freediver wrote on May 31^st, 2012 at 11:01pm:


Attempted more than once. The resistance from Aborigines is what made he difference between success and failure in these attempts.


That the Muslim Macassans prepared the Aborigines for the European invasion was known by European officials. Anthropoligist, Ronald Berndt, wrote that: "Berndt and Berndt wrote that ‘it was officially contended that these traders had incited the Aborigines to repulse white settlement or invasion of their territory.’¹


It is likely that the Macassans warned the Arhem Landers very early because Matthew Flinders' expidition was attacked at Woodah Island off the Arnhem Land coast in 1803 - this was noted as unusual behaviour for the usually timid Australian Aborigines.

In 1818 a lieutenant of Philip Parker King wrote home about the Aborigines:

"We have found them extremely hostile in every part occasioned by the presence of the Malays on their coast…suffice it to say that all our communications have been by means of spears, stones and shot. "²


The Yolngu use the Indonesian word Balander to describe white men which indicates that discussions about white men predated British settlement.

Berndt recorded that the Yolngu people informed him that the Macassans had given this warning: “Go back into the bush out of the way of...(Europeans) for they might come and fight us.” ³



American anthropolgist Warner lived with the Yolngu in the 1920's. He recorded being told by an elderly Yolngu man of how Macassans had warned his people about the Europeans:

Quote:



Alfred Searcy, a customs collector in the 1880’s wrote in his diary about European interference in the in the Macasssan trade that this had was viewed as a hostile act by the Yolngu people: ‘there is little doubt that they look on the whites as enemies.’⁵   

Historian Ian Crawford wrote that the Macassans had taught the Aborigines about 'firearms, and they subsequently developed effective guerrilla warfare tactics.'⁶

In 1863, Dr James Martin noted that the Aborigines living in the coastal areas of the Kimberley, where Macassans were known to visit, had knowledge of guns, whilst the Aborigines living inland did not.⁷





freediver wrote on May 31^st, 2012 at 11:01pm:



Freeliar, Arnhem Land would be far more suitable for grazing cattle than much of the land to the south in the Northern Territory, where Aborigines have been virtually wiped out, and whites have taken over.


freediver wrote on May 31^st, 2012 at 11:01pm:


Many people believed that the area would make money. If people didn't think that it would make money, then why were so many attempts made to colonise the land?




freediver wrote on May 31^st, 2012 at 11:01pm:


Freeliar, I have been around nearly all of Australia, and I can tell you that on the mainland there is hardly any parts of non-desert/non-mountain land that is not used by whites.


Arnhem Land and the coastal Kimberley region is the best land in the corner of Australia north of Alice Springs and west of Mt. Isa. However, most of these lands are still in Aboriginal hands - and these are the areas where Macassans traded. It is ludicrous for you to say that these lands wouldn't make money when they have advantages over cattle stations further inland. The coastal areas are far more arable, and their proximity to the sea would make trade easier.

This letter written to the Queenslander newspaper in 1886 describes the dire situation of Aborigines living in the less fertile and less hospitable South and Western sides of the Gulf of Carpentaria:

Quote:






¹ R Berndt & C Berndt, Arnhem Land: its history and its people, F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1954, p.98

²  J Roe, letter to his father, no. 4 Mermaid at Coepang, Timor, 8 June 1818, Battye Library, cited in I, Crawford, We Won the Victory, p.99.

³ Berndt & Berndt, p.69

⁴ W L Warner, A Black Civilization: A study of an Australian tribe, Harper Torchwood, New York, 1964pp. 474-5.

⁵A Searcy, In Northern Seas, W.K. Thomas, Adelaide, 1905, p.10

⁶I Crawford, We Won the Victory: Aborigines and outsiders on the north-west coast of the Kimberley, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 2001, p.

⁷ J Martin, Exlorations in north-western Australia, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 35, 1865, pp. 242-3.

⁸T.S.B., ’The N!ggers Again’, The Queenslander, 12 June 1886, p.19.

freediver wrote on May 31^st, 2012 at 7:09pm:



Yes I considered this Freeliar, which is why I researched the history of European attempts to colonise the area.


In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the frontier of white settlement was encroaching on Arnhem Land.


Historian, Mulvaney, writes of Arnhem Land: ‘successive attempts were made to colonize’ the land.¹

In 1866, Captain Francis Cadell, after being commissioned by the South Australian Government to find a suitable location for a northern settlement, chose the Liverpool River on the north-central Arnhem Land coast. ²

In 1876 a gold prospecting party returned from an expedition at Blue Mud Bay in Arnhem Land without finding gold, however, the Government Resident at Darwin wrote that they had found the land in the area to be suitable for agricultural purposes.³

That Aborigines were being slaughtered in areas deemed to be suitable for farming in the Northern Territory is demonstrated in the statements of Government Resident, Charles Dashwood, in 1900 regarding the ‘administration of justice in the Northern Territory.’ He wrote that:

Quote:


The manner in which Aboriginal tribes were being done away with in the Northern Territory was mentioned in 1890 by Police-Inspector Foelsche, who wrote:

. Quote:
 





¹Mulvaney, The Prehisory of Australia,
²AMcMillan, An Intruder’s Guide to East Arnhem Land, Duffy & Snellgrove, Potts Point, 2001, pp.43-44.
³No. 74 of 1876, to the Minister of Agriculture and Education, Adelaide, Northern Territory Incoming Correspondence
⁴A G Price, The History and Problems of the Northern Territory, Australia, A. E. Acott, Adelaide, 1930, p.26.
⁵Ibid.

freediver wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 6:44pm:


Freeliar, I have told you that many attempts were made to colonise the North of Australia, these attempts failed, largely, due to the defence of the Indigenous populations.

The only places where Europeans managed to get a strong foothold in the North, was places where the Macassans did not regularly visit.

Many attempts were made to establish colonies in the north prior to Darwin. Darwin success is due to the fact it was  a place not frequented by Macassans.


freediver wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 6:44pm:


There are a number of reasons. But it is no coincidence that the only large European settlement, (Darwin),  in the north-western coast of Australia is in the only fertile area in not used by Macassans


freediver wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 6:44pm:


That comparison is not valid. In the US many native Americans were wiped out by the British & US armies, or after being defeated by the US army, transferred to reservations. British and Australian authorities did not make similar systematic efforts to wipe out Aborigines except in Tasmania. In Australia, most of the killing was done by settlers not organised militaries. Some massacres were carried out by authorities but these were localised and not systematic.

Australia's white population was also smaller than the US. By 1900 there were only about 3.7 million people on the entire continent of Australia. This compares to about 100 million living in North America.

Another difference is that the Indigenous people of North America faced a two-prong attack; White invasion, and Old World disease. The British Army actually used biological warfare against the American natives by giving them blankets infected with smallpox. This strategy would not work against the Aboriginal communities of northern Australia because they had already developed some resistance to Old World disease through centuries of foreign trade. This compare to estimates of maybe half the Indigenous population in the south of Australia dying from smallpox in 1789 at the the time of European invasion.

The Macassans developed a sense of territorial rights by negotiating Aboriginal permission to use their coasts.

When Europeans arrogantly refused to negotiate with Indigenous people affected by Macassan trade, they knew that they must defend their lands.


Indigenous people in northern coastal areas visited by Macassans were prepared to fight invaders from the earliest instances, unlike their Southern counterparts whose timidity often allowed European settlers to gain a strong foothold that made resistance more difficult. Berndt and Berndt wrote of Aboriginal resistance to invaders in Arnhem Land: ‘the history and background of this contact had shown disruption and discord since the early days of European settlement, and when the Indonesian trading was halted the whole position became accentuated.’ In Eastern Arnhem Land, in particular, Aborigines kept up hostilities with intruders, with spasmodic fighting, spearing and massacres continuing into the twentieth century:

Quote:


The readiness of Aborigines in Arnhem Land to aggressively defend themselves against foreigners with harmful intentions is demonstrated in John Lort Stokes’ account of what happened when Arhem Landers came to trade with the British exploration ship the Beagle in 1842, and determined that the intentions of the British explorers was not peaceful. Stokes had set out in a dinghy to intercept their canoe, but he had psoitioned the dinghy between the Arnhem Landers canoe and the shore, cutting off their potential escape route. This was perceived as a hostile act:

Quote:



John Lort Stokes wrote that one of the main causes of failure of European settlement in Australi's north-west coast was Aboriginal defence of the lands.
Stokes wrote of the decision to abandon the Raffles Bay settlement in 1829:

Quote:



From earliest British contact, the Aborigines in the Arnhem Land region gained a reputation of being prepared to fight for their land and wealth. Berndt and Berndt wrote of the reputation of the coastal Arnhem Landers:

Quote:


Note that Europeans deemed the Arnhem Landers as "wild", yet Macassans had been peacefully trading and making cultural exchanges with the same people for centuries.

In 1875 a member of a gold prospecting party, wrote in his journal of his group’s fear that they would be attacked by Aborigines as they sailed around the north coast of Arnhem Land:

Quote:


Northern Territory Customs collector, Alfred Searcy,  formed a similar opinion, writing in his journal:
Quote:



Explorer, Matthew Flinders, also realised that the Indigenous people of Arnhem Land were not timidly going to allow invaders like those that the British had found in the south of Australia.

In 1803, when members of Flinders’ crew began cutting down vegetation without permission at Morgan Island, in Blue Mud Bay, a canoe carrying six warriors was quickly dispatched to defend their territory, and managed to spear one of the British before being dispersed by gunshot.  Flinders was surprised at the hostility:

Quote:


What Flinders seems unable or unwilling to comprehend is the possibility that the Asiatic visitors may have sought permission from the owners before chopping down trees, thus setting the benchmark for behaviour expected from foreigners.

In 1866 John McKinlay’s exploration party was attacked by a large group of Aborigines in Western Arnhem Land.⁸  This was followed by the deaths of Mr Permain and Mr Boorodaile, who were were reportedly murdered by Aborigines whilst exploring the area near Port Essington in 1875,⁹  and in 1898 at King River a pair of buffalo shooters, T. Moore and K Mackenzie, were killed.¹⁰ In 1879 sea trepnager, E. O. Robinson returned from a trip to Darwin to his camp in Western Arnhem Land to find his partner Thomas Wingfield half buried nearby.¹¹  After several Europeans explorers and pastoralists had been attacked and in some cases killed in Arnhem Land during the 1870’ and 1880’s, a government report described the natives of northeast Arnhem Land as ‘numerous and dangerous.’¹²  In 1896, the ship Red Gantlet logged an Aboriginal attack in Castlereagh Bay in northeast Arnhem Land, and later the ship was reported missing altogether.¹³  A trepanger named Jim Campbell was also speared near the King River in 1913.¹⁴  In 1908, Dr Cecil Strangman, Protector of Aborigines for the Northern Territory, wrote that the natives of the Goyder River area in Castlereagh Bay ‘have gained an unenviable distinction for treachery and hostility to Europeans.’¹⁵  However, Strangman wrote that the Groote Eylandt natives had an even fiercer reputation: ‘I had been warned by Europeans that had previously visited this island that these natives were the worst and most hostile lot on the coast.’<sup>16 




1</sup>R Berndt & C Berndt, Arnhem Land: its history and its people, F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne, 1954.
²J L Stokes, Discoveries in Australia; with an account of the coasts and rivers explored and surveyed during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43, vol. II, T. and W. Boone, London, 1846
³Ibid
⁴Berndt & Berndt
⁵Journal of “Spence” kept on behalf of himself and Prospecting Party to Scott, Government Resident, Darwin, Northern Territory Incoming Correspondence
⁶A Searcy, In Northern Seas, W.K. Thomas, Adelaide, 1905.
⁷Flinders, M, A voyage to Terra Australis, vol. II, G.and W. Nicol, London, 1814.
⁸Berndt & Berndt
⁹Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 20 March 1875
¹⁰Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 16 December 1898
¹¹Berndt & Berndt
¹²Government Resident, Half-Yearly Report on Northern Territory to December 31st 1885
¹³Berndt & Berndt
¹⁴The Argus, 9 July 1913
¹⁵Berndt & Berndt
¹⁶Ibid

freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:



As usual Freeliar, you continue to ask the same question over and over, despite the question already being answered.


freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


I have already told you that considered this. The land is suitable for European agricultural methods. It is much more suitable than the barren land to the south of the  Roper River that has been used by Europeans.

For example, in 1876 a gold prospecting party returned from an expedition at Blue Mud Bay in Arnhem Land without finding gold, however, the Government Resident at Darwin wrote that they had found the land in the area to be suitable for agricultural purposes.¹


If it were not suitable for agriculture, then why were so many attempts made to use it by Europeans? Why did Europeans say that it was suitable?


So there we have it an area with land suitable for farming but with a hostile Indigenous population.


What happened to areas of the Gulf of Carpentaria where the Macassans had not traded? Let's look at this 1885 letter written to a newspaper regarding what was happening in the less fertile areas of the Gulf:

Quote:



freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


Freeliar, the Macassans did not trade in the Darwin area. That is why the Europeans found it easy to invade the area.

freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


Perhaps, Freeliar, you can explain to us why Hobart or Canberra have similar populations despite being capitals.

freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


I would certainly think that the colonisation of southern Australia is a lot more relevant than a comparison with the North America


freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


Freeliar the thesis is about Australia not North America. North America's inhabitable areas are much larger than Australia's. If we check population density, I can show estimates which would give Australia's non-desert regions higher pre-European popualtion density than North America.

freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


Freeliar, even if half the Indigenous population were wiped out in south-western Australia in 1789. This does not explain how the Europeans were able to extirminate the survivors over the next century and a half. Full-scale invasions of Victorian ad Queensland did not begin until at least half a century after the smallpox epidemic.

Freeliar, read account about the timidity of Aborigines in the south compared to the hostility of the Arnhem Landers as described by explorer Mathew Flinders in 1803. Flinders' report was the first comprehensive British report on the north of Australia. If you think that his reports didn't deter settlement in the region then you are dreaming.

Quote:



People who were there attributed the hostility of the Arnhem Landers to the failure of all the pre-Darwin settlements.

Quote:


Darwin was established in the only area in the Northern Territory where Macassans did not visit.




freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:

Freeliar have you ever been there? Have you travelled around Australia? I have been around Australia, and I would rate Arnhem Land as being in the top 20% of Australia's farmable land in terms of rainfall and soil quality. I challenge you to provide evidence that Arnhem Land is not suitable for agriculture.


freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


Freeliar, let's look at disease resistance. Why were the Aborigines in the north who would be equally disease resistant due to the strong trade networks largely wiped out  in areas where the Macassans did not trade? History records the massacres that took place in these areas of the north. The most destructive disease in the North was venereal disease introduced by the Europeans - which as I explained earlier, the introduction of Islamic culture helped protect the Arnhem Landers from sexually transmitted disease.




freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:

You like to reach conclusion without knowing all the facts.

freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


This is incorrect. Freeliar. Scholars say that that the southern population of Indigenous Australians were larger than in the north. Pardoe writes that the Indigenous population was distributed in a similar pattern to modern Australia with concentration along the Murray Darling river system.


¹No. 74 of 1876, to the Minister of Agriculture and Education, Adelaide, Northern Territory Incoming Correspondence
²The Queenslander, 12 June 1886, p.19
³  M Flinders, A voyage to Terra Australis, vol. II, G. & W. Nicol, London, 1814
⁴J L Stokes, Discoveries in Australia; with an account of the coasts and rivers explored and surveyed during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43, vol. II, T. and W. Boone, London, 1846

⁵Pardoe, C: "Becoming Australian: evolutionary processes and biological variation from ancient to modern times", Before Farming 2006, Article 4, 2004

freediver wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2012 at 11:45am:


Freeliar you ignore what I have already posted. Early British explorers like Mathew Flinders and John Lort Stokes had members of their crew killed. Many Europeans who tried to setlte in the area were killed by Arnhem Land Aborigines as I have previously posted:

Quote:




Freeliar, I have already suggested to you that you read Trudgeon's excellent book which describes the warfare between Europeans and the Yolngu people in East Arnhem Land.

I believe you to be both intellectually inadequate and too morally bankrupt to bother to read the book yourself to find the truth of the matter so I will post my own summary of the book:



Government settlement policies led to a low-level warfare being conducted in Arnhem Land in the half century prior to 1908, with all of Arnhem Land being gazetted for pastoral lease in the last twenty years of the twentieth century. In 1885, J. A. Macartney set up the Florida station in Yolngu territory in north-central Arnhem Land, and was soon shooting at any Aborigines he saw.  The Yolngu knew of guns from the Macassans; seeing that the pastoralists had guns they developed guerrilla warfare tactics to fight, killing station hands and cattle.  Mcartney abandoned the station in 1893, and the Yolngu were victorious. Several years passed before hostilities again began with the Eastern & African Cold Storage Supply Company arriving in 1903. [The company had taken lease of all eastern Arnhem Land, an area of about 50,000 square kilometres.¹]  The company approached from the south, recruiting a native police force, which would later be used to exterminate Yolngu clans to the north. including women and children.  At this point, several Yolngu clans decided to join together and attack the cattle stockmen.  The two opposing groups met in a forest where many were killed on both sides.    When the stockmen’s supply of bullets was depleted, they retreated southwards and never returned to northeast Arnhem Land again.  However, battles raged in the central and south eastern plains of Arnhem Land in the following years.   A large number of Yolngu men gravitated towards a camp east of the Arafura Swamp, from where an alliance was made to drive the stockmen out of Arnhem Land, and guerrilla war campaigns were planned.  In 1905, the company contacted the Government Resident requesting a police patrol of their northeast Arnhem Land leases.²


In 1905, the company contacted the Government Resident requesting a police patrol of their northeast Arnhem Land leases.³

Finally, in 1908, after persistent spearings of cattle, the Yolngu observed the stockmen packing up and herding their cattle out of Arnhem Land.⁴


The Yolngu credit the abandonment of cattle stations in East Arnhem Land to their ‘intense opposition to the intruders.⁵


However, even after the pastoralists finally retreated from Arnhem Land in 1908, the Arnhem Landers still had to protect their lands from poachers. I will provide a summary of Trudgeon's account of the aftermath of the retreat of the pastoralists, and the Australian government's ban on Macassan traders:

The Yolngu were victorious, but at great cost. Hostilities began again when the Macassans were banned from coming to Australian shores. European and Japanese trepangers and pearlers moved in, and the Yolngu faced a new problem. The newcomers did not behave like the Macassans;  they plundered the Yolngu coastal resources without paying compensation, and worse, often abducted and raped Yolngu women.  Yolngu would often spear and kill offending intruders, with this state of affairs continuing until the 1930’s.⁶ 



Berndt and Berndt write that this had given Arnhem Land Aborigines a reputation amongst Whites of being “savage and warlike.”

US anthropologist, W L Warner, visiting Arnhem Land in the late 1920’s wrote that ‘the killing of several whites and Japanese has put a heavy fear in the hearts of all intruders into these parts.’⁷

Arnhem Land had still not lost its reputation for a being a dangerous place for intruders when anthropologist Donald Thomson visited in the late 1930’s: ‘I was warned on all sides that it meant certain death to enter the area alone’<sup>8



1</sup>Cole K, A History of Numbulwar: the story of an Aboriginal community in Eastern Arnhem Land, 1952-1982, Keith Cole Publications, Bendigo, 1982, p.14.
²R, Trudgen, Why Warriors Lie Down and Die: towards an understanding of why the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land face the greatest crisis in health and education since European contact, Aboriginal Resources and Development Services, Darwin, 2000
³Berndt & Berndt
⁴McMillan, A, An Intruder’s Guide to East Arnem Land, Duffy & Snellgrove, Potts Point, 2001.
⁵M Dreyfus, & M Dhulumburrk, Submission to Aboriginal Land Commissioner regarding control of entry onto seas adjoining Aboriginal land in the Milingimbi, Crocodile Islands and Glyde River area, Northern Land Council, Northern Land Council, Darwin, 1980
⁶Trudgeon
⁷Warner, W L, A Black Civilization: A study of an Australian tribe, Harper Torchwood, New York, 1964
⁸Thomson, D, Arnhem Land: explorations among an unknown people, Geographical Journal, Vol. 112, 1948

Falah didn't you also claim to have been up North? How could you possibly spend any time at all up there without noticing this? Did you fly into Darwin, drive out to one aboriginal camp, then straight back to a basement in Adelaide or something?