Australian Government Policy and the Aboriginal People.

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Rights and Freedom

Cassandra McGraw

10R2

Mr Greene

From the moment the British settlers first colonised Australia in 1788, Indigenous

Australians have been mistreated by the European settlers. This is mainly because the British failed to acknowledge the prior rights of Aboriginal Australians. Policies that have been implemented by the Australian Government have treated Aboriginal people as inferior. To properly understand why these policies were put in place and what they mean, it is vital to analyse the concept of Terra Nullius, the Policy of Protection, the Policy of Assimilation and the more positive policy, aiming on reconciliation, the Policy of Integration.

Terra Nullius was the Latin term given to Australia upon Captain Cook’s arrival in 1770. The

term is translated into meaning 'empty land' or 'land with no owner'. Sir Joseph Banks, who

sailed with Captain Cook, noted in his journal that Eastern Australia was 'thinly inhabited'.

Despite the Indigenous population, the decision to establish the colony of New South

Wales was made on the erroneous, yet highly convenient assumption that the land was

virtually uninhabited. The European settlement had a severe and devastating impact on the Indigenous people. Exposure to new disease brought over by the British, dispossession of their land and violent conflicts with the settlers resulted in the death of a vast majority of Indigenous Australians. However, the small percentage that survived the early decades of the colony did not go unaffected. The impact the white settlers had on the Indigenous changed their lives, and the lives of future generations. The British colonisation policies and subsequent land laws were framed in the belief that the colony was being acquired by settlement of Terra Nullius. The colonisers did acknowledge the presence of the Indigenous people, however, they justified their land acquisition policies by saying the Indigenous Australians were too 'primitive' to be actual owners. The Indigenous also failed to provide any identifiable hierarchy or political order which the British could recognise and negotiate with. It is estimated that there were 750,000 Indigenous Australians living in Australia at the time of Captain Cook's arrival. These people were divided into 600 different tribes and had hundreds of different languages. The Aboriginal Australians developed their own way of life after being isolated from all external influences. Not long after the First Fleet arrives in NSW in 1788, colonial governments began to sell, grant and lease land to white settlers. As the prosperity of the colonial wool industry increased, more and more settlers arrived in the colony to grab their claims on grazing land, which they would then amass their own fortune from. The British, however, believed that the Aboriginal Australians were happy to move on to new land due to their nomadic nature. But the Indigenous peoples on the other hand, always returned to the previous land after it had time to replenish itself. The dispossession of the Indigenous land resulted in a drastic decline in their population due to violent clashes over land rights settlements.

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Although many white settlers killed, mocked and stole from the Indigenous, there were also many who were appalled at the treatment of the Indigenous people and wanted to help them. Some of those who tried to help were government officials, others were Christian missionaries. These people truly believed that the Aboriginal people needed their help and without it they would die out. This had something to do with Charles Darwin's theories on evolution, and survival of the fittest which was accepted by the British settlers. They believed that Aboriginal people were weaker and inferior because of the colour of their ...

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