Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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Another Author, With Reference To The Cape Colony, Remarks -
"The number of natives, estimated at the time of the discovery at about
200,000, are stated to have been reduced, or cut off, to the present
population of about 32,000, by a continual system of oppression, which
once begun, never slackened."
Catlin gives a feeling and melancholy account of the decrease of the
North American Indians, [Note 99: Vide Catlin's American Indians,
vol. i. p. 4 and 5, and vol. ii. p. 238.] and similar records might be
adduced of the sad fate of almost every uncivilized people, whose country
has been colonized by Europeans. In Sydney, which is the longest
established of all our possessions in New Holland, it is believed that not
a single native of the original tribes belonging to Port Jackson is now
left alive. [Note 100 at end of para.] Advancing from thence towards the
interior a miserable family or two may be met with, then a few detached
groups of half-starved wretches, dependant upon what they can procure
by begging for their daily sustenance. Still further, the scattered
and diseased remnants [Note 101 at end of para.], of once powerful,
but now decayed tribes are seen interspersed throughout the country,
until at last upon arriving at the more remote regions, where the
blighting and annihilating effects of colonization have not yet
overtaken them, tribes are yet found flourishing in their natural state,
free from that misery and diminution which its presence always brings
upon them.
[Note 100: "In the first year of the settlement of New South Wales, 1788,
Governor Phillip caused the amount of the population of Port Jackson to be
ascertained, by every cove in it being visited by different inspectors at
the same time. The number of natives found in this single harbour was
130, and they had 67 boats. At the same time it was known that many were
in the woods making new canoes. From this and other data, Governor Phillip
estimated the population between Botany Bay and Broken Bay inclusive,
at 1500." - Aboriginal Protection Society's Report, May 1839, p. 13.
In Report of the same Society for July 1839, page 71, Mr. Threlkeld
says - "Of one large tribe in the interior four years ago there were 164
persons - there are now only three individuals alive!!"]
[Note 101: "The whole eastern country, once thickly peopled, may now be
said to be entirely abandoned to the whites, with the exception of some
scattered families in one part, and of a few straggling individuals in
another; and these once so high spirited, so jealous of their independence
and liberty, now treated with contempt and ridicule even by the lowest of
the Europeans; degraded, subdued, confused, awkward, and distrustful, ill
concealing emotions of anger, scorn, and revenge - emaciated and covered
with filthy rags; - these native lords of the soil, more like spectres of
the past than living men, are dragging on a melancholy existence to a yet
more melancholy doom." - STRZELECHI'S N. S. WALES, p.350.]
It is here that the native should be seen to be appreciated, in his
native wilds, where he alone is lord of all around him. To those who have
thus come into communication with the Aborigines, and have witnessed the
fearless courage and proud demeanour which a life of independence and
freedom always inspires, it cannot but be a matter of deep regret to see
them gradually dwindling away and disappearing before the presence of
Europeans. As the ravages of a flood destroy the country through which it
takes its course, and which its deposit ought only to have fertilized,
[Note 102 at end of para.] so the native, who ought to be improved by a
contact with Europeans, is overwhelmed and swept away by their approach.
In Van Diemen's Land the same result has been produced as at Sydney, but
in a more extended and exterminating manner.[Note 103 at end of para.]
There, instead of a few districts, the whole island is depopulated
of its original inhabitants, and only thirty or forty individuals,
the banished remnant of a once numerous people, are now existing as
exiles at Flinders Island, to tell the tale of their expatriation. [Note
104 at end of para.] In Western Australia the same process is gradually
but certainly going on among the tribes most in contact with the
Europeans. In South Australia it is the same; and short as is the time
that this province has been occupied as a British Colony, the results
upon the Aborigines are but too apparent in their diminished numbers, in
the great disproportion that has been produced between the sexes, and in
the large preponderance of deaths over births. A miserably diseased
condition, and the almost total absence of children, are immediate
consequences of this contact with Europeans. The increase or diminution
of the tribes can only be ascertained exactly in the different
districts, by their being regularly mustered, and lists kept of the
numbers and proportion of the sexes, births, deaths, etc.
[Note 102: "Hard indeed is the fate of the children of the soil,
and one of the darkest enigmas of life lies in the degradation and
decay wrought by the very civilization which should succour, teach,
and improve." - ATHENAEUM.]
[Note 103: "That the Aboriginal Tasmanian was naturally mild and
inoffensive in disposition, appears to be beyond doubt. A worm, however,
will turn, and the atrocities which were perpetrated against these
unoffending creatures may well palliate the indiscriminate, though
heart-rending slaughter they entailed. Such was the character of the
Tasmanian native before roused by oppression, and ere a continued
and systematic hostility had arisen between the races - ere 'their
hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them.'"
- MARTYN'S COLONIAL MAGAZINE, May, 1840.]
[Note 104: "At the epoch of their deportation, in 1835, the number of the
natives amounted to 210. Visited by me in 1842, that is, after the
interval of seven years, they mustered only fifty-four individuals."
- STRZELECKI'S NEW SOUTH WALES, p. 352
Respecting the Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, who were thus forcibly
removed, Mr. Chief Protector Robinson (who removed them) observes
(Parliamentary Report, p. 198), "When the natives were all assembled
at Flinders Island, in 1835, I took charge of them, and have continued
to do so ever since.
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