Colonisation In Australia

Colonisation has impacted profoundly on indigenous communities worldwide and this essay examines and details some of those impacts. Initially, the concept of colonisation will be elucidated, including the forces that drove colonisation and the mainstream courses of action used to gain success. At a general level, how the ideologies underpinning colonialism have informed interactions between non-indigenous and indigenous peoples will be explored. A comparison will then be formed between the experiences of colonisation for the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the experiences of colonisation for Torres Strait Islander peoples. In particular, the issue of dispossession from land and/or culture will be analysed, as well as the consequential genocide

The first records of European colonists sailing into 'Australian' waters occurs around 1606, and includes their observations of the land known as Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land). The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman, Willem Janszoon. Between 1606 and 1770, an estimated 54 European ships from a range of nations made contact. In 1770, Englishman Lieutenant James Cook charted the Australian east coast, and claimed it on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming eastern Australia 'New South Wales'. Colonization is primarily undertaken for land and wealth acquisition and natural resources; however, Great Britain also urgently needed to provide new infrastructure for the overflowing prisons. There are mainstream methods of achieving a constructed colony, which include war, treaties and claims on unoccupied

Robin (2009) states that the process of constructing an inferior ‘other’ in colonizing discourses normalized the superiority of the dominant or colonizing culture. The scientific race theory constructed a hierarchical structure of inferior and superior cultures, as well as exposing the purpose of attaching negative values to those cultures that differ from the norm (Murphy and Choi, 1997. Cited in Young, 2009). This concept asserted specific races were more pure, advanced and indicative of modern civilization, and was used to inferiorize and marginalize the Indigenous other (Murphy and Choi, 1997: 22. Cited in Young, 2009). It created a classificatory system in which the ‘white’ world was valued and normalized, and one that assigned the Indigenous other to a pre-modern past, outside the intervention of social redemption. As indicated above, the laws, policies and practices of separation and protection resulted in the removal of Indigenous people from their country and the removal of children of mixed blood from their families and communities, which continue to have effect the legal, political, economic, social and cultural status of Indigenous peoples of Australia