freediver wrote on May 29
th, 2012 at 6:31pm:
Quote:I have been to Arnhem Land, and can tell you that is fertile land.
I hope you are not suggesting it was you who wrote that thesis, because you have failed to grasp even the most basic concepts presented to you in this thread. It is not the fertility in terms of biological diversity or biomass that is relevant here, but the productivity for european farming methods. The
european immigrants did not have much use for 'fertile' tropical swamps, which is why even today there are hardly any white people up there. The wheat belts are a great example of the land that was actually useful.
Stop exposing your ignorance Freeliar. Only about 1% of Arnhem Land's 97,000 square kilometres are swamps.
If we compare similar areas in Australia's north, the Aborigines have been removed from the land, and white farmers have taken over the land. I have travelled around the Top End and seen that there are plenty of farms in the fertile coastal regions. Even in areas that borderline desert in the Northern Territory are being used by graziers. Arnhem Land is much greener and fertile than the areas to the south where there are lots of white farmers.
Quote:Several accounts of large scale massacres of Aboriginal people and atrocities have been recorded by historians as occurring during the tenure of the company in the area (Dewar 1985). It seems likely that these pastoralists faced increasing hostility from local Aboriginal people, and this forced them to abandon
Yeah, must be tough massacring people. Lucky the Aborigines had Islam to teach them how to turn a massacre into a glorious victory merely by discarding facts. [/quote]
The fact is that the Yolngu learnt from these massacres and mounted successful guerilla warfare in Arnhem Land against pastoral invaders and Japanese fishers who trangressed against them.
The Macassan traders sold guns to the Yolngu and warned them about the White Christian invaders. Even today the Yolngu people use the Indonesian word "Balander" for white man.
The Yolngu had seen white Dutch in their travels to Indonesia. They had been told to be wary of the whites, and knew they needed to resist them, and they knew how to deal with them.
The is in contrast to Aborigines in the south of Australia who thought that white people were ghosts. There are accounts of Aborigines literally shitting themselves upon seeing white people for the first time in Tasmania.