Aboriginal Australians In The 18th Century

On 13 of May 1787, the fleet of 11 ships set sail from Portsmouth, England. Led by Captain Arthur Philip, the historic convoy, which later became known as the First Fleet, carried officers, crew, marines and their families, and convicts from Britain to a distant and little known land on the far side of the world. Around the end of the eighteenth century, English towns and cities were overflowing with people, many of whom could not find work. Stealing and other criminal activities resulted and became a way of life, taking the place of work. The British government had no choice but to issue more policemen and tougher penalties; therefore the convicts were transported, never to return to Britain. The Aboriginal Australians had lived in Australia
for thousands of years before the European settlement. Their path changed radically after the settlement of the British: they were banished from their ways of life, were forced to submit to European rule, and were encouraged to adapt into Western culture.
Governor Phillip’s instructions had been to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the native inhabitants.
Aboriginal Australians were defined to be British subjects and entitled to the protection of British law. However, the reality was the exact opposite. As the frontiers of settlement expanded more and more Aboriginal land was taken and violence often erupted. As shown in source 4, “the settlers had no idea that some places were sacred. The conflicts that resulted were often cruel and violent…’. The relationship became hostile when Aboriginal people realised that the colonisers would seriously disturb their lives by taking away land, natural food sources and the order of nomadic life, as depicted in sources 1 and 2. The clashes increased when Macquarie became governor in 1810. Governor Macquarie invited them “…relinquish their wandering, idle and predatory habits of life, and to become industrious and useful members of a community where they will find protection and encouragement’ as shown in source 3. He then decided that the best way to treat the aborigines was to civilise them. After all his failures, he then made laws to place Aboriginal people under the British control, where it was permitted to shoot aborigines if they didn’t obey
them.
The Australian gold rushes were periods of significant migration of workers, both more locally and from overseas, to areas which had discoveries of gold deposits. These changed the convict colonies into more progressive cities with the influx of free emigrant. It attracted adventures from all around the world who brought new skills and professions, contributing to a burgeoning economy. The majority were British but also included Americans, French, Italian, German, Polish and Hungarian exiles. The largest foreign contingent was the 40,000 Chinese who made their way to Australia. There were many campaigns to oust the Chinese from the goldfields. The motivation was based on racism and fear of competition for dwindling amounts of easily found gold as the Chinese were known as untiring workers who even worked on Sundays! In source 7, a cartoon which was published in ‘The Worker’ newspaper in 1897 is shown. It justifies the white settler’s worries about their jobs being taken by the migrants.
The White Australia Policy was an immigration policy perused between 1901 and the late 1960’s to exclude non-European migrants. Between 1864 and 1904 Kanakas were brought on to provide cheap labour, mainly on the Queensland cane fields. By the 1880’s the trade unions were calling for a policy to protect the white working man from the threat of Asian domination, and from the undermining of wage rates. Within the next ten years all states had legislated to ensure an exclusively white Australia. This policy was reinforced by the National Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, which from 1902-1958 aimed to exclude non-Europeans through the use of a dictation test in a prescribed language specifically chosen to ensure failure. The justification by the first prime minister, Edmund Barton as to the Immigration Restriction Bill is depicted in source 6. In source 8, Alfred Deakin declared ‘… we should be one people and remain one people without the admixture of other races’. These illustrate the European’s viewpoint as to why Australia should remain ‘white’.
There are many different interpretations of Australia’s history between 1788-1918. However, research depicts that this wasn’t necessarily the most peaceful, fair minded and tolerant society. The aborigines were not treated with kindness, but with cruelty and violence. The white settlers changed their lives very much, and attempted to enforce their laws and cultures on them. The Europeans weren’t very welcoming towards migrants from non-European countries, and did anything they could to keep Australia white.