European Attitudes Towards Aboriginal People

The early European explorers to Australia, such as William Dampier, who encountered the Aboriginal people for the first time described the people as the “miserablest people on Earth”. As there were no other accounts to compare his observations to, his versions were widely accepted by other European settlers, who soon visited Australia in 1788 like Captain James Cook. The lack of misunderstandings by previous European settlers has established preconceived notions and attitudes towards the Aborigines, who were consequently labeled as “primitives”. In fact, although less severe than William Dampier, Cook writes in his journals the ways the Aboriginal people of Australia are different from the Europeans during his voyage. He explains that “they
Deborah Bird Rose’s saga of Captain James Cook indicated how for Yarralin people, a tribe that came into contact with Cook, actions which were considered moral and good were usually part of their lawful behaviors. In their perspectives, moral principles are universal and indisputable, and must be applied to their codes of behaviors. The Yarralin people do concede that indeed there are many different laws both for Europeans and Aboriginals, but the Yarralin people lament the fact that the European laws of domination and destruction do not have any basis in morality. It was not that the Europeans lacked prudence; instead, they manipulated their laws and judgments that benefited them the most, especially their government. Increasing the power of England, strengthening the Parliament were their main priorities that they were willing to negate moral values in their pursuits of their ambitions. Blinded by his thirst for materialistic wealth, such as land and resources in the newly discovered land of New South Wales, Cook was “propelled by his vision of what he wanted to do with the country, that he denied all previous claims to ownership” (Rose
According to Rose, four principles underlie Yarralin’s concepts of morality: balance, symmetry, autonomy, and response. However, Captain James Cook seems to violate all four standards by killing the Aborigines in mass numbers and infringing upon their property ownerships, pursuing “inequitable confrontation of technologies” (Rose 75), not granting Aborigines equal right or autonomy, and circumventing any possible responses from the Aborigines about their ownerships of the country. Hobbes Danaiyarri, an informant of Deborah Rose, gives an account of Cook saying, “Don’t give him medicine. When they getting crook old people, you killed him first. Let him work for free. If women got a bit of a baby, don’t let him grow that baby” (Rose 66), to demonstrate the extent Cook has deviated from morality and decided to pursue the exact opposite even though he didn’t have any moral reason to harm the Aborigines who came to Australia before the Europeans. Despite the fact that England was established under a bureaucratic government system unlike the Aboriginal people of Australia, it seems like the English people are more corrupt and less sophisticated in moral values than the indigenous