SHOCKING WHITE STATEMENTS.
1. Reverend Samuel Marsden, the notorious clergyman and merciless flogging magistrate, commenting on Sydney aborigines (1819): “They are the most degraded of the human race, and never seem to wish to change their habits and manner of life.” [1].
2. Port Phillip Administrator Charles La Trobe commenting on the efficacy of the Australian Native Police that he set up in colonial Victoria in 1841 (1840s): “The Native soon saw that in yielding to his natural aggressive impulses he would be opposed to those who were not only his equals in savage cunning and endowment, but his superiors by alliance with the Europeans.” [2].
3. The Reverend James Walker, MA, Minister of the Church of England, North Parramatta (1846): “I have the honour to state that there are no aboriginals in my District.” [3].
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4. Anthony Trollope, British writer (1873): “Of the Australian black man we may certainly say that he has to go. That he should perish without unnecessary suffering should be the aim of all who are concerned in the matter.” [4].
5. Harold Finch-Hatton (1885): “Whether the Blacks deserve any mercy at the hands of the pioneering squatters is an open question, but that they get none is certain. They are a doomed race, and before many years they will be completely wiped out of the land.” [5].
6. Racist kids recalled by Mum Shirl (Colleen Shirley Perry), outstanding Aboriginal community leader (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mum_(Shirl)_Smith ), recalling outback racism while waiting to receive her MBE (Member of the British Empire award) from the Governor of New South Wales (circa 1975): “... white kids in Cowra running after us yelling “Nigger, nigger, pull the trigger.” [6].
7. J.E. Liddle in his poem “‘Tis True not Many Years Ago” tells a story of times when “The niggers there were all bad then” and ends with the ultimate retribution in which “Many wild nigs were hunted down”. [7].
8. Francis Myers in his poem “Lex Talionis” tells a tale of murderous retribution by a white boy orphaned by blacks:
“‘Twas to kill and to kill, and in killing pay
His debt to the devils the proper way.
He is dead, God rest him, and all his tracks
Are marked with the bones of the cursed blacks.” [8].
9. F.C. Urquart in his poem “Powell’s Revenge” tells a story of merciless extermination of Aborigines:
“Swiftly the messenger had sped
O’er the rough mountain tracks
To tell the news, pour friend was dead,
Killed by the ruthless blacks…
“Surrender” the troopers loudly cry
In the black native tone;
The desperate wretches made reply
With showers of spear and stone.
“Fire!” The words rang clearly out
In the fresh morning air,
From rock and crag that awesome shout
Is echoed everywhere…
Now , traveller, if upon this spot,
Your step should e’er infringe,
Know what shall never be forgot,
That here 3as … Powel’’s Revenge.”[9].
10. The poem “Moneenee” (Anonymous) tells a story of self-sacrifice by an aboriginal boy working for a white man tracking other aborigines - the boy dies fetching a doctor for his master’s wife:
“This is the tale of one who lived and suffered years ago,
Away back in Western Queensland where the swollen rivers flow,
He worked for Trooper Gilbert who was tracking raiders then
For miles around his country with a half a dozen men…” [10].
11. E.S. Emerson (“Milky White”) in his poem “Mac’s Half-Caste” , Mac’s half-caste wife is sold to the amorous Englishman Fancy Fred for 40 pounds. However she eventually goes “bush”, he returns home to England and the half-caste returns to her lawful husband:
“Mac’s half-caste wife was all the talk
From Derby miles along the coast;
You wouldn’t meet in ten years’ walk
A fitter subject for a toast….
And, when they got to thirty-three,
He rushed the little half-caste in,
“Eh! Mak’ it forty lad,” said he,
“Ten ounces doon and she’s your gin”…
For just as soon as she shall wake
To hear the great bush calling low,
Tracks of her own tribe she will take
And back to her old wild haunts go”. [11].
12. J.H.G. in his poem “On the Arrow Track” recounts meeting a “nigger family, tramping on the way, The meanest, poorest wretches I had seen in W.A.”. One of the children starts singing what initially appears to be an unusual aboriginal song but which is eventually recognized as “Ta-ra-ra Boom-dee-ay!” (a Music Hall song):
“Coming from the Arrow, I
With my empty dray,
Met a nigger family
Tramping on the way;
The meanest, poorest wretches
I had seen in W.A…
And then she started singing –
But although attentively
I tried to pick up any air
Whatever air might be –
‘Twas not what I had often heard
At the corroboree.
I nearly had it off by heart
And throught what U should say
When I should bring it back to Vic,
This truly natiuve lay –
But in a flash I recognized –
“Ta-ra-ra Boom-dee ay!”” [12].
13. William Lane, racist labour leader (1892). [He would prefer his daughter] “dead in her coffin than kissing one of them on the mouth or nursing a little coffee-coloured brat that she was mother to. If this is a wicked thing to say, then I am one of the wicked ones, and don’t want to be good either; and I’d pray daily to be kept wicked if I thought there was any chance of my ever getting to think that colour didn’t matter.” [13].
14. Federal Australian Labor Party platform (1900): “Total exclusion of coloured and other undesirable races.” [14].
15. An attack by the racist Bulletin on Joseph Chamberlain, British Secretary of State for the Colonies over his rejection of racist Queensland legislation (1901): “If Judas Chamberlain can find a black, or brown or yellow race in Asia or Africa, that has as high a standard of civilisation and intelligence as the whites, that is as progressive as the whites, as brave, as sturdy, as good nation-making material, and that can intermarry with the whites without the mixed progeny showing signs of deterioration, that race is welcome in Australia regardless of colour.” [15].
16. King O’Malley, Federal Parliamentary speech (1901): “We are here upon a continent set apart by the Creator for a Southern empire - for a Southern nation - and it is our duty to preserve this island continent for all eternity to the white race, irrespective of where they may come from.” [16].
17. Bernard O’Dowd (circa 1900): “Yea, will we steel us to the death to fight -
In such poor means alone avail - whome’er,
Or Asian throng, or island brown, or white
Blood-brother e’en, would cloud our prospect fair,
To guard the future from exotic blight!” [17].
18. Henry Lawson poem “To Be Amused” (circa 1910) “I see the colour line so drawn
(I see it plain and speak I must),
That our brown masters of the dawn
Might, aye, have fair girls for their lusts.” [18].
19. Henry Lawson poem “The Great Fight” concerning the fight in which white boxer Tommy Burns was beaten by American black boxer Jack Johnson in Sydney, Boxing Day, 1908: “For the “money” and “sporting” madness - and here in a land that was white!
You mated a black-man and white-man to stand up before you and fight
And many - God knows how many! - sons of a white man’s son
“Backed the nigger to beat him” - and flocked to see it done ...
You paid and you cheered and you hooted, and this is your need of disgrace;
It was not Burns that was beaten - for a nigger has smacked your face.
Take heed - I am tired of writing - but O my people take heed,
For the time may be near for the mating of the Black and the White to breed.” [19].
20. Arthur Calwell, Labor Immigration Minister, defending his attempt to deport an Indonesian woman Mrs Annie O’Keefe and her eight children in 1949, declared to Parliament (1949): “We can have a white Australia, we can have a black Australia, but a mongrel Australia is impossible, and I shall not take the first steps to establish the precedents which will allow the floodgates to be opened.” [20].
21. Arthur Calwell, former Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader and Leader of the Opposition, remained true to his “traditional” position, declaring only several years before the passage of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act that forbade racial discrimination (but trashed by the Howard Coalition and Rudd Labor in relation to NT Aborigines in 2007):
“No red-blooded Australian wants to see a chocolate-coloured Australia in the 1980s.” [21].
22. John Howard, then PM of Australia, in speech at Parliament House celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights (2007): "The right of an Aboriginal Australian to live on remote communal land and to speak an Indigenous language is no right at all if it is accompanied by grinding poverty, overcrowding, poor health, community violence and isolation from mainstream Australian society." [22].
23. Kevin Rudd, PM of Australia, “Sorry” Speech in which he apologized for the Indigenous Australian Stolen Generations , Parliament House, 2008: the words “racism” and “genocide” were completely absent – Australia had still not endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (finally belatedly endorsed by the Rudd Labor Government in April 2009) and the bipartisan, race-based exclusion of Indigenous Australians from the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act was still in force. [23].
References.
[1]. Lines, W.J. (1991), “Taming the Great South Land. A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia” (Allen & Unwin, Sydney), p43.
[2]. Lines, W.J. (1991), “Taming the Great South Land. A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia” (Allen & Unwin, Sydney), p43.
[3]. Buggy, T. and Cates, J. (1985), “Race Relations in Colonial Australia” (Nelson, Melbourne), p8.
[4]. Trollope, A. (1873), “Australia and New Zealand” (London), p76.
[5]. Lines, W.J. (1991), Taming the Great South Land. A History of the Conquest of Nature in Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sydney), p109.
[6]. Colleen Shirley Smith neé Perry (Mum Shirl) (circa 1975) quoted in Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), “The Dictionary of Australian Quotations” (Heinemann, Melbourne), p237.
[7]. Stewart, D. and Keesing, N. (1962), “Australian Bush Ballads” (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), pp99.
[8]. Stewart, D. and Keesing, N. (1962), “Australian Bush Ballads” (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), pp101.
[9]. Stewart, D. and Keesing, N. (1962), “Australian Bush Ballads” (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), pp105-106.
[10]. Stewart, D. and Keesing, N. (1962), “Australian Bush Ballads” (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), p119.
[11]. Stewart, D. and Keesing, N. (1962), “Australian Bush Ballads” (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), pp110-115.
[12]. Stewart, D. and Keesing, N. (1962), “Australian Bush Ballads” (Angus & Robertson, Sydney), pp119-120.
[13]. William Lane (1892) in the Wagga Hummer, April 1892; quoted in McQueen, H. (1971), A New Britannia (Penguin, Melbourne), p48.
[14]. Labor Party Platform quoted in McQueen, H. (1971), A New Britannia (Penguin, Melbourne); Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), The Dictionary of Australian Quotations (Heinemann, Melbourne), p9.
[15]. Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), The Dictionary of Australian Quotations (Heinemann, Melbourne) , p31.
[16]. O’Malley (1901), Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 6 September 1901, vol.4, p4639; quoted in Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), The Dictionary of Australian Quotations (Heinemann, Melbourne) (1984), pp206-207.
[17]. Bernard O’Dowd (circa 1900), poem Our Land, quoted in McQueen, H. (1971), A New Britannia (Penguin, Melbourne) , p102.
[18]. Henry Lawson (circa 1910), poem To Be Amused, quoted in McQueen, H. (1971), A New Britannia (Penguin, Melbourne), p112
[19]. Henry Lawson (1908), poem “The Great Fight”, quoted in McQueen, H. (1971), “A New Britannia” (Penguin, Melbourne), pp111-112.
[20]. Calwell speech to Parliament (1949), Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 9 February 1949, vol. 201, p64; quoted in Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), “The Dictionary of Australian Quotations” (Heinemann, Melbourne) (1984), p36; quoted and discussed in Kiernan, C. (1978), Calwell. A Personal and Political Biography (Nelson, Melbourne), chapter 6, pp136-153.
[21]. Calwell assertion (1972), Observer 7 May 1972; Murray-Smith, S. (1984) (editor), The Dictionary of Australian Quotations (Heinemann, Melbourne) (1984), p36; quoted and discussed in Kiernan, C. (1978), Calwell. A Personal and Political Biography (Nelson, Melbourne), p133.
[22]. ABC, “PM accused of Aboriginal “genocide””, ABC News, 27 May 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1934342.htm .
[23]. Kevin Rudd, Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples, House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra 13 February 2008 : http://www.pm.gov.au/node/5952 .