Australia
Introduction :
40 000 years before our era : the Aborigines discover Australia. In 1770, the British start one of the
bloodiest colonization of the history. The Aborigines, attached to their land, will fight against this
settlers. The consequences will be terrible : loss of territory, rights, identity and family tearing.
Gradually, the Aborigines try to enforce their rights and find their dignity. They have hope in spite of
the hardship that they have crossed.
1) History of Australia
The historians don't know precisely when the first humans arrived in Australia but some people think
that it started approximately 50 000 years because there was a period of dislocation ecological in this
country. However, other people think that this colonization will have begun 100 000 years. This first
Australians are the ancestors of the aborigines of today. The independence of Australia takes place
in the 19th century. The Australians colonies expressed more and more their will of became
independent near United Kingdom. It is declare the January 1st 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia
was born and its capital is Melbourne until 1927. The Australia vote a law, named « Immigration
Restriction Act », which prohibits the immigration no English. This law enter in the project of the
“White Australia”, which has for aim to maintain the English origins of the country.
During this colonization, we note that the Aborigine population decreased between 1788, when the
first British arrived, and 1901. It only has a small part of the total population of Australia. The causes
are the violence of the colons against the Aborigines and the news diseases that they bring on the
island. In the opposite, the colonial population increased. In 1788, there is only 860 people on the
territory without the Aborigines. One century later, in 1888, there is approximately 3 millions people.
This growth be explained by the discover, from to years 1850, of the gold and by the arrival of the
migrants attracted by this discover whose lot of Asian.
Discover of the gold
Independence of Australia
2) Native people
The Aborigines will submit to the colonization than later and by force. However, in the West, the
colons learned to know them better and consider them intelligent men, which contradicted the
ideology of settlers from the East. In this territory, they will be accused, sometimes wrongly, thefts
and murders, which are the answer to the savage actions inflicted by some British.
During the 19th century, the conflicts between colons and Aborigines will increase. The Aborigines
will commit lot of murders on Whites. The Aborigines were the targets of Whites in spite of the
prohibitions of the British kingdom, transmitted by governors of the country. Until 1850, the colons
feared a few Aborigines because these were more and their material more reliable. All this clashes
caused many losses at the Aborigines, anyway in 1933, it stayed only 67 000 Aborigines. In the World
War II, the Aborigines were engaged in the army.
The population aborigine is marked by the drama of the “Stolen Generations”, which takes place in
the 20th century. This period was one of the darkest for the Australia history.
By their racial views, the colons think that the Aborigines only live a short time after their arrival. And
it was almost the case. But, the mixed population increased, which led the States to vote a law
obliging the mixed children to be educated among whites institutions.
Between 1901 and 1969, the children will be torn to their families, placed into orphanages and social
centers, to be educated in European style. It's only from 1910, that it be practiced in all States. This
children descended of an aborigine mother and a colon father, and they owned to an aborigine family.
From years 1950, this children could be placed in families white home. This practices ceased after
the World War II because the ideologies had changed.
It will wait for 2008 so that the Australian government, that Kevin Rudd, apologize to all the families
concerned by the “Stolen Generations”. The number of separated children to their families has not
been clearly established. But in 1997, the report “Bringing Them Home”, evokes the number of 100
000 children. It also mentioned the losses on several generations of Aborigines and the suffering that
these people have suffered : families separation, violence in institutions.
Some became adults declare that they keep deep
trauma and that their identity is difficult to build.
Massacre of Aborigines
Stolen Generations
3) Beliefs and way of life
-The aboriginal civilization ignores the writing. The knowledge is transmitted by speech and ritual
paintings to the initiation of the younger. The myths of the tribe as the rules which dictate the way
of life of the community and those that she has to respect to survive are in “The Dreamtime”. Some
ancestors are shared to some tribes, but most of aborigine’s tribes have their own Dreamtime, myths
and particular traditions.
-Their tradition the most sacred is called “Dreamtime”. The Aborigines have a particular way to see
and feel the land where they live. The expression “Dreamtime”, of European origin, adopted by the
Aborigines, sends to the creation of the world. It starts under the action of the Creator of lot of things,
often called Baiame. He summons on the Earth, Ancestors able to change form.
-Their culture and their way of life are also derived of a rite named, “The Creation Stories”. Each event
lived by the Ancestors of Dreamtime changed the form, and the landscape. So, the Rainbow Snake
punished, by downing them, people and animals who did taboo acts, creating bays and rivers or
formed rocks and hills with their bones. Once their work is completed, the ancestors transformed
again and went after teaching the ceremonies to the next generations. To the Aborigines, the
Ancestors stayed under their forms that they taken at the end of the Dreamtime.
-We find also “The Sacred Stories” which are different for each group which has its own Creation
stories, called “The Dream” and which speaks about territories. These stories, venerating the acts and
the success of the Ancestors, are sacred and they are told to the members of each community.
Another of their primary belief is “The Dream”. In one group, the old can named “a guardian of
Dreams”, who is a storyteller and who has a lot of knowledge. The old tell the Dreams during different
circumstances : initiation ritual, gatherings around a campfire.
-The art occupy a central place in the life of the Australia Aborigines. The painting permit to this
civilization, mainly of oral tradition, to keep traces of the past, while transmitting their memories. It
maintains the cultural roots of the Aborigines. The aborigines’ paintings represent the oldest artistic
tradition still alive in the world. The paintings on bark and on canvas are features of the culture.
-The culture and the way of life of the Aborigines are entirely linked to the land and to the
environment which they belong. The traditions et cultures of each tribe based on an environment
and special sacred places, which explains the diversity of traditions, one tribe to another. This is one
explanation for the failure of the reserves and lands reserved for Aborigines during the colonization
of Australia. For an Aborigine, know and possess myths left by the ancestors through storytelling,
painting and singing means to belong to a particular tribe. The Aborigines consider that they belong
to the land of their ancestors rather than the territories belong to them. That's why it was difficult
for them to provide proof of ownership to the colonizers, who took the opportunity to declare
Australia "terra nullius" (without owner).
Aboriginal art
Aboriginal magician
4) Arrival of first Europeans
The first European to visit Australia is the Portuguese explorer Cristóvão de Mendonça in 1522.
Others explorers interested to this island including several Dutch.
It’s only in the 17th century that European involved. The first British to discover Australia are William
Dampier (for England) on the west coast in 1688 and Lieutenant James Cook who, in 1770, takes over
two-thirds of the island to the Kingdom of Great Britain. The British royal colony of New South Wales
starts by the foundation of the a camp (which will become Sydney) in the harbor Jackson by the
captain Arthur Phillip the January 26, 1788. The arrival of this First Fleet will become later the date of
the Australia Day. The Great Britain has become the UK in 1801 after the unification with Ireland.
Tasmania, in the past called territory Van Diemen is colonized from to 1804. It becomes a separate
colony in 1826 after the British settled there. The rest of the island (today Western Australia) is
declared British in 1829.
During this period from 1855 to 1890, the six colonies of the crown become each one after one, a
colony self-governing. The Australian population concentrates mainly in Melbourne and Sydney. In
the 1880 years, Melbourne is the second largest city in the British Empire. Although Australia has
become independent, the British government keeps a few powers. During the World War II, Australia,
which counted 5 millions of habitants joined, from the very beginning, to the Allies ; 416 000 of
Australians will participate to this conflict where 60 000 of them will die.
In 1967, a referendum is voted for the Aborigines to grant them the citizenship status. In 1986, the
“Australia Act” is voted, it’s an Australian law which abolishes the legal relationship between the
United Kingdom and Australia. Before this law, the original constitution did not give the federal
government the power to pass laws to all residents of Australia except the aborigines.
Despite the acceptance of their people by whites, the level of Aboriginal life remains low by the lack
of employment due to lack of study and professional training.
Today, the aboriginal population is approximately 257 000. It represents 1,5 % of the total population.
This increase is due to a high birth rate even though the mortality rate remains high. One third of
them live in rural areas, less than a quarter live in urban areas of Western manner. But the majority
of them managed to keep the usages and the traditions and none would want to integrate the way
of life of Whites.
The cities of Sydney and Melbourne
Camille Simon