Pre-Colonisation - 500 Indigenous nations. - 250 languages were spoken across the country. - Indigenous Australian culture has been developing for more than 60, 000 years. - One of the world's most ancient living cultures.
Social Darwinism
Reserves
When Phillip arrived in 1788 the land was declared Terra Nullius, meaning'land that belongs to no-one'. •Judged from the perspective of paternalism, Aboriginal people were a backward, primitive culture that needed western help. •In the 1850’s that help became a policy called the Protection Policy where Aboriginal people were herded into reserves and missions. •In 1883 the Aboriginal Protection Board was established to manage Indigenous welfare and the reserves. •By 1894 there were over 114 reserves in NSW alone. By the late 1800’s many settlers complained that good farming land was being used up by the reserves and so as a result they were closed down and many Aboriginal people had to be transported to other reserves far away from their traditional lands.
Assimilation
- As a result of a doomed race theory became more popular only 'full blood' Indigenous people were allowed to stay on the reserves and the 'half-caste' or 'mixed-blood' Indigenous persons were removed. -'Half-caste' children were separated from their parents and brought up by European families or orphanages. - This separation policy was known as the Assimilation Policy in 1914.
•In 1961 the Native Welfare Conference defined assimilation as; 'All Aborigines and part-Aborigines are expected to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians'. •Only four years later that definition had to be changed because it was clear that level of assimilation was not happening. There was not a 'single Australian community’. •At the 1965 Native Welfare Conference, assimilation was re-defined as; 'The policy of Assimilation seeks that all persons of Aboriginal descent will choose to attain a similar manner and standard of living to that of other Australians and live as members of a single Australian community.'
From the mid- nineteenth century onwards. Australian governments implemented policies of 'protection' that in reality segregated Indigenous people from Australian society. Indigenous lives were controlled by: - deciding where Indigenous people could live and work- 'reserves' which were controlled by the police or a white manager - limiting Indigenous people's access to their own wages - forbidding them the right to practise their own traditions - limiting their access to education - removing their children - denying them rights to which other Australians were entitled
What were the impacts?
1938 Aboriginal Day of Mourning 26th January 1938 everyone in Australia was celebrating Australia Day. the 'Aborigines Progressive Association' however sent around these posters.
Daniel Boyd’s painting We Call Them Pirates Out Here mocks the official history of white exploration and settlement by suggesting that one person’s explorer is another person’s pirate. This work is a parody of a famous 1902 history painting by Emanuel Phillip Fox depicting the 1770 landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay. Depicted as a marauding pirate, Boyd’s Cook claims possession of the land with his skull-and-crossbones Union Jack. No longer the heroic and civilised explorer of Fox’s painting, Cook becomes the anti-hero of an opposing narrative in which his landing is reframed as a moment of invasion and pillage for the original inhabitants. This kind of reworking of significant historical works is a potent artistic tool for commentary on Australia’s history, past and present. In We Call Them Pirates Out Here Boyd has appropriated a powerful piece of propaganda. Fox’s history painting, commissioned soon after the federation of Australia, depicts Cook – and by extension, the nation – as an enlightened humanist who prevents his men from firing on two advancing Aboriginal warriors. In Boyd’s update, the warriors are replaced by two Xanthorrhoea grass trees, called ‘black boys’ by the colonists. Cook’s heroic gesture is thus emptied of meaning and we see the scene as an opportunistic land grab founded on the one-eyed myth that the country was uninhabited.
Day of Mourning
-As a part of the Australia Day celebration in 1938 the Australian government decided to have a re-enactment of the discovery of Australia by James Cook in 1788.
-In the re-enactment at Botany Bay an Aboriginal group from Sydney was asked to be a part of the enactment. They were to dress in loincloths and hold spears and talk in their traditional languages for the sake of the entertainment for the day. Not surprisingly they refused.
-Upon their refusal, they were threatened with their rations being cut and were imprisoned the night before so they could not escape the festivities the next day.