"Transportation sort to remove, once and for all, the source of contamination from the otherwise decent bosom of the lower classes, and ship it "beyond the seas" to a place from which it could not easily return. There it would stay, providing slave labour for colonial development and undergoing such mutations toward respectability as whips and chains might induce. The main point was not what happened to it there, but that it would no longer be here."
Source: The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts
the Story - iv
"Transportation- forced exile, in plain english - had undeniable merits. It preserved the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, as the felon was left alive. At the same time he was removed from the realm as completely, if not as permanently, as any hanged man. Transportation got rid of the prison as well as the prisoners. It supplied Britain with a large labour force, consisting entirely of people of who, having forfeited their rights, could be sent to distant colonies of a growing Empire to work at jobs that no free settler would do. Free-born Englishman had always disliked the idea of labouring bands of convicts engaged in public works at home. A bill of 1752 introducing public chain-gang labour as punishment for criminals was rejected by the Lords partly because security was too great a problem but mainly because the sight of chain-gangs in public places was felt to be degrading. How could onlookers distinguish such a punishment fro outright slavery? In the New World there was no such problem."
Source: The Fatal Shore - Robert Hughes
60 from 250? - progress
From the estimated 250 languages spoken in Australia before invasion and colonisation there is estimated to be 35 still be be of strength, 18 strong and 17 with strength that is eroding, 110 severely and critically endangered and 105 now not spoken. I have been working on the objects to address and somewhat represent the 17. After getting back my life this year and starting again in April I have made some significant progress and I have turned the final corner with only 3 more to build.
Pictured above is 7 of those objects that are so far complete.
In this project I am making the effort to understand the impact of colonisation, about me knowing alongside the reality of counter colonisation of me being Australian and moving to England, the dark history of the conflicted place that I call home. I am constantly concerned that the topic is so like dynamite it will at some stage blow up in my face.**
** Based on research I have undertaken which is referenced here.
the Story - iii
"The trade in convict or indentured servants was attractive to British government because, unlike the prison system, it cost them little."
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
the Story - ii
Eora people asked the question,
Waube-rong orab,
Where is a better country?
The thief colony might hereafter become a great empire, whose nobles will probably, like the nobles of Rome, boast of their blood.
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
Waube-rong orab,
Where is a better country?
The thief colony might hereafter become a great empire, whose nobles will probably, like the nobles of Rome, boast of their blood.
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
the Story
"If, in the New Year of 1788, the eye of God had strayed from the main games of Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa, and idled over the huge vacancy of sea to the south-east of Africa, it would have been surprised in this empty zone to see not one, but all eleven ships being driven east on the screaming band of westerlies."
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
Source: The Commonwealth of Thieves - Tom Keneally
Terra nullius
When James Cook sailed on the east coast of Australia in 1770 he named it New South Wales.
As the interior was explored and mapped, squatters and free settlers followed eager to take up land. Where ever Europeans went Aboriginal people were pushed from their home lands.
When John Batman, one of the pioneers in the founding of Victoria, first settled at Port Phillip, he made an attempt to buy the land from the Aboriginal people through a treaty. New South Wales Governor, Sir Richard Bourke, effectively quashed the treaty with this Proclamation issued by the Colonial Office and sent to the Governor with Despatch 99 of 10 October 1835. Its publication in the Colony meant that from then, all people found occupying land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers.
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it. Aboriginal people therefore could not sell or assign the land, nor could an individual person acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown.
Although many people at the time also recognised that the Aboriginal occupants had rights in the lands (and this was confirmed in a House of Commons report on Aboriginal relations in 1837), the law followed and almost always applied the principles expressed in Bourke’s proclamation. This would not change until the Australian High Court’s decision in the Eddie Mabo Case in 1992. 1
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke, 10 October 1835 is historically significant. It implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it.
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke has research value in the study of British settlement of Australia, the legal principle of ‘terra nullius’ and dispossession. The Proclamation of Governor Bourke, 10 October 1835 contains evidence of the construction of the legal principle of ‘terra nullius’ upon which the British settlement was based.
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke has intangible significance as evidence of the changing migration patterns on Australia in the early 19th century and the demands for land. It provides a powerful symbol of the British Government’s control of social and land policy in Australia and the dispossession of the Aboriginal people.
As the interior was explored and mapped, squatters and free settlers followed eager to take up land. Where ever Europeans went Aboriginal people were pushed from their home lands.
When John Batman, one of the pioneers in the founding of Victoria, first settled at Port Phillip, he made an attempt to buy the land from the Aboriginal people through a treaty. New South Wales Governor, Sir Richard Bourke, effectively quashed the treaty with this Proclamation issued by the Colonial Office and sent to the Governor with Despatch 99 of 10 October 1835. Its publication in the Colony meant that from then, all people found occupying land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers.
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it. Aboriginal people therefore could not sell or assign the land, nor could an individual person acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown.
Although many people at the time also recognised that the Aboriginal occupants had rights in the lands (and this was confirmed in a House of Commons report on Aboriginal relations in 1837), the law followed and almost always applied the principles expressed in Bourke’s proclamation. This would not change until the Australian High Court’s decision in the Eddie Mabo Case in 1992. 1
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke, 10 October 1835 is historically significant. It implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it.
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke has research value in the study of British settlement of Australia, the legal principle of ‘terra nullius’ and dispossession. The Proclamation of Governor Bourke, 10 October 1835 contains evidence of the construction of the legal principle of ‘terra nullius’ upon which the British settlement was based.
The Proclamation of Governor Bourke has intangible significance as evidence of the changing migration patterns on Australia in the early 19th century and the demands for land. It provides a powerful symbol of the British Government’s control of social and land policy in Australia and the dispossession of the Aboriginal people.
