Essay On British Colonialism Assignment Sample

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Introduction

This essay will primarily be based upon how the British colonialism had impacted the Aborigines of Australia and it would also speak about how the land is very significant to the Aboriginal people with regards to their religious and cultural systems as well as their idea of ‘dreaming’ prior to understanding the impact of the racist evolutionary theory upon these people not just as an entire community but also as individuals. This report would also talk about the contemporary issues that the Aboriginal people are facing and if and how the government of Australia has introduced policies in order to reconcile the Aboriginal people and all the losses that they have had to endure all through the years.

Literature Review

The plunder and the plight of the aboriginal people and all they have had to face throughout the period of the British colonialism has been spoken about by various researchers in many of their studies and a great amount of documentaries have also been made in this regard. Most of it has also been communicated orally throughout the generations while even more has been written in this regard by particularly the European settlers of those days of colonialism (Fryer-Smith, 2002). It is not possible to clearly state if the aboriginal life continues to exist or thrive in this current day and age since British colonialism has had a very bad impact upon their population. A lot of aborigines had been massacred mercilessly while their languages, rituals that they had followed, along with their culture were destroyed by the British invaders (Roberts, 2008). Statistics have shown that around 2.5 per cent of the entire population of Australia comprise of the aborigines. Although in another research which was conducted back in the year 2006 primarily upon the indigenous people of Australia, estimates showed that around 90 per cent (463,700 people) of the indigenous people of Australia are originally of aboriginal origin (Walker, Dudgeon and Purdie, 2010).

The aboriginal people were said to have inhabited Australia much before the Europeans came into the continent and. Some historians have said that they had existed in the continent for around 40,000 years while some claim that it could have been even up to 100,000 years as well (Roberts, 2008). A lot of evidence in this regard have also been found which suggest that they could have even possibly existed in the continent to up to 300,000 years before or even beyond that. The population of Aborigines in the country was relatively higher back in the 1770s than what it is now. It was during that period that the British Europeans had broken in to conquer the continent (Fryer-Smith, 2002).

‘Aborigine’ – the term itself is used to describe those people who had been in this continent way before the Europeans had arrived (Roberts, 2008). During the time of the British colonialism, there existed around 600 dialects which originated from around 270 languages which were mainly spoken by the aborigines. There were also around five hundred Australian nations (Fryer-Smith, 2002). The societies of Aborigines were divided into various different clans who lived inside semi nomadic groups of family which were very small in size. Every group was known on the basis of the languages that they had spoken and the culture that they followed and they would often come together during the ceremonial or the social events (Fryer-Smith, 2002). The idea of the ownership of the land was also very different from what was mainly practiced by the Europeans (Dudgeon et al., 2010). Nobody in particular owned the land but it everyone belonged to that land.

Back in the eighteenth century, the United Kingdom had a strong hold in most parts of the world which could be mainly credited to its superior technology and its expertise in exploring the seas as well as its military prowess. The British then, under the leadership of King George III, came into the country and settled around the year 1788 and therefore colonised the whole of Australia. The British had described the whole of Australia as being uninhabited or empty land and therefore had not come with the intent of conquering the continent but to rather extend their settlements (Gray, 1998). The fact that the British had declared the country as empty land basically meant that they denied the existence of the aborigines. These indigenous people were initially very welcoming of the British people as they were very fascinated by their facial attributes and even helped them in order to find good drinking water. Later on, when the British people live in those lands for longer than usual and tried attempted to take over their lands, the aboriginal people resisted it and were later brutally tortured and killed without any signs of mercy (Robers, 2008). Their lands were then seized and the natural resources which were available were also captured so that they could make quick money. Several colonialists who had spoken about this particular phase of history stated that this was very much in line with the Darwin’s evolutionary as the British people believed that they belonged to a race which was superior to the aborigines and this is why their lands were conquered and them being slaughtered (Roberts, 2008).

The aborigines were undoubtedly the sufferers of white racism. This has been defined as the following: “The conscious or unconscious belief in the inherent superiority of persons of European ancestry which entitles all white peoples as a position of dominance and privilege … belief in the innate inferiority of all darker peoples … which justifies their subordination and exploitation” (Gray 1998).

James Cook, in his 1770 journal had written “they may appear to some to be the most wretched people on earth” (Roberts, 2008). It was upon this attitude of racism that the society of Australia was built and this sentiment continues to exist among the people of Australia even to this date. Cook had claimed in his journal that he gave the aborigines the option of living in peace with the condition that they abided by the rules which he would set for them. Nevertheless, those people were a marginalised lot and the British never had a problem dealing with these people. This massacre was further supported by the new Australian law which was prepared by Cook himself which gave the British colonialists the full freedom to carry out their colonial practices in the country (Roberts, 2008). These people were referred to being mere subjects of the king and no rebellion or resistance was permitted of them and such acts would be considered punished as per the provisions of the Australian law (Roberts, 2008). Ever since then, things have never turned out for the better for these indigenous people as they lost their lands and this eventually led them into poverty and this could be attributed as the fallouts of white supremacy (Gray,1998).

It is a popular myth that the aboriginal people had willingly handed over their lands to the British since they had no value for it has been told repeatedly over the generations with the sole intent of covering the mistakes that the British colonialists had done during their regime in the Australian continent (Roberts, 2008). The myth was further fanned by the media as they have always described the aborigines of Australia as being merely the explorers of the country and not the original inhabitants of the country (Roberts, 2008).

The Aboriginal Protection Act which was constituted back in the year 1869 was mainly prepared with the supposed intent of providing protection to the Aborigines. However, in reality, this act was used by the government to rob them of their education, their children, their residence and also their lands (AIATSIS, 2014). This act was said to have been enacted in order to protect the aboriginal people from being subjected to all the injustices and the crimes which were being committed against them. The act was used by the government to further torture their aborigines as the children were separated from their families and were kept elsewhere so that they might forget their roots, their culture and their history (AIATSIS, 2014). This was one more of the treacherous times that the aboriginal people had to endure as it was during this time that their culture and history could not be passed on from one generation to another. The churches and the Australian governments worked together in order to ‘re-educate’ the aboriginal people, particularly their children. They were taught to always respect the white race as being the superior race and were also taught to never question the law, the state or the authority (Gray, 1998). They were also made to obey everything which was imposed upon them. This was referred to as the half-caste act as those people with mixed lineages were separated from their families and were made to settle elsewhere. The Aborigines were made to think of themselves as being an inferior race and they were also unable to voice their rights as a court as only the whites were permitted to provide evidence (Roberts, 2008).

References

Australasian Institute of Judical Administration (AJIJA). Available at: http://www.aija.org.au/Aboriginal%20Benchbook%202nd%20Ed/Chap1-8.pdf [Accessed 27/05/19].

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). 2014. ‘To remove protect: laws that change Aboriginal lives’. Available at: http://aiatsis.gov.au/archive_digitised_collections/remove/index.html [Accessed 27/05/19].

David, B. 2002. Landscapes, rock-art and the dreaming: an archaeology of preunderstanding. Leicester: Leicester University Press.

Fryer-Smith, S. 2002. Aboriginal Benchbook for Western Australian Courts. Melbourne: The

Gray, A. 1998. The great white flood: racism in Australia. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

Krieken, Robert van. 1999. ‘The “stolen generations” and cultural genocide: the forced removal of Australian Indigenous children from their families and its implications for the sociology of childhood’, Childhood 6:3, 297-311. Available at: http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~robertvk/papers/gen2.htm [Accessed 27/05/19]
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