1971 School Magazine

beside them. If the seals scratched themselves, the women did likewise, in fact, they imitated every movement of the animais. After about an hour, the women suddenly all rose, and struck the seals on their noses with the clubs and killed them. They were usually successful, and so this was extremely profitable for the whites. The women acted as concubines also, so the aboriginal tribes attacked in revenge for this. Obviousiy there were both good and bad points about the aborigines. One good point was that the aborigines were often more humane than the whites thought. In Tasmania, there were continual clashes between the two races from 1803 until 1833. While the white men were killing as many natives as possible as a sport, the blacks were frequently sparing the lives of European women and children. If any had been murdered during an attack, the elders of the tribe made it obvious that they disapproved of it. In another case, a convict stoie some spears and fishing tackle from the aborigines so the governor ordered that he be flogged in the presence of the natives concerned. The natives all detested the punishment and sympathized with the convict while the women cried and hit the executioner with sticks. There have beqn times when aboriginal servants who were loyal to their employers, gave warning of attacks by their tribes. Another commendable quality was that the aborigines were capable of much kindness and sympathy. They looked after escaped convicts and white travellers who were lost in the bush. One escaped convict was Davis who lived with a tribe for fourteen years, since the old chief thought him to be the reincarnation of his dead son. He believed that the dead "came up white". The aborigines could become extremely devoted to their masters, and even some black boys were known to form strong attachments to their masters' sons, and would do anything for them. As well, any afflicted members of the tribe were treated with much kindness a1l their lives. Some whites once recorded seeing a blind aboriginal man who was given the best of the food gathered and was given a guide to assist him on "walkabouts". Other white men saw an old woman who was crippled from birth being carried as always, from place to place by the men of her tribe. On the other hand, the blacks had some bad features also. To begin with, they were dirty, smelly, often diseased, superstitious and lazy. The whites were horrified by the frightful atrocities and great cruelty that they were capable of committing both to the settlers and to members of their own tribes. For instance, once a woman refused to give the aborigines every item that she promised them for fetching her some firewood, so her child was taken away from her. The next morning she saw its mutilated remains hanging on a tree before her house. Another time, a black boy refused to undertake the heathenish rites of initiation, so the tribe hacked him to pieces with

boomerangs and pinioned him to an ant-bed with forked sticks. Therefore, rnany whites had reason to keep well away from the natives. Most of the adventurous parties of explorers encountered at some time during their journeys, tribes of either friendiy or hostile blacks. ln 1799, Flinders, in a voyage around Moreton Bay, landed on Bribie Island and at first the crew was on good terms with the natives. After receiving presents from the sailors, the natives, without warning, began to attack. In 1831, Major Mitchell, while discovering that many streams joined the Darling River, had much trouble with the, blacks and three of his party were killed by them. In 1844, as Sturt was exploring the mystery of the western rivers, he suddenly encountered a tribe all prepared for war. One savage was aiming his spear directly at Sturt, when four natives, who had become friendly with the explorers the previous day, ran to the scerie and pushed back the fierce black on the whole, though, the tribes living along the coast were more aggressive than those of the interior, probably becausg they had experienced more contact with white men. Not all tribes were hostile, and some were friendly to white men, one such example being John Batman. In the Port Phillip district, in 1835, the natives were able to gain enough confidence in Batman for him to make an agreement with them. In return for blankets, handkerchiefs, mirrors, beads, apples and the like, he obtained six hundred thousand aiies of land from them. Eight native chiefs "signed" this treaty, most probably without understanding what it was all about. Overall, the aborigines were probably unfriendiy because they were frightened by ihe noisy weapons of the white men and they feared that they would be driven from their native districts. From the time of the first settlement until 1850, many attempts were undergone to help better the position of the aborigines, but many were unsuccess- ful. Governor Phillip insisted that the aborigines be treated in a reasonable way by the colonists, but it was difficult to achieve this. The Colonial Govern- ments, however, supplied blankets to the natives, while the more humanitarian settlers gave them sugar, flour, meat and clothing in return for carrying water and firewood and stripping bark from trees. A native wounded Governor Phillip with a spear, but the governor said it was due to a misunderstanding so forgot the incident.. The next governor, Macquarie, tried to civilize the natives, for he thought it only fair since they had been forced away from their coastal hunting lands by the white men. He wanted to protect them from the aggression of the white men, and for them to abandon their primitive way of life and join the white working class. The Governor proposed schemes to the aborigines to cease wandering and become regular settlers at a meeting held for them at Parramatta in 1814. In 1815, Macquarie opened a native institution at Parramatta for children and one for adults at Port Jackson. In 1816, he laid down rules of conduct for

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