Cultural reflections - Cowboy battles Indian for America. Convict escapes and lives with Aborigines
The Americanization of Australian Aboriginal History
" During the intervals of duty, our greatest source of entertainment now lay in cultivating the acquaintance of our new friends, the natives." Military officer Watkin Tench - Complete Account of Settlement around 1800
When assessed using criteria such as infant morality, representation in the justice system and life expectancy, Aboriginal Australians fair very poorly when compared to non-Aboriginal Australians. When asked to explain the differences in social outcomes, most non-Aboriginal Australians will state that the social problems are a cultural legacy of war and racism. They state such viewpoints with confidence that they will be applauded for holding them. In other words, they are confident that most Australians have positive intentions towards Aborigines and will look favourably towards anyone else who speaks in favour of Aborigines.
Ironically, the fact that there is a great deal of status in admitting to injustice against Aborigines is a sign that good will also existed in the past. One generation doesn’t wake up more enlightened that the previous generation. To the contrary, values of the present are often anchored in the values of the past.
Good will towards Aborigines, if not good outcomes, can definitely be seen throughout Australian history. One notable example was the 1967 referendum on federal powers in relation to Aborigines. 90 per cent of Australians voted yes for a referendum that was sold as a way to right the wrongs of the past. Even though social disadvantage became worse in the 40 years following the referendum, that didn't change the fact that the positive intent was there. The same positive intent was seen in the creation of Aboriginal protection boards in the 1850s. Even though social problems came to define those Aborigines who were given white protectors, these problems were not the intended outcome.
More examples of positive intent towards Aborigines could be seen in other cultural expressions, which did not show the signs of war or malice that were evident in the cultural expressions of other colonial countries. Firstly, Australians never developed stockmen and Aborigines children games, or movie genres, the way that Americans developed Cowboy and Indian genres. Secondly, white Australians never celebrated a victory over blacks the way white South Africans did with the Battle of Blood River. Thirdly, there was never a war treaty signed between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians, as was the case in New Zealand between the Maori and the British. Finally, Australians never told heroic stories of colonists being outnumbered in battle, yet still slaughtering the natives like flies, like Spanish told during the colonisation of South America.
Instead of developing culture showing the fingerprints of war, Australia developed a culture showing the fingerprints of friendship. For example, songs such as Waltzing Matilda built their patriotic credentials by incorporating Aboriginal words like billabong, jumbuck, coolabah and evoking the spirit of a non-Aboriginal man on an Aboriginal style walkabout. Likewise, most of rural Australia was given Aboriginal names like Wagga Wagga, Ulladulah, Joondalup, and Kunringai, which indicated that when naming the landscape, many colonists wanted to respect Aborigines more than respect English dignitaries. In addition, the coat of arms of many Australian cities were designed with symbols to represent Europeans as well as Aborigines. Finally, iconic artists such as Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Margaret Preston infused Aboriginal elements into their exploration of the Australian identity.
Admittedly, Aborigines were denied the federal vote in 1900; however, the colonies of NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia gave them state voting rights in the 1850s and they have retained those voting rights ever since. Aborigines gained the federal vote in 1962 and voted in the 1967 referendum on federal powers in relation to Aborigines. In regards to citizenship, Aborigines gained British citizenship in 1772. When Australian citizenship was created in 1948, Aborigines attained it at the same time as every other Australian.
It was not until the 1980s that Australian Aboriginal history started to be Americanised, and examples of conflict started to appear in history and culture. Historians such as Henry Reynolds began writing of American style frontier wars in which colonists massacred the natives. When exposing the untold war, Reynolds said things like:
"We all played cowboys and Indians and we all knew names of chiefs and tribes and yet we knew very little about what had happened in Australia, because we -- never in the 20th century were we comfortable with the idea that war was going on" (3)
Other historians followed Reynold's lead, and even produced citations to prove that the wars that Australians never knew existed had been documented by previous generations. Although the average "we" Australian could see for themselves that there was no fingerprints of war in their culture, few were in the position to check the citations. As a consequence, the war tradition crept into public consciousness and was accepted without question.
The white's desire to believe that war existed was a further example of the goodwill that existed towards Aborigines. Australian politicians, Australian artists, Australian journalists and the general population believed the genocide stories, and proliferated them, because they believed they were helping Aborigines by doing so. In other words, the broad willingness to admit to malice in the past was sign that little malice had been past down the generations. In other cultures around the world, when there has been genuine conflict, the conflict has survived for centuries, with neither side ever willing to concede their ancestors may have done something wrong.
Perhaps the best evidence of the social status associated with admitting injustices against Aborigines can be seen in the speeches of politicians who have used the issue to their advantage. For example, in 1993, then Prime Minister Paul Keating gave a speech in Redfern in which he accepted responsibility for excluding and murdering Aborigines, and removing children from their mothers. The speech helped Keating transform his image from a cold economic rationalist to a man with a social conscience. In 2007, listeners of the ABC voted Keating's speech the most memorable by an Australian. In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the stolen generations. Polls showed that 70 per cent of Australians supported the apology and Rudd has since gone on to record some of the highest approval ratings for any Prime Ministers. (Ironically, in the year following the apology, the rate of removal of children was higher than any other time in Australian history.)
While there is no doubting the positive intent in admitting to historical wrongs, if history is the cause of social problems in the present, then historical accuracy is essential to identify exactly what happened to cause to the problems. Many social commentators have argued that social problems in Aboriginal communities stem from government paternalism. In other words, good will that has not led to a good outcome. Historical fabrications merely cloud the understanding of why that good will has failed.
In addition to modern history writing being characterised by fabrication that clouds the real problems, it has also been characterised by violations of the golden rule that is found in Buddhist, Confucian, Christian and ancient Greek philosophy. The Golden rule proposes that one should treat others how one wants to be treated oneself. In regards to white treatement of Aborigines, few modern day white Australians want to see themselves as victims. As a consequence, most would feel uncomfortable with foreigners highlighting their Convict heritage in order to give them a victim label. Furthermore, they would be uncomfortable with boganism being used to define Australians, and would be even more uncomfortable if the international community used drug users, criminals, or battered women to define "disadvantaged" Australians as a whole. Yet despite being uncomfortable with personally being defined as victims of history and socially disadvantaged or lacking culture, they are not uncomfortable with portraying Aborigines as victims and disadvantaged. In a nutshell, despite not wanting a victim history for themselves, they want to promote a victim history for Aborigines. Furthermore, despite wanting to experience cultural change in their own world, they want to deny cultural change in the Aboriginal worlds.
It is this inequality between the identities they create for themselves and those they create for Aborigines which perhaps best explains why an equality of outcome has proved so elusive for Australian governments. As long as identity inequalities exist, then comparisons of outcomes become pointless.
Myth 1 - Aborigines were pushed off their land and into the desert
A common myth is that as the colonists invaded, they pushed Aborigines into the desert where they remained until today. For example, the Lonely Planet Guide to Australia says,
“Aborigines were ruthlessly pushed off their tribal lands as new settlers took up land for farming or mining.” (1)
A migration organisation, the ASA group, echoes Lonely Planet Guide's views on their own website, which proposes:
“On the mainland, where the graziers sought lands for their sheep runs, the Aboriginal communities were forced to retreat into the drier interior.” (2)
In truth, most Aborigines were not pushed off their land because the colonists had no desire for most of it. Over 90% of Australia is dry, flat and arid. Almost three-quarters of the land cannot support agriculture in any form. In these areas, it was only possible to live off the land as a hunter gatherer. The land’s lack of suitability for agriculture is the chief reason why Australia has almost no significant inland cities and why Australia never developed American-style pioneering stories of colonists heading west and founding new towns.
In regards to the land that could support agriculture, the prime land for grazing was not prime land for hunter gathering. For Aborigines, grasslands had little diversity of food, were relatively difficult to set alight in a way that could herd kangaroos towards spears and had few materials to make campsites. Furthermore, unlike America, the grasslands didn’t have large animals herding in the thousands. Australia’s largest grazing herbivore, the kangaroo, tends to congregate on fields near woodland and then scatters in different directions when scared. After colonisation, these kangaroos increased in numbers because the farmers' dams gave them permanent water supplies that helped them survive drought. Even though the farmers wanted to kill them as pests, kangaroos proved to be wiley creatures that were able to jump fences at night, and jump back into woodland by day.
Further evidence of the compatibility between farming and hunter gathering comes with the ability of feral livestock to survive on Aboriginal land. In 1788, 4 cows and 2 bulls wandered off into the Australian bush and were lost. Seven years later they were found to have grown into a herd of 40 and living happily on a large open plain south of Sydney. Aborigines must have seen the unprotected cows wandering along the grasslands but they never killed them. Perhaps this is because it would have been too inconvenient. The slaughtered cow would have needed to be cut up on the grasslands and then carried to a fire site a significant distance away. It would have been much easier to hunt and gather food around the campsites, or target kangaroos that could easily be slung over the shoulders. The story of the lost cows was repeated many times as colonists pushed into new regions. As a result, feral goats, sheep and cows can be found all over Australia and are common on Aboriginal land where farming communities never developed.
In regards to Aborigines being pushed off land due to mining, contrary to Lonely Planet Guide book stereotypes, most of Australia isn’t a mine site. Less than 0.2 percent of the Australian land mass is mined. So little of the Australian land mass is mined, or has been mined, that most Australians have never even seen a mine. In the colonial era, mining was even less advanced.
Even the areas that were mined didn't always result in Aborigines being pushed off the land. Panning for alluvial gold was in no way incompatible with Aborigines using the region, or neighboring regions, for food gathering. Not only did they continue to use the land for food gathering, Aborigines were attracted to mine sites in the colonial era just as they are attracted today. Mine sites offered things they desired.
Although historians have been able to manufacture evidence of Aborigines being violently pushed off their land in guide books, there isn’t the evidence in wider culture. Firstly, 70 per cent of Australians who claim Aboriginal ancestry live in cities. This would suggest that their ancestors were not driven off the land when the colonists came in. Either they stayed as the cities were built around them, or they gravitated to the cities from regional areas. Secondly, most of rural Australia uses Aboriginal place names such as Bombala, Wagga Wagga, and Joondalup. Just as it would have been hard to imagine the Nazi’s killing Jewish people and then using Hebrew names for the achievements of the Third Reich, it would be hard to imagine colonists killing Aborigines and then naming most of the country in their honour. Thirdly, the desert regions of Australia were not empty. The Aborigines in the desert today are the descendants of those who were in the desert in 1788.
Due to Australia's environment, most conflict between colonists and Aborigines stemmed from cultural differences and crime, rather than competition for scarce resources.
Kangaroo and buffalo - One species herds in the thousands on the plains. One species likes to congregate in small groups near woodland and flees in different directions when scared. One increased in numbers after colonisation. One was decimated.
Myth 2 – There were frontier wars
There is no doubt that there was conflict amongst individual members of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal society, but until recently, no one had believed that there had been conflict between groups necessary to categorise a conflict as a war. Henry Reynolds, a research professor at the University of Tasmania, is the chief historian responsible for proliferating incorrect myths of a frontier war. In 1999 Reynolds said,
"We all played cowboys and Indians and we all knew names of chiefs and tribes and yet we knew very little about what had happened in Australia, because we -- never in the 20th century were we comfortable with the idea that war was going on" (3)
Even if what Reynolds said were true, he didn't explain why Americans, Argentinians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and South Africans had been comfortable with the idea of war between colonists and natives, but "we" Australians were not. Reynolds didn’t explain why other colonial countries were so proud of their victories over the natives that they created national holidays and movie genres to commemorate them, while “we” Australians were so ashamed that “we” had to pretend to be friends.
Ironically, Reynolds seemed unable to grasp the significance of Australians playing cowboy and Indians instead of stockmen and Aborigines. Nor did he grasp the significance of Australians failing to create holidays that celebrated the massacres of blacks as whites did in South Africa. Nor did he grasp the significance of Australians singing nationalistic songs like Waltzing Matilda that used aboriginal words like jumbuck, coolabah and billabong to build its patriotic credentials. Finally, Reynolds never grasped the significance of Australian colonial paintings depicting Aborigines in a positive light. It seemed as though the only evidence of war was in Reynold’s writings. The wider culture showed none. As Reynolds should have known, history is not only recorded in the pages of a book and therefore can't just be fabricated by writing fiction as if it were history.
As strange as it may seem today, 19th century Australia was a land that European powers had decided was garbage and wasn't worth fighting over. Prior to its discovery by the British, Australia had been discovered by Indonesians, Chinese, the Dutch, the Spanish, and Portoguese, but they looked at the parched land populated by nomads and decided it had nothing of value. France discovered parts of Australia at a similar time to the British but also kept sailing. The British only stopped because they wanted a dumping ground for their Convicts.
Because Australia became a Convict dumping ground, the divisions of colonial society were not between colonists and natives, they were between free settlers and ex-Convicts. Aborigines were potential allies for both sides. As Reynolds should have noted, Aboriginal culture played a role in patriotic culture of the 19th century. Not only did the culture indicate that Aborigines had the respect of some colonists, it also called into question the objectivity of some of the colonial accounts that depicted colonists killing Aborigines. Because each side of colonial society was trying to be the Aborigines' friend, they naturally accused the other of injustices against Aborigines.
Convict William Buckley escaped from the Sorrento penal settlement in 1803. The settlement was then disbanded and with nothing heard of Buckley, it was presumed that he had died. 33 year later, a farmer came upon a strange white man speaking an aboriginal language. He had a extremely long beard and wore possum skins. Once the man learnt to speak English again, he informed the authorities that he was William Buckley and had spent 33 years living with the Aborigines. His story amazed the colonial population. He was pardoned and became a respected civil servant. Buckley’s story had some parallels with the American movie Dances with Wolves, except Buckely was celebrated, rather than ostracised, for his relationship with Aborigines.
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Myth 3 – Colonists used guns to massacre Aborigines
Although there were guns in colonial Australia, unlike America, Australia was never flooded with them. For 80 years, Australian colonies received Convicts. Had Convicts been given guns, they could have used those guns to shoot the guards. Likewise, if free settlers, or Emancipists had been given guns, they could have used those guns to initiate an American style revolution.
Because most of the population lacked guns, most colonists wanting to fight Aborigines had to use hand-held weapons. Some Convicts did in fact try to do this, but an account by Watkin Tench illustrates that they faired poorly against people who had been engaging in hand-to-hand combat for 60,000 years:
"March, 1789. Sixteen convicts left their work at the brick-kilns without leave, and marched to Botany Bay, with a design to attack the natives, and to plunder them of their fishing-tackle and spears: they had armed themselves with their working tools and large clubs. When they arrived near the bay, a body of Indians, who had probably seen them set out, and had penetrated their intention from experience, suddenly fell upon them. Our heroes were immediately routed, and separately endeavoured to effect their escape by any means which were left. In their flight one was killed, and seven were wounded, for the most part very severely: those who had the good fortune to outstrip their comrades and arrive in camp, first gave the alarm; and a detachment of marines, under an officer, was ordered to march to their relief. The officer arrived too late to repel the Indians; but he brought in the body of the man that was killed, and put an end to the pursuit. The governor was justly incensed at what had happened, and instituted the most rigorous scrutiny into the cause which had produced it. At first the convicts were unanimous in affirming, that they were quietly picking sweet-tea (2), when they were without provocation assaulted by the natives, with whom they had no wish to quarrel. Some of them, however, more irresolute than the rest, at last disclosed the purpose for which the expedition had been undertaken; and the whole were ordered to be severely flogged: Arabanoo was present at the infliction of the punishment; and was made to comprehend the cause and the necessity of it; but he displayed on the occasion symptoms of disgust and terror only." (4)
Even after Convict transportation had largely ended, the Australian colonies still lacked guns. This was seen in the Eureka rebellion of 1854. Many of the miners fought British soldiers using pikes because they couldn’t get their hands on firearms.
Titled ""Messrs. Fitzmaurice and Keys dancing for their lives", two colonists are symbolically shown to be at the mercy of an Aboriginal tribe.
Myth 4 – Competition for food forced colonists and Aborigines into conflict
Many historians have argued that frontier wars stemmed from competition for scarce resources. For example, Benjamin Madley from Yale University argued:
“Conflict between indigenous people and settlers often revolves around two
interlocking economic issues: access to natural resources and control of territory.
Both groups need natural resources and land to achieve their definition of
economic success. The
loss of their food supply and land threatened both Aboriginal society and their
physical survival.” (5)
The explanation is based on stereotypes of conflict in other colonial countries. Because American slaughtered bufalloe in the thousands and deprived the Indians of food in the process, Madely just presumed the same thing must have happened in Australia. In reality, colonists and Aborigines ate different things so there was little competition for food. Among other things, the Aborigines ate kangaroos, ants, roots, moths, grubs and lizards. The early colonists were starving and would have eaten the Aboriginal food if they knew how to find it and were prepared to live a hunter gatherer lifestyle. Because most were not prepared, or able, to live a nomadic life, they farmed imported crops and animals such as cows, chickens, sheeps, and pigs.
Even the left-wing High Court recognised the compatibility of farming with hunter gathering. In the 1996 Wik v Queensland judgement, it ruled that pastoral leases and native title could go exist. Because native title could only exist with unbroken associations with the land since 1788, the High Court ruled that many of Australia’s huge farms had had Aborigines using the same land for hunting and gathering since 1788.
Aside from influencing their respective diets, environmental difficulties also prevented colonists from finding safety in numbers. Australia's poor soils and frequent droughts made the land unsuited to high-density farming communities. As a consequence, most colonial farmers lived an isolated existence with only sporadic contact with nomadic Aborigines for human company. It would have been unwise for these farmers to pick a fight with Aborigines when they didn't have strong communities to back them up. Furthermore, Aborigines offered the isolated farmers their best hope for farm hands, sexual partners or just human company.
As well as not being conducive to high-density farming communities, the Australian environment also contained a host of native animals that increased as a result of farming. The kangaroo was one such animal. The farmer's dams gave kangaroos permanent water supplies that helped them survive drought. Even though farmers wanted to kill the kangaroos as pests, or build fences to keep them out, the kangaroos simply jumped the fences, drank the water, ate the grass, and then hopped back into the bush where they remained a valuable food source for Aborigines. Consequently, the colonists and natives never had to fight over food as they did in other colonial countries. Conflict still occured over food, sugar, flour or clothing, but it was not necessary.
Drysdale The Ruins: An Aborigine stands over the failed attempts of colonists to expand inland. No war was needed because the colonists were wiped out by the environment.
Myth 5 - In Tasmania, the Aborigines were exterminated due to a “black line” of genocide
Owing to greater levels of environmental fertility, the island state of Tasmania probably saw more conflict than in other regions of Australia. Because of the fertility, the colonisation of Tasmania resulted in quite a large number of small villages that were relatively close to each other. With the support of higher density communities, colonists were more able to assert their will. In addition, the Tasmanian Aborigines didn't use fire in hunting, which reduced their ability to catch kangaroos. In turn, this made them more likely to spear sheep, and cows on farms.
Even though Tasmania probably saw more conflict than the mainland, the extent, the motivations and the outcome have all been distorted. A great example of the distortion is the "black line" of 1830. A myth has developed that the black line was responsible for the eradication of Aborigines from the state. The black line was an “Aboriginal hunt’ that cost £30,000, involved 5,000 men, and lasted for seven weeks. White historians have seized upon the figures to portray Tasmania's colonisation as a holocaust of European savagery. One of these white historians is Jennifer Isaacs, a self-defined expert on Aboriginal culture who has set herself up as a consultant to government. In an emotional account, Ms Isaacs wrote in 1987:
"In Tasmania the white invasion and occupation was complete and the whole Aboriginal population was systematically annihilated. A few children survived to be secretly reared as stockmen on the mainland, but the survivors of the ‘Black Line’ led an isolated and heart-rending existence in forced exile in a small white supervised community on Flinders Island where they died one by one. Today a small stone church marks the spot on a cliff where the last of the Tasmanians sat in their Victorian costumes looking over the sea towards Tasmania." (6)
In reality, the black line was a complete failure and did not result n the "systematic annihilation" of Aborigines, as Isaacs declared. Despite the cost, the time, and the manpower invested in it, the line only netted one man and one boy. In that regard, it was a bit like America spending billions of dollars on the invasion of Afghanistan, yet failing to eliminate Al Qaeda or catch Osama Bin Laden. In the context of war propaganda, America's failure was demoralising for themselves, but inspiring for their enemies. Likewise, the ability of the two tribes to outwit their adversary was potentially far more inspiring history than that of a weak race passively going into oblivion. The fact that Isaacs choose to portray Aborigines as victims of the black line instead of victors over it, revealed a great deal about her ideology and moral character. Perhaps it also indicated her desire to tell a story in an emotional way for commercial reasons, instead of an honest way for educational reasons.
In addition to omitting the fact that the line failed, the historians have omitted the true purpose. It was not designed to exterminate Aborigines, rather, it was designed to relocate two of the nine tribes on the island to uninhabited country from where they would no longer be in conflict with the whites, or be "corrupted" by whites. According to governor Arthur (the man who devised the line), if Aborigines were not relocated, they would become extinct. In his own words:
"It was evident that nothing
but capturing and forcibly detaining these unfortunate savages ... could
now arrest a long term of rapine and bloodshed, already commenced, a
great decline in the prosperity of the colony, and the extirpation of
the Aboriginal race itself."
Because it was a policy of relocation, rather than eradication, it had more in common with the partition of Palestine that led to the creation of Israel than it did with the Nazis' final solution for the Jews. Maybe the people in the UN who divided Palestine were selfish and facilitated the cultural loss of the Palestinians by depriving them of access to sacred sights, but that didn't change the fact that they believed they were doing the right thing.
Today, around 16,000 Tasmanians define themselves as Aborigines, which is significantly more than the estimated 5,000 that existed at the time of colonisation. Admittedly, none of the present-day Aborigines are full-bloods and none live a lifestyle that even remotely resembles the Aborigines at the time of colonisation. In that regard, the Tasmanian Aborigines are extinct, as Isaacs declared in 1987.
European diseases and interbreeding explain the reasons for the Aborigines' extinction. Because the Aborigines had been cut off from the mainland for 10,000 years, they had become inbred with little genetic diversity. This lack of diversity was disastrous when exposed to new diseases. Tribes also suffered breakdowns due to women being traded to white men in exchange for sugar, flour and axes, or choosing to live with white men. In a very short period of time, the loss of members to disease and loss of women to whites resulted in the tribes losing the ability to reproduce themselves in both the cultural and physical sense.
In 1833, George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary, persuaded around 300 Aborigines to move to Flinders Island, with the promise of food, housing, and clothing. Over the following 14 years, 250 died of the flu or other diseases. The last one, Truganini, died in 1876.
Even though Robinson's policy led to the rapid extinction of the full bloods, he had intended to ensure their survival. However, the only way that the Aborigines could have survived was if they bred with whites to increase their children's resistance to disease. Unfortunately, in the interests of protecting Aborigines from immoral whites, Robinson tried to stop genetic mixing from occuring. Just like many whites who have tried to help Aborigines for the past 40 years, Robinson was well-intentioned, but naive.
As well as being naïve, Robinson has been accused of being dishonest. In order to build support for relocating Aborigines to Flinders Island, it has been argued that Robinson deliberately proliferated stories of whites committing immoral acts on blacks. Ironically, a man who aimed to protect Tasmanian Aborigines, and raised awareness of the injustice they were suffering, ended up being responsible for their extinction as a culture.
Tasmanian Aborigines - The Tasmanian Aborigines looked like Africans. The African appearance is an interesting fact that provides food for thought on the history of human migration as well as the unique characteristics of the Tasmanian Aboriginal tribes. Unfortunately, most Australians today are not aware of this uniqueness because contemporary historians have focussed more on alleged crimes against the Tasmanians rather than studied the type of people they actually were. Victimising a people is a very easy way to avoid learning anything about them.
Myth 6 – The Australian government forcibly removed Aboriginal children in order to destroy the black race
Colonists and Aboriginal tribes were quite active in procreating with each other. Sexual liaisons soon produced thousands upon thousands of mixed raced children. From 1900 to 1970, many of these mixed raced children ended up in orphanages and catholic missions. In 1981, they were called the “stolen generations” by Professor Peter Reid; a white historian from the University of Sydney. Reid argued that 100,000 “Aboriginal” children had been stolen from their culture.
Reid’s campaign was later picked up by Robert Manne, a white associate professor of politics at La Trobe University. Manne argued that white society was intent on the destruction of the Aboriginal race and the removal of the children was a calculated method to facilitate that destruction. Manne received a $62,200 grant for his research and concluded that white society was concerned that if the children were left in the communities, they could breed with full bloods, and so help the Aboriginal race survive. However, if the half-castes could be paired off with whites, Aboriginal blood would eventually become extinct and the genocide of Aborigines would be complete.
Manne's logic was a little strange considering that the removal of the mixed-race children would actually increase the chance of a distinct Aboriginal race surviving. In Tasmania, the Aborigines were considered to be extinct once the last full-blood died in 1876. Even though mixed-raced individuals survived, these were not considered Aborigines. It is possible that the whites believed that the only way to stop Aborigines going extinct on the mainland would be to stop racial mixing.
For actor Hugh Jackman, the social workers were governed by similar ideology to Nazi Germany. When promoting his film Australia, which deals with the subject, Jackman said:
"The stolen generation was a policy that was born out of eugenics. Eugenics in Europe, as we saw with Nazi Germany, was sort of popular at the time. This idea that if you mixed races or mixed breeds you lessened the blood or something and that you had an inferior human being, right?
So many well-intentioned people thought this was a good idea and in Australia if you had an Aboriginal parent and a white parent or a European parent, the government would take you away from your family, they would tell you your family had died or been killed in an accident, they would put you in an institution. "
If the Stolen Generations were indeed motivated by eugenics, then the whites who were removing the children wanted to weaken their own race by infusing Aboriginal genetics into mainstream Australian genetics. Meanwhile, they wanted to keep the Aboriginal race strong by keeping it pure. So in effect, they were doing the opposite to Nazi Germany. Jackman's difficulty in seeing the the irrationality of what he was saying showed that perhaps actors should stick to putting on make-up and avoiding discussion of any topics that have not first been explained to them with the aid of finger puppets.
Even if the social workers were racially motivated, either to preserve or destroy a distinct Aboriginal race, no evidence has been produced to prove it either way. Journalist Andrew Bolt has asked Manne to provide the names of 10 children who were removed due to their skin colour rather than other factors. Manne has been unable to do so. It seems that the $62,200 grant hadn't been enough money to conduct detailed research. It also seems that for all Manne's compassion, he has not wanted to individualise the victims by actually naming them or researching their stories.
Sometimes people who claimed they were stolen later discovered that they ended up in institutionalised care for different reasons entirely. In a high profile case, Lowitja O'Donoghue, the former head of the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander Commission, was forced to admit that she had not been stolen as she had previously claimed. In reality, her white father had placed her and her sisters in a Catholic boarding school and paid for their upkeep. Maybe Ms O'Donoghue was dishonest with her claims for political reasons, or maybe her mother had not been completely honest with her in regards to how she ended up in the boarding school. Either way, he false claims showed that what people say happened can't always be accepted without question.
Courts have also failed to concur that the Australian government removed children due to the colour of their skin. In 2000, two alleged victims, Lorna Cubillo, 62, and Peter Gunner, 53, initiated legal action over their removal as children. The two were test cases that, if successful, would have been followed by many other people also seeking compensation. Justice Maurice O'Loughlin dismissed the federal government's liability on the grounds that there had been a failure to prove that the Commonwealth authorities had ignored the children’s best interests by removing them from their families. In the case of Gunner, the removal had been done with his mother’s consent. Cubillo had been removed from her grandmother’s care. Both were deemed to have been removed from situations of disadvantage and danger.
Considering the Australian legal system is extreme left wing and ideologically biased in favour of any campaign that is sold as being in ther interests of people who identify themselves as Aborigines, for a court to find against the test cases was itself an indication that the evidence must have been very weak.
Admittedly, child protection officers used subjective judgements of “disadvantage” and “danger” when removing the children from Aboriginal communities. Just as it is today, what is “disadvantaged” in the eyes of one person may be “advantaged” in the eyes of someone else. In the era, any unmarried woman (of any race) was deemed to be incapable of providing a good home for her child. Furthermore, culture, be it Australian or an indigenous sub-culture, was not considered to be necessary for children.
Even though welfare workers may have been foolish to think a child can survive without culture, or that a single parent can't provide a good environment for a child, having a poor definition of “disadvantage” is very different from a calculated policy of genocide sanctioned by a government elected by voters.
In 2008, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised for the genocidal policies implemented by previous Australian prime ministers. It seems though, he was unable to restrain himself, or state premiers, from acting in kind. In 2008, 4,000 children defined as Aboriginal were in state care in NSW. The children were judged to be disadvantaged and removed for that reason. In 1969, when the genocide was alledged to still be occuring, only 1,000 children were in state care. Rudd had the power to stop the removal, but he didn't. Instead, making an apology but not changing anything was his preferred course of action. Furthermore, Rudd never moved to strip the federal government of its power to make policies specifically for Aborigines, a power it only got in 1967. The only way to ensure that the stolen generations could not be repeated would be if the federal government, and state governments, lost the power to make racially specific laws.
Andrew Bolt asks fellow journalists to name three of the 100,000 children removed for racist reasons. The journalists can not.
Myth 7 - It was common for colonists to rape and abduct Aboriginal women
It is a common myth that colonists frequently raped Aboriginal women and this led to an increase in hostilities. According to Madley:
"Settlers also raped, kidnapped and murdered indigenous women, thus intensifying
black–white conflict." (5)
Madley’s argument was based upon the presumption that hunter gatherer societies would have had the same symbolic conception of rape that the colonists did and people do today. In truth, they did not. Rape was so common in hunter gatherer society that Aboriginal men almost felt a sense of pride when speaking about it. In A Complete Account of Settlement, Watkin Tench wrote about an Aborigine named Bennelong explaining a scar on his hand:
"He laughed, and owned that it was received in carrying off a lady of another tribe by force. "I was dragging her away. She cried aloud, and stuck her teeth in me." "And what did you do then?" "I knocked her down, and beat her till she was insensible, and covered with blood. Then..." (4)
Because rape was an everyday feature of hunter gatherer societies, Aboriginal women often stuck together for protection and men tried to protect the women in their tribe. The protection of the tribe would have made it difficult for a singular colonist to drag a woman away by force. Furthermore, Aborigines knew the land, and how to evade whites. In Tasmania, 5,000 men walked through the state trying to catch Aborigines, but were only able to catch two in seven weeks. It was silly to think that raping and catching an Aboriginal woman was as simple as picking an apple off a tree.
A far easier way for individual colonists to gain sexual access to Aboriginal women would have been to befriend the tribe. In Aboriginal societies, women were taken when two tribes went to war; however they were also traded, promised to settle disputes or given to build relations. Lieutenant King, an officer of the First Fleet, wrote about being offered women as a sign of good will:
"...pointing to the shore ... we saw a great number of Women and Girls ... make their appearance on the beach ... Those natives who were round the boats made signs for us to go to them & made us understand their persons were at our service. However, I declined this mark of their hospitality but shewed a handkerchief, which I offered to one of the women, pointing her out. She immediately put her child down & came alongside the boat and suffered me to apply the handkerchief where Eve did the Fig leaf.."
Aside from being offered to colonists, it was also likely that some Aboriginal women chose to live with colonists because they felt colonial life offered them an escape from the brutalities of hunter gatherer life. Many of the colonists probably had some loose English gentlemen ideas about treating women well, which the Aboriginal women may have liked. If the white man didn't treat her well, the Aboriginal woman's knowledge of the land gave her comparatively more ability to walk off into the bush than had white women who suffered at the hands of their men. In a nutshell, Convict women could be turned into sex slaves because they were dependent upon the men or the colony for their survival. Aboriginal women were not.
Even if the colonial men had managed to get their hands on a lone woman without other women or Aboriginal men seeing what was happening, there probably wasn’t a concept of rape in Aboriginal societies as it exists today. In Aboriginal societies, women had no freedom to say no to a sexual partner chosen for them. As a consequence, sex probably had a difficult kind of symbolic meaning for Aboriginal women than it did for women raised in an urban society. Aboriginal men would still have been annoyed if outsiders raped their women, but it would probably have been an annoyance comparable to losing a game of football. Although that would sound terrible to someone with a 21st century morality derived from being raised in an urban society, societies that operate in different circumstances view the world in different ways.
Bad Dreaming (2007)- In a taboo breaking book, Louis Nowra explores the role of women in hunter gatherer societies. He notes that in hunter gatherer societies, women were exchanged to settle disputes, that women of other tribes were kidnapped and gang raped, and that young girls were promised to older men. Nowra doesn’t judge Aborigines negatively for such customs. He merely points out that hunter gatherer societies had to function in such a way in order to survive. While it was necessary in the past, Nowra doesn't feel such customs are necessary today. He advises Indigenous communities to recognise that they are part of Australian society and to integrate into their cultural sensibility the idea of personal and individual responsibility for their actions. He advises them to accept that certain aspects of their traditional culture and customs – such as promised marriages, polygamy, violence towards women and male aggression – are best forgotten.
Myth 8 -Aborigines were not allowed to vote until 1967
There is a widespread myth that until a referendum in 1967, Aborigines were not allowed to vote in Australia. This myth has been promoted by many white Australians, including Phillip Noyce, the director of Rabbit-Proof Fence. According to Noyce,
“Until 1967, Australian Aborigines couldn’t vote and were not counted as citizens.” (8)
Despite his interest in making historical movies, it seems Noyce was not interested in the facts of history. In reality, when the colonies of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and NSW framed their constitutions in the 1850s, they gave the vote to all male subjects over the age of 21, Aborigines included. Admittedly, most Aborigines didn’t know about their voting rights and perhaps didn’t care. It wasn’t until the 1890s that any Aborigines actually commenced voting.
When the various colonies federated into one nation in 1901, Aborigines were not given the federal vote. However, they did retain their state voting rights and these state voting rights gave them federal voting rights. Under section 41 of the federal constitution, any person who held a state vote also held a federal vote. Legally, Aborigines in NSW, Tasmania, Victoria, and South Australia have been allowed to vote in all federal elections. Admittedly, most Aborigines didn't know about their federal voting rights and perhaps didn't care. For people living in the bush, there are more interesting issues to think about than Question Time in Canberra. This lack of interest in politics was seen when Aborigines were given their own representative body in the form of ATSIC. In 1990, only around 10% of Aborigines actually voted in ATSIC elections.
The Menzies Liberal and Country Party government officially gave the Commonwealth vote to all Aborigines in 1962. The states of Queensland and WA gave Aborigines the state vote around the same time.
Contrary to what Noyce told people, the 1967 referendum had nothing to do with voting rights. The referendum asked whether Aborigines should be included in the federal census and whether the federal government should be given the power to make policies specifically for Aborigines. Previously all Aboriginal issues had been left to the states because they were deemed to have more specialised knowledge regarding the needs of the individual tribes of their respective states.
There had been some pragmatic considerations for not including Aborigines in the census. Because Aborigines living in the bush were not in the habit of lodging birth or death certificates, did not have a fixed address and changed their names depending upon who they were living with, it was not easy to count them in the census. Perhaps these difficulties motivated government workers to avoid Aborigines so their job would be easier. Alternatively, perhaps it created a cultural mentality that Aborigines existed outside of the government realm. It was only when the evolution of telecommunication and transport infrastructure made monitoring easier that public servants decided to do what they hadn't done previously.
It was difficult to explain how Noyce could be ignorant about such a basic fact of Aboriginal history, yet still get government funding to direct an Aboriginal history movie. Perhaps Noyce lied because he wanted to exploit Aborigines to further his own political agendas. Alternatively, perhaps he wanted to make his movie appear more emotive by trying to provoke outrage at human rights violations. Noyce might have realised that the truth wasn't as emotive as fiction. Either way, it was morally dubious for such a man to make an Australian history movie like Rabbit-proof Fence. It seems honesty was not a requirement for government funding.
As for the merits of the referendum itself, in accordance with the doctrine of egalitarianism, 90% of Australians voted in favour of it. Even some dissenters had pro-Aboriginal ideas for voting no. Some argued that a yes vote would be a form of forced assimilation of Aborigines and destroy their free lifestyle. Some dissenters were also uncomfortable with the idea of making policies specifically for one racial group. They were happy for Aborigines to be counted in the census, but they didn't want the government to have power to single them out for special laws. Ironically, the referedum basically exended a law that had originally been created to give the federal government the power to discriminate against Chinese and Pacific Islanders during the era of the white Australia policy. Arguably, a more progressive question would have been to strip the power of the federal government to make race-specific laws, not extend it.
Not all Aborigines were happy with the result of the referendum either. The chairman of the Northern Land Council, Mr Galarrwuy Yunupingu said:
The historic 1967 referendum
- where Australians voted overwhelmingly to make Aborigines citizens and for federal
government powers to legislate on their behalf - had been forced upon the Aboriginal
nation.
Aboriginal people have
never wanted to be equal with the white people of Australia.
The
referendum had been inspired by guilt and had never considered the rights we Aboriginal
people really had, or who we really were.
The 1967 was more about symbolism than substance. It was sold as a gesture of goodwill towards Aborigines. In hindsight, it seems symbolism and gestures of goodwill were not sufficient to stop Aborigines being defined by statistics of disadvantage. The goodwill existed. The logical plan did not.
Myth 10 - Colonists ignored the existence of Aborigines in order to steal their land
In the 1992 Mabo vs Queensland judgement, the High Court of Australia was asked to consider whether Queensland's annexation of the Torres Strait in 1879 had extinguished the land rights of the people already living there. The High Court said the annexation had not and that the same principles would apply to Britain's annexation of mainland Australia in 1772.
When justifying his verdict, one of the High Court judges, William Deane, said that Aborigines had been treated as a "different and lower form of life whose very existence could be ignored for the purpose of determining the legal right to occupy and use their traditional lands."
The conclusions of Mr Deane demonstrated the problems of hearing evidence for one event (the annexation of the Torres Strait in 1879 by Queensland) and using that evidence to pass judgement on a completly different event (the annexation of Australia in 1772 by the British.) Contrary to what Mr Deane tried to make people believe, the British never suffered some kind of moral crisis that forced them to ignore the locals when stealing the land. In Asia, the Americas, and Africa, the British simply planted their flag and claimed the land for themselves. They then killed anyone who argued with the new masters and rewarded anyone who accepted them.
In addition, British law didn’t require that people who lost their land be compensated on "just" terms. As a result, the British didn’t compensate the Irish when they invaded and took Irish land. They just sent Irish dissidents to the colonies. Likewise, when common land was enclosed in England and given to wealthy individuals, no compensation was paid to English communities plunged into poverty. Dissidents and the newly made poor were just exported to colonies.
Terra nullius was only significant in that it influenced whether local laws would be extinguished or allowed to continue to exist. As Mr Deane should have known, when colonising, the British were governed by two basic doctrines depending upon whether a land was being settled or being conquered. In 1865, these doctrines were spelt out by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. According to Blackstone,
"Plantations or colonies, in distant countries, are either such where the lands are claimed by right of occupancy only by finding them desert and uncultivated and peopling them from the mother country; or where, when already cultivated, they have been gained by conquest, or ceded to us in treaties. And both these rights are founded upon the law of nature, or at least upon that of nations."
In regards to countries gained by conquest, Blackstone wrote
"But in conquered or ceded countries, that have already laws of their own, the King may indeed alter and change those laws but, till he does actually change them, the ancient laws of the country remain, unless such as are against the law of God as is the case of an infidel country."
In regards to terra nullius lands, Blackstone wrote:
"But there is a difference between these two species of colonies with respect to laws by which they are bound. For it hath been held, that if an uninhabited country be discovered, and planted by English subjects, all the English laws then in being, which are the birth-right of every subject, are immediately in force."
Disregarding William Deane's proselytising, the High Court basically said that the British had treated Australia as unclaimed land when they should have treated it as a conquested land. Therefore, Aboriginal land laws could still have been in existence at the time of the Mabo versus Queensland judgement. Although past governments had extinguished some Aboriginal laws by granting title to colonists, and the present government of Australia could extinguish the rest if it wanted to, any Aboriginal laws extinguished after 1975 would need to consider the Racial Discrimination Act introduced by the Whitlam Labor government.
Although high in emotion, the High Court's judgement didn't consider history as thoroughly as it should have. Even if Arthur Phillip, Australia's first governor, didn't extinguish Aboriginal land laws, an event in 1835 did in fact indicate that the native laws relating to land ownership had been extinguished by a subsequent governor. A colonist, John Batman, negotiated to buy 240,000 hectares of land from the Kulin people. 8 Aboriginal chiefs made a mark on a contract to indicate their acceptance. The contract was immediately declared invalid by a proclamation of Governor Bourke, who declared that the British Crown owned the entire land of Australia, and that only it could sell or distribute land.
If Deane found British colonial laws to be morally objectionable, then he should have said that he found them to be morally objectionable. Fabricating myths about colonists incorrectly applying British laws, or dehumanising Aborigines because applying British laws would result in a crisis of morality, served neither the study of history nor the evolution of the Australian legal system. The myths did; however, serve Deane. A Labor Prime Minister subsequently appointed Deane to the position of Australian Governor General. In his position as Governor General, Deane gave speeches that promoted Labor Party ideology and his judgement. These speeches caused friction between the coalition of the city-backed Liberal Party voters, whose backyards were not under threat of a native-title claim, and the rural-backed Nationals, whose backyards were.
In 1835, John Batman made a contract with the Kulin people to buy land. There were numerous justifications for colonial authorities not to recognise the contract. One justification could have been to define the contract as unconscionable because Batman’s offerings of axes and food did not reflect the true value of the land. A second justification could have been that the Aborigines were not able to fully comprehend what they were doing. They were being asked to sign a British contract relating to land ownership when they had little familiarity with British contracts or European conceptions of land ownership.
Neither justification was used to invalid the contract. Governor Bourke invalidated it because he deemed that all land belonged to the crown and not Aborigines. This would suggest that Aboriginal land laws had been invalidated by the British prior to the annexation of the Torres Strait by Queensland in 1879, which the High Court passed judgement on. Whether Queensland ever invalidated the laws of the agricultural Torress Strait Islanders was a different issue.
History for political purposes
History can be used for many different purposes. It can be used to understand the mind by considering human behaviour in a variety of different circumstances. It can be used to understand a culture by considering the influences that shaped it. It can also be used for political purposes. For example, it can be used to justify a moral code, inspire a people to feel good about themselves, to build bridges of friendship between warring peoples, or continue a war between peoples. When used for political purposes, compromising the truth is sometimes justified on the grounds of achieving the greater good.
For a variety of reasons, many white Australians want to use history to "help" Aborigines. According to Reynolds,
"Well, my political ends are to bring about much more satisfactory relationships between white and black Australians" (9)
If history were to be used to benefit Aborigines, there are numerous political angles that the historian could choose from. One angle would be to portray the Aborigines as strong warriors who used ingenuity, knowledge of the land, and fighting prowess to make life difficult for the colonists. This angle could be served by focussing on the story of Pelmuwuy, or the failure of the Black Line to achieve its objectives. A second angle would be to portray Australian history as one in which colonists and the indigenous population got on much better than they did in other countries around the world. This angle could be served by focussing on colonists using Aboriginal words for place names (Canberra,Wollongong, Illawarra, Wagga Wagga), using Aboriginal words in songs of rebellion such as Waltzing Matilda (coolibah, jumbuck, billabong), and the absence of holidays, or children’s games celebrating whites killing blacks. A third angle could be to portray Aborigines as very adaptable people. This angle could be served by focussing on their knowledge of the land, hunting skills, early reports of adapting to colonial customs, the extremely impressive performance of the Aboriginal cricket team that toured England in the 19th century, and David Unipon's concept plans for a helicopter using aerodynamic principles of the boomerang. A final angle would be to portray Aborigines as victims who suffered at the hands of the whites. This angle could be served by focussing on racist policies implemented by the white authorities.
It is the victim history angle that has most been favoured by Australia’s white historians over the last 40 years. The victim history has subsequently been incorporated into the oral tradition of Aborigines and forged their identity.
Whether the victim history has actually benefited Aborigines; however, is open to debate. Thus far, the victim history hasn’t stopped Aborigines from being defined by statistics of disadvantage. If anything, defining Aborigines using stereotypes of disadvantage has a way of keeping Aborigines disadvantaged because the stereotypes become self-fullfilling prophecies. Admitedly, the stereotypes help Aborigines gain the sympathy of others, but they don't help Aborigines gain the respect of others - or even the respect of themselves.
The unsavoury outcome can be seen as an inevitable consequence of white individuals deciding to write the history for groups that they are not part of, and compromising the integrity of the history in the process. One of the problems of writing for other groups is that there is a risk of applying labels onto others that the historian wouldn’t want applied upon themselves. Specifically, few Australian historians want to see themselves as victims. As a consequence, perhaps they would feel uncomfortable with foreigners highlighting their Convict heritage in order to give them a victim label. Furthermore, they would be uncomfortable with boganism being used to define Australians, and would be even more uncomfortable if the international community used drug users, criminals, or battered women to define "disadvantaged" Australians as a whole.
Yet despite being uncomfortable with personally being defined as victims and disadvantaged, they are not uncomfortable with portraying Aborigines as victims and disadvantaged. To compound matters, the white historians have compromised the truth while defining the victim identity of the Aborigines. Once that historians are seen to have deliberately compromised the truth, they elicit the hostility of others. Unfortunately, because white historians have compromised the truth when writing about Aborigines, it is not whites that suffer, it is the Aborigines.
Other reasons to lie?
Aside from a naive political argument, there are many possible reasons that explain why white historians have fabricated history. Money is the most obvious reason. In the case of Robert Manne, a $62,200 grant for his research into the stolen generations gave 62,500 reasons to write in an emotive and moralising way. Ironically, his $62,200 was $62,200 more than any of the people he wrote about ever received. Furthermore, the applause he received for his work was far greater than any applause extended to the people he wrote about. The fact that such issues were not a concern to him revealed a great deal about Manne's own moral character.
Ideological conflict is a second explanation. Australia's ideological division has motivated a portrayal of history that villifies an alternative ideological position. The ideological division is particularly salient in the work of Robert Manne whose historical inquiry has focussed as much on his opponents as the history itself. So much so, he has even titled his books with specific mention of his opponents. These books include In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right (2001), and Whitewash. On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History (2003).In some respects, Manne acts like a divorced parent that accusses his former partner to doing the wrong things to his children as a way of demeaning his former partner. Such actions are really quite selfish.
A culture of flogging Australians commenced in the colonial era and has never really gone away.
Robert Manne is a modern expression of a cultural division that has existed in Australia since 1788. In the penal era, the division was between Convicts/emancipists and free settlers. Later the conflict was between Australian “natives” (Australian born and loyal to Australian) and migrants/Australians loyal to England. Aborigines were potential allies for both sides.
For numerous reasons, colonial authorities were concerned by Convicts, or escaped Convicts, associating with Aborigines or living like Aborigines. On South Australia's Kangaroo Island, some escaped Convicts even formed tribes and lived like Aboriginal tribes. An example of the concern this provoked could be seen the report, The New British Province of South Australia. In reference to the escaped Convicts,
"They are complete savages, living in bark huts like the natives, not cultivating any thing, but living entirely on kangaroos, emus, and small porcupines, and getting spirits and tobacco in barter for the skins which they lay up during the sealing season. They dress in kangaroo skins without linen, and wear sandals made of seal skins. They smell like foxes. "
While the report criticised the escapees for living like Aborigines, it also accused them of kidnapping Aboriginal women. The interpretation showed that, although the authorities didn’t have respect for Aboriginal culture, they did want to define Aborigines as victims in need of protection. The need to protect Aborigines was then used as a justification for removing the Convict tribe from the Island and replacing them with farmers.
The colonial division has never really left Australia. One strain of Australian culture has celebrated the bush as the stomping ground of the true Australian. For this subculture, an association with Aborigines helped build an identity distinct from England. The other strain of Australians cringed at the bush culture. It cringed when it heard Australians sing Waltzing Matilda that used Aboriginal words like coolabah, billabong, and jumbuck. It cringed when Rolf Harris used a didgeridoo. It cringed when it saw Australians walking around with cork hats (an Aboriginal invention.) This culture wanted to see the bush as a place where Aborigines were made into victims, not a place where they were allied with the larrikin Australians that they didn't like.
The continuations of the ideological division can be seen in the different depictions of an Aboriginal corroboree in Crocodile Dundee (1986) and Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994). Fans of each movie generally don't like the other.
Crocodile Dundee (1986)- Status by becoming Aboriginal
In the 1986 iconic movie Crocodile Dundee, a good natured larrikin gained status by assimilating aspects of Aboriginal culture. He joins Aborigines at a corroboree and is depicted in traditional tribal paint. More status comes when he detects that a woman journalist has violated cultural taboo by secretly watching. His serious stare affirms his respect for traditional practice.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) - Status by assimilating Aborigines and showing them as victims
The 1994 movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was created as a correction to the stereotypes promoted in Crocodile Dundee. It also showed a corroboree; however, instead of a white assimilating the culture of Aborigines, an Aborigine is assimilated to the culture of white homosexuals. Meanwhile, smiling Aboriginal faces punctuate the scene like testimonials in a sales campaign. Both groups are portrayed as victims of the larrikins shown in Crocodile Dundee. According to left-wing film critic Paul Brynes,
"The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert went further than any of these in attacking the Crocodile Dundee mythology of the essentially harmless heterosexual outback male. These same types of men, usually depicted in bars in Priscilla, can be suspicious, violent, vulgar and extremely intolerant, especially when confronted with alternative definitions of masculinity."
The fact that Brynes was concerned about Aborigines being shown respect in Crocodile Dundee but enjoyed them being depicted as victims in Priscilla revealed a great deal about Bryne's moral character. Consistent with his sub-culture, he had no respect for Aborigines, but did want to define them as victims.
Christian values provide the third explanation for manufacturing history. The values defined Aborigines as people in need of salvation, which the missionaries could provide. According to the historian Keith Windschuttle:
"These missionaries took any rumor about violence towards Aborigines, no matter how unreliable or vague, and propagated it without checking its accuracy. Why would they do such a thing? They wanted to show the need for their own institutions. By portraying colonial society as awash with violence towards the blacks, they justified their policy of separating Aborigines from white society. They wanted their missions to appear as havens in a heartless world. This fulfilled the Protestant evangelical theology on which their actions were based: the everyday, material world was full of evil and corruption and the only road to salvation for Aborigines lay in a closed religious community. Here they could be kept apart from the modern world and separated from white society. It also meant the missionaries would keep their funding and their jobs. They hoped to be seen by their peers in the colony and their sponsors in London as the saviors of the Aborigines. They have also influenced policy ever since. Those who claim to be the friends of Aborigines have long supported separatism—from the missions and government reserves of the nineteenth century down to the proposals for a treaty and separate state today." (7)
Today, there are many Australians who have a Christian value system but are reluctant to define themselves as Christian. Defining Aborigines as victims of "we" Australians provides them with an outlet for their crusading, self-flagellation and absolution-seeking values that they inherited from Christianity but don’t want to express in a religious way.
3)Race wars written out of Australian history: historian - http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s28233.htm
4)A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson by Watkin Tench
5)BENJAMIN MADLEY Journal of Genocide Research (2004), 6(2),
June, 167–192 - Patterns of frontier genocide
1803–1910: the Aboriginal
Tasmanians, the Yuki of California,
and the Herero of Namibia
6)ISAACS, Jennifer, Australian Dreaming. 40000 years of Aboriginal history. Sydney: Lansdowne Press, 1987
7)Keith Windschuttle, The fabrication of Aboriginal history
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/20/sept01/keith.htm
Myth 1 - Aborigines were pushed off their land and into the desert 
