Aboriginal By Edward Thornhill Summary

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The aboriginals are very much a part of the land. It is not simply something to be possessed and influenced to suit their lifestyles. They are the land and the land is their livelihood. Thornhill’s opinions even propose that their way of life is a better way to live. He says that the aboriginals “were like the gentry” because they spent a small amount of time on necessary actions and the rest of their time was spent telling stories and playing with the children, “it seemed everyone was gentry” (Grenville 229-230). Thornhill wants to believe that the “blacks could be absorbed into some version of a normal society,” but the inharmonious views of land possession amongst the settlers and the indigenous people do not allow for this type of assimilation …show more content…

Since the colonizers cannot explain to the aboriginals the idea of owning land because of language barriers they decide that they can only get the message across physically. The colonizers do not even contemplate sharing the land with the aboriginals. There is an ultimatum given; they either have to “grasp the nettle, painful though it may be, or else abandon the place to the treacherous savages and return to [their] former lives” (Grenville 298). For some reason there is no middle ground, it is either fight or flee; a “get them before they get us” situation (Grenville 297). They decide to fight, and the aboriginals do not stand a chance. However, “this conflict is not simply a question of rival groups disputing ownership of a piece of land but, as Grenville highlights, it is a question of complete incomprehension on both sides of the fundamental concept of owning land” (Colomba 86). After the massacre the land communicates the tragedy that has occurred on

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