided we would find the local copper first to tell him where two 18 year olds were heading west in case something went amiss. We tried to hunt him down but he was at a poker game. We pushed a note under the door.

Huh!

I worked there from 77 to 79. We had a staff of 18 and the Station ran 2 shifts, manning the Station (or patrolling) from 6 am to midnight Sunday to Thursday and 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays. The Station’s phone number was 44. I had a special number – 408. It was still a manual telephone exchange then.

The Lockupkeeper was Phil Toohey.

:)

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

See also:

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

and:

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

And many references in those pages.

Aside. In 1976/7 I was in Walgett with the beautiful June, We had a drink at the pub and we didn’t like that. Decided to drive through to Bre. Decided we would find the local copper first to tell him where two 18 year olds were heading west in case something went amiss. We tried to hunt him down but he was at a poker game. We pushed a note under the door.

Huh!

I worked there from 77 to 79. We had a staff of 18 and the Station ran 2 shifts, manning the Station (or patrolling) from 6 am to midnight Sunday to Thursday and 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays. The Station’s phone number was 44. I had a special number – 408. It was still a manual telephone exchange then.

The Lockupkeeper was Phil Toohey.

:)

Well the afternoon I was there I could not find a single copper.

PermeateFree said:

Michael V said:

party_pants said:

To a large extent, the protection of Aborigines has always been the top level official government policy. It is based on the (false) assumption that one the natives got to experience European culture they would automatically see it as superior and abandon their own culture and imitate and integrate with the settlers. It never worked of course, and the top level policy was not shared by those on the front lines of settlement either.

I think that’s true, but only part of the picture.

In NSW, the (false) assumptions were that Aborigines were likely another (earlier) species, and clearly less intelligent (stone-age hunter-gatherers). They were to be protected for their own good, and for the preservation of their species. Caucasians were not to interbreed with them, nor they with Caucasians.

I think the main thought was the full bloods would die out and the young ones would be assimilated into white culture.

And then we could all forget about the horrible things written in memoirs and in libraries and in people’s memories, and continue to build monuments to Australia’s brave and bold nation builders (who often did so with willing and unwilling help from the peoples they dispossessed)

ruby said:

PermeateFree said:

Michael V said:

I think that’s true, but only part of the picture.

In NSW, the (false) assumptions were that Aborigines were likely another (earlier) species, and clearly less intelligent (stone-age hunter-gatherers). They were to be protected for their own good, and for the preservation of their species. Caucasians were not to interbreed with them, nor they with Caucasians.

I think the main thought was the full bloods would die out and the young ones would be assimilated into white culture.

And then we could all forget about the horrible things written in memoirs and in libraries and in people’s memories, and continue to build monuments to Australia’s brave and bold nation builders (who often did so with willing and unwilling help from the peoples they dispossessed)

Yeah, pretty much. So many other places already had their own brave settlers/founding fathers myths.

mollwollfumble said:

Ruby, I’m beginning to suspect that my cynicism has got the better of me, has started to cloud my rationality.
That was a problem that Windschuttle had, too much cynicism, I don’t want top make the same mistake.

Will try to do better, starting with Roth (1905).

nods
I am not familiar with Roth, but reading a potted history of him and making some assumptions from what I read, I will have a look too. He sounds most interesting.
But always remember, the most interesting stuff about people like Roth, is trying to read between the lines, trying to find what they wanted to say, but were too careful to say lest they lose their job and thence have no further influence.

party_pants said:

ruby said:

PermeateFree said:

I think the main thought was the full bloods would die out and the young ones would be assimilated into white culture.

And then we could all forget about the horrible things written in memoirs and in libraries and in people’s memories, and continue to build monuments to Australia’s brave and bold nation builders (who often did so with willing and unwilling help from the peoples they dispossessed)

Yeah, pretty much. So many other places already had their own brave settlers/founding fathers myths.

Yes.
Lyndall Ryan has joined together with researchers from other countries for just such an exploration of settlers and a bit of myth busting. Which always ruffles feathers. Truth and history are complicated beasts.

ruby said:

party_pants said:

ruby said:

And then we could all forget about the horrible things written in memoirs and in libraries and in people’s memories, and continue to build monuments to Australia’s brave and bold nation builders (who often did so with willing and unwilling help from the peoples they dispossessed)

Yeah, pretty much. So many other places already had their own brave settlers/founding fathers myths.

Yes.
Lyndall Ryan has joined together with researchers from other countries for just such an exploration of settlers and a bit of myth busting. Which always ruffles feathers. Truth and history are complicated beasts.

Are Historians Scientists! I don’t think so, but interpreters of mainly recorded information, which may be a fact, myth or downright lie.

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Aside. In 1976/7 I was in Walgett with the beautiful June, We had a drink at the pub and we didn’t like that. Decided to drive through to Bre. Decided we would find the local copper first to tell him where two 18 year olds were heading west in case something went amiss. We tried to hunt him down but he was at a poker game. We pushed a note under the door.

Huh!

I worked there from 77 to 79. We had a staff of 18 and the Station ran 2 shifts, manning the Station (or patrolling) from 6 am to midnight Sunday to Thursday and 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays. The Station’s phone number was 44. I had a special number – 408. It was still a manual telephone exchange then.

The Lockupkeeper was Phil Toohey.

:)

Well the afternoon I was there I could not find a single copper.

Likely out in the paddy wagon. Sometimes during the week I was the only person at the Station, with everybody else called out to incidents.

We had the second highest charge rate in NSW, and the highest in the Country Areas, with about 3,500 charges for a town of around 2,500 people. Not an enviable statistic.

My contribution to the town was to be on the initiating committee for the Walgett District Youth Centre. We formed a Public Company and successfully applied for a government grant of $77k, delivered in 1979. Purchased a land and hall and employed a coordinator for 3 years.

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Huh!

I worked there from 77 to 79. We had a staff of 18 and the Station ran 2 shifts, manning the Station (or patrolling) from 6 am to midnight Sunday to Thursday and 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays. The Station’s phone number was 44. I had a special number – 408. It was still a manual telephone exchange then.

The Lockupkeeper was Phil Toohey.

:)

Well the afternoon I was there I could not find a single copper.

Likely out in the paddy wagon. Sometimes during the week I was the only person at the Station, with everybody else called out to incidents.

We had the second highest charge rate in NSW, and the highest in the Country Areas, with about 3,500 charges for a town of around 2,500 people. Not an enviable statistic.

My contribution to the town was to be on the initiating committee for the Walgett District Youth Centre. We formed a Public Company and successfully applied for a government grant of $77k, delivered in 1979. Purchased a land and hall and employed a coordinator for 3 years.

:)

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Well the afternoon I was there I could not find a single copper.

Likely out in the paddy wagon. Sometimes during the week I was the only person at the Station, with everybody else called out to incidents.

We had the second highest charge rate in NSW, and the highest in the Country Areas, with about 3,500 charges for a town of around 2,500 people. Not an enviable statistic.

My contribution to the town was to be on the initiating committee for the Walgett District Youth Centre. We formed a Public Company and successfully applied for a government grant of $77k, delivered in 1979. Purchased a land and hall and employed a coordinator for 3 years.

:)

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Likely out in the paddy wagon. Sometimes during the week I was the only person at the Station, with everybody else called out to incidents.

We had the second highest charge rate in NSW, and the highest in the Country Areas, with about 3,500 charges for a town of around 2,500 people. Not an enviable statistic.

My contribution to the town was to be on the initiating committee for the Walgett District Youth Centre. We formed a Public Company and successfully applied for a government grant of $77k, delivered in 1979. Purchased a land and hall and employed a coordinator for 3 years.

:)

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

:) What year did the bad rioting happen? Were you out of there by then?

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

:)

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

:) What year did the bad rioting happen? Were you out of there by then?

No riots while I was there. Cops took a shortened, modified to machine-gun .22 automatic of a local farming lad at an Aboriginal rally in town a couple of years before I got there. He had 6 clips of 11 bullets on him as well, and was intending to commit mass murder.

Lucky that was stymied.

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

Likely out in the paddy wagon. Sometimes during the week I was the only person at the Station, with everybody else called out to incidents.

We had the second highest charge rate in NSW, and the highest in the Country Areas, with about 3,500 charges for a town of around 2,500 people. Not an enviable statistic.

My contribution to the town was to be on the initiating committee for the Walgett District Youth Centre. We formed a Public Company and successfully applied for a government grant of $77k, delivered in 1979. Purchased a land and hall and employed a coordinator for 3 years.

:)

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

Nice work MV. For youth centre and Mrs V.

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

:) What year did the bad rioting happen? Were you out of there by then?

No riots while I was there. Cops took a shortened, modified to machine-gun .22 automatic of a local farming lad at an Aboriginal rally in town a couple of years before I got there. He had 6 clips of 11 bullets on him as well, and was intending to commit mass murder.

Lucky that was stymied.

Very racist place, the Aborigines don’t expect much and don’t get much either. One time in their camping ground I had cause to talk to a resident Aboriginal woman. I treated her with respect and even smiled, something she didn’t get often as she was overly helpful to me in return for my small gestures.

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

:) What year did the bad rioting happen? Were you out of there by then?

No riots while I was there. Cops took a shortened, modified to machine-gun .22 automatic of a local farming lad at an Aboriginal rally in town a couple of years before I got there. He had 6 clips of 11 bullets on him as well, and was intending to commit mass murder.

Lucky that was stymied.

That can’t be right…we didn’t have terrorists then.

buffy said:

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

:) What year did the bad rioting happen? Were you out of there by then?

No riots while I was there. Cops took a shortened, modified to machine-gun .22 automatic of a local farming lad at an Aboriginal rally in town a couple of years before I got there. He had 6 clips of 11 bullets on him as well, and was intending to commit mass murder.

Lucky that was stymied.

That can’t be right…we didn’t have terrorists then.

:)

Michael V said:

sarahs mum said:

Michael V said:

I did extremely well out of Walgett, too. I met the future Mrs V there.

:)

:) What year did the bad rioting happen? Were you out of there by then?

No riots while I was there. Cops took a shortened, modified to machine-gun .22 automatic of a local farming lad at an Aboriginal rally in town a couple of years before I got there. He had 6 clips of 11 bullets on him as well, and was intending to commit mass murder.

Lucky that was stymied.

gevarm maybe

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

Ruby, I’m beginning to suspect that my cynicism has got the better of me, has started to cloud my rationality.
That was a problem that Windschuttle had, too much cynicism, I don’t want top make the same mistake.

Will try to do better, starting with Roth (1905).

nods
I am not familiar with Roth, but reading a potted history of him and making some assumptions from what I read, I will have a look too. He sounds most interesting.
But always remember, the most interesting stuff about people like Roth, is trying to read between the lines, trying to find what they wanted to say, but were too careful to say lest they lose their job and thence have no further influence.

Head of a Royal Commission is a temporary job anyway.

I did try to like Roth (1905). I really did. The best that can be said of it is that it’s ahead of its time. Unfortunately, that’s not a compliment.

The recommendations suggest that they were written by a bureaucrat fresh off the boat from England. Or to put it another way, as if they were written by a white Australian 100 years later.

The recommendations all look good at first sight:

• A minimum wage for all aborigines.
• A written work contract vetted by the Protector of Aborigines or designated official for fairness for all employed aborigines.
• The task of monitoring Aborigines to be taken off the local Judges and given to new regional Protectors of Aborigines, because some local judges are corrupt.
• Banning of aborigines from creeks in which pearling boats dock in order to limit drunkenness, prostitution and venereal disease.
• No guns for aboriginal trackers working for the police.
• No arrest without a warrant.
• etc.

If I hadn’t already read Idriess “In Crocodile Land” and “Over the Range” which cover the exact same territory, the Kimberleys, I might have accepted these recommendations. But consider them in context, the Kimberleys in 1905.

A minimum wage for Aborigines
Most aborigines in the Kimberleys did not accept white man’s money as legal tender. What use to aborigines is a lump of gold? He can’t eat it. It might be 100 km to the nearest shop, and even if getting there, there is no way that an Aborigine can carry a months worth of provisions back home through enemy tribes. A nasty twist to this is that part of the recommendation is for the wage to be paid not to the worker but to the government, which is really just a new tax on employers of Aborigines.

A written work contract vetted by the Protector of Aborigines or designated official for fairness for all employed aborigines
A written work contract in what language? Employers on boats are Malays, Phillipinos and Japanese, and far more often than not they would be illiterate even in their own language. Even the white settlers would be illiterate more often than not. And that’s before the problem of time required to get the contract to a designated official and back.

The task of monitoring Aborigines to be taken off the local Judges and given to new regional Protectors of Aborigines, because some local judges are corrupt
Certainly some few local judges were corrupt, but there are far more judges than Protectors of Aborigines, making them more accessible. This looks like a power grab to me, based on racism. Judges should be able to handle laws suitable for all races. The chief Protector of Aborigines in Perth would end up with more power, more pay, for less work.

Banning of aborigines from creeks in which pearling boats dock in order to limit drunkenness, prostitution and venereal disease
Coastal aborigines at the time love the boat visits and rely on them for flour and other necessary provisions.

No guns for aboriginal trackers working for the police
This stops aborigines from becoming police. In addition, the dominant role of an aboriginal tracker is not in hunting criminals, it is in hunting for game to keep the police from starving on the long journey. They need a gun for that.

No arrest without a warrant
On a police journey of say three months away from the police station, they will and do discover new crimes along the way. The next patrol may not come past for another six months or more. Insisting on a warrant imposes an unnecessary delay of six months between detection of a crime and the beginning of a search for the criminals, who could be a long way away by then.

etc.

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

mollwollfumble said:

Ruby, I’m beginning to suspect that my cynicism has got the better of me, has started to cloud my rationality.
That was a problem that Windschuttle had, too much cynicism, I don’t want top make the same mistake.

Will try to do better, starting with Roth (1905).

nods
I am not familiar with Roth, but reading a potted history of him and making some assumptions from what I read, I will have a look too. He sounds most interesting.
But always remember, the most interesting stuff about people like Roth, is trying to read between the lines, trying to find what they wanted to say, but were too careful to say lest they lose their job and thence have no further influence.

Head of a Royal Commission is a temporary job anyway.

I did try to like Roth (1905). I really did. The best that can be said of it is that it’s ahead of its time. Unfortunately, that’s not a compliment.

The recommendations suggest that they were written by a bureaucrat fresh off the boat from England. Or to put it another way, as if they were written by a white Australian 100 years later.

The recommendations all look good at first sight:

• A minimum wage for all aborigines.
• A written work contract vetted by the Protector of Aborigines or designated official for fairness for all employed aborigines.
• The task of monitoring Aborigines to be taken off the local Judges and given to new regional Protectors of Aborigines, because some local judges are corrupt.
• Banning of aborigines from creeks in which pearling boats dock in order to limit drunkenness, prostitution and venereal disease.
• No guns for aboriginal trackers working for the police.
• No arrest without a warrant.
• etc.

If I hadn’t already read Idriess “In Crocodile Land” and “Over the Range” which cover the exact same territory, the Kimberleys, I might have accepted these recommendations. But consider them in context, the Kimberleys in 1905.

A minimum wage for Aborigines
Most aborigines in the Kimberleys did not accept white man’s money as legal tender. What use to aborigines is a lump of gold? He can’t eat it. It might be 100 km to the nearest shop, and even if getting there, there is no way that an Aborigine can carry a months worth of provisions back home through enemy tribes. A nasty twist to this is that part of the recommendation is for the wage to be paid not to the worker but to the government, which is really just a new tax on employers of Aborigines.

A written work contract vetted by the Protector of Aborigines or designated official for fairness for all employed aborigines
A written work contract in what language? Employers on boats are Malays, Phillipinos and Japanese, and far more often than not they would be illiterate even in their own language. Even the white settlers would be illiterate more often than not. And that’s before the problem of time required to get the contract to a designated official and back.

The task of monitoring Aborigines to be taken off the local Judges and given to new regional Protectors of Aborigines, because some local judges are corrupt
Certainly some few local judges were corrupt, but there are far more judges than Protectors of Aborigines, making them more accessible. This looks like a power grab to me, based on racism. Judges should be able to handle laws suitable for all races. The chief Protector of Aborigines in Perth would end up with more power, more pay, for less work.

Banning of aborigines from creeks in which pearling boats dock in order to limit drunkenness, prostitution and venereal disease
Coastal aborigines at the time love the boat visits and rely on them for flour and other necessary provisions.

No guns for aboriginal trackers working for the police
This stops aborigines from becoming police. In addition, the dominant role of an aboriginal tracker is not in hunting criminals, it is in hunting for game to keep the police from starving on the long journey. They need a gun for that.

No arrest without a warrant
On a police journey of say three months away from the police station, they will and do discover new crimes along the way. The next patrol may not come past for another six months or more. Insisting on a warrant imposes an unnecessary delay of six months between detection of a crime and the beginning of a search for the criminals, who could be a long way away by then.

etc.

What did you base those 6 criticisms on?

Witty Rejoinder said:

mollwollfumble said:

ruby said:

nods
I am not familiar with Roth, but reading a potted history of him and making some assumptions from what I read, I will have a look too. He sounds most interesting.
But always remember, the most interesting stuff about people like Roth, is trying to read between the lines, trying to find what they wanted to say, but were too careful to say lest they lose their job and thence have no further influence.

Head of a Royal Commission is a temporary job anyway.

I did try to like Roth (1905). I really did. The best that can be said of it is that it’s ahead of its time. Unfortunately, that’s not a compliment.

The recommendations suggest that they were written by a bureaucrat fresh off the boat from England. Or to put it another way, as if they were written by a white Australian 100 years later.

The recommendations all look good at first sight:

• A minimum wage for all aborigines.
• A written work contract vetted by the Protector of Aborigines or designated official for fairness for all employed aborigines.
• The task of monitoring Aborigines to be taken off the local Judges and given to new regional Protectors of Aborigines, because some local judges are corrupt.
• Banning of aborigines from creeks in which pearling boats dock in order to limit drunkenness, prostitution and venereal disease.
• No guns for aboriginal trackers working for the police.
• No arrest without a warrant.
• etc.

If I hadn’t already read Idriess “In Crocodile Land” and “Over the Range” which cover the exact same territory, the Kimberleys, I might have accepted these recommendations. But consider them in context, the Kimberleys in 1905.

A minimum wage for Aborigines
Most aborigines in the Kimberleys did not accept white man’s money as legal tender. What use to aborigines is a lump of gold? He can’t eat it. It might be 100 km to the nearest shop, and even if getting there, there is no way that an Aborigine can carry a months worth of provisions back home through enemy tribes. A nasty twist to this is that part of the recommendation is for the wage to be paid not to the worker but to the government, which is really just a new tax on employers of Aborigines.

A written work contract vetted by the Protector of Aborigines or designated official for fairness for all employed aborigines
A written work contract in what language? Employers on boats are Malays, Phillipinos and Japanese, and far more often than not they would be illiterate even in their own language. Even the white settlers would be illiterate more often than not. And that’s before the problem of time required to get the contract to a designated official and back.

The task of monitoring Aborigines to be taken off the local Judges and given to new regional Protectors of Aborigines, because some local judges are corrupt
Certainly some few local judges were corrupt, but there are far more judges than Protectors of Aborigines, making them more accessible. This looks like a power grab to me, based on racism. Judges should be able to handle laws suitable for all races. The chief Protector of Aborigines in Perth would end up with more power, more pay, for less work.

Banning of aborigines from creeks in which pearling boats dock in order to limit drunkenness, prostitution and venereal disease
Coastal aborigines at the time love the boat visits and rely on them for flour and other necessary provisions.

No guns for aboriginal trackers working for the police
This stops aborigines from becoming police. In addition, the dominant role of an aboriginal tracker is not in hunting criminals, it is in hunting for game to keep the police from starving on the long journey. They need a gun for that.

No arrest without a warrant
On a police journey of say three months away from the police station, they will and do discover new crimes along the way. The next patrol may not come past for another six months or more. Insisting on a warrant imposes an unnecessary delay of six months between detection of a crime and the beginning of a search for the criminals, who could be a long way away by then.

etc.

What did you base those 6 criticisms on?

Kimberley, not Kimberleys.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4882748/Shocking-photos-Aboriginals-shackled-chains.html

sarahs mum said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4882748/Shocking-photos-Aboriginals-shackled-chains.html

some of the language is a it dodgy in that, the use of huge twice for example getting into it

but yeah (anticipated) infringements were to be a substantial introduction for natives to becoming subjects of the state, a state they didn’t understand, and today persists through largely inverted acknowledgement of its existence

transition said:

sarahs mum said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4882748/Shocking-photos-Aboriginals-shackled-chains.html

some of the language is a it dodgy in that, the use of huge twice for example getting into it

but yeah (anticipated) infringements were to be a substantial introduction for natives to becoming subjects of the state, a state they didn’t understand, and today persists through largely inverted acknowledgement of its existence

some of the language is a bit dodgy in that, the use of huge twice for example getting into it, in my opinion

OK, have finished reading the main part of Roth (1905). Not the witness statements yet. It’s only the witness statements by the aboriginal prisoners, and by the police that interests me. The statements by the magistrates, settlers, missionaries are sufficiently well covered by the main report.

Roth (1905) is exceedingly critical of the police, and has an absolute hatred of neck chains.

He’s almost convinced me that neck chains are not as humane as Idriess claims in “Over the Range”. But to understand, when Roth says “handcuffs” he does not mean handcuffs, and when Roth says “chains” he does not mean chains. What Roth actually means (based on some of his quotes of witnesses) is to replace neck chains by chains from wrist to wrist, which he calls “handcuffs”.

That does make sense in some circumstances. Wrist to wrist chains would be better then neck chains for:

• Falling overboard from a boat, getting swept away by a river, or falling off a cliff.

But wrist to wrist chains would be less humane than neck chains for:

• Keeping balance while walking, scrambling over rocks on a rocky trail, going to the toilet, conjugal visits.

When doing roadwork in a gang, neck chains would be slightly better than wrist chains because they would chafe a lot less. Inside a gaol, “handcuffs” were uniformly preferred by gaolers.

And a key for me is that neck chains slow down running away and climbing a tree. Handcuffs do not slow a running prisoner.

Roth says “In English prisons, chains are only used in offences: assaults on officers, attempts to escape, persistent insubordination and refusal to work”. In the north of WA, chains are used in prison because for example Roebourne gaol doesn’t have any walls yet. I disagree that the former is more moral than the latter.

Anyway, enough of neck chains.

Roth is exceedingly critical of the police, too critical to reproduce here.

With the exception of the judge at Halls Creek, Roth likes the judges. Roth wants the judge at Halls Creek fired.
The main criticism of this judge is that the judge wrongly believes that whipping is more effective, and more humane, than imprisonment. It’s an interesting moral issue – clearly whipping and immediate release keeps the prisons empty and a convicted felon is less likely to offend again – it was the punishment meted out on ships of the era. But that misses the point that confinement in prison keeps the countryside safe while the prisoner is incarcerated.

Roth’s court recommendations are sometimes bizarre – “an aborigine should not be allowed to plead guilty”.
Sometimes good – “No arrest for tribal killings, unless the killer is such a terror that his clansmen are afraid to deal with him, or the killer through long contact with Europeans ought to have known better, or killing close to European settlement”.

Roth loves warders, who all have “humane supervision and considerate treatment”.

I hate that Roth advocates cutting food aid to aborigines throughout the state by 40 to 50%. This is worse than just “work or starve”, you really do not want to know the details. It’s a purely bureaucratic cost cutting measure that is completely devoid of humanity.

Stolen generation – I have to put my previous opinion on hold here. None of the witnesses have any power to do this, so it still remains to be seen if it actually happened. But the signs are ominous. The worst opinion is from the Resident Magistrate of Carnarvon, who says “most aboriginal children will spend most of their lives in gaol or as prostitutes if something is not done. He recommends their being sent to some reformatory or mission whether their parents wish it or not”. (shudder). Four other magistrates agree, though not necessarily with the “whether their parents with it or not” bit. The mildest of the horrible five is from Marble Bar, who “says that native waifs and strays should be treated the same as white children, for intelligent children sent to reformatories or school and for other apprenticed to suitable employers, as stockmen for the boys and domestic duties for the girls”. Roth’s opinion is “The future of over 500 half-caste children will be vagabondism and harlotry” :-((
(mollwollfumble’s opinion is those recommendations have SFA chance of fixing that problem).

Roth also finds the marriage of blacks to asiatics objectionable – I really don’t like Roth.

Roth recommends “The Chief Protector shall be the legal guardian of every aboriginal and half-cast child until such child attains the age of 18 years”. OMG.

—————

Summary – Although Roth correctly points out inequalities across the system, Roth’s objections are like those of a British bureaucrat trying to balance the books, nothing remotely like humanism. Roth’s attempts to cut food aid to aborigines throughout the state by 40% to 50% are heinous. As is the attempt to make the WA Aborigines Department legal guardian of all aboriginal and half-caste children as well as young adults.

This document was supposed to be the most damning criticism of the treatment of Aborigines to that date. Instead, it damns itself.

mollwollfumble said:

OK, have finished reading the main part of Roth (1905). Not the witness statements yet. It’s only the witness statements by the aboriginal prisoners, and by the police that interests me. The statements by the magistrates, settlers, missionaries are sufficiently well covered by the main report.

Roth (1905) is exceedingly critical of the police, and has an absolute hatred of neck chains.

He’s almost convinced me that neck chains are not as humane as Idriess claims in “Over the Range”. But to understand, when Roth says “handcuffs” he does not mean handcuffs, and when Roth says “chains” he does not mean chains. What Roth actually means (based on some of his quotes of witnesses) is to replace neck chains by chains from wrist to wrist, which he calls “handcuffs”.

That does make sense in some circumstances. Wrist to wrist chains would be better then neck chains for:

• Falling overboard from a boat, getting swept away by a river, or falling off a cliff.

But wrist to wrist chains would be less humane than neck chains for:

• Keeping balance while walking, scrambling over rocks on a rocky trail, going to the toilet, conjugal visits.

When doing roadwork in a gang, neck chains would be slightly better than wrist chains because they would chafe a lot less. Inside a gaol, “handcuffs” were uniformly preferred by gaolers.

And a key for me is that neck chains slow down running away and climbing a tree. Handcuffs do not slow a running prisoner.

Roth says “In English prisons, chains are only used in offences: assaults on officers, attempts to escape, persistent insubordination and refusal to work”. In the north of WA, chains are used in prison because for example Roebourne gaol doesn’t have any walls yet. I disagree that the former is more moral than the latter.

Anyway, enough of neck chains.

Roth is exceedingly critical of the police, too critical to reproduce here.

With the exception of the judge at Halls Creek, Roth likes the judges. Roth wants the judge at Halls Creek fired.
The main criticism of this judge is that the judge wrongly believes that whipping is more effective, and more humane, than imprisonment. It’s an interesting moral issue – clearly whipping and immediate release keeps the prisons empty and a convicted felon is less likely to offend again – it was the punishment meted out on ships of the era. But that misses the point that confinement in prison keeps the countryside safe while the prisoner is incarcerated.

Roth’s court recommendations are sometimes bizarre – “an aborigine should not be allowed to plead guilty”.
Sometimes good – “No arrest for tribal killings, unless the killer is such a terror that his clansmen are afraid to deal with him, or the killer through long contact with Europeans ought to have known better, or killing close to European settlement”.

Roth loves warders, who all have “humane supervision and considerate treatment”.

I hate that Roth advocates cutting food aid to aborigines throughout the state by 40 to 50%. This is worse than just “work or starve”, you really do not want to know the details. It’s a purely bureaucratic cost cutting measure that is completely devoid of humanity.

Stolen generation – I have to put my previous opinion on hold here. None of the witnesses have any power to do this, so it still remains to be seen if it actually happened. But the signs are ominous. The worst opinion is from the Resident Magistrate of Carnarvon, who says “most aboriginal children will spend most of their lives in gaol or as prostitutes if something is not done. He recommends their being sent to some reformatory or mission whether their parents wish it or not”. (shudder). Four other magistrates agree, though not necessarily with the “whether their parents with it or not” bit. The mildest of the horrible five is from Marble Bar, who “says that native waifs and strays should be treated the same as white children, for intelligent children sent to reformatories or school and for other apprenticed to suitable employers, as stockmen for the boys and domestic duties for the girls”. Roth’s opinion is “The future of over 500 half-caste children will be vagabondism and harlotry” :-((
(mollwollfumble’s opinion is those recommendations have SFA chance of fixing that problem).

Roth also finds the marriage of blacks to asiatics objectionable – I really don’t like Roth.

Roth recommends “The Chief Protector shall be the legal guardian of every aboriginal and half-cast child until such child attains the age of 18 years”. OMG.

—————

Summary – Although Roth correctly points out inequalities across the system, Roth’s objections are like those of a British bureaucrat trying to balance the books, nothing remotely like humanism. Roth’s attempts to cut food aid to aborigines throughout the state by 40% to 50% are heinous. As is the attempt to make the WA Aborigines Department legal guardian of all aboriginal and half-caste children as well as young adults.

This document was supposed to be the most damning criticism of the treatment of Aborigines to that date. Instead, it damns itself.

did you see my post back there?

Also..please stop questioning the Stolen generations. It puts you in a basket with the most awful people in this country.

interesting read, moll

sarahs mum said:

did you see my post back there?

No. I missed it.
I did see and like Michael V’s posts.

> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4882748/Shocking-photos-Aboriginals-shackled-chains.html
Oh yeah, I’d already seen that. That’s the link that gave me the photo in the original post.

> What did you base those 6 criticisms on?
Well, I’ll admit it. From reading the first hand accounts in “over the range” and “in crocodile land”. These are 30 to 40 years later, but in the same part of the country, and describe the same treatment of the blacks, but from a much more culturally sensitive and humanistic viewpoint.

> Also..please stop questioning the Stolen generations. It puts you in a basket with the most awful people in this country.

I’m going to be reading Windschuttle’s book “Fabrication of Aboriginal History – Stolen generations” later. And to refute that I would first have to find actual case examples. So far, I’ve found about 5 credible claims from Victoria, but that’s it. The aboriginal activists in NSW prior to 1969 say absolutely zero, nought, nil, nada about it. They are very far from silent about other issues, for example shouting “slavery” when an aboriginal teenager complains when they are put under a curfew, and terrifying the aborigines at a Mission by telling them that the missionaries are going to kill them in their sleep. And you have to agree that Peter Read’s “The Stolen Generations: The Removal of Aboriginal Children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969” is, well, shows incredible ignorance together with unscrupulous manipulation of the facts.

Sarah’s Mum, there is supposed to be a list floating around of names of 250 people claiming to be case examples of stolen generation. Can you find it?

——-

I’d intended this post to be about another matter entirely. Would it be possible to set up (an ethical) experiment to test the effectiveness of different methods of punishment? The two most in mind are capital punishment (physical pain) vs incarceration. But it could be expanded to include hard labour, neck chains and handcuffs. Even torture (using an earworm) perhaps.

The experiment starts as follows. Tell each volunteer that the experiment is to test the relative effectiveness of punishments for crime, and they get to choose their own punishment from a list. ie. be honest with them. Start them in a room full of temptations, eg. with money on clothes pegs. Let them choose their own punishment from a list – the “capital punishment” would be a hard face slap by a face-slapping machine and no follow up, they get to choose how long they want to be in prison for, etc. After the punishment they get to decide whether they would have preferred a different punishment. Then they get the chance to commit the same crime again, or a more severe version of the crime. Experiment ends on commission of the second crime or sufficient time-lapse, and the three key numbers are time to commit the first crime and time between crimes (inclusive of imprisonment), and whether the second crime is worse than the first.

After end of experiment, a follow up would be if people volunteer to directly compare different methods of punishment, again they choose their own punishment, no crime in this case. This has two purposes, to do the direct comparison between punishments and to see if a person who has been punished is willing to be punished again.

been pondering for a while, possibly related what you’re talking about, moll, i’d describe in my idiomatic terms as, to generalize, inverted acknowledgement, something I think white man is very adept at

it’s a psychological tool employed, in the territory of intangibles

inverted doesn’t mean opposite, necessarily

of course it’s somewhat borrowed from the expression inverted snob, the idea’s evident in that anyway

of what you’re speaking you might have inverted assimilation

previously i’ve mentioned inverted acknowledgement of the state, which I think persists today

anyway the joy of the tool, is that even stupid can inject enough clever into ignorance to deliver, and appear normal

white man is very good at having things both ways, or multiple ways simultaneously

Moll, you will be reading Windschuttle’s book, and it will merely justify you in holding your opinions.
But Windschuttle has an agenda, and it is the same as yours. Windschuttle’s writings are like Idriess’s novels. The colonisers are heroes, bringing law and order and civilisation to an untamed land, and aboriginals are backwards and savages and that’s why we prevailed over them. So the things that happened are justified and we should not apologise or give any form of redress, or even understand why there may be behaviours in their descendants that reflect the treatment meted out to them.
Windschuttle and Idriess do propaganda, with some history thrown in to give it a bit of gravitas. And you lap it up. Idriess says that neck chains are a good form of punishment, so you say beauty. We had to tame this land and bring our culture to it. But you don’t question what our culture is built on. It sounds overly dramatic to say it is built on theft, lies, the justification of those lies, gross ill treatment of people, slavery. Sarahs mum’s article gave lots of photos as well as comment that show all these things. Did you see the ones from 1930?? That is less than 100 years ago. One of my grandfathers was well into his legal career by then, the other had established the family farm with the help of his artist wife, after having done work out in the mallee country. Imagine though, if I had been born aboriginal, and my grandfathers and grandmothers were in chains instead, and being subject to pitiful brutality and racism.
Did you read the Trove newspaper account of some of his findings of the treatment of prisoners? The one from the 31st January in the West Australian newspaper, titled The Aborigines Question?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25373158/2552840
http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/aborigines-question-1905-report-charges-against-police (same as above but more readable)

ruby said:

Moll, you will be reading Windschuttle’s book, and it will merely justify you in holding your opinions.
But Windschuttle has an agenda, and it is the same as yours. Windschuttle’s writings are like Idriess’s novels. The colonisers are heroes, bringing law and order and civilisation to an untamed land, and aboriginals are backwards and savages and that’s why we prevailed over them. So the things that happened are justified and we should not apologise or give any form of redress, or even understand why there may be behaviours in their descendants that reflect the treatment meted out to them.
Windschuttle and Idriess do propaganda, with some history thrown in to give it a bit of gravitas. And you lap it up. Idriess says that neck chains are a good form of punishment, so you say beauty. We had to tame this land and bring our culture to it. But you don’t question what our culture is built on. It sounds overly dramatic to say it is built on theft, lies, the justification of those lies, gross ill treatment of people, slavery. Sarahs mum’s article gave lots of photos as well as comment that show all these things. Did you see the ones from 1930?? That is less than 100 years ago. One of my grandfathers was well into his legal career by then, the other had established the family farm with the help of his artist wife, after having done work out in the mallee country. Imagine though, if I had been born aboriginal, and my grandfathers and grandmothers were in chains instead, and being subject to pitiful brutality and racism.
Did you read the Trove newspaper account of some of his findings of the treatment of prisoners? The one from the 31st January in the West Australian newspaper, titled The Aborigines Question?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25373158/2552840
http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/aborigines-question-1905-report-charges-against-police (same as above but more readable)

There were a number of QC’s in my family and at least one notably spoke for aboriginal rights as human beings.

And here is another of those pictures, from the 1930s. There are plenty of people who don’t want to revisit what our country is actually built upon, who prefer the bold brave adventurers discovering new lands to conquer.

ruby said:

And here is another of those pictures, from the 1930s. There are plenty of people who don’t want to revisit what our country is actually built upon, who prefer the bold brave adventurers discovering new lands to conquer.

Poor Fellow my Country.

ruby said:

And here is another of those pictures, from the 1930s. There are plenty of people who don’t want to revisit what our country is actually built upon, who prefer the bold brave adventurers discovering new lands to conquer.

I think it’s always a shortcoming of humans (always there) the propensity to find and generate subordinate examples of captivity, something more restricted, a likelihood given comparative or relative functioning of the social mind

no so different, or unrelated perhaps, to keeping pets, breeding them

ruby said:

Moll, you will be reading Windschuttle’s book, and it will merely justify you in holding your opinions.
But Windschuttle has an agenda, and it is the same as yours. Windschuttle’s writings are like Idriess’s novels. The colonisers are heroes, bringing law and order and civilisation to an untamed land, and aboriginals are backwards and savages and that’s why we prevailed over them. So the things that happened are justified and we should not apologise or give any form of redress, or even understand why there may be behaviours in their descendants that reflect the treatment meted out to them.
Windschuttle and Idriess do propaganda, with some history thrown in to give it a bit of gravitas. And you lap it up. Idriess says that neck chains are a good form of punishment, so you say beauty. We had to tame this land and bring our culture to it. But you don’t question what our culture is built on. It sounds overly dramatic to say it is built on theft, lies, the justification of those lies, gross ill treatment of people, slavery. Sarahs mum’s article gave lots of photos as well as comment that show all these things. Did you see the ones from 1930?? That is less than 100 years ago. One of my grandfathers was well into his legal career by then, the other had established the family farm with the help of his artist wife, after having done work out in the mallee country. Imagine though, if I had been born aboriginal, and my grandfathers and grandmothers were in chains instead, and being subject to pitiful brutality and racism.
Did you read the Trove newspaper account of some of his findings of the treatment of prisoners? The one from the 31st January in the West Australian newspaper, titled The Aborigines Question?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25373158/2552840
http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/aborigines-question-1905-report-charges-against-police (same as above but more readable)

The attached article is about the North American Indian, not the Australian Aborigine, but the similarities and myth making are remarkably similar.

>>In Thanksgiving pageants held at schools across the United States, children don headdresses colored with craft-store feathers and share tables with classmates wearing black construction paper hats. It’s a tradition that pulls on a history passed down through the generations of what happened in Plymouth: local Native Americans welcomed the courageous, pioneering pilgrims to a celebratory feast. But, as David Silverman writes in his new book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving, much of that story is a myth riddled with historical inaccuracies. Beyond that, Silverman argues that the telling and retelling of these falsehoods is deeply harmful to the Wampanoag Indians whose lives and society were forever damaged after the English arrived in Plymouth.

The myth is that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear. They hand off America to white people so they can create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit. That’s the story—it’s about Native people conceding to colonialism. It’s bloodless and in many ways an extension of the ideology of Manifest Destiny.<<

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/

PermeateFree said:

ruby said:

Moll, you will be reading Windschuttle’s book, and it will merely justify you in holding your opinions.
But Windschuttle has an agenda, and it is the same as yours. Windschuttle’s writings are like Idriess’s novels. The colonisers are heroes, bringing law and order and civilisation to an untamed land, and aboriginals are backwards and savages and that’s why we prevailed over them. So the things that happened are justified and we should not apologise or give any form of redress, or even understand why there may be behaviours in their descendants that reflect the treatment meted out to them.
Windschuttle and Idriess do propaganda, with some history thrown in to give it a bit of gravitas. And you lap it up. Idriess says that neck chains are a good form of punishment, so you say beauty. We had to tame this land and bring our culture to it. But you don’t question what our culture is built on. It sounds overly dramatic to say it is built on theft, lies, the justification of those lies, gross ill treatment of people, slavery. Sarahs mum’s article gave lots of photos as well as comment that show all these things. Did you see the ones from 1930?? That is less than 100 years ago. One of my grandfathers was well into his legal career by then, the other had established the family farm with the help of his artist wife, after having done work out in the mallee country. Imagine though, if I had been born aboriginal, and my grandfathers and grandmothers were in chains instead, and being subject to pitiful brutality and racism.
Did you read the Trove newspaper account of some of his findings of the treatment of prisoners? The one from the 31st January in the West Australian newspaper, titled The Aborigines Question?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/25373158/2552840
http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/aborigines-question-1905-report-charges-against-police (same as above but more readable)

The attached article is about the North American Indian, not the Australian Aborigine, but the similarities and myth making are remarkably similar.

>>In Thanksgiving pageants held at schools across the United States, children don headdresses colored with craft-store feathers and share tables with classmates wearing black construction paper hats. It’s a tradition that pulls on a history passed down through the generations of what happened in Plymouth: local Native Americans welcomed the courageous, pioneering pilgrims to a celebratory feast. But, as David Silverman writes in his new book This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving, much of that story is a myth riddled with historical inaccuracies. Beyond that, Silverman argues that the telling and retelling of these falsehoods is deeply harmful to the Wampanoag Indians whose lives and society were forever damaged after the English arrived in Plymouth.

The myth is that friendly Indians, unidentified by tribe, welcome the Pilgrims to America, teach them how to live in this new place, sit down to dinner with them and then disappear. They hand off America to white people so they can create a great nation dedicated to liberty, opportunity and Christianity for the rest of the world to profit. That’s the story—it’s about Native people conceding to colonialism. It’s bloodless and in many ways an extension of the ideology of Manifest Destiny.<<

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thanksgiving-myth-and-what-we-should-be-teaching-kids-180973655/

We have someone from the US in our office and she mentioned it’s more popular than Christmas.
I have never seen it portrayed on tv and in the movies as anything except about family and being thankful but its weird when considering what happened to the native population.
Thanks for the food, here is some genocide back at you.

Thanks for the wild turkey and
The passenger pigeons, destined
To be shat out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
And poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
Modicum of challenge and
Danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
Kill and skin leaving the
Carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
And coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
The bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killing lawmen,
Feeling their notches.

For decent church-going women,
With their mean, pinched, bitter,
Evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
War against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
Nobody’s allowed to mind their
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
Memories— all right let’s see
Your arms!

In reading the witness statements in Roth (1905), I started to notice some inconsistencies. The questions asked of people in the same profession are totally different, for example one police corporal isn’t asked about his job at all, but another, Ingles, is questioned at extreme length.

Then it twigged. Roth isn’t questioning witnesses in order to obtain information, he’s a barrister. That makes a difference because a barrister never asks a question that he doesn’t already know the answer to. Roth’s goal with some of the witnesses, in particular Ingles, has nothing to do with facts, the aim of Roth is to use the maximum amount of prosecuting barrister’s guile to pin Ingles to the wall. Roth starts by appearing maximally friendly and gentle to get the witness to relax enough to catch them in a lie and also then to get the witness to incriminate themselves. Roth fails, because Ingles is as honest as the day is long, but that doesn’t stop Roth from airing his hatred of the police in general and Ingles’ district in particular in the report’s summary and recommendations.

I don’t like Roth. In addition to being bureaucratic, power hungry and the exact opposite of humanitarian, he also has not the slightest interest in obtaining the truth, just in legally destroying the police.

From the Roth Royal Commission, it appears that the WA Aborigines protection legislation is already mostly written in advance. Hopefully by better minds than Roth’s.

mollwollfumble said:

In reading the witness statements in Roth (1905), I started to notice some inconsistencies. The questions asked of people in the same profession are totally different, for example one police corporal isn’t asked about his job at all, but another, Ingles, is questioned at extreme length.

Then it twigged. Roth isn’t questioning witnesses in order to obtain information, he’s a barrister. That makes a difference because a barrister never asks a question that he doesn’t already know the answer to. Roth’s goal with some of the witnesses, in particular Ingles, has nothing to do with facts, the aim of Roth is to use the maximum amount of prosecuting barrister’s guile to pin Ingles to the wall. Roth starts by appearing maximally friendly and gentle to get the witness to relax enough to catch them in a lie and also then to get the witness to incriminate themselves. Roth fails, because Ingles is as honest as the day is long, but that doesn’t stop Roth from airing his hatred of the police in general and Ingles’ district in particular in the report’s summary and recommendations.

I don’t like Roth. In addition to being bureaucratic, power hungry and the exact opposite of humanitarian, he also has not the slightest interest in obtaining the truth, just in legally destroying the police.

From the Roth Royal Commission, it appears that the WA Aborigines protection legislation is already mostly written in advance. Hopefully by better minds than Roth’s.

>>In 1898 Roth was appointed as the first northern protector of Aboriginals under W. E. Parry-Okeden. Based at Cooktown, Roth travelled continually throughout the north. Part of his responsibilities was to record Aboriginal cultures. His main brief, however, was to prevent the exploitation of Aborigines, particularly in employment and marriage. Provided with a vessel, the Melbidir, he was also responsible for the regulation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment in the bêche-de-mer industry.

Roth was concerned that the protective measures of the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act (1897) had been open to abuse and he was closely associated with amending legislation in 1901. Possessed of a strong personality and administrative drive, Roth was effective as a protector but his initiatives brought him into conflict with politicians, settlers and the press in North Queensland. In 1904-06 he was chief protector (from Brisbane). In 1904 he also headed the Western Australian royal commission into the conditions of the Aborigines in the North-West. His report (1905) documented ‘wrongs and injustices’, ‘cruelties and abuses’, and made recommendations for better administration. He also contributed to the new legislation. Roth appears to have had good relations with indigenous and Chinese people wherever he worked. Having come under further political attack, he resigned in August 1906 on grounds of ill health and left Australia in December.<<

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/roth-walter-edmund-8280