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Saying Africa was better off colonized, cuz there were just huts 'n' sheet before da white man showed up, and after da white man set up shop they had electricity and bling and all that, so all the chains and shackles and press gangs and the chop chop on their hands and heads, was totally worth it, that's also a very false comparison.
Even Africa had places which didn't get colonized (Ethiopia), or only got colonized very very late (Libya, Morocco), and as you might know Ethiopia didn't even have land access. But they made it to the modern age just as well. You don't need the white man to come and enslave half the population, press gang the other half and work them to death in the mines and on the road projects, in order to get electricity and modern technology. Ethiopia had one hell of an uphill struggle but made it alright. Every place that avoided colonization was objectively better off for it. There was no net positive outcome from colonization from any of the nations in Africa. It was a shitty project that only a small group of people who benefitted from it, these were mostly white people and a select few of Africans whom the white colonizers empowered to lord it over the other Africans. They profited from it at the cost to the well being, lives and future of everyone else.
Here is the classical example from Ricardo two free nations engaging free trade
Ricardo's comparative advantage - Market Business News
Ricardo's comparative advantage is an example economist David Ricardo gave to demonstrate the advantage of international trade.
marketbusinessnews.com
According to the economist it is mutually beneficial for Portugal/Britain to exchange agricultural products for industrial articles... end result (since we know it) England got rich, Portugal got poor... since industry had a much better growth potential than agricultural products.
Being colonized per se means that you are forced to take the role of Portugal in this equation, just worth because you are not doing the said exchange at "fair market prices" since the colonizer controls your foreign trade for his and not your benefit.
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You are conflating native societies and native individuals themselves. Missionaries were concerned with spreading the word of God and proselytizing directly to individuals who were considered on the same moral status as Europeans and therefore warranted the message of God for their individual salvation. The societies themselves were technologically far inferior to British society and these theories were concerned with the reasons why for these vast differences between natives and Europeans.
Furthermore without going into a long tangent, the laws by which societies live by are a reflection of the morals that that particular society holds. Moral values shift and change over time and laws correspondingly change over time. Collective moral values precede and underpin the laws.
Legally aboriginals were treated as individuals living under British common law, and therefore considered as equal to Europeans in moral worth. Killing/stealing/raping a native under colonial Australia would carry the same punishment as doing so to a European colonial. If the British actually considered the natives to be morally inferior beings to Europeans then they would have separate laws identifying and demarcating those natives (e.g. Jews in Nazi Germany) as separate legal entities to colonials.
Governor Macquerie in 1810 said
"the natives of this territory are to be treated in every respect as Europeans; and any injury or violence done or offered to the men or women natives will be punished according to law in-the same manner and in equal degree as if done to any of his Majesty’s subjects or foreigners residing there."
Of course there were conflicts and tensions in the compatibility in the application of British law and native local law, but the fundamental point still remains that under the eyes of British Crown and God natives were considered as equals.
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Utter hogwash. Bring me some striking evidence to support such a strong claim that the conversion efforts among primitive peoples intended to fill the bottommost rung of society with obedient serfs and peons. Furthermore that this all happened at a co-ordinated institutional level.
There are libraries of cases where missionaries provided meaningful care and aid to locals for their general health and betterment.
The reasons why recent converts happened to be likely to be at a low rung in colonial society is purely a by-product of their socio-economic status. Very similar to how 3rd world immigrant workers in Western societies are also very likely to be at a low rung as they tend to come to the host country penniless.
Punished, by whom? By citizen juries, where settlers are asked to pass judgment on a neighbor?
"conflict and tension" does underplay it a bit.
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Try the Tasmanian/Black War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_War
An organised 8 year war against the native peoples which resulted in the near total extinction of their population. Also includes the government sanctioned murder of women and children on the basis of race alone.
Jandamurra:
Biography - Jandamarra - Indigenous Australia
ia.anu.edu.au
Pemulwuy:
Pemulwuy - Wikipedia
Both Aboriginal leaders who fought actively against the white invaders and actively engaged in combat with government forces. NOT simple individuals fighting white settlers.
No.
1. Until 1967 Aboriginal people were not counted in the census. They were literally considered fauna.
2. Check this list of massacres and see how many were actually prosecuted. This includes many massacres in the 20th century. The first prosecution (Myall Creek) was not until 1838 - 50 years after European colonisation.
List of massacres of Indigenous Australians - Wikipedia
3. The Australian constitution includes and article that permits Aboriginal people to be treated differently from others, and it has been used for that purpose (section 25).
4. The stolen generations refers to the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents, simply on the basis of race. Again, not legal equality.
The first Northern Protector of Aborigines, W.E. Roth reported with enthusiasm on the Aborigines' carpentry, agricultural, basket-making, and home-craft skills. He praised the choir and the playing of the piccolo, cornets, accordion, and the LOOS organ. He was impressed with the mothers' meetings, prayer meetings, confirmation classes, and the church service. He thought the "promotion" system by which girls and boys received in-service training in domestic service and farm work "excellent"
From:
https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/da...uj2QrgkxRK92B31qDNEnoMUpuQS7KVp9l3c-jcJ8qiA__
"The mandate of the church is to proclaim a Christ who loved people so much that he died to give them hope of eternal life. Instead, Christ was far too often linked to harsh discipline and trivial moral rules. This resulted in a 'gospel' distinctly lacking in grace, leading children to believe that a supposedly loving God destined them to a life of servitude and inferiority."
From CASE (Christian Apologetics, Scholarship and Education)
https://www.case.edu.au/blogs/case-...the-institutionalising-of-aboriginal-children
The missionary system was an integral part of government control measures over Aboriginal people. One of the explicit aims of the various Aboriginal control and protection boards in the various states was to 'civilize' the Aboriginal people so they could be used for domestic work, trades and agricultural labour. This was part of the 'dying race' concept that was almost universal in white institutions in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which believed that the Aboriginal race was fundamentally inferior to the white race and should be given a form of palliative care by serving as workers and servants while they were whitened and assimilated by breading with the white population.
At best this attitude was paternal in the extreme, and often served as little more than a cover for the virtual enslavement of the Aboriginal people in the missions. To illustrate this: Aboriginal children in the missions were prohibited from leaving, their rations were dependent on doing productive labour, they were often subject to extreme physical punishment and they were not paid - in other words, slavery. Adults could in theory leave, but they were subjected to controls and lacking the skills and knowledge to return to their people, were effectively forced into a lifetime of menial labour. It was legal to pay Aboriginal employees in rations rather than money, further tying them to lives of servitude.
Sorry, at least in Australia, missions were part of a managed and systematic attempt to destroy their way of life and reduce them to unpaid servants of the white people. Please read the Bringing them home report from the royal commission to get the full horror of this process.
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Firstly, this 'war' occurred in Tasmania not New Zealand which I was referring to. You suggested in your original post that there was a series of wars with the Maori before the treaty of Waitangi in 1860. This was wrong on two counts as there were no wars between the Maori and the Brits before the treaty of Waitangi. Secondly the treaty occurred in 1830 not 1860.Try the Tasmanian/Black War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_War
An organised 8 year war against the native peoples which resulted in the near total extinction of their population. Also includes the government sanctioned murder of women and children on the basis of race alone.
Jandamurra:
Pemulwuy:Biography - Jandamarra - Indigenous Australia
Both Aboriginal leaders who fought actively against the white invaders and actively engaged in combat with government forces. NOT simple individuals fighting white settlers.Pemulwuy - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
This 'war' was really again reprisals against local tribal insurgency which reared its head in the region. Local tribesmen pillaged and looted local settler communities which then sparked the British reaction to suppress these rebels- this reaction may have seemed severe but the terrorist actions were widespread and warranted a strong reaction. Funnily enough the article you reference even echoes my earlier post with this passage
David Collins arrived as the colony's first lieutenant governor in February 1804 with instructions from London that any acts of violence against the Aboriginal people by Europeans were to be punished...
The Brits did not land on the island, immediately 'declare war' on the local peoples and annihilate them- which was of course was perfectly possible. The British intention was always to live peacefully with the locals and to conduct dealings with them as equals. This is evidenced by both my above quotes which come directly from the British governor in the colony at the time, the evidence of the Waitangi treaty and the treatment of locals as falling under Common Law jurisdiction.
No.
1. Until 1967 Aboriginal people were not counted in the census. They were literally considered fauna.
2. Check this list of massacres and see how many were actually prosecuted. This includes many massacres in the 20th century. The first prosecution (Myall Creek) was not until 1838 - 50 years after European colonisation.
3. The Australian constitution includes and article that permits Aboriginal people to be treated differently from others, and it has been used for that purpose (section 25).List of massacres of Indigenous Australians - Wikipedia
4. The stolen generations refers to the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents, simply on the basis of race. Again, not legal equality.
Show me direct legal evidence that these people could actually be treated like 'fauna'.
Censuses are carried out for a multitude of reasons but primarily they are to aide policy makers of communities to make more informed decisions. Aboriginals had no interest in colonial elections historically and I believe they held no qualm about not being involved with colonial politics.
There were laws in actual existence that did discriminate against certain groups for deep rooted reasons such as the Test Act 1672 or restricted citizenship to Jews in Germany in the early 19th century.
However there were no such laws to my knowledge drafted and legislated in the Australian/New Zealand colonies that restricted legal rights to locals, debates regarding enfranchisement aside.
Please provide evidence where Christian missions were established to 'civilize' the native people so they could be used for domestic work. Again they were considered as fundamentally inferior technologically which is clearly self evident, but they were not considered inferior morally- which is why they went to such extents which they perceived to assist and help the locals.
I note the very article you referenced contradicts your very argument. Quote from the article below:
Their intention was to educate and train Aboriginal children to grow up into adults who could be assimilated, that is, take their place comfortably in Australian society
Inflammatory nonsense along with that list of 'massacres' which was actually just a list of reprisals. This is an incredibly strong statement that missionaries were being set up to indoctrinate aboriginals to be a subservient class to local colonials.
The dying race theory did seem very much true given plummeting local population sizes and whilst some of the 'Stolen generation' policies did have tragic personal moments the overarching intention was one of care for the local peoples.
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A lie. In the quote that I referred to you said "The vast majority of settler-native conflicts in Australia were caused from private citizens conflicting with specific natives. "
Wrong. The war of resistance was fought due to settlers' repeated abduction, rape and murder of Aboriginal women as well as the theft of Aboriginal land. Both these statements are supported from the references I have already supplied. The resistance triggered the use of formal, uniformed military units in a military context. A war.
Educate yourself. There were. These included:
- the removal of children with no appeal
- different employment conditions (e.g. employment with no pay)
- no voting rights
- no citizenship
- the ability for police to remove them from any location they saw fit
- no squatter's rights
- restrictions on what they were allowed to own and purchase
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I did.
No. They are massacres. They are the extra-judicial killing of more than one individual, often as reprisal for killing of stock which was roaming on Aboriginal land. You are literally justifying mass murder for acts of at worst destruction of property. None of the acts named were performed with due legal process, none of them were performed in immediate self defense. That makes all of them murder under English law. Given that almost every one of the 'reprisals' was performed by people who intended to murder the Aboriginal people before they began that makes them pre-meditated murder. Every single individual who performed one of these acts should have been hanged under English law. Virtually none of them were tried even when the authorities had full knowledge of what occurred.
Factual truth in not inflammatory nonsense.
Thank you for pointing out my typo. The treaty of Waitangi was of course signed on the 6th of Febuary 1840.
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Again you are applying European legal and value standards to a tribal context. There was no same concepts of private property in these places which were specifically claimed by groups of people. Instead colonials unwittingly settled in hunting areas used by local tribe. This of course caused tensions and conflicts which sometimes resulted in colonials committing atrocities. Maybe if you actually read the Wiki article you would note that it states that the British wanted to protect the Aboriginals - George Arthur specifically states this. Calling this a 'war' is again inflammatory and does pay fair justice to what actually occurred. There was no declaration of war. There was no peace settlement. There was no unified or coherent 'enemy' as such.
The use of military units themselves in a military context does not necessitate a war and by no stretch of the imagination can this supposed 'war' be understood in your original post as a process of conquest through 'war and treaty'. Moreover the use of military units was extremely limited itself in this 'war'.
-The child removal acts did have tragic consequences and were often ill-informed and poorly implemented policy decisions but the underlying goal was one of care and protection of aboriginals. Please provide evidence to the contrary. I want evidence from policy makers at the time that shows that they actually considered natives as morally inferior beings.
- Provide me with statutory evidence that aboriginals were provided with different employment rights as local settlers. Local children were employed but i believe colonial local children could also be employed.
- Putting it frankly, aboriginals did not care about voting rights as they were generally uninterested in colonial political affairs. This changed in the 20th century and laws correspondingly did grant them voting rights.
- The police have that ability for anyone- there was no specific legislation in respect of local treatment.
- See above.
- See above.
This shockingly untrue and quite frankly, ideological clap trap. Even a cursory glance through that 'list' shows that almost all of these incidents were retaliatory attacks and NOT 'pre-mediated murders'. You are making outlandish and utterly unverifiable claims in relation to a great number of different events, each with their own detailed backgrounds and facts. You probably know virtually nothing about the application of English common law in the 19th century.
If you go through the list often you will find that many of the non 'self defence' or insufficient evidence cases were at least attempted to be tried. Including but not limited to:
1826 Blackmans Point
1838 Myall Creek
1847 Kangaroo Creek
Including just a link to an article is not evidence. Especially when said article contradicts your very point.
You should try reading the reference articles before you post them.
My overall point is that you have provided no evidence of policy makers of the time who considered locals as inferior moral beings to Europeans in the same ways that Nazi Germany considered Jews as inferior moral beings in the 1930s. They were considered as technologically inferior and as culturally very different people, but fundamentally the Brits and the subsequent colonials wanted to help and assist the natives.
If the Brits wanted to, they could have easily exterminated local populations when they arrived to those shores and it would have solved an on-going and difficult problem for them. However they did not, although disease did dramatically reduce already fairly low local populace levels. I have made reference to numerous quotes from decision makers at the time which clearly laid out official policy in respect of treatment of the locals. The 'lost generation' acts were certainly poorly implemented and thought out but the fundamental intention behind the acts was of benevolence.
If the Brits wanted to, they could have easily exterminated local populations when they arrived to those shores and it would have solved an on-going and difficult problem for them. However they did not, although disease did dramatically reduce already fairly low local populace levels. I have made reference to numerous quotes from decision makers at the time which clearly laid out official policy in respect of treatment of the locals. The 'lost generation' acts were certainly poorly implemented and thought out but the fundamental intention behind the acts was of benevolence.
If you have nothing to add, it is best to remain silent.
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I'm afraid you'll have to live with jeers from the peanut gallery
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Tongerlongeter would disagree. I refer you to:
Tongerlongeter: First Nations Leader and Tasmanian War Hero by Reynolds and Clements
There was a leader. There was a peace treaty. There was an act that empowered military action against the Tasmanian Aboriginals.
I refer you to article 2 (ii) of the Aboriginal Protection Act of 1869
Provide evidence of this supposition. In addition, those voting rights were not extended until the second half of the 20th century. Large scale Aboriginal activism began in the beginning of the 20th century. There were at least 50 years in which voting rights were denied to them on the single basis of race, after they were definitely seeking them
- No. The police did not and do not have the right to remove you from your place of residence. They do not have the right to remove you from a public place without reason. They had both these rights in regards to Aboriginal people.
- The Aboriginal people did not have the right to claim land by squatting. The white settlers did.
- See the Aboriginal Protection Act 1869, in particular article 6.
I did. You have provided no evidence for your statement. Please not that the Christian Apologetics article is clearly a biased source and even it did not deny that Aboriginal children were trained for manual labour and domestic service and not higher status professions.
Murder is a statutory offence not a common law offence. Please don't make assumptions about what I do and don't know. You however have demonstrated you don't understand English law at all, given you don't even appear to know what the difference between common law and legislated laws is while trying to insult me.
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He was a local tribal warrior and certainly did not represent 'the Tasmanian Aborginals'. I have not read the book but as per Wiki there was no peace treaty- just a symbolic acceptance of the state affairs by the final remnants of a couple of tribes in December 1831.
Worth noting that the British State certainly did not consider the events that transpired in Tasmania as a war- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarations_of_war_by_Great_Britain_and_the_United_Kingdom
Do you mean the State of Victoria's Aboriginal Act of 1869? Important to clarify that this is State legislation and not national legislation. Perhaps you forgot that Australia only became a federal state in 1901...
The State Act entitles the State to effectively ensure that Aboriginals get a fair deal in their dealings with Europeans. Ironically you name the title of the Act itself which illustrates the very purpose of this legislation- the Aboriginal Protection Act. If they did not care about Aboriginals why would they draft and enact legislation for their general betterment?!
Firstly again worth clarifying that you are referring to federal elections. Natives had the right to vote in State elections by the end of the 19th century in all states except Queensland and Western Australia.
The denial was a consequence of a particular interpretation of a section of the Constitution by Robert Garran. Historically as I said very few Aboriginals actually participated in elections. Again as I have said, as values shifted during the course of the 20th century a revised interpretation of the Constitution permitted Aboriginals to vote in federal elections on the same basis as their State rights. I have not seen any evidence of 'large scale' activism at the beginning of the 20th century- WIki notes that the movement only started in the late 1930's.
The police did not have that right with Aboriginals. They could only remove Aboriginals from their place of residences when required on behalf of the State who themselves were acting for the interest and general betterment of the Aboriginals. As I said above, sometimes the practical consequences of these Acts were tragic but the underlying intention was one of care.
Worth remembers that the police also have this right if the State believes you have committed a criminal offense.
See above/See above.
No you didn't. You just linked the article. I was the one who actually read it and directly quoted from it showing the complete contrary view to the one that you wished for it to express. Funny how actual evidence can get in the way of your ideological bent is it not.
I am not the one professing to be an expert on murder. You are the one whitewashing history in fell swoop demanding that all of the cases on that list warranted execution. Your ideological hatred of colonials, Brits and most likely just general Europeans is distorting history in almost grotesque fashion.
1. You have supplied no sources.
2. You have not actually refuted the sources I have supplied.
3. You have made several allegations about my beliefs and knowledge based on your own ideological bent, all of which are demonstrably wrong. You don't know who I am or what I believe other than the Australian Aboriginal peoples were badly mistreated in a systematic way by the Australian and colonial governments - a FACT that has been explicitly noted by multiple royal commissions and admitted by the Australian government.
4. You are deliberately misrepresenting what I have said in the above quote, along with an unsubstantiated allegation.
Please stop the above behaviors, they are not appropriate for this forum.
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Any individuals standing on British soil are protected by British law.
Any individuals standing on land controlled by the British are subject to the prevailing wind.
This is the entire crux of Mahatma Gandhi's arguments in both South Africa and India that as 'Children of the Empire' they are protected by laws which frequently overlook them and essentially relegates them to a 'lesser status' to be polite. Yes, these laws are brought to bear but only at tremendous cost and sacrifice by the oppressed.
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By the way this is one of the many things I hold against the Nazi.
Thanks to them now every cruel a**hole in the world feels entitled to say: "look I am not a cruel a**hole, I am not as bad as the nazi"
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Do you even read my posts? I love the fact you are presumptuous enough to judge what is or is not appropriate for this forum.
1. I have- multiple sources including direct quotes from relevant individuals of the time. Not my problem you choose to ignore it. I even put a link in my previous post.
2. I directly quoted from the 'source' you provided illustrating how it contradicted your very point- which you conveniently ignored. You then proceeded to qualify the very source you provided by stating it was biased.
3. I only stated that you were the one whitewashing colonial history by stating that all of those alleged cases should be deemed as murder and warranted execution. I challenged that whitewashing before you went straight into a personal insult of myself. I do not deny that certain policies adopted by colonial governments did have tragic consequences for aboriginals - I am utterly willing to accept that point. This is what contemporary Australian governments have apologised for.
What I have contested, and will continue to contest is the point that colonial and British governments intentionally sought to mistreat/subjugate/demean aboriginals. Did certain individuals do this within colonial Australia, of course. However it was never the clear policy intention of centralised governments to do so and every relevant source supports this position. All legislation passed had a benevolent intention for these peoples. I would be happy to concede this point if you showed me direct evidence of policy makers at the time who considered aboriginals as morally inferior beings.
Nothing to do with the application of British law. It is wholly associated with the harsh realties of the socio-economic relationship between a technologically advanced society and a developing society.
As far as I am aware of there was no direct legislation directly punishing the rights of ethnic Indians and South Africans vis a vis ethnic Brits.
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