When it is a shame for ancestors: How almost all the indigenous population was destroyed in Australia

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the spring of 1770, James Cook's expedition landed on the eastern coast of Australia, which later became a British colony. From that moment on, a black streak began for the aborigines of this continent - the period of the destruction of the indigenous population by the Europeans. Cruel and merciless, which modern Australians do not like to remember so much. Because there is nothing to be proud of.

Convicts

Since at the time when Australia became a colony, British prisons were overflowing with criminals, it was decided to send them to new lands. In the first years of the development of the new continent, almost all of its European population consisted of exiles. From the moment the British colony was founded in Australia and until the middle of the nineteenth century, about one hundred and fifty thousand convicts were transported there. They were actively developing new lands and actively establishing contacts with the local aboriginal population.

Very often the indigenous people were turned into slaves by the "whites". Local men and women were forced to work on farms, and their children were kidnapped to be used as servants.

If by 1790 the indigenous population of Australia numbered about a million people (and this is more than 500 tribes), then in the next century it was reduced by half. Aborigines, who had no immunity to overseas diseases, were infected by Europeans with smallpox, pneumonia, tuberculosis and venereal diseases. But death from infections is only one of the reasons for the extinction of the indigenous population.

Aboriginal contacts

If at the end of the 18th century in Europe there were still great racial prejudices about marriages with "blacks", then they did not apply to convicts who were serving their sentences in Australia. This was viewed by the Ministry of the Interior as a necessary measure for the survival of the colony. The fact is that male convicts were reluctant to make love contacts with female convicts, considering them to be dissolute, rude, foul-mouthed and domineering. In addition, drunkenness was widespread among many convicted women, which also caused disgust among men.

And kind and naive aboriginal women who do not drink alcohol, on the contrary, in the eyes of European immigrants were seen as the embodiment of innocence, humility and tenderness. Of course, it wasn't always love as such. For example, north of Hobart, many herders in prison kept local women as sex slaves.

The fact that Europeans had sexual relations with aborigines could not but cause concern among senior officials, but the leaders of the colony at that time it was convenient to maintain at least some order.

The colonists quickly established trade relations with the natives: those who had access to booze, bread and vegetables exchanged them with the natives for freshly caught fish. But just a few years later, the authorities began to use both of these social groups as a mechanism of influence. It became profitable for them to cultivate enmity between convicts and aborigines - in particular, so that the number of Europeans increased, and the indigenous population (at that time outnumbered Europeans) - decreased.

For example, the colonial authorities hired aborigines to catch escaped convicts, and if in the process of the chase the criminal died at the hands of the persecutors, the colony leadership turned a blind eye to this. Moreover, for such a successful "catch" the savages were awarded tobacco, food, blankets. Naturally, with such cooperation between the authorities and the aborigines, the attitude of the convicts towards the latter became more and more distrustful.

Mutual aggression was beneficial

However, aggression against indigenous Australians was also not formally punished. For example, until the beginning of the last century, local authorities recognized the right of farmers to protect their livestock and their own lives from any attacks, and in these battles, including the aborigines, died.

Why did the tribes attack livestock? Because the British, who brought rabbits, sheep and other animals from Europe, violated the natural biocenosis of Australia. Thanks to this, many local herbivorous species were destroyed, and the aborigines were on the verge of starvation. To survive, they began to "hunt" the livestock of foreigners.

Such cunning manipulation of the leaders of the colony by these two groups of the population quickly led to their mutual aggression. Moreover, each of them believed that in her cruelty she was acting on behalf of the colonial authorities.

Gradually, the feeling of compassion for the aborigines among the Europeans living in Australia diminished and eventually completely disappeared. If representatives of the indigenous population "behaved badly" - for example, expressed disrespect to "whites", resisted sexual violence by European men, and so on, they were hunted down. In the course of it, shooting an aborigine was in the order of things. And sometimes such "punishments" passed with cruelty.

In 1804, British colonial troops began a "cleanup" of the indigenous population of Tasmania. As a result of such a "hunt" after three decades, the aborigines of this island were completely destroyed, and about two hundred surviving Tasmanians were resettled to Flinders Island. Alas, this people died out.

The aborigines of Australia were hounded by dogs, they were shot for any offense, and it was also standard fun for local Europeans to drive a family of indigenous people into the water with crocodiles and watch them die in agony.

In the 19th century, the authorities made separate attempts to punish European settlers for their cruelty towards the aborigines. For example, after the massacre of 1838, when about 30 Aboriginal people were killed, the criminals were identified, arrested, and seven of them were hanged. Governors repeatedly passed laws according to which the aborigines were to be treated in the same way as the Europeans. However, the general trend of brutality outweighed these isolated cases of tolerance.

European settlers of those years spoke about the situation as follows:.

In rural areas, brutality against Aboriginal people continued until the 60s of the last century.

Only on September 18, 1973, when the law on the abolition of the death penalty was passed, did the Australian indigenous population feel that now they could not just take and kill anyone. But even now they do not feel equal in their native land, since their authority in society is much lower than that of citizens of European descent, and in the event of any controversial situations, the indigenous people will not have enough money for legal costs.

As a memory of past racial discrimination, the city of Darwin remained on the continent - named after the famous scientist, who was by no means distinguished by a tolerant attitude towards the "inferior" (in his opinion) race.

Read more about the destruction of a unique people - the Tasmanians - you can read here.