Australia

Question 1

How and when was Australia discovered and conquered?

Answer 1

• 1770 —> discovery by James Cook and conquest on the basis of the terra nullius
• 1788 —> establishment of the first penal colony in Botany Bay
• destruction of Aboriginal people, society, culture and nature

Question 2

How were the prisoners from England transported to Australia?

Answer 2

• by sea in boats —> 1788 (11 sheeps, 700 convicts, 250 masters and pioneers)
• loss of 13 american colonies
• industrialisation and overcrowded prisons

Question 3

Why couldn’t the prisoners escape from Australia?

Answer 3

• isolated land
• forest
• no cultivation
• 8 moths away from England
• antipodes

Question 4

Until when there was the transportation of convicts and the penal colony?

Answer 4

1868 —> it became a pastoral colony
- 1901 —> independence of Australia

Question 5

What’s the ticket of leave?

Answer 5

it’s a redemption after a good service as a convict
- certificate of freedom —> they were given acres of land and could become settlers

Question 6

How were the convicts and Australia perceived by english people?

Answer 6

• they were still inferior after the thicket of leave —> renegade children of England
• Australia was a land of ex thieves and ignorant people

Question 7

Settlers vs convicts

Answer 7

Notability

Question 8

Why was Australia ambiguous?

Answer 8

symbol of the pioneers and heroes that came in an alien and dead land and democratic policy against the centrality and power of Britain BUT destruction of Aboriginal people and stole generations

Question 9

What’s the stolen generation and why and when did it become a genocide?

Answer 9

Notability

Question 10

Not saying sorry and the movements of reconciliation

Answer 10

• 1997 —> bringing them home report
• 1998 —> beginning of a National Sorry Movement (26 May)
• 2000 —> Walk for Reconciliation
• 2008 —> apologies by the PM Kevin Rudd ≠ John Howard
• Need for Reparation —> 54 recommendations in the BTHR, that are still unaddressed

Question 11

What are the sorry novels and what’s an example?

Answer 11

narratives written by white Australian writers with the aim of denouncing the wrongs perpetrated by their ancestors and expressing postcolonial guilt and shame for benefitting from the legacies of colonization.
An example is “The Secret River” by Kate Grenville
- idea from the Walk for Reconciliation
- only stories about the heroes and pioneers and not about the relationship between Aboriginal people and white people
- the contact zone —> she wanted to investigate what happened in the Hawkesbury area between her great grandfather and Aboriginal people