British Invasion is a Deeply Flawed Argument

How Did a Penal Colony turn into Modern Australia with a badly disaffected Indigenous people?

Saturday May 27^th, 2023. Today marks the 56th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum in which Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the Constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and include them in the census.

Why Did Britain Come to Australia?

In 17^th Century England, there were 225 different crimes punishable by death. Perhaps a sort of humanitarian awakening resulted in an alternative to death, where prisoners were sentenced to “Transportation” and shipped off to penal colonies.

Information from the National Museum reveals that between 1788 and 1868 more than 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia. Of these, about 7,000 arrived in 1833 alone.

The majority were Irish and English and from poorer circumstance. Many of them served out their sentences and became settlers. Obviously, transport back to the UK was out of their reach. They started families and were forced to create a life in Australia.

Under the Transportation Act of 1717, Criminals convicted of Capital Crimes were sentenced to 14 years Transportation and those convicted of lesser crimes, 7 years. By 1795, many convicts were released and left to venture out into the world to create an existence of sorts.

The intention behind most of England’s shipping in those years was trade. There were thriving trade routes in the Northern Hemisphere between England and India and China. Explorers combed the globe for more opportunities to build new trade routes.

There are many arguments to suggest the British Empire was not about conquering foreign lands, as had been the case with the Romans or Genghis Kahn. There were not known to deliver great armies to foreign lands.

The reasons for the decision to develop a colony in Australia were twofold. First, due to the cessation of transportation of convicts to America following the American revolution, a new destination was required. Second, the English believed they needed a base in the Pacific to counter French expansion.

Following the cessation of Transportation to America in 1776, convicts, being held in ships along the English Coastline were becoming over-crowded and disease ridden with a third of the inhabitants dying. A solution was desperately need and Botany Bay was proposed by a Junior Officer from Cook’s voyage. So, in 1785 Orders in Council were issued by the British Government for the creation of a penal colony in New South Wales.

On 12 October 1786 Royal Navy Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed the first governor of New South Wales. Phillip was reported to be an enlightened leader for his time and imagined the colony not just as a British outpost in the South Pacific, but as a place for convicts to rehabilitate themselves. He was also a man who was against slavery in any form.

The initial intention was never about “Invading Australia”. Yet, current day people insist that Australia Day should be called “Invasion Day”.  

The First Fleet comprised 11 Ships: Two Royal Naval vessels, three store ships and six convict transport vessels. The 1400 people comprising Sailors, Marines, Civil Officers (252 in all), Convicts (751) and Free Settlers (nearly 200) left Portsmouth, England on May 13th, 1787, for the 24,000km, 250-day journey to Botany Bay where the first penal colony was established.

By 1835, only 6% of convicts were locked in jails. Most worked for the government or for free settlers and could earn a ticket to return home, or a conditional or full pardon. They could earn their own living during this time. Most remained as free citizens when their sentences were complete.

Australian Indigenous Population:

The best research reveals that people came to Australia either via PNG into North Queensland or from Indonesia to the Kimberly when sea levels were much lower than they are now, some 60,000 years ago.

Census data from 2016 reported that there were just under 800,000 Aboriginal People in Australia. Official estimates put the number at somewhere between 300,000 and 1.2 million before British settlement. The 1929 Census reported only 78,430 Aboriginal People.

There is a belief among many that huge number of Aboriginal People were exterminated by whites. That could be true. I did some very basic modelling and worked out that if 2000 people originally crossed to this continent, then over 60,000 years with an average population increase of 1% every 100 years, there would be about 785,000 Aboriginal People today. If the growth rate was 2%, there would be 145 million.

Recent modelling at the University of Wollongong suggests that at the time of British Settlement, the number would have been around 3 million.

What did arrive with the first fleet was Smallpox. Whilst many of the Europeans had been immunised against the disease, using a technique involving placing small amounts of puss from the infected under the skin of healthy people, the Aborigines had not, and the impact was devastating. Countless number of people died. This of course was an unintended consequence of the first settlement.

Later, other diseases from Europe followed suit including influenza, measles, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted diseases.

It is unclear how many First Nations people were alive in the mid-1800s. Certainly diseases had decimated many communities across the continent.

Were there whites who slaughtered Aborigines? There can be little doubt. In fact, some treated the Aborigines with extreme brutality. Some white men kept several Aboriginal women as sex slaves. But these were not actions sanctioned by Britain. In fact, local authorities in all settlements carried rulings that nothing - land or anything else, was to be taken from the natives. Everything should involve negotiation and or trade. The indigenous people were not to be used or abused in any way.

But if we imagine the time, there were no cars or telephones. Unscrupulous settlers were a law unto themselves. Many were sociopaths and despots who were no longer welcome at home and who had come to Australia to create their fortune. Many of them murdered whole tribes rather than negotiate with them to create a workable agreement.

In reference to some of the settlers’ actions, Governor Hunter wrote in 1798 that 'a more wicked, abandoned and irreligious set of people have never been brought together in any part of the world.’”

As the settlers expanded further and further inland, conflicts arose with the local Aborigines. Sometimes the Aborigines attacked the whites. Often, the whites attacked. With superior weapons, a spate of massacres occurred right across Australia. A single murder is shocking. How do you describe an event were 50 or more people art slaughtered. Language fails to deliver even a remote experiential sample of the horror.

Conspiracies of silence prevented prosecutions and the perpetrators often went on their merry way. On December 18, 1938, 7 men were hanged at Sydney gaol, the first British subjects to be convicted for the massacre of Aboriginal people, following the Myall Creek Massacre.

So, there is no doubt that European settlement had a terrible impact on Australia’s First Nations people. But they were not victims of a planned invasion or a mass extermination. One could argue that it may well have been just a matter of time before visitors arrived from Asia, potentially bringing similar consequences.

But there can be no doubt that, from the perspective of many Aborigines, derived from their own experiences, their lives were catastrophically altered by the brutal treatment of some white settlers, the murders of their families and the dispossession of their land. These actions were perpetrated by evil men, despots with a lust for domination, subjugation and violent brutality.

From my perspective, I believe the colony leaders and police failed to protect the Aborigines from the savage brutality of these people.

As an additional note, there were also many stories of successful arrangements between Aboriginal Tribes and White settlers were sharing, friendships and socialisation grew out of respectful agreements and an honouring of rights.

The Luck of the Irish

I am deeply interested in where the Irish sit in all of this. Only about 12% of the convicts were Irish, but many more followed as settlers. Living conditions in Ireland were not great and many chose to seek new opportunities. About 25,000 came as convicts and 20 times that came as settlers prior to 1921. Many were good people, hoping for a better life. Australia is the most Irish country outside of Ireland.

It seems clear from the stories of Ned Kelly and Ben Hall that even in Australia, the Irish suffered oppression at the hands of the English, especially when those English wore a Police uniform. There is little doubt they survived and learned to thrive against harsh odds.

Whilst some were forced to come here as convicts and others came to create a better life, they hardly came with the intention of taking over another country and stealing from an indigenous population. We need to remember just how big this country is.

The Gold Rush

The Australian population climbed slowly to 400,000 by 1850. Perhaps half or more of those were convicts or descendants of convicts.

Gold was first discovered in 1851. If we allow for the 8-month journey back to England, news would have begun to spread in 1852 back in Britain and Europe. By 1855 the population had doubled and by 1862 it had tripled. Gold fever had brought people from all over the world and the Australian colonies were changed forever. By 1877, the population rose above 2 million.

Whilst much of that population was centred around the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo, pastoralists were continuing to expand into the rural areas of the continent. At the same time, curious Aboriginals were drifting into the towns and cities.

Along with all of this came the religious zealots, missionaries who wanted to bring Christianity to the native Australians. Diary records and letters reveal the attitudes of the missionaries. They referred to the Aborigines as savages and of the lowest intelligence. Could it be that such assessments created a belief among the collective settlements that Aborigines were unintelligent? What role did the Churches play in denigrating the collective attitude to the First Nations people?

The superiority complex of the white Missionaries and their failures to deliver conversion of the Aboriginal people, lead to an attitude that the children needed to be removed from their families for their own spiritual salvation. Thousands of Aboriginal children were brutally removed from their families, in the name of God, and placed into white institutions. These actions emotionally destroyed entire families, who’s connections go way beyond a name and the presence of a physical body. I am amazed that a religious person could be so shut down and heartless as to perpetrate such a heinous and vile act.

Current Day First Nations People

I would never argue that the Australian Aborigines existence was forever changed by the arrival of the British. Was there a plan to exterminate them? Not by any available evidence. In fact, the intention of the British was to co-exist with the natives of the new land. Perhaps that was naïve.

First, there is deep trauma that has been carried forward via epigenetics, in the genes of the people. The impact has been profound as trauma derived from such brutality, grief, dispossession, and loss, devastates hope, trust and the capacity to simply relax into life.

Second, the whites introduced alcohol and sugar. In both instances, consumption of both requires biological adaptation over centuries, for the body to be able to cope. From day one, the Aborigine had no chance of coping with alcohol nor sugar, so we see terrible alcoholism and alcohol induced violence, and epidemic levels of diabetes among Aboriginals in Australia.

Third, as the shiny objects of the European way of life seduced young Aborigines, and as they were put through English schools, young people began to forget the tribal languages and customs and slowly moved away from traditional practice, values and custom.

Forth, time and again, Aboriginal people were let down by the justice system and watched whites get away with light sentences, or even walk free, after perpetrating terrible crimes against Aboriginal people. Then, as time evolved and as more and more Aboriginal people fell prey to alcohol, the law treated them with a heavy hand, actions in direct contrast to how white murderers were treated.

Such unfairness devastates trust and creates heart-sapping hopelessness.

Fifth, racism against First Nations people continues to exist. The recent situation at Hawthorn Football club is a clear example of how educated white people still stand superior to their indigenous neighbors, no matter how good a footballer they may be.

Sixth, many Australian Aborigines have begun to disrespect their own culture. Tribal lore states that if you have food and I do not, then you should give me food. It creates care and support in communities to ensure everyone’s needs are met. However, out of disrespect for this lore, a phenomenon called “humbugging” has risen. This is where a young person may arrive at a community in a newly purchased care, from money earned while working, and is told by an elder that the car must be given to another elder because he needs it. This is an abuse of a lore designed for care and safety within the community.

We could probably extend this list for hours, but the points raised are significant enough to leave it there.

Many Aboriginal Australians live a successful life in a predominantly white society, as professionals athletes, business owners, trades people, public servants, teachers, artists, wage earners and parents.

Others choose to live remotely in small communities, predominantly in Northern Territory and Western Australia. And then there are others who drift between the two, lost, affected by alcohol and drugs, and struggling to find personal identity, purpose, and peace.

So much care is needed for these people to be able to move forward and excise the demons of the past. The frightening reality is that many of these people are creating families, and women and children are being brutalized by raging men fueled by an alcohol induced depravity, driven by self-loathing, hopelessness, and desperation.

This is the area that needs the most attention.

Why Hasn’t it Been Fixed?

Since the 1970’s many things have happened.

In 1976, the Fraser Liberal Government, which included Australia’s first Aboriginal Member of Parliament, Neville Bonner, created the Aboriginal Land Rights act. In 1980, it established the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) under the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

The new legislation also gave statutory recognition of the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), which was made up of Aboriginal people elected in 35 electorates across Australia, for the first time. The NAC, which had been canvassing opinions of Aboriginal people across Australia, would report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the operation of the commission.

The ADC was discontinued late in 1989 and replaced in 1990 by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands Commission -ATSIC, which existed till 2005. It was responsible for providing loans for small enterprise, and larger loans and grants, while ATSIC Development Corporation (ATSICDC) was to invest only in major commercial projects.

Whilst always subject to the oversight of governments who represent all Australians, ATSIC was a group of elected individuals whose main goal was the oversights that related to Indigenous Australians, including the many Aboriginal peoples of Australia as well as the peoples of the Torres Strait Islands. Following a perception of imbalance of service, in 1994 the Torres Strait Regional Authority was established to deliver better services to the peoples of the Torres Strait Islands. 

In 2003, both parties, Labor and Liberal, agreed that ATSIC had not worked. Too much power seemed to have accumulated at the centre of the organisation, leaving the regions poorly represented. The Chairman of the time was charge with raping four women as confidence in the body was rapidly waning across Australia.

This was a body established with a grand vision, for Aboriginal People to have access to extensive government funding and government granted powers to nurture and build Aboriginal communities and enterprises. However, it fell foul to so many great initiatives where good people lose their way when given too much power.

Delusions derived via the intoxication arising from the fumes of one’s own self importance are not limited to white people.

The Howard Liberal Government announced the agency's abolition on 15 April 2004, saying that "the experiment in elected representation for Indigenous people has been a failure".

The Rudd Labor Government initiated National Sorry Day on May 26^th, 2008. Whilst previous governments had refused to apologies to the Indigenous Nations of Australia for the horrific treatment at the hands of white settlers, Rudd’s government created a grand event that brought some relief to many.

In addition to these initiatives, many Aboriginal People have been elected to Parliament, both Federally and in the Sates and Territories. These politicians have had access to genuine opportunities to drive legislative change. Yet some appalling conditions till exist where children and women are being savaged in the same way Aboriginal people were brutalized by despotic white settlers.

Alcohol abuse in Central Australia and in other urban regions lead to the most grotesque and inhumane treatment of innocent children. People know it is happening and politicians make grand statements. But nothing is changing.

In white societies, if children are being treated in such ways, even far less severe, they are taken from the parents until the situation can be rehabilitated. I recently read an article where a celebrated female Aboriginal elder stated, “We have been raising our kids for 60,000 years so keep your hands off them.” I agree, but for the past 150 years, alcohol has entered the equation.

Something needs to be done but everyone is frightened of what others will say. There is a sickening lack of leadership.

If these men so desperately need to write themselves off, perhaps we could remove the alcohol and give them as much marijuana as they can smoke. At least that way the violence will stop, and we can gather some time to deal with the problem, without all the alcohol induced reactivity.

My Thoughts:

British settlement in Australia was not an invasion. Many of the first people who came here did not arrive under their own will and were forced to try to live here. Many of them were uneducated and lived in survival mode. From that place, their consciousness is instinctive and reactive and is little better than that of an animal.

Terrible things happened to Aboriginal People at the hands of despots, whose actions were never sanctioned by British Law or the colony governments. Generational Trauma has been carried forward for decades, making life difficult for many.

However, victim consciousness is also destructive. When we allow ourselves to be victims, we give away all our power. Or we use our victim state to get power by manipulating others to feel sorry for us. None of this is an assessment of any individual.

The pathway forward is to support people to get back on their feet and help them find ways to use their skills in ways that will bring greater self-acceptance and reduce their self-loathing. We need to get them away from alcohol and support them to find a way to feel proud of who they are. We are a wealthy country. We can do that by employing people who have a passion for tough love, education, support, care, persistence, and inspiration.

Before we step into grand gestures that require the alteration of our constitution, lets roll our sleeves up and do the work that has been avoided for decades. I am not against an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament, but not yet. If need be, let’s legislate one for five years and see how it works.

But we should tune into the perceptions of our sensitive ones. Many felt a tremor of instability when Queen Elizabeth II passed. She was a powerful stabilizing force at the foundation of our system of government. The change will take a while to stabilize. Is it the right time to also be altering our constitution? My sense is no.

There is much we can do in the meantime

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