Thread: Sadly our history has some very dark parts

Originally Posted by gusthedog

164,000 convicts were sent to Australia. There were 60,000 Aboriginal people remaining in Australia in 1920. The original estimate of Indigenous Australia's population is unknown but has been estimated between 300,000 and 3,000,000. I'd reckon on numbers alone, Aboriginal murders in early European settlement were 10 fold compared to convict deaths.

So what you are saying by that statement is that between 240,000 to 2,994,000 Aboriginals were murdered or caused to perish by the settlers?
I find that hard to believe.
The true cause of most of the convict deaths is unknown But it is fair to surmise that it was mainly due to the conditions and treatment that they were subject to at the time.
I also dispute the 60,000 figure in 1920 because there would have been NO way that anyone would know exactly how many Aboriginal people were in Australia at that time as many of the first Australians had moved to cities and towns and some had even married/shacked up members of the new Australians
Maybe someone took a "Best Guess" estimate of 60,000 still living traditionally But that's all it would have been a Guess.

Is there any country in the world that doesn't have some sort of dark past. Just a matter of how far back do we want to go.

Our past is nothing to shy away from and nothing to be proud of that's for sure. There is certainly a long way to go to improve things in this country.

Indigenous Australian clans do war with each other , seen it in Wadeye in the NT about 10 or so years ago.

Cheers Ean

Convicts certainly were treated badly, but there were laws to protect them, such as requirements for masters to feed and house them, and there were cases of convicts successfully appealing to magistrates against bad treatment. They were usually freed after eight years.
None of that protection was afforded to the indigenous people, who were systematically dispossessed and exterminated. That's just the way it was.

If I try, I can trace my family back through, on the Scot side, Wallace, Robert The Bruce. On the other side I'd find Edward. I reckon that most of the folk who post here will have at least a couple of skeletons in their closets.

Will you all choose to live in the past, and be judged by the sins of your grandfathers? If so, if you choose that, you are all idiots.

This hasn't been my best day, judge my comments in that light...

Originally Posted by johntins

Will you all choose to live in the past, and be judged by the sins of your grandfathers? If so, if you choose that, you are all idiots.

This hasn't been my best day, judge my comments in that light...

I couldn't agree with you more Old Mate, I for one have had a guts full of people trying to put a "Guilt Trip" on me for events that happened a century or more ago.
The Future is what IS important and is what we should be concerned about The past is just history that NONE of us had anything to do with anyway.

None of that protection was afforded to the indigenous people, who were systematically dispossessed and exterminated. That's just the way it was.

I have to say "not everywhere"
if you go to the library in Braidwood you can read the diary of the Governor of the area. There is a chapter relating to instructions to distribute extra blankets to aboriginals as the winter was expected to be cold.
In addition the aboriginals worked for the early settlers with mixed results. Some were regarded as equal to Europeans and others were prone to walkabout, much like our population today.
The aboriginals also showed the white settlers how to get from the coast to the plateau.Macquarie Pass.
There seemed to be quite a bit of cooperation both ways.

I also read one theory that the aboriginal population had been decimated prior to white settlement by smallpox caught from Malaccan fisherman who traded with them leaving a very small population .

Originally Posted by johntins

If I try, I can trace my family back through, on the Scot side, Wallace, Robert The Bruce. On the other side I'd find Edward. I reckon that most of the folk who post here will have at least a couple of skeletons in their closets.

Will you all choose to live in the past, and be judged by the sins of your grandfathers? If so, if you choose that, you are all idiots.

This hasn't been my best day, judge my comments in that light...

Well said, I agree with you.
Pickles.

Originally Posted by trout1105

I couldn't agree with you more Old Mate, I for one have had a guts full of people trying to put a "Guilt Trip" on me for events that happened a century or more ago.
The Future is what IS important and is what we should be concerned about The past is just history that NONE of us had anything to do with anyway.

It's not a guilt trip. It's recognition of actual fact. There is a massive difference.