Australia's Frontier Wars Flashcards
Explain why Britain chose to colonize Australia
To start a penal colony, prisons were getting overcrowded. To gain more land and power in the Southern Hemisphere.
What was the date of British settlement in Australia?
January 26, 1788
Explain what a penal colony is
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners
What ‘Terra nullius’ mean? Explain this in relation to Australia
- ‘Terra nullius’ means ‘no man’s land’.
- It was used to describe Australia despite it already being inhabited by people. This helped the British justify their invasion of Australia, and atrocities committed against Aboriginal people
Describe the kinship Indigenous Australians have with the land
Indigenous Australians lived in harmony with the land. The British could not understand Aboriginal kinship systems or why they did not behave like Europeans and build towns, churches and farms.
Explore race relations generally during colonial Australia
Aboriginal people were shot at when they crossed British farmland to hunt and gather food. But these farms had been established by taking Aboriginal land. In retaliation, Aboriginal warriors attacked British settlers and convicts. More and more British people arrived and ever more Aboriginal people died of smallpox and other introduced diseases,
including whooping cough and influenza.
- The Myall Creek massacre was the killing of at least twenty-eight unarmed Indigenous Australians by twelve colonists on 10 June 1838
- Yagan was a Noongar leader and resistance fighter during the early years of the Swan River Colony. In the conflict that ensued, Yagan was both feared and admired by British people as a patriot fighting for his land. In today’s Noongar community, Yagan is an iconic figure in the fight for Noongar rights and recognition.
What was the aim of missions and reserves?
To “educate” First Nations people to make them abandon their culture and thus stop resisting colonization.
What was the impact of missions and reserves on Indigenous Australians?
Missionaries were taking on the role of bringing Christianity and British ways to Aboriginal people. They concentrated on converting children whom they separated from their parents on mission stations. At least one missionary resorted to kidnapping children.
Explain the Coranderrk story
One of the most successful schemes to turn Aboriginal people into farmers was the Coranderrk Reserve,
set up near Healesville in Victoria in 1863. The Kulin people who moved to Coranderrk cleared and fenced
the land and, by the 1870s, they were successfully growing hops, raising cattle and running a dairy. Despite
this, the law did not recognize the people as the owners of this land. Aborigines attempted to close Coranderrk in 1874, its Kulin residents marched in protest to the Victorian
Parliament. Their action saved Coranderrk, but only for a time. From 1886, under the Victorian Aborigines
Act, many people of mixed descent were forced to leave the reserves. This cut Coranderrk’s workforce to a
level that was too low to run the farms. Finally, in 1924, Coranderrk was closed.
What was the stolen generation?
The Stolen Generations refers to a period in Australia’s history where Aboriginal children were removed from their families through government policies. This happened from the mid-1800s to the 1970s.
1967 Referendum
On 27 May 1967, Australians voted to change the Constitution so that like all other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them.
1992 Mabo decision
On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia recognised that a group of Torres Strait Islanders, led by Eddie Mabo, held ownership of Mer (Murray Island). In acknowledging the traditional rights of the Meriam people to their land, the court also held that native title existed for all Indigenous people.
2008 Apology
On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia recognised that a group of Torres Strait Islanders, led by Eddie Mabo, held ownership of Mer (Murray Island). In acknowledging the traditional rights of the Meriam people to their land, the court also held that native title existed for all Indigenous people.
Why was the Gold Rush significant for Australia?
The discovery of gold near Ballarat in July 1851 created
great excitement in all of the Australian colonies.
Between 1852 and 1854, Melbourne received an average of
259 migrants every day; by the end of 1854, migrants from these years made up 86 per cent of Victoria’s population of
284 000.
Describe the racial tensions and hostility towards foreigners especially Chinese migrants
Chinese miners arrived on the Australian gold fields around 1854. Often referred to in the contemporary literature as celestials (children of the sun), they were viewed by large sections of society with suspicion and racism because of their different language, dress, food and customs.
