Essay On Why There Was Conflict Between White And Black Australians In The Ninteenth Century

ESSAY ON WHY THERE WAS CONFLICT BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK AUSTRALIANS IN THE NINTEENTH CENTURY

The relationship between black and white Australians has not surprisingly been based on myth and misunderstanding ever since the first contact between the foreign English and the native Aboriginals at Port Jackson in 1788. The British believed they were confronting primitive savages, with the capacity for any acts of barbarianism, while the Aboriginals who had never seen human beings with white skin and clothes believed they were seeing the return of the spirits of long dead Aboriginals. If there has been a softening of attitude, a growing towards mutual understanding and tolerance since then history would show that it has been the Aboriginals who have made the greater sacrifices.

European ships chiefly began sailing into southern Australian waters in the 18th century. These left human cargoes behind and unlike earlier visitors had an immediate impact on the Aborigines, who suffered interference with their economy and lifestyle as the colonists, sought and secured for themselves good sources of water, sheltered positions and access to fish, all of which were also vital to Aboriginal people.

The Aborigines responded in a variety of different ways to the presence of Europeans in their country. While some were welcoming, others reacted with hostility and sometimes Aboriginal peoples living close to the site of a landing by Europeans were killed. As the colonists, whose guns gave them the advantage over the Aborigines, made it plain they intended to remain and began altering the landscape, clearing trees and building fences, resistance grew among the Aboriginal people and they suffered increasing numbers of casualties. As the settlements expanded, Aboriginal numbers declined and their ways of life in many areas were destroyed with survivors beginning to live within or on the fringes of the new European communities.

In addition, diseases such as smallpox, venereal disease, measles, and influenza, some of which were not life-threatening to Europeans, devastated Aboriginal people, who lacked immunity. The Aboriginal population may in fact originally have been several times higher than the estimated figure of 300,000 in 1788, when the first fleet of soldiers and convicts arrived to establish permanent European settlement. Animals brought by the Europeans, some feral, such as rabbits, cats, and foxes, and some domestic, such as sheep and cattle, muddied waterholes, making them unusable and unproductive, and changed faunal and vegetation patterns.

Revolutionary wars between Aborigines and Europeans resulted. These were fought along most parts of the expanding front line of white settlement. In some parts European farmers took matters into their own hands and formed vigilante groups, often responding to the killing of sheep and cattle by murdering Aboriginal women and children. In other areas the feared Native Police rode out to the fringes of settlements to kill Aboriginal people. There were, however, some areas where Aboriginal people came willingly into settlements.