A Little More About The History Of Australia

Hello everyone here I am doing another post about the history of my country and the Aboriginal people.

After the arrival of the white people the Aboriginal people were struck with new and unknown diseases these diseases were often fatal and struck and extensive blow to the Aboriginal people. This is because up until then they had been isolated from the diseases that had raged throughout Europe and Asia, so they had no resistance to these new deadly viruses carried here by the sailors and convicts, diseases like smallpox, syphilis and influenza. So in less that a year over half the Aboriginal population living in the Sydney area had died from smallpox and the region that once was alive with a vibrant mix of Aboriginal clans was now silent.

Every boat that went down the harbour found them lying dead on the beaches and in the caverns of the rocks… They were generally found with the remains of a small fire on each side of them and some water left within their reach.
Lieutenant Fowell, 1789

In a space of only six months the new arrivals had destroyed a way of life that had existed for thousands of years, the Aboriginals soon realised that these invaders were committed to nothing less than total occupation of the land.

To most of the settlers the Aboriginal people were considered akin to kangaroos, dingoes and emus, to be eradicated to make way for the development of farming and grazing, this I find disgusting and I am ashamed of this part of our history as I am other parts of our history.

I have myself heard a man, educated, and a large proprietor of sheep and cattle, maintain that there was no more harm in shooting a native, than in shooting a wild dog. I have heard it maintained by others that it is the course of Providence, that blacks should disappear before the white, and the sooner the process was carried out the better, for all parties. I fear such opinions prevail to a great extent. Very recently in the presence of two clergymen, a man of education narrated, as a good thing, that he had been one of a party who had pursued the blacks, in consequence of cattle being rushed by them, and that he was sure that they shot upwards of a hundred. When expostulated with, he maintained that there was nothing wrong in it, that it was preposterous to suppose they had souls. In this opinion he was joined by another educated person present.
Bishop Polding, 1845

Now a guerrilla war had been mounted against the British during the early years of the colony, this is to be expected the natives were fighting to save their way of life and protect their own, however, for the most part the eradication of the Aboriginal people had been easy. Those who had not been killed off by disease were displaced when land was cleared for settlements and farms, this caused the Aboriginal people to become dependent on white food and clothing.

Then there is the problems that came with alcohol, since alcohol was used as a means of trade by the British and the Aboriginal people were not used to alcohol and what it does to the human body it served to further shatter traditional social and family structures.

So in the blink of an eye European civilisation had devastated and destroyed and incomparable and ancient people, this is terrible. Because the vast majority of the clans living in the Sydney area had been killed off the stories of the land have been lost forever, so much of what we know about those clans have been learnt from their archaeological remains. Thankfully shelters, engravings and art remnants of the indigenous life are prolific throughout the area but no one remains to reveal their particular meanings or significance so much is guess work.