Historical Issues
Unit 1: 18thC Britain
Cultural Aspects Historical Issues Race Relations Contemporary Issues
Unit 1: 18thC Britain Unit 2: Contact History Unit 3: Perceptions & Stereotypes Unit 4: Challenges & Injustices
Henry Fuseli, The artist moved to despair at the grandeur of antique fragments, 1778-79
DISCUSSING HISTORY THE BRITISH EMPIRE COLONISATION Indigenous Experience of Colonisation
July 30, 2006
That our view of the world is shaped through childhood experiences, and later reshaped through reading, observation, listening, and general exposure to other world views, is suggested here by the historian Manning Clark:
I happened to have had the good fortune to experience in childhood all the conflicts which were central to the human situation in Australia. My mother came from the old patrician, landed magnificoes in Australia; my father from the working class first of London, then of Sydney. So, years later when I read those words of Karl Marx, 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles', childhood memories made me say 'and that's true, too', just as years of reading and observation later were to fill in the details for that proposition about human society and raise doubts about what it leaves out.
Clark, M., 1979, A A Discovery of Australia - 1976 Boyer Lectures, p. 10, ABC Publications, 2001
In the Introduction to these transcripts (p. 7) he writes that:
These lectures are an account of how I discovered one way of writing the history of Australia. They are given on the assumption that there are many ways of looking at the past.
He acknowledges the limits of his early view of history as a struggle between the upper class and working class. His view was based on his own experience of growing up with an upper class mother and a working class father.
Here are some of the things the mature Clarke has to say about the role of the hitorian:
The historian, like all artists, imposes his own order on the chaos...
...he is trying to get a reader who is seeing through a glass darkly to see things face to face
...he sees things that really matter
...someone who can speak for his generation
...telling a story about the past
...creating scenes which make some point about life (p. 11)
Manning Clark's view of the role of the historian conflicts starkly with that of Walter Murdoch, whose text books, written in the 1950's and still used in Australian History classes in the 1970's, when I was in High School:
When people talk about 'the history of Australia' they mean the history of the white people who lived in Australia. There is a good reason why we should not stretch the term to make it include the dark-skinned wandering tribes who hurled boomerangs and ate snakes in their native land for long ages before the arrival of the first intruders from Europe. ...[The historian] is concerned with Australia only as the dwelling place of white men and women, settlers from overseas. It is his business to tell us how these white folk found the land, how they settled in it, how they explored it, and how they gradually made it the Australia we know today.
The 'good reason' for not writing the whole history of Australia, including it's original inhabitants, is not stated. Were we expected to accept this view simply because we saw it written down in a book? Their non appearance on his radar was in line with the myth that Aboriginals were a dying race. Were also expected to buy into his definition of the historian? Who is he to define the boundaries of their stories?
People's views on things can change though. Manning Clark moved from believing that European culture was the world's highest achievement, a state towards which all peoples should evolve:
My eyes had to be opened so that I might see the coming of the white man as possibly a curse for the land...My eyes had to be opened so that I might see the consequences for the Aborigines of the coming of white men.
Factors which affected my own early interpretation of the past were that my skin is white and I was educated in an English educational system, yet there were stories amongst my cousins that our great grandmother was an Aboriginal woman. My father was from an educated English family, and valued learning, the arts and women's rights. My mother came from a working class family. She believed that a woman's place was in the home, but valued education and the arts very highly. There was not much talk in my family, no sharing of stories between my parents. My childhood view of history therefore was confused, particularly the history of women's rights and Aboriginal people. I am acutely aware that there are differing perspectives on all things, and that it's important to have opinions and beliefs, and the freedom to express these.
The official teaching of Australian history has changed a great deal since Murdoch wrote his text book. Some reasons for this are:
Greater awareness of the role of Aboriginal people in 'white Australian' history, for example, as soldiers the world war two, and sporting heroes. White Australians were working side by side with the 'invisible' ones, and could not be ignored.
Colonies like Africa and India were gaining independence, and the original inhabitants of those places regaining their voices in the running of their lands.
New Zealand was providing a new model for how relations between Europeans and original inhabitants.
The influx into Australia of peoples of different colours and other countries continues to highlighted the absurdity of a 'White Australia'.
Aboriginal people in Sydney and Melbourne organised a powerful, national protest movement against the segregation and oppression of their people, expressed through such actions as the Freedom Rides, which were promoted through the press, radio and TV.
1957, Artist LIN ONUS [right] holding a banner made by his father BILL,with close friend and Archibald Portraiture Prize subject, activist GARY FOLEY
From 1689 to 1815 Britain was engaging in a series of wars against France.
What effect did this have on the British people? Protective feelings towards their culture, national pride, cultural arrogance and aggression towards outsiders threatening to overtake them with their different ways, are some of the effects imaginable.
Despite experiencing years of fear of losing their own culture to foreign powers, the British were devoid of understanding how Australian Aboriginal people might feel about losing their culture.
Does Handel's music portray English nationalistic sentiment? There's a grandeur expressed in his music - a majesty. His Water Music takes me along the Thames in grand style. But there was a deeper message in Handel's music:
...assuring the British people that they would ultimately triumph and prosper with the support of Divine Providence.
Cavanaugh, P. & Fisher, L. 2006, Historical Issues A. 37
Looking at the paintings of 18thC Britain, what feelings do they inspire? What feelings might the official art of the time have been trying to instill amongst the British people?
Constable depicts the English landscape as an idealised place - a picturesque arcadia.
Turner's ethereal skies transcend the everyday, rising above ground, uplifting the spirit.
Hogarth's etchings reveal all that Britain wanted gone - a squalid, overpopulated, filthy, dysfunctional London.
It's easy to imagine how attractive it was to the British government to off-load all the bad (the convict, the criminals)to Australia.
Henri Fuseli, Kriemhild and Gunther, 1807. A neoclassical picture by Henri Fuseli, based on Norse mythology.
July 31, 2006
Neoclassicism was a style of art that prevailed in England in the 18thCentury:
...a recurring strain of neoclassicism appears to be a natural expression of a culture at a certain moment in its career, a culture that is highly self-aware, that is also confident of its own high mainstream tradition, but at the same time feels the need to regain something that has slipped away...
Wikipedia, Neoclassicism, URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassicism [accessed on-line 31 July 2006]
It was common for public figures to be represented as Romans in 18thC British public statues, being the leaders of the Empire.
August 3, 2006
British leaders believed themselves to be on a mission from god:
The link between Christian belief and European notions of progress and development would have particular significance for Aboriginal people in Australia for it helped endorse the assumption of 'terra nullius'>, which was used to justify their dispossession.
Cavanaugh, P. & Fisher, L. 2006, Historical Issues A. 23
Britannia was the original name given by the
Romans to the province that comprised what is now England and Wales (neighboring Ireland was known as Hibernia, Scotland was Caledonia, Germany was Germania, Brittany was Armorica and France was just plain Gaul). After the Romans left, the name gradually fell into disuse, but later, in the days of the Empire, it came to represent the spirit of Britain, herself.
Since 1672, Britannia has been anthropomorphised into a woman wearing a helmet, and carrying a shield and trident. It is a symbol that blends the concepts of empire, militarism and economics.
The poem "Rule Britannia" by James Thomson (1700-48) was put to music by Thomas Augustine Arne (around 1740) and is sung as an unofficial national anthem.
When Britain first
at heaven's command,
Arose from out he azure main,
This was the charter of the land.
And guardian angels sung this strain:
'Rule Britania, Britania rule the waves,
Britons never will be slaves.'
Britain, it would seem from this song, has a god-given right to rule the seas. James Thomson's poem goes further...
...And every shore it circles thine.
The method of domination is violent, aggressive:
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall:
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke:
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
August 4, 2006
Research for Assignment 1: What was the experience of colonisation for the Indigenous Australian and American people, and what effect did colonisation have on their cultures?
Background readings/texts:
A Frontier Conversation is a film documenting a collaboration between Indigenous and white historians from Australia and North America. I'll see the film this Friday (August 11) at the Museum of Sydney. It will be interesting to see whose perspectives are portrayed in the film.
Meanwhile, I found a timeline in a book at the library of a secondary school where I was doing some relief teaching today: Library of Nations - the United States, 1984, Time Life Books, Amsterdam. Identifying similarities and differences in the historical effect the experiences of the two peoples.
The Western Hemisphere. The term was first used by the Italian historian Peter Martyr (1457-1526), whose De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe (1516) chronicled the discovery of America....A name for the Americas, especially during the time of first exploration and colonization of the Americas by Europeans.
The fact that the indigenous peoples of the 'New World' were obviously not Christian was a significant part of the perception of them as even more inferior than Britain's European enemies. In fact, many 18th century Britons regarded it as their noble duty to spread Christianity as well as civilization amongst the heathen savages.
Answers.com, 2006, Dictionary. URL:http://www.answers.com/topic/new-world [Online accessed 4 August 2006]
Indigenous Experience of Colonisation
Abstract
As a result of the different methods of colonisation imposed upon the Indigenous people of Australia and America, their experiences were, and continue to be, somewhat different. However, the experiences they have in common provide us with some insight into the colonising nations who overtook them.
This Report aims to compare and contrast the history of colonisation in America and Australia, from the point of view of their indigenous peoples.
Introduction
Motives of Colonisation in Australia and America
Methods for Colonising Australia and America
Effect of Colonisation on each Indigenous Culture and People
Conclusion & Bibliography
Introduction
Britain's motives for colonising Australia and America were primarily economic and social. They were all about her own money, power and control of social systems. Methods used for achieving colonisation were a reflection of the behaviours of the ruling class towards the working class to maintain power and control over others for their own gains. Colonials justified their behaviour towards the indigenous peoples and cultures of Australia and America through a religious doctrine in which colonisation was part of God's Plan. Britain colonised to perpetuate and expand her economic, social and religious systems.
What has not widely been discussed is the effect colonisationon has had on the indigenous peoples and cultures of the 'New World'. A report can be written about the motives, methods and effects of colonisation under such headings as Economic, Social and Religious. But the reader is looking here through a European construct. This is only one way of telling a story, and a very restricted one. Attempting to represent what the experience was for the indigenous peoples of the New World requires a different mind set; a different set of tools than those needed for constructing a neat Report. Portraying history from an Indigenous perspective requires an appreciation of the ancient rituals their life, practiced daily for the survival and perpetuation of Indigenous individuals and cultures. Knowledge of Kinship, Recipocricy, and Country are passed on on through the traditional tools of story telling, music, dance and image making.
This Report outlines why and how England colonised Australia and America. How colonisation effected the cultures and individuals of Indigenous peoples will be outlined also, but without the depth of understanding required to provide a sense of what they may have experienced. I respect that this is the territory of Indigenous story tellers, musicians and artists.
Motives for Colonising Australia and America
Economic motives
Between 1689 and 1815 the stability of Britain's economy had been under threat by intermittent wars with France, who had supplied much of the raw materials for her home industries, and supplied many exotic goods. Trade was the mainstay of England's economy. 'One in five families' (Cavanaugh and Fisher, 1999, p.25) were involved in trade for their livelihood. She needed to ensure a stable economy with a secure future so that its ruling classes, as depicted in the novels of Jane Austen, could continue to live in the manner to which they had become accustomed. Hooked on exotic imports from Europe, and the Far East, the rich could only afford these if their home industries continued to flourish. Primary goods, or raw materials, were being imported and turned into secondary goods for export. Wool for example was impoted from France, made into cloth and garments in Britain, then sold for profit to other countries, including back to France. Huge companies controlling both British manufacturing and trade were very influential in government, and would provide solutions to her uncertain economic dependence upon France: colonisation.
For the balance of trade to continue in her favour, Britain needed to establish new and stable sources of raw materials, and new markets with which to trade. Finding new lands rich in natural resources was the motive of explorers sent by the British to expand her Empire. Ownership and control of these new lands, their productivity and cheap labour forces, was Britain's ultimate vision. The New World would be expected to buy British manufactured products to build their new worlds in her own Empirial image. Such a vain and greedy vision was justified through an interesting mix of social science and religion.
Social motives
Poverty, overpopulation, crime and overcrowded jails were other factors motivating Britain to colonise. Charles Dickens portrayed the appalling working conditions in Britain's factories, necessary for the rich employers to maintain for the highest profit. Cities were becoming overpopulated and filthy. During the 18th century Britain's population increased from 5.5 million to 9 million (Cavanaugh and Fisher, 1999, p.28). Crime was for some their only means of surviving. The rich were getting richer, the poor poorer. Prisons were overflowing and whole ships docked in ports had been turned into prisons. England wanted to take them 'out of sight and out of mind.'
Religious motives
A certain religious fervor motivated the British also, energising the push for expansion in God's name. James Thomson's poem, Rule Britania triumphanly claims commercial success for Britain as some kind of right, and perhaps some kind of war cry for the ears of the French, who they feared :
O thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
That every country ('shore') that Britain 'circles' should be claimed as hers ('thine') was, in Britain's view, her country's God given right. Britain's self justification for pure self interest and economic gain was framed up by the English philosopher John Locke in terms of Godliness itself. Certainly those early explorers much have believed they were on a mission from God:
As much Land as a man Tills, plants, Improves, Cultivates and can use the Product of, so much is his Property...God, when he gave the World in common to all Mankind, commanded Man also to labour...[and] He that in Obedience to this Command of God, subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his Property, which another had no Title to, nor could without injury take from him.
Locke, J., 1690
Methods of Colonisation in Australia and America
Economic methods
British rulers commanded that the Colonies provide them with useful products. This was to be achieved at the expence of any existing indigenous economy, as well as that of the colonials. In Australia and America land was taken from indigenous peoples or 'traded' for trinkets. Slaves and convicts were transported to work in poor conditions far away from their home countries. Indentured labour was effectively slave labour under a new name, through its combination of false promises, isolation, low wages, debt and colonial regulations (Cavanaugh and Fisher, 1999, p.26).
Social methods
Spread of disease was an inevitable consequence when the English, who had built up immunities to their own common diseases such as smallpox, landed on New World shores. The Indigenous peoples were vulnerable, and died in their thousands. Blankets distributed to them in the guise of generosity, were sometimes deliberately disease infested, to hurry the process of white domination. 'Germ warfare' by colonists against American Indians has been well documented:
Despite his fame, Jeffrey Amherst's name became tarnished by stories of smallpox-infected blankets used as germ warfare against American Indians. These stories are reported, for example, in Carl Waldman's Atlas of the North American Indian [NY: Facts on File, 1985]. Waldman writes, in reference to a siege of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) by Chief Pontiac's forces during the summer of 1763: ... Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort -- an early example of biological warfare -- which started an epidemic among them. Amherst himself had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer. [p. 108] Some people have doubted these stories; other people, believing the stories, nevertheless assert that the infected blankets were not intentionally distributed to the Indians, or that Lord Jeff himself is not to blame for the germ warfare tactic.
Peter d'Errico, 2006
Religious/Scientific methods
Colonists were directed by their British lords to perpectuate their own social species in the New World. Evoking the authority of a new social science, they were to go forth and multiply its superior race. Through the work of such people as Engles, Galton, Spencer, Roosevelt and Hitler, who in various ways perverted Darwin's theory of evolution to suit their particular needs, new forms of Social Darwinism were used to justify religiously motivated prejudices in the name of science:
Inevitably it (Darwinism) provided a kind of crucible into which the fears and hatreds of the age could be dipped and come out coated with an aura of scientific authority.
Burrow, John, 1968, p. 45.
Missionaries were established in America and Australia to convert the surviving indigenous peoples to European ways of life. For Indigenous peoples to survive in England's New World, they had to conform, to be reshaped to fit the English mould. But they ust know their lowly place. Deliberately undereducated, they could be servants, farm hands, or fight in a world war for Britain (ww 11).
Wars waged upon the indigenous peoples of both Australia and America were justified by the British on all grounds: economics, social stability, religious and scientific beliefs. At worst they were regarded as low life forms, and at best as poor wretches in need of salvation from their primitive ways by superior beings. Such views justified the violence, rape, theft, individual killings and massacres of nations. Fear, hatred, greed, and a militant enthusiasm to create an Ideal world (vanity), destroyed whole cultures and their people.
Effects of Colonisation on the Indigenous Cultures and Peoples of Australia and America
Economics, Social Conditions and Religion are appropriate categories for discussing a European account of the colonisation process. The categories themselves, however, reflect the values of that world, thinking as it does in neat, separate boxes. The traditional American and Australian Aboriginal peoples do not view through the same lenses however. For both, the world is an integration of material, social and spiritual dimensions: a continuity of experience of these perpetuated through everyday ritualistic practices. Ritual serves the purpose of survival itself. Without the knowledge of it, perpetuated through the arts of story, song, dance and image, all will be lost, and the web of connections will be broken.
Conclusion
The motives the British had for colonising Australia and America, based on the own value of themselves as superior beings, destroyed almost everything of those countries Indigenous cultures. The introduction of disease, violence, and loss of land in both places killed most of their peoples. The web of connections through time and place and peoples, so vital to their survial, was violently broken. A mending is now in progress in both countries, through education and the arts, to strengthen what links remain and to restablish those severed.
Bibliography:
Burrow, John, Introduction, Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species, Penguin (1968)
Cavanaugh and Fisher, Historical Studies A (1999)
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1690)
James Thomson, Rule BritaniaRule Britania
Peter d'Errico, Native Web, URL:http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html [Online accessed August 5 2006]
Sheridan, A. & Tranter, J. Aspects of Cultural Studies A, Learner's Guide (2006)
