Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 01Eyre, Edward John
History
Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from Adelaide to King George's Sound in the Years 1840-1: Sent By the Colonists of South Australia, with the Sanction and Support of the Government: Including an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines and the State of Their Relations with Europeans — Volume 01
Eyre, Edward John
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Ethnology -- Australia
Fourthly, That the localities selected by Europeans, as best adapted for
the purposes of cultivation, or of grazing, are those that would usually
be equally valued above others, by the natives themselves, as places of
resort, or districts in which they could most easily procure their food.
This would especially be the case in those parts of the country where
water was scarce, as the European always locates himself close to this
grand necessary of life. The injustice, therefore, of the white man's
intrusion upon the territory of the aboriginal inhabitant, is aggravated
greatly by his always occupying the best and most valuable portion of it.
Fifthly, That as we ourselves have laws, customs, or prejudices, to which
we attach considerable importance, and the infringement of which we
consider either criminal or offensive, so have the natives theirs,
equally, perhaps, dear to them, but which, from our ignorance or
heedlessness, we may be continually violating, and can we wonder that
they should sometimes exact the penalty of infraction? do not we do the
same? or is ignorance a more valid excuse for civilized man than the
savage?
Sixthly, What are the relations usually subsisting between the Aborigines
and settlers, locating in the more distant, and less populous parts of
the country: those who have placed themselves upon the outskirts of
civilization, and who, as they are in some measure beyond the protection
of the laws, are also free from their restraints? A settler going to
occupy a new station, removes, perhaps, beyond all other Europeans,
taking with him his flocks, and his herds, and his men, and locates
himself wherever he finds water, and a country adapted for his purposes.
At the first, possibly, he may see none of the inhabitants of the country
that he has thus unceremoniously taken possession of; naturally alarmed
at the inexplicable appearance, and daring intrusion of strangers, they
keep aloof, hoping, perhaps, but vainly, that the intruders may soon
retire. Days, weeks, or months pass away, and they see them still
remaining. Compelled at last, it may be by enemies without, by the want
of water in the remoter districts, by the desire to procure certain kinds
of food, which are peculiar to certain localities, and at particular
seasons of the year, or perhaps by a wish to revisit their country and
their homes, they return once more, cautiously and fearfully approaching
what is their own--the spot perhaps where they were born, the patrimony
that has descended to them through many generations;--and what is the
reception that is given them upon their own lands? often they are met by
repulsion, and sometimes by violence, and are compelled to retire again
to strange and unsuitable localities. Passing over the fearful scenes of
horror and bloodshed, that have but too frequently been perpetrated in
all the Australian colonies upon the natives in the remoter districts, by
the most desperate and abandoned of our countrymen; and overlooking,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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