Picture By W.Walton after Louisa and Godfrey Charles Mundy, Public Domain
Clash between Australian Natives & Colonists
In 1844, a report called, "ABORIGINES (AUSTRALIAN COLONIES), set by the Honourable The House of Commons, to receive "COPIES or EXTRACTS" from the Governors, Reports of the Protectors of Aborigines, and any other Correspondence to illustrate the Condition of the Aboriginal Population.
The enquiry was in response to many "wars" and conflicts between the settlers and the native population.
In many instances, where an aboriginal offender(s) was intended to be taken into custody, it would result in an aggression, followed by a pursuit and the indiscriminant discharging of guns. This resulted in the killing of many innocent persons and the failure to bring the offender to justice.
Still it is impossible that the Government should forget that the original aggression was our own; and that we have never yet performed the sacred duty of making any systematic or considerable attempt to impart to the former occupiers of New South Wales the blessings ofChristianity, or the knowledge of the arts and advantages of civilized life.
The expanding Colony, encroaching upon the Aboriginal's ability to seek nourishment, forcing conflicts between the parties.
It hence appears that the progress of colonization operates with disastrous potency on the aborigines, by exhausting the supply of native food previously to be found in the bushy and by drawing them in consequence into that contactwith the .colonial population which is their bane.
The despatching of a mounted police force to intervene added fuel to the fire.
The inquest delves into setting up a Police Force, Postal Service, who was to pay for the cost of those services, and the impact it might have upon the Missionaries in the area.
Police not wanted
The Missionaries wanted an isolated area to teach the Aborginies how to be a productive Christian to Society.
However, the presence of Police, and the "evil" European settlers, were seen to ruin this prospect.
I endeavour to state the reasons which influence the missionaries in expostulating on the formation of a police station and post-office on the mission land at Wellington Valley.
It was seen as such a risk, that the Mission would have to end with the forboding prospect that the Aborigines would become extinct.
the mission will be eventually broken up. and the aboriginal natives, left as an easy prey to wicked Europeans, must soon become extinct. The evening before the first court-day at Wellington Valley, a number of the mounted police brought in a man to be tried, and had not been more than three or four hours on the settlement before one of them was detected by the Rev. W. Watson attempting to decoy one of the aboriginal females from the camp.
The Police actions were seen to be unproductive, and the complete opposite, to what the Aborigines needed.
A Bible by any other name...
It was interesting to read, in one of Mission submissions, that they had translated parts of the Bible into the Aboriginal language.
Accordingly there have been, during the past year (including the revision of former attempts),translated into the aboriginal language, the first nine chapters of the book of Genesis, the whole of St.John's Gospel, the first nine chapters of the Acts of the Apostles,
I found it intriguing that there were attempts to translate the Bible into the native language.
So, with a quick search, parts of the Bible have been translated into many aboriginal languages.
2019, has the whole Bible completed in the Kriol language.
Here is a link to a translated version.
Half-caste Baby Murders
The last part, of this post, is regarding a comment about "half-caste" baby murders.
To what indeed but to such a system of iniquity, and it is to
be believed, frequent murders of half-caste infants is to be attributed the gradual diminution of the aborigines wherever Europeans have been located?
Infanticide is a normal process in many tribal cultures. It enables the tribe to function with a sustainable population.
There are also cultural rationale, deformities, the mother being too young to birth a "mature" baby.
This base intercourse not only retards the procreation of their own race, but it almost always tends to the destruction of the offspring brought into existence by its means,for they, generally kill the half-caste children as soon as they are born.
It would have created consternation to have a new kind of individual being born into this New World. Having a mixed race child would create new challenges to the cultural norms of both worlds.
How does this new person fit in? How does society adapts to incorporate them into normal life?
Of course, the shame can be overwhelming. Or the shunning experienced for what is foreign to everyone around you.
I lament to add that infanticide is frequent amongst them, as the native aboriginal men cannot bear to see the half-caste children, and the gins destroy them in the wild bush.
I find if necessary to seriously warn the blacks about their half-caste children, in order to endeavour to deter them from killing them, as they do not like to incur my displeasure if possible.
I have yet to see any feedback from the Aboriginal population, themselves, in any of these reports.
I'm 40 pages in this 450 pages of submissions.
I hope you found the information interesting.