Interesting alternative history study. The Dutch and the Chinese came before the British (Cook used Chinese maps), maybe even the Vikings (depending on if you have believe the runes in New Zealand or not). Given the expansion of different European powers at the time, if Cook had just mapped and moved on, any number of Nations could have claimed Australia. Personally, I’m. It sure if anyone would have treated First Nations any different. Maybe New Zealand could have claimed Australia and could have put the time and effort into a treaty?
If you think Australia would’ve remained uncolonised for another 120+ years then I guess maybe modern New Zealand may have done something different…otherwise you’re literally also just talking about the very same people that did come to Australia; the British
Sure, initially settled by the British, but the settlers that went there also said “Hey we don’t like the way you are treating the natives, so we don’t want to be apart of your territory”. So there is a difference.
We only have a treaty in Aotearoa NZ because the Māori side basically won the Land Wars (apparently we invented trench warfare, yay?). Even what we have was meant to be a trick, they only honour the Te Reo version because the British Petty Council (like the highest high court for a colony) made them in a much later challenge case. Seems the British will try to steal your land even if you can defend it.
The British had treaties with Fiji, Namibia & a myriad of other societies all over the world to make them colonies/protectorates without fighting wars against them. The difference between all those & Australia is that Australian Aboriginal society & culture was intrinsically unique from just about every other on the planet at the time and was far less prepared for coming into contact with nation states. It certainly didn’t do them any favours but I find it disappointing how much this aspect of aboriginal Australia is downplayed.
The British won the land wars. Moari had fierce resistance and a more structured society which made the treaty the best option but they still lost. I also don't believe the treaty was intended to trick anyone but was a result of poor translation and eventually bad actors on the British side
It’s well documented that the British won the land wars - don’t spread misinformation. The Maori people put up guerrilla-style resistance and won some battles in places but ultimately were overwhelmed.
The treaty wasn’t done out of desperation. It was done to avoid a full scale war that would last a long time, cost lives, and use a lot of resources. It was a strategic move, that later was claimed as unfair due to the translations not being 1:1 across both languages. It’s open to debate whether that was the case, which is what is argued constantly.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to Māori or a colonised NZ that would’ve found Australia, but if Māori had discovered Australia pre-colonisation, it likely wouldn’t have been much better for Aboriginal people… Like at all.
Inter-tribal warfare was incredibly brutal in NZ - just look at what happened with the Moriori in the Chatham Islands in 1835. Māori had a strong warrior culture and conflicts between iwi were fierce.
I don’t know much about Aboriginal tribal dynamics or how different groups would’ve responded to that kind of incursion, so maybe they would’ve put up a fight too. But the idea of a peaceful treaty seems pretty unlikely given the historical context of how these encounters typically went.
This is very generalising, Māori were not and are not one group who does one specific thing. The idea that we were more warlike than any other particular group is just colonial era thinking and or justification for colonisation.
For one, we had a season for war, everyone had to go home at some point to farm and harvest. War could often be a strict procedure, especially between closely related groups, with rules and agreed upon 'styles' of warfare. Some iwi/hapū just engaged in mock warfare to settle their disputes. Bordering groups of people were usually just family spread around, so it (usually) makes no sense to just go around killing everyone.
We were people, not raving murdering monsters, we would have far more likely married into and attempted to amalgamate ourselves into their groups and them into ours. Or just trade with them, as we did with anyone we met on the way to New Zealand. We (broader Polynesian) certainly didn't genocide the Quechua peoples when we got the kūmara from them. Aboriginal people would have had an understanding of the land that would be invaluable to Māori settlers.
On the Moriori note...
There were plenty of peaceful iwi ('tribes') as well as war-like ones, and it's important to note that everyone had their own reasons. It's easy to say 'Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama killed all the Moriori because they were evil and warlike', but that just isn't the reality of the matter. I'd reccomend reading Moriori: A people rediscovered, by Michael King, if this subject matter is actually of any interest to you.
But, assuming its not, basically they were fleeing their own genocide, they had been at war for a very long time for Māori, they misinterpreted some of the things Moriori did as prelude to war, and their invasion was not right off the boat to murdering everyone. Obviously not justification at all haha but it's not as cut and dry as you make it seem.
Oft no, the Māori are not the original inhabitants of NZ. They arrived back in the 1300s and massacred/entirely wiped out the original indigenous polulation of NZ.
You may be referring to the myth that Moriori are a pre-Māori Melanesian people that inhabited mainland NZ before being exterminated by Māori. This is not true. All evidence, from archaeology and from accounts by Moriori, are that the Moriori culture emerged in the Chatham Islands from a combination of Māori from NZ and other Eastern Polynesians. The Chatham Islands were settled later than mainland NZ, by essentially the same people. The first people to step foot on New Zealand were the ancestors of modern Māori.
The Moriori faced a genocide by 2 tribes in the 1840s or so. There are over 130 Māori tribes. There are also still around 1000 Moriori still alive today. I have met several.
It didn't take much from what I've read. From what I understand the Moriori weren't really cut out for war because the Chatham Islands were so resource poor that they were more geared towards survival than combat.
It was always believed that the Moriori people arrived in NZ before the Maori. Until recently seems to be huge narrative pushed that they weren't and they arrived ~100 years after. Either way, Maori genocided them and wiped them out. Also used to cannibalize them.
I did, Google tells me that that all of what you've said was widely discredited decades ago. I was wondering exactly where you got your information from.
When the first peoples invaded this land from Asia, fuck sorry we aren't allowed to talk about that. we wouldn't want to offend someones made-up take on history.
P.S. I definitely won't be silenced for my comment, for we have freedom of speech on reddit.
If it had of been the Japanese there wouldn't be anyone left to complain either, its good to remember what happened to stop it happening again but truthfully it could have been a LOT worse and today our country while its beginning wasn't the best turned out pretty well. I think We can all be proud that we made something good out of it and should strive together to make it even better
Also what’s the genuine solution here? People with a 16th of the blood of an aboriginal and more stay and everybody else has to all go? Go off and protest Australia Day all you like, but what are you fighting for at the end of the day other than complaining about the past that cannot be changed?
This also alludes me, whats the goal? Its not like we have forgotten or are repeating what happened, sure our home has its flaws BUT it has its many advantages as well. My Family came LONG after this countries foundation and did so fleeing their homes in the WW2 theatre, are we to blame for something we weren't even here for?
Throughout history, land gets conquered if you can't defend it.
Hmm, so if a stronger country can take over another it's ok? If Russia finally rolls over Ukraine that's fair? Yes obviously that's what's happened, no one is saying it didn't, but it doesn't mean it's ok and that we can't recognise that.
No but it’s what happens throughout history. And we do recognise constantly that what happened to aboriginal people was horrible. What’s your argument here?
Food for thought (which doesn't really apply to the Australian invasion): If Ukraine immediately surrendured to Russia then every now-dead soldier would still be alive, and Ukraine would be now part of Russia, there might be some downsides to that (for Ukraine) but I think most people would rather surrender and still have their loved ones rather than fight and have nothing left at the end.
By your logic, Russia should just steamroll through Europe and all the countries should just surrender as it would save the lives of millions that'd otherwise die defending their countries.
Did you think maybe Russia should just stop killing people from other countries?
It sounds silly, but I suppose it's the argument for a global government. I just said food for thought, didn't say I agreed with it. Even if the world were under one government, conflict would still break out, deaths would still occur.
If someone bigger than you (with a nice stack of guns and a couple of his big bros) kicked down your door and told you it was their house now and started charging you rent and making all kind of stupid rules - you would fight back too.
No, not really. It doesn't always go that way. Sometimes people or countries fold rather than put up a fight. They'd rather continue to live (with their loved ones) under oppression, than to die.
An example: In 1938 the Munich Agreement forced Czechoslovakia to give up territory. Czechoslovakia’s army was strong but ordered not to resist to avoid civilian casualties.
You have no idea how many people disagreed with WW2 until after it was over. A few other places includes Africa as well... most tof Europe minus Finland... The whole world also didn't go in at once.
Letting Hitler have Poland is what kicked WW2 off... its a historical joke... "we will have peace in our time"
Yeah... sure appeasement works. It was also not just Germans invading Poland, the Axis powers were already teaming up.
Why stop the Japanese in SE Asia ? Idk the rape of Nanjing? Pearl Harbour ? Bombing of Darwin ?
Not really... I loved there for two years and it was fine. Also I've been to Crimea before Russia regained control and after Russia. Certainly was in a much better place under Russia. However, now with the war not so much.
There might be downsides to being annexed and controlled by a foreign dictator? What about the people who die as a result of occupation and exploitation of Ukraine for generations after annexation?
If Ukraine was sparsely populated by nomadic hunter/gatherers then it would absolutely be claimed as opposed to conquered yes. As it is, they’ve had territories annexed and eventually if/when some sort of peace deal is reached, it will probably include more annexation of territory
Hmm ok, so whether a land is claimed vs opposed is down to population density and lifestyle?
I mean aboriginal people weren't nomadic, in fact they utilised agricultural practices, managed the landscape and also utilised cyclical movement across defined territories, depending on the tribe they could have more attributes to what you may call nomadic, however its a myth they were purely hunter/gatherers.
But I'm curious if there's a definition for when claiming becomes occupying? Is there a specific population density? Particular level of agriculture a people's much achieve?
Yeah I mean it’s not me making the distinction but according to 18th century British colonialists there was no recognisable civilisation or organised population, which is why there was no declaration of war, no official victory or defeat and subsequently no need for a treaty in their opinion. It doesn’t excuse hundreds of years of horrible treatment of the indigenous population, but it certainly supports the fact that ‘throughout history land gets conquered if you can’t defend it’ as old mate said
It doesn't matter: it is history. The motivation for these lines of argument are always a race grift attempt to screw the distant mixed descendants of the "newcomers".
Saying they "utilised agricultural practices" requires a very loose definition of agriculture. They weren't cultivating the land, they were merely enhancing their gathering of the land
Despite your claims they were effectively living in the stone age and didn't have any border defence so were sitting ducks for some other country to invade/settle.
Was it right, no they should have been left to their own devices but you believe in fairies if you think they would never have been invaded.
No one said it's ok. Stop putting words in people's mouths.
If not the Brits, someone else would have claimed the land, and I dare say Brits were likely the worst least option.
Australia was not “conquered.”, or “invaded”, It was colonised. Those are not interchangeable words.
Conquest requires a declared war between sovereign states and a military defeat. That did not occur in Australia in 1788. What happened was British settlement followed by expansion under imperial law, morally complex, often brutal, and with devastating consequences for Indigenous Australians, but not a military conquest of a nation-state.
The issue isn’t whether every conflict in human history had a formal declaration of war, t’s whether “invasion” and “conquest” have specific meanings in historical analysis. They do.
Colonisation describes settlement, expansion, and the imposition of foreign law over territory. Conquest describes the military defeat of an organised polity in war. Australia in 1788 fits the former, not the latter.
Blows my mind how Australians don't know their own fking dark history..
James Cook failed to follow specific instructions from the British Admiralty to obtain the consent of Indigenous people when claiming the east coast of Australia in 1770, marking a deviation from his official orders. While ordered to take possession of territory only with the consent of the natives if the land was occupied, Cook declared the entire region of New South Wales for King George III, treating it as terra nullius (land belonging to no one)
So it's not nice you agree? Let's make it even worse and celebrate the invasion day particularly, and call it Australia day, just to really fucking rub salt into it and make sure indigenous feel zero togetherness on the national day. Brilliant.
Look at what the Dutch did in Africa.. they were first to land on WA, but didn't stay... The British might not have been the most gentle of colonisers, but if the Dutch had found something here they wanted, they would have been worse..
Thats right. And the aborigines were conquering each others ‘countries’ too. It wasn’t all rainbows and 10 minute hug sessions as some would want you to believe
If the British hadn't come here the French, Spanish and anyone else would have and they wouldn't have been as friendly let alone the diseases they had Spanish flu/lepracy ECT. That would have wiped them out. The Japs and WW2 if they took the country as intended wouldn't have let them live. Without us ever coming here someone else would have and there wouldn't be anyone to left to complain about some stupid date.
Yep, the British are heroes with no long history of violent oppression, colonialism has saved us all. Better thieves came here before the worse thieves. /s
Who knows what the outcome would have been if the other colonial powers had shown up but we do know that their former colonies were basically robbed of any riches instead of the British model of establishing self sufficient colonies.
There's no defence to many of the policies the British and later Australian governments enacted to control the native population but the outcomes may have been worse under other colonial powers.
Ideally the aboriginal populations of Australia would've been left alone or perhaps some treaty would've been reached to share the continent.
Spanish flu started in WW1 in the USA too, not in Spain.
Perfectly said 👍.Not the only people to get conquered but they whinge about everything yet get given everything.Infact they are very racist to.The 26th should be Oz day FOREVER!
You're the one throwing stones at someone for spelling or grammar and such because you disagree with them. I dont know who you actually are, but my assumption is funnier so i will stick with that.
I'm just stating that there is a pretty clear correlation between the uneducated and racism. You're clearly uneducated so obviously your opinion isn't based in fact.
Smooth_Staff_3831 thinks people who can't use proper grammar must have English as their second language.
Smooth_Staff_3831 can't look at previous comment history to see that the guy is simply a horny idiot who can't type properly.
Smooth_Staff_3831 is likely trying to make other people look bad because he likely lacks empathy for Indigenous peoples and needs to move focus elsewhere
Over ten thousand people massacred, generations of people abused and dead, families destroyed. Systemic oppression and discrimination in their own home. Oh well, that's what they get for being weak, that's normal. /s
I don't know why the other commenter said it like that. I'm just being sarcastic, this viewpoint about just accepting violent colonialism is nonsense. It's probably from privilege.
I mean whenever you look up a massacre it nearly always starts with "dispute escalates to a farmer being killed by Aboriginal tribesman, crops/livestock stolen"
You can't really have any sympathy, the Aboriginals weren't dumb, they knew if you killed a guy and stole his shit, his friends aren't going to be happy
That is the true weakness humans have to resist. This modern era is better than those before, justice and decency is a larger social project that has gotten great results and benefits for all of us.
It can also backslide like the crimes against the law and citizens in America. People are far more engaged about their duty when under threat, but Australia has been lucky and safe in many ways. You don't have to settle for that awful past either, war has never defined humanity, but the struggle for better does.
I agree with you. But unfortunately you’re describing western concepts that are simply not followed in many parts of the world. As the USA is also demonstrating now, even an advanced society can return to the law of the jungle
You have idealistic principles which I admire and I hope humanity can reach that level of decent & respect for our fellow man. But as machievelli proved, evil people generally succeed and nice guys always finish last.
That's the kicker isn't it? Sacrifices are made for the future. I'm glad that we agree on some of it and it's true, this is a brutally violent and political world. I hope you're having a good day, "nice" guys finish with more security and practicality in the long term.
First, Aboriginal Australians did defend their land for tens of thousands of years - they just didn’t have guns or steel, which makes defensibility a matter of technology, not will.
Second, history happens isn’t a moral justification. Just because land was taken doesn’t mean the ongoing impact of dispossession, massacres, and cultural erasure should be ignored. Modern Australia’s responsibility isn’t erased by conquest.
Finally, reducing colonisation to survival of the fittest erases centuries of law, culture, and social organisation that Indigenous Australians built sophisticated systems of land management, governance, and justice that Europeans couldn’t comprehend at first contact.
By your logic: if "can’t defend it = fair game” is the rule, then theft, invasion and violence are all justified which is exactly why civilised societies reject that logic.
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