Talk:Australian history wars/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Talk Page is a record

Do not archive it. If you do, the discussion will have to repeat from the beginning. The talk page is a record of how inaccurate the article is.Likebox (talk) 21:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It can be archived when the discussion has come to some sort of consensus, which, considering the situation, will be when pigs fly.Likebox (talk) 21:22, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Undue Weight

While this article pretends that Windschuttle's views of the events on Tasmania is mainstream, it is not mainstream anywhere outside the Australian right. The section on the Tasmanian genocide needs to reflect the accepted mainstream consensus that the native inhabitants of Tasmania were slaughtered by genocidal colonizers from Britain, with approval of the governing body. This consensus is widely reflected in all mainstream sources of the events. In order to fascilitate the discussion, I will place my preferred version of the section below.Likebox (talk) 21:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

This article is about a debate between two opposing views of Australian history. While Keith Windschuttle was a principal participant, there are other respected historians whose opinions regarding certain events in Australian history coincide with some of Windschuttle's. Regardless, it is an article about a debate, therefore the positions of BOTH sides must be accurately portrayed. It is not appropriate for Wikipedia to be used to arbitrate on the debate and 'decide' who wins. Webley442 (talk) 11:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Both views should be presented with the weight due them from the consensus in the literature. This article presents the debate in such a way that the fringe views of Windschuttle are inappropriately presented authoritatively.Likebox (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Why is 'consensus' more important than evidence? I understood that Windschuttle provided solid evidence of fabrication, but ad homs seem to be the substance of the responses from Manne et al. ChrisPer (talk) 09:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Windschuttle's work is riddled with errors. Manne's responses might not have been convincing, but people like James Boyce certainly are.121.91.211.122 (talk) 07:22, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Genocide debate section Should Read Thusly

There has been debate among certain Australian historians as to whether the European colonisation of Australia resulted in the genocide of groups of Aborigines, and in particular the Tasmanian Aborigines.

Tasmania

Ever since the introduction of the modern term in the 1940s, Raphael Lemkin and most other comparative genocide scholars have included the events of the Black War on Tasmania as a defining example of a genocide. During the Black War, European colonists in Tasmania nearly completely annihilated the Tasmanian Aborigines. From a population of approximately 5,000 individuals, they were hunted down and killed until only a few hundred individuals were left. These were then relocated to Flinders Island, where disease and neglect reduced their numbers still further, until the last full blooded native Tasmanian died in 1876.

Most Australian historians don't dispute the historical events, but some of them don't agree that it should be called a genocide. Some of the debate is over to what extent the governing body of the settler outpost had the goal of complete extermination in mind. What is known is that in 1826, the Tasmanian Colonial Times declared that "The Government must remove the natives -- if not they will be hunted down and like wild beasts and destroyed." Governor George Arthur declared martial law in November 1828, and empowered whites to kill full blooded Aboriginals on sight. A bounty for was declared for the head of a native, £5 for the killing of an adult, £2 per child. Journalist and publisher Henry Melville, described the results in 1835: "This murderous warfare, in the course of a few years destroyed thousands of aborigines, whilst only a few score of the European population were sacrificed”

While accepting that most of the natives were killed by exterpationist settlers, Henry Reynolds has nevertheless rejected the label of genocide, because he believes that the settler's goal of extermination did not include every native, and that the governor of the island did not intend annihilation. Tatz has criticized Reynolds position as follows:

Genocide of a part of a population is still genocide... criminality is inherent in incitement participation and complicity

Mindful of these disputes between genocide scholars and Australian historians, Anne Curthoys has said: "It is time for a more robust exchange between genocide and Tasmanian historical scholarship if we are to understand better what did happen in Tasmania in the first half of the nineteenth century, how best to conceptualize it, and how to consider what that historical knowledge might mean for us now, morally and intellectually, in the present.

The political scientist Kenneth Minogue and historian Keith Windschuttle disagree with the mainstream historical narrative, and believe that no mass killings took place on Tasmania. Minogue thinks Australians fabricated this history out of white guilt, while Windschuttle believes that most of the native Tasmanians died of disease. Disease is not believed by other historians to have played any major role in Tasmania before the 1829 relocation to Flinders Island.

Mainland

Regarding events on mainland Australia, there have been occasional accusations of genocide, but no clear consensus. Many of the deaths on the mainland were due to smallpox, which is commonly believed to have come from Europe with the settlers. Many historians, like Craig Mear, support the thesis that the settlers introduced smallpox either intentionally or accidentally. Intentional introduction would be considered a form of genocide.

Historian Judy Campbell argues that the smallpox epidemics of 1789-90, 1829-32, did not start with the Europeans. She believes that the smallpox was not a result of contact with British settlers, but instead spread south from the far North of Australia, and was due to contact between Aborigines and visiting fishermen from what is now Indonesia. While this has always been the accepted consensus about the source of the later smallpox epidemics of the 1860s, for the earlier epidemics this view has not met with widespread acceptence, and has been specifically challenged by historian Craig Mear. Mear writes:

They had been coming to this coast for hundreds of years, yet this was the first time that they had brought the deadly virus with them.

He also argues that the scientific model that Campbell uses to make her case is flawed, because it modelled the smallpox at significantly higher teperatures than those recorded at the time. It has also been argued by Lecture in Indigenous Studies Greg Blyton that smallpox did not reach the Awabakal people north of Sydney in 1789-90 and that non-genocidal violence including massacres accounted for depopulation there after 1820[36] [37]

Genocide in a broader sense

See also: Genocide definitions

In the April 2008 edition of The Monthly, David Day wrote that Lemkin considered genocide to encompass more than mass killings but also acts like "driv[ing] the original inhabitants off the land... confin[ing] them in reserves, where policies of deliberate neglect may be used to reduce their numbers... Tak[ing] indigenous children to absorb them within their own midst... assimilation to detach the people from their culture, language and religion, and often their names." These questions of definition are important for the stolen generations debate.

Likebox (talk) 21:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's start with the more obvious errors in the above. There never was a bounty issued for killing Tasmanian Aborigines. The only bounty offered was for the CAPTURE of Aborigines caught while actively engaged in hostile acts against the settlers in the settled areas and the colonial administration issued a later proclamation warning that anyone going out into the unsettled areas and trying to earn the bounty by capturing/attacking 'inoffensive' Aborigines would be punished. This error has been pointed out multiple times and it is still appearing in the text above. Webley442 (talk) 11:10, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Next: the claim that the declaration of martial law ‘empowered’ settlers to ‘kill full blooded Aboriginals on sight’ has been discussed (and the text of the proclamation has been reproduced) on archived talk pages. There is nothing in the declaration about empowering whites to kill Aborigines on sight. This claim is based on a pretty much complete lack of knowledge of what martial law is. Webley442 (talk) 18:51, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The statement "Disease is not believed by other historians to have played any major role in Tasmania before the 1829 relocation to Flinders Island." is factually incorrect. It misleadingly suggests that only Windschuttle argues that disease played a role; multiple sources have been cited (see archives 2 and 3) showing that other historians do believe that disease played a significant role. Webley442 (talk) 20:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Suffice it to say that I just don't believe you about the bounty, considering the fact that you make other inaccurate statements below. If you were to cite a mainstream source about what the bounty was paid for, I would be convinced, but as it stands, I follow the textbook and do not say that the bounty was for capture.

The Martial law declaration empowered settlers to kill full blooded Aborigines on sight. This is a historical fact, which is twisted by using the text of the declaration, which is couched in the usual euphamisms of genocide, to pretend that the authorization to kill was contingent on warfare. After the declaration, murder of natives for sport was no longer prosecuted, and they were wiped out in short order. All the sources, except for Windschuttle's crackpot stuff, agree on this fact.

Disease is believed to play at best a minor role in the depopulation of Tasmania. This is, admittedly, less established than the other points, but it is still a majority opinion among historians. That diseases depopulated Tasmania is not accepted by any mainstream historians, because there was no smallpox and the time scale was so short. The 1820-1829 depopulation of Tasmania was caused by mass murder.Likebox (talk) 21:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Try reading your own source (Rashidi) more closely regarding the bounty, and incidentally Rashidi's book isn't a 'textbook'. He doesn't claim that the bounty was for killing Aborigines, that is just your mistaken interpretation of what he says. He writes: "In time, a bounty was declared on Blacks, and “Black catching” as it was called, soon became a big business; five pounds for each adult Aborigine; two pounds for each child." Catching, not killing, and he's wrong about it becoming a big business. By the time the bounty was declared, there were so few Tasmanian Aborigines left that it couldn't develop into a 'big business'. You've been cited references to the bounty proclamations earlier but of course, you haven't read them.

There is nothing misleading about the Martial Law Proclamation. It says what it says. Your claim that the declaration 'empowered' whites to kill Aborigines on sight is what is misleading as is much of your preferred text; it doesn't even accurately represent your own sources.

For anyone else reading this, the text of the martial law declaration, again:

By His Excellency Colonel George Arthur, Lieutenant Governor of the Island of Van Diemen's Land and its Dependencies.

A PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS the Black or Aboriginal Natives of this Island have for a considerable time past, carried on a series of indiscriminate attacks upon the persons and property of divers of His Majesty's subjects: and have especially of late perpetrated most cruel and sanguinary acts of violence and outrage; evincing an evident disposition systematically to kill and destroy the white inhabitants indiscriminately whenever an opportunity of doing so is presented: - AND whereas, notwithstanding the Proclamation made and issued by me on the Fifteenth day of April, last past, - and that every practicable measure has from time to time been resorted to, under that Proclamation, and otherwise, for the purpose of removing the Aboriginals from the settled districts of the Colony, and for putting a stop to the repetition of such atrocities, - repeated inroads are daily made by the Natives into the said settled Districts, and acts of hostility and barbarity there committed by them, as well as at the more distant stock runs, and in some instances upon unoffending and defenceless women and children. - AND whereas also, it seems, at present, impossible to conciliate the several tribes of that people; and the ordinary Civil Powers of the Magistrates, and the means afforded by the Common Law, are found by experience to be wholly insufficient for the general safety; and it hath therefore become at length unavoidably necessary, for the effectual suppression of similar enormities, to proclaim and keep in force Martial Law, in the manner hereinafter proclaimed and directed: -

NOW THEREFORE, by virtue of the Powers and Authorities in me, in this behalf vested, I, the said Lieutenant Governor, do by these presents, Declare and Proclaim, that from and after the date of this, my Proclamation, and until the cessation of hostilities shall be by me hereafter Proclaimed and directed MARTIAL LAW is and shall continue to be in force against the several Black or Aboriginal Natives, within the several Districts of this Island; excepting always the places and portions of this Island, next mentioned, (that is to say)

1st - All the country extending southward of Mount Wellington to the Ocean,, including Brune Island;

2nd - Tasman’s Peninsula;

3rd -The whole of the North-Eastern part of this Island which is bounded on the North and East by the Ocean, and in the South-West by a line, drawn from Pipers River to Saint Patrick's Head;

4th - And the whole of the Western and South Western part of this Island, which is bounded on the East by the River Huon, and by a line drawn from that River over Tenerife Peak to the extreme Western Bluff; on the North by an East and West line from the said extreme Western Bluff to the Ocean, and on the West and South by the Ocean.

AND, for the purposes aforesaid, all Soldiers are hereby required and commanded to obey mid assist their lawful superiors; and all other. His Majesty's subjects are required and commanded to obey and assist the Magistrates in the execution of such measures as shall by any one or more of such Magistrates be directed to be taken for those purposes, by such ways and means as shall by him or them be considered expedient, so long as Martial Law shall continue to exist.-

BUT, I DO, nevertheless, hereby strictly order, enjoin, and command, that the actual use of arms be in no case resorted to, if the Natives can by other means be induced or compelled to retire into the pieces and portions of this Island hereinbefore excepted from the operation of Martial Law; that bloodshed be checked, as much as possible; that any Tribes which may surrender themselves up, shall be treated with every degree of humanity; and that defenceless women and children be invariably spared.-AND, all Officers, Civil and Military, and other persons whatsoever, are hereby required to take notice of this, my Proclamation and Order, and to render obedience and assistance herein accordingly.

PROVIDED nevertheless, and it is hereby notified and proclaimed, that nothing here-in contained, shall, or doth extend to interrupt or interfere with the ordinary exercise of the Civil Power, or the regular course of the Common Law, any further or otherwise than as such interruption shall, for the purpose of carrying on military operations against the Natives, he rendered necessary. GIVEN under my Hand and Seal at Arms, at the Government House, Hobart-town, this first day of November, One thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight. GEORGE ARTHUR By Command of His Excellency, J. BURNETT. Webley442 (talk) 22:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Introduction to this article

The intro to this article is written in a manipulative propagandistic way. Instead of declaring that the broad consensus is that the colonization of Australia was marred by systematic genocidal and racist policies, it presents a multiple choice view which makes the middle ground look like a compromise. In fact, denying the genocide on Tasmania is a historical fabrication, and a moral lapse comparable to that of any other movement that seeks to deny genocide.

Here is the intro as I think it should be written:

The History wars in Australia are a debate over the history of British colonisation of Australia, and its impact on Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. It resembles internal historical debates about past oppression in other countries.

Mainstream history has described Australian colonization as marred by both official and unofficial imperialism, exploitation, ill treatment, colonial dispossession, violent conflict and genocide. This version of history, nearly unanimously supported by academics, is still largely denied by the Australian right.

Conservatives within Australia maintain, along with the Australian government, that the history of European settlement was mostly humane and peaceful, with specific instances of mistreatment of Indigenous Australians being aberrations. They claim that that the standard story of dispossession and genocide is harmful for Australian national identity, and is based on bad Historiography tainted by leftist ideological biases.

Likebox (talk) 21:16, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Note to readers

If you stumble across this page, it is written from a right-wing Australian point of view, which has led to an endless debate. The viewpoint of Windschuttle, that the Tasmanian genocide never happened, is rejected by nearly all mainstream sources. Despite showing this by providing textbooks, primary literature, and secondary literature, Windschuttle's opinion, and that of his right wing friends at Quadrant, is still given undue weight.Likebox (talk) 21:18, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

As has been previously pointed out, repeatedly and at length(see the archived pages), opinion amongst Australian historians with detailed knowledge of the history of Tasmania is much more diverse than indicated by the comments above. See the archived pages for repeated cites of sources confirming this. The claim that this is all a devious right-wing conspiracy is a very tired tactic used to support one editor's preferred wording and his personal opinion of what is undue weight. Webley442 (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

If it's a conspiracy, it's not a very successful one. Nobody agrees with the Windschuttle point of view outside of a small faction of the Australian right.Likebox (talk) 21:37, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Likebox, you really need better sources of information about what is believed in Australia and by whom, though I expect that being in the US you are limited to whatever commentary you can find on the Internet and it tends to be those with very strong views that bother to post such comments. Those of us based in Australia are better aware of the events and personalities involved in the History wars and the tactics employed by the participants. The claim that only the far Right in Australia believe that there has been serious malpractice in the writing of Aboriginal history is a tactic used by one side of the debate. The real divisions in the support for the different sides of the debate aren’t based on political ideology. Those of us from Australia and with access to better information about the issues know that it has been more of battle between those who believe in logically following the evidence, in drawing conclusions based on that evidence and in changing our positions when new or better evidence emerges and those who believe in political correctness, i.e. who believe that it is somehow politically or morally important to characterise the treatment of Aborigines in colonial Australia as genocide and don’t care about what the evidence actually supports. Webley442 (talk) 10:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Conservatives, like many people, are generally not aware of the structural biases in their environment. Political correctness is a manufactured academic counter-force, designed to fight against the prevailing much more powerful forces of institutional racism and government denial. To people who do not believe in structural biases, academics sound like they have become disconnected because they have manufactured their own biases. "Political correctness" is only a tool which academics use to fight against structural bias that students bring with them from the outside world.

Those living outside Australia have no biases on this issue at all. The consensus among these people is that the Australian government is FULL OF SHIT, the Australian conservatives are DAMNABLE LIARS, and the Aborigines on Tasmania were SLAUGHTERED LIKE DOGS.Likebox (talk) 17:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Academics who have the facts and the evidence on their side don't need to resort to notions of things being 'politically correct'. They can establish what is actually, objectively correct by using the evidence. It's because the evidence isn't on their side that there are people out there using the red herrings of claims of political bias and institutional racism and government denial to divert attention away from the fact that they DON'T have the evidence to back up their claims. And, of course, some just get childish and resort to abuse and invective. Webley442 (talk) 20:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The evidence for genocide on Tasmania is overwhelming, and is only denied by conservative kooks in Australia because of institutional racism and government denial. There are many other cases in the past where we can see the same thing: all the actual evidence was on one side, but powerful institutional opinion was on the other side. In these cases, institutional opinion can win out for a long time.

Classic examples in now undisputed domains of science are:

1. meteorite denial: They were observed, but powerful opinions said that rocks don't fall from the sky.
2. geocentrism: The rotation of the Earth is obvious to anyone who spends a night outdoors looking at the stars. Still, powerful interests denied that the Earth can move.
3. fixed unchanging continents, despite obvious signs of continental drift.

Once the institutional bias was identified in this case, a counter-bias was instituted, and for science that is called the scientific method. It purposefully discounts arguments from authority in favor of arguments from experiment.

Similarly, regarding history, academics have noted that where there are different groups of people with different positions of power, the powerful and powerless produce different versions of history. The version that the powerful groups propose is more likely to be accepted, regardless of whether it is more accurate.

Some examples of history fabricated by powerful institutional forces:

1. The Dunning school downplayed the obvious role of slavery in the civil war, claiming that the industrial north wanted to economically dominate the agricultural south. The same people also claimed that reconstruction was a disaster, because integrated governments were a failure. This version of history was challenged immediately by Black authors, but it entered into American textbooks and was taught from the 1920s to the 1970s. Today this type of history is disparaged by both the American left and the American right, but it dominated for a long time.
2. Within Israeli society, the narrative preferred by the Jewish population was that the Arab villagers left their towns voluntarily in 1948 rather than be ruled by Jews, and that terror actions by Jewish militias were insignificant. This point of view regarding history was dominant until the 1990s, but is in decline today. The institutional bias in this case is obvious again.
3. Within Japan, criminal actions in WWII were downplayed. This is institutional bias once more.

Now that academics accept that this type of bias exists, they strive to correct for it. So they institute rules of political correctness, which can be summed up by this phrase: "do not engage in discourse that dismisses or discounts the point of view of those groups whose point of view was historically marginalized".

Political correctness allows for narratives to compete on their merits, without the biases of power. When the public hears this type of conversation, they often become suspicious, because it sounds weird at first. Conservatives often take advantage of this feeling to alienate the general public from academics.

In dealing with cases of institutional bias, Wikipedia has the advantage that it is international. If you leave the sphere of influence, you leave the biases. Nobody outside of Australia denies the Tasmanian genocide.Likebox (talk) 21:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

In the context of the Australian History wars, political correctness isn't needed to compensate for anything (not that I believe that political correctness is ever needed). Here, it is simply a matter of relatively easily verifiable evidence. As described in the article, the History wars started because someone, finally, did a 'due diligence' check on the evidence used by earlier historians to validate claims of massacres and genocide and found that the sources cited by those historians did NOT say what they had claimed. It's not rocket science; many of the primary sources are available in Australian University libraries, some online or can be purchased (like Plomley's books which incorporate the GA Robinson journals). Anyone who can read, and get access to a reasonable percentage of these sources, can compare what the sources say and what some historians SAID was in them and see that it doesn't match up. Of course, in a number of cases, you can't read what the source says because the 'source' was a figment of a historian's imagination but those that you can check tell the story quite clearly: academic fraud; fraud which unfortunately has fooled a lot of your international 'experts'. Not that the international 'experts' are particularly to blame for that. It is relatively easy to fool someone who doesn't have the detailed knowledge gained by people who make intensive studies of a particular field. If something sounds credible, it is generally taken at face value. Webley442 (talk) 21:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

That's one point of view. Another point of view is that a historian did a shoddy, contemptible job of checking sources, misinterpreted those sources because of his willful negligence and limited historical knowledge, and was advertized to the public by a person in power, a certain conservative prime minister eager to change the record of the past. The politics of this fits is exactly the same as all other cases where powerful interests seek to suppress the record of the past, and it is exactly in such situations that academics needs to carefully apply "political correctness", to make sure they are not discounting the viewpoint of the Aboriginal inhabitants. This is especially tricky in this case, because these people are all dead and left no descendants.

Because Windschuttle's point of view is not accepted, and his claims that the work of all the other historians is incompetent is disputed to say the least, the best you can say on this page is that he is a minority of one.Likebox (talk) 22:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You are missing what I thought was an incredibly obvious point. No-one has to blindly accept Windschuttle's conclusions as you seem to blindly accept the opinions of, and conclusions drawn by, your preferred historians. No-one has to bow to the authority and wisdom of your international 'experts'. ANYONE who is willing to take the time can check a wide selection of the primary source material cited by historians like Lyndall Ryan and others. Many of the sources are publically available. If you can't get access to a library copy, you can buy, via the Internet, your very own copy of GA Robinson's journals (one of the most important sources regarding Tasmania) for the very reasonable price of A$150.00. In addition, extensive extracts from many of the primary sources are contained in history books on the subject. No-one has to rely solely on Windschuttle's opinion that Ryan and others fabricated evidence. It is a simple matter of reading the primary sources, such as the aforementioned GA Robinson's journals and seeing that what the "black armband historian", as they are popularly known, say is in them, isn't there or that they have obviously misinterpreted them (as you did with Rashidi's words regarding the bounty for CATCHING not killing Aborigines). Or, as in some cases, you can plainly see that what the "black armband historian" say isn't in the sources, like evidence of the impact of disease prior to 1829, is there. Webley442 (talk) 21:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

That's wonderful. Go do that. Many people who check Windschuttle's claims conclude that he is completely wrong, and that the mainstream historians, up to some minor inaccuracies here and there, are completely right. I misinterpret stuff all the time, because I am a total amateur. Thankfully the people I am citing are well read historians.Likebox (talk) 22:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Really? Wasn't it Tatz, one of your favourite sources, who repeats the claim that Tasmanian Aborigines had been given poisoned flour when there isn't a single case documented of that ever happening (just some speculation by an overly imaginative colonist that some convict shepherds may have intended to do so if they could have got their hands on the poison). Isn’t that something any historian, well read about what happened in Tasmania, should know? And let's see, Rashidi, who you continually misrepresent as claiming that a bounty was paid for killing Tasmanian Aborigines... wasn't it Rashidi that claimed that "Black catching" for the bounty in Tasmania was a 'big business' when, at the time the bounty was offered, there were so few Aborigines left there (and the ones that were still there were so elusive that it was practically impossible to find them to catch them), that the practice couldn't have supported a medium or even a small 'business'. Shouldn't a well read historian have known that? The problem with your sources is that they are not experts or well read in what happened in Tasmania; they've skimmed through a few secondary sources, apparently the worst ones, summarised what those sources say and included that summary in their broad ‘world history’ or discourse on genocide across the world or through the ages. They don’t know enough about Australian history to know what sources are reliable and what aren’t; what tall tales are already known to be just that, tall tales. Webley442 (talk) 23:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Your aspersions about the scholarship of Tatz and Rashidi are baseless: maybe Black catching wasn't a "big business" and maybe the poisoned flour story isn't true. It's also true that Jews weren't boiled into soap and made into lampshades (at least not in any widespread way--- there is an account of a crazy German chemist who did render a small amount of cadaver fat into soap, but his work was not tasteful even for the Nazis), but what difference does it make? The mainstream historians make a few mistakes of hyperbole, which are not in any way comparable to the basic mistakes of substance which deniers like Windschuttle make.

The "poisoned flour" story is hard to substantiate, but there is an account in Bonwick with fewer stages of propagation (Bonwick p 58):

The editor of a Wellington paper writes: "We have ourselves heard 'old hands' declare to the common practice of shooting them to supply food for dogs." He had heard of the employment of poisoned rum.

These stories are not usually found in newspapers or diaries, and we are lucky to have them recorded at all.Likebox (talk) 00:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Summary of Sources

It was suggested at some point that the editors list the sources that support their respective positions. In addition to the sources listed in the proposed rewrite above, here are some sources which provide evidence of undue weight. These sources describe the Tasmanian genocide in the standard mainstream way, completely different from Windschuttle.

1. this site
2. Runoko Rashidi, "Black War, The Destruction of the Tasmanian Aborigines"
3. this paper, primary research, analyzes Windschuttle's methods and finds them wanting.
4. same author, another paper about a massacre that Windschuttle discounts.
5. secondary source mentions genocide with no qualification

The articles by Ryan are particularly illuminating, since they refute Windschuttle's analysis of specific massacres by a detailed review of the evidence. The bias and confusion in Winschuttle's book is made evident in this way.Likebox (talk) 21:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I collected the mainsteam references which don't equivocate about the Tasmanian genocide from the text above, for the comparison of sources required for undue weight analysis.

1. Colin Martin Tatz, With Intent to Destroy (mainstream genocide textbook)
2. Henry Melville: this biographical text
3. Madley: this article

Melville was an eyewitness to the events. Madley (and Ryan) are mainstream scholars who study this history. In addition, the two equivocating sources Moses and Reynolds (which I have not read), seem to agree with the mainstream accounts of massacres and intentional de-population, but they seem to disagree with the assessment that the events constituted genocide.

The remaining mainstream source, Mear, is not about Tasmania. It is devoted to refuting the idea that the Smallpox on the Australian mainland came from indonesian fisherman. This idea is given undue weight in the article too, but is a separate issue.Likebox (talk) 21:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Henry Melville is a particularly interesting ‘historical’ source. Melville was a newspaper publisher in Tasmania. He was an ardent political opponent of Lieutenant-Governor Arthur, using his newspaper to attack the colonial administration and wound up imprisoned for publishing an article libelling Arthur and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Van Diemen’s Land (over a matter unconnected with the Aborigines). While in prison there (not a pleasant experience in those days), he completed a so-called ‘history’ book about Van Diemen’s Land.

Melville was well aware that the British authorities were very concerned about protecting the Crown’s indigenous subjects and did not want Britain to be reviled as the Spanish were for their colonial rule and treatment of the indigenous populations (the ‘indelible stain’ Arthur was warned about by London). Melville’s ‘history’ book was written as revenge against Arthur for his jailing and as a piece of propaganda designed to get Arthur removed. It’s full of false claims (such as that the Tasmanian Aboriginal population before colonisation was approximately 20,000; he exaggerated the population to inflate the casualty rate) and is basically a thinly disguised polemic directed at damaging Arthur’s reputation. He was unsuccessful. When Arthur was finally recalled to London (because he had been at the post of Lieutenant-Governor in such a distant and relatively insignificant outpost for much longer than was normal practice), he was questioned by his superiors about the complaints made against his administration. He has been described as emerging ‘triumphant’ from that inquiry and was subsequently ‘promoted’ to Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, a much more important posting.

Unfortunately, readers of his book since then who don’t know his background and motives tend to assume that Melville was a serious historian trying to accurately describe what had happened in VDL when accuracy wasn’t what he was aiming for; he was making up a story that he thought could be used as his revenge against Arthur. Webley442 (talk) 10:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

• E. Flinn, 'Melville, Henry (1799 - 1873)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition,

Copyright 2006, updated continuously, ISSN 1833-7538, published by Australian National University

Melville was one of the few men of conscience in the despicable Arthur regime. Unfortunately, modern day deniers dismiss his account, because it conflicts with theirs. Needless to say, this is more evidence of undue weight, since Melville's account was generally accepted as accurate at the time and ever since.

Melville estimates 20,000 native inhabitants of the island. Others have estimated fewer, maybe 5-8000. The deniers try to push the number to 2,000 or some other impossibly low figure. The social structure of the Aborigines, divided as they were into 4 cultures which spoke different dialects or perhaps 4 languages with dozens of tribes each, makes the lower estimates impossible. This is irrelevant since we are not here to debate whether a particular historical figure was biased. We are here to decide what the consensus in mainstream sources is.Likebox (talk) 17:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

And for you the only 'consensus' that is of any value is that of the historians you agree with. The historians cited by others with different opinions, you simply label fringe or right wing and claim that your international genocide experts know all. Which advances this debate nowhere. Of course you can find someone who claims that Melville was being truthful. It suits them to do so. It still will always come back to the fact that there is no support from other editors for your preferred wording. Webley442 (talk) 21:01, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

What you mean is that there is two hardheaded editors are ignoring international consensus. With time, this problem should fix itself. The historians that dispute Melville are Windschuttle alone. Maybe there's another one, but for all I know, it's just Windschuttle. I have made a list of mainstream sources that support the position I am espousing. As of now, there is exactly one source on the other side, and that's Windschuttle.Likebox (talk) 21:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Likbox I have reverted your edits. There are sources given for what you call garbage in the edit summary. You are still trying to insert a version where we can not agree on the wording of the first sentence. When we can do that we can move on to the second and third sentences. Do you need me to remind you with what is wrong with the sentence that starts "Ever since the introduction of the modern term in the 1940s..." or is the archive comments on this enough? -- PBS (talk) 13:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Sentence by sentence discussions are not productive, and I will not budge. I just wanted to see if you were still here. Howdy!Likebox (talk) 16:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Still waiting for a SUMMARY OF SOURCES from Webley442 or PBS.Likebox (talk) 17:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

For a start: Roth, Ling, The Aborigines of Tasmania, Second Edition, Halifax (England): F. King & Sons, Printers and Publishers, Broad Street, 1899. (Contains detailed description of conditions in Flinders Island - Wybalenna settlement and provision made for their welfare)

Geoffrey Blainey, A Land Half Won, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1980. (Professor of Economic History, then Professor of History at the University of Melbourne, and Dean of Melbourne's Faculty of Arts, foundation Chancellor at the University of Ballarat.)

Campbell Judy, Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia 1780 - 1880, Melbourne University Press, 2002

Plomley, N. J. B. (ed), Friendly Mission, Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 1966 (GA Robinson’s journal)

Plomley, N. J. B., Weep in Silence: a history of the Flinders Island Aboriginal Settlement with the Flinders Island Journal of George Augustus Robinson 1835-1839. Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Hobart, 1987

Flood, Josephine, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, Allen & Unwin, 2006 (Dr Flood: archaeologist, recipient of the Centenary Medal and former director of the Aboriginal Heritage Commission. Has published a number of books on Australian archaeology and history, including the influential Archaeology of the Dreaming and The Riches of Ancient Australia) (Discusses effects of disease on Aborigines, including Tasmania)

Cooper, John, Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2008 (citing at p248 Jesse Shipway: ‘Modern by Analogy: Modernity. Shoah and the Tasmanian Genocide’, Journal of Genocide Research 7:2 (2005)) (Discusses effects of disease on Tasmanian Aborigines, concluding that “The indigenes died of disease and interruptions in fertility functioning that resulted from incidental encounters with the European interlopers…”)

Moran, Rod Massacre myth : an investigation into allegations concerning the mass murder of Aborigines at Forrest River, 1926 Bassendean, W.A. Access Press 1999

Windschuttle, Keith, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847, Macleay Press, 2002

Dawson, John, Washout: On the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Macleay Press, 2004 (Analyses Whitewash)

Stanner, W.E.H. (ed), (1979). "After the Dreaming" in White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938-1973 (Particularly useful regarding Aboriginal culture and interaction with white settlers)

Debates on Genocide - Part One Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History, Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training [2]

Debates on Genocide - Part Two Debates on 'Genocide' in Australian History. Australian Government Department of Education Science and Training [3]Webley442 (talk) 22:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice if you could exclude Australian government sources, since they are no good for undue weight analysis (they have a clear COI). The remaining sources seem to be OK, Washout and Whitewash would be the most relevant, but one needs to read them.

Here is an Anne Curthroys article regarding Raphael Lemkin, whose abstract is the only thing I could access:

Raphaël Lemkin's book on the history of genocide was never completed. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he planned over forty chapters, each about a particular historical case of genocide, from ancient times to the present, and researched and wrote many of them. Here we publish, for the first time, one chapter of that book from the original typescript in the New York Public Library. Chapter 38, 'Tasmania', discusses the virtual disappearance of the Aboriginal Tasmanians after several decades of British colonization and settlement in 1803. Despite its limitations as a work still in progress, the chapter demonstrates the subtlety of Lemkin's understanding of genocide. His historical method was to rely largely on secondary sources but also to use primary sources whenever possible; for this chapter his main source was James Bonwick's The Last of the Tasmanians (1870). Lemkin's 'Tasmania' considers the British authorities' and settlers' intentions and the experiences of Aboriginal people: loss of land and life, loss of children, the effects of liquor and disease, and the decline in their reproductive capacity. It concludes with a discussion of contemporary public opinion. Lemkin's chapter has, of course, been superseded by extensive historical research published since the mid-1970s. Yet it remains a thoughtful and thought-provoking text.

This gives us Lemkin's 1940s 1950s source, and Curthroys analysis of it. The claim that Lemkin did not use primary sources at all is refuted. Also, there is James Bonwick's "The Last of the Tasmanians", which is available and out of copyright, which seems to be a very detailed account.

The claim that Lemkin's chapter has been superseded is good to investigate, because Curthroys probably cites the superseding articles. If someone has access to the journal, it would be nice to get a list of superseding sources from there, to do the undue weight analysis.Likebox (talk) 23:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

No-one claimed that Lemkin didn't use primary sources in his other research, just that he didn't do primary research regarding TASMANIA. There, as far as the information goes, he relied entirely on secondary sources. Bonwick's book isn't a primary source, it's a secondary source. Primary sources in a historical context are things like colonists' letters and journals, reports made by people involved in the events like military officers reporting on a skirmish or battle, sometimes interviews with involved persons. Webley442 (talk) 23:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

As Curthroys says "His historical method was to rely largely on secondary sources but also to use primary sources whenever possible". I know what primary and secondary sources are, and so does Lemkin, and so does Curthroys.

For a contemporary source on the extent of the massacres, here is a quote from p66 of Bonwick's book: "The Courier of June 11 1836 admits that 'thousands were hunted down like wild beasts and actually destroyed'". The same section of Bonwick shows unambiguous evidence of rampant unpunished murder, widely known and denounced throughout the British empire.

A simple tally of the massacres directly reported to Bonwick by the perpetrators exceeds by far the total number of massacred Tasmanians which Windschuttle admits to. The extent of the massacres is obvious from the banality of the murder. There is no discussion of diseases affecting the natives.

Here is what Bonwick has to say about the government response (p 70):

But while the English government in Van Diemen's land issued paternal proclamations and uttered sentiments of profound compassion for the Aborigines, little effectual energy was exerted to repress or punish crimes against them. The Hobart Town Times of April 1836 is harsh, but not unjust, in judgement in the following sentences:

"They have been murdered in cold blood. They have been shot in the woods and hunted down like beasts of prey. Their women have been contaminated, and then had their throats cut, or been shot, by the British residents, who would fain call themselves civilized people. The government too, by the common hangman, sacrificed the lives of such of the Aborigines as in retaliation destroyed their wholesale murderers, and the government, to its shame be it recorded, in no one instance, on no single occasion, ever punished or threatened to punish, the acknowledged murderers of the Aboriginal inhabitants."

Do you know what people call that? They call that "genocide".Likebox (talk) 00:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Just briefly because I've got to go: always be wary of claims made in newspaper editorials and campaigns, Bonwick should have been, they tend to be notorious for getting it wrong, for example "the government, to its shame be it recorded, in no one instance, on no single occasion, ever punished or threatened to punish, the acknowledged murderers of the Aboriginal inhabitants". Check the archived talk pages, if you don't remember - the government, i.e. the colonial administration repeatedly publicly threatened punishment of anyone who attacked 'inoffensive' i.e. peaceful Aborigines and that the murder of an Aborigine would attract the same penalty as that of a white settler. There is also some discussion on those pages as to why there were no prosecutions for the murder of Aborigines there....the rules regarding witnesses having to be able to give evidence under oath weren't changed in colonial Australia until well into the 1870's after a long debate over whether someone who didn't fear divine punishment (as opposed to criminal sanctions) for lying in court could be trusted to give truthful evidence. Remember, these were times when religion was taken seriously. Webley442 (talk) 00:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that you have to go.Likebox (talk) 00:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Conditions on Oyster Cove

As reported by Bonwick, the mortality on Flinder's Island was wretchedly high. Regarding the Oyster Cove transfer, he has this to say p 272:

The terrible mortality of the Blacks on Flinder's Island excited the sympathy of their friends in Hobart Town. Several times had Mr. George Washington Walker and I conversed upon the subject, and wished that the remnants could be brought nearer town. We knew that this was the desire of the Blacks themselves, who said that if only they could live in their own country again, they would all be healthy and happy."

So much for them being ransacked with diseases on the mainland. Continuing on p 272:

"The natives obtained their wish... There were twelve men, twenty-two women and ten children or non-adults... when Mr. Clark wrote me in August 1849 he had then with him but one child, six others being placed in the orphan school--- to die." (emphasis in original)

The destruction of the descendents of the Aboriginal remnant population has not been reported on in other accounts.Likebox (talk) 01:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Continuing on p 276, we find out that the diseases affecting them were "neglected colds", and that they were kept in flea ridden huts, with inadequate blankets and sanitation, with inadequate rations, and persecuted by the same perpetrators of the genocide that they had survived. There is no mention of the common cold being particularly virulent for the survivors, contrary to Webley's unsourced claim (maybe Windschuttle makes it too).Likebox (talk) 01:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

For 'neglected colds', which is what they referred to in the early 19th century (a time when it was still commonly believed that disease was caused by an 'imbalance of the humours' and no-one had any understanding of the impact of introduced diseases on a non-immune indigenous population), try substituting the more modern terms of pneumonia and influenza, two well-know killer respiratory diseases.

Do you really think that because the Aborigines believed 'that if only they could live in their own country again, they would all be healthy and happy', suddenly they would be cured of diseases like pneumonia,influenza and tuberculosis plus venereal diseases which, by the time they were moved to Oyster Cove, much of the surviving population were infected with? Venereal disease had sterilised most of the women on Flinders Island and at Oyster Cove, which is why the birth rate was abysmal.

"Of the 9 women at Oyster Cove in 1869, only 2 had ever given birth and all babies had died. Truganini, Dray and Pagerly all had been `afflicted with a loathsome disorder which they had contracted during their cohabitation with the whalers at Adventure Bay.'"

Flood: The Original Australians, p90, citing Robinson as per Plomley, Friendly Mission p132.

You've already been cited multiple references to the susceptibility of the Tasmanian Aborigines to respiratory diseases: On Bruny Island, 1829/1830: After the arrival of whites on Bruny Island in 1829, 22 Aborigines are recorded as dying of respiratory disease over that winter. By January 1830, of over 40 Bruny Island Aborigines who were there when Robinson arrived, there were only 17 still alive, the others having died of disease. Robinson's diary, Plomley, NJB: Friendly Mission, p 77

At Recherche Bay, February 1830: Robinson's travelling party discovered the body of a woman who had been left to die by her tribe after becoming ill. As recorded by Robinson:

"The natives informed me that plenty of natives had been attacked with Raegerwropper or evil spirit, and had died. Thus the mortality with which the Brune natives had been attacked, appears to have been general among the tribes of aborigines." Robinson's diary, 2 February 1830, Friendly Mission, p113

“The aborigines of this colony are universally susceptible to cold and that unless the utmost providence is taken in checking its progress at an early period it fixes itself on the lungs and gradually assumes the complaint spoken of i.e. the catarrhal fever.” GA Robinson, note with letter, MacLachlan to Colonial Secretary, 24 May 1831, Friendly Mission, pp461-2 (nb: in those days, catarrhal fever was a term used for influenza, although it is applied to other diseases today)

In North and West Tasmania, September 1832:

"The numbers of aborigines along the western coast have been considerably reduced since the time of my last visit. A mortality has raged amongst them which together with the severity of the season and other causes had rendered the paucity of their number very considerable." Robinson writing to Edward Curr, 22 Sept 1832, Friendly Mission, p 695. Webley442 (talk) 19:51, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you still on about this?? The source tells you in no uncertain terms that the natives percieve that the diseases began on Flinders Island. While they had few descendents on Oyster Cove, they had plenty on Flinders, but these were left to die. Your sources are speculative disasters, the source I am giving you is an eyewitness account. Leave it alone.Likebox (talk) 19:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

You've got to be kidding. You somehow interpret the belief of the Aborigines who were on Flinders Island that somehow they'd be 'healthy and happy' if sent back to their own territory to be a declaration that there were no diseases affecting them before they got there. What do you think they were doing while on Flinders Island, getting medical degrees? You've made some pretty bizarre interpretations of what sources say before but this is way out there.

As for eye-witnesses, GA Robinson was an eye-witness. He witnessed the Aborigines dying of disease on Bruny Island and recorded it. He witnessed the effect of disease on the Aborigines in the North and West of Tasmania and recorded it. He travelled all over Tasmania, making contact with Aborigines, communicating with them. Nothing speculative about that.

You seem to latch onto a few words from a source and think that they can be used to support anything you want to claim. Bizarre. Webley442 (talk) 21:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The sources I have given you state in unequivocal terms that the natives were killed by the thousands in the black war, and that depopulation by disease began in Flinders. There is no doubt about this in the mainstream literature.Likebox (talk) 22:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

"Voluntary" Association With Sealers

The conditions under which native women were sold and traded to sealers make it impossible to call the association of the two "voluntary". This has come up in several places: the women were sold into slavery. Period. This is reported in great detail in Bonwick p.297.Likebox (talk) 01:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a number of women were sold, a number were abducted but there are also records of women who chose to associate with sealers, whalers and other white settlers probably because they offered a more certain food supply than the hard amd uncertain life of a hunter-gatherer along with less violence than they were often subjected to by Tasmanian Aboriginal men who were notorious for their ill-treatment of their women. Don't make Bonwick your sole source now. He's useful but not the font of all knowledge. If you were more widely read in this subject, you'd know this already. Webley442 (talk) 07:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The Political Methodology of Genocide Denial

The Political Methodology of Genocide Denial by Elizabeth Strakosch may be a source we wish to use in this article. -- PBS (talk) 16:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a decent source.Likebox (talk) 01:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Further checking makes this a weak source. The essay is from an internal publication of the University of Queensland called Dialogue e - Journal and this essay was published in Volume 3, Issue 3 -- the last update to the webpage of the issue was 2005-12-15. On page 21 of the essay is the comment "Elizabeth Strakosch recently completed a BA (Hons) in the School of Political Science and International Studies at The University of Queensland." so unless Strakosch goes on to post graduate work and is published in some independent peer reviewed journals, I don't think that this essay, although interesting, is a reliable enough source to be an used as an opinion piece on Wikipedia. -- PBS (talk) 09:26, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've only skimmed over the paper so far but it seems to just be a dressed up variation on the old claims that Windschuttle was trying to achieve right-wing/conservative goals in addressing the issues he has. That, and another claim that he only accepts as evidence what is in official reports or documents. These are certainly some of the claims that have been raised about his work. I think that there does need to be more mention of these arguments in the article (some time ago an anonymous editor deleted a reference I’d made to claims that Windschuttle was politically motivated, amongst other things) but I agree that this paper is not a suitable source to base it on. Webley442 (talk) 10:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Bonwick and Clark

In the interest of full disclosure, and before someone pounces on me for a `false' citation, earlier (in archive 3), I wrote the following:

Henry Reynolds in Fate of a Free People reports that James Bonwick in The Last of the Tasmanians, 1870, p85, records another similar conversation.

"A strong oral tradition indicates that a catastrophic epidemic occurred even before British settlement. Robert Clark, a teacher at Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment, reported that Aborigines told him they were originally `more numerous than the white people were aware of ' but `their numbers were very much thinned by a sudden attack of disease which was general among the entire population previous to the arrival of the English, entire tribes of natives having been swept off.' Before 1803, disease may have come from sailors or early sealers."

Flood, Josephine, The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People, published by Allen & Unwin, 2006 pp 66-67, citing Bonwick, James: The Last of the Tasmanians, 1870, p85.

Re-reading Bonwick's The Last of the Tasmanians recently, I noticed that the above passage isn't in it at page 85 or elsewhere. Referring back to Fabrication, I found that Windschuttle had, in fact, commented that it wasn't in Bonwick's The Last of the Tasmanians but he didn't take the issue any further than that. I checked a few of Bonwick's other books and found the passage is actually in Bonwick's Daily Life and Origins of the Tasmanians, at page 85. So Reynolds (& Flood, no doubt relying on Reynolds' earlier citation) cited the text of the passage accurately, the right author and the right page but got the book wrong. It's easily done when making notes and then expanding upon those notes in a book or paper but it's not a significant mistake since the passage was quoted accurately. Webley442 (talk) 11:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Governor Arthur

I removed the following paragraph from the Genocides in history article, because of space. I am placing it here so that it can be added to this article if that is though appropriate.

Historian Henry Reynolds wrote: "Whether Governor Arthur strayed over the unmarked border between warfare and genocide cannot be answered with any certainty. As always, it depends on what is meant by genocide. It was clear that he was determined to defeat the Aborigines and secure the permanent expropriation of their land, but there is little evidence to suggest that he wanted to reach beyond that objective and destroy the Tasmanian race in whole or in part."(Chapter 5 by Henry Reynolds "Genocide in Tasmania?" in A. Dirk Moses, Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History, p 147).

--PBS (talk) 11:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a particularly good statement of the problem regarding genocide in Tasmania. There was warfare. Did it go beyond 'mere' warfare and become genocide? I think the paragraph does serve to clarify what the debate is about for the reader. Webley442 (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is another interesting quote which we might find is particularly relevant regarding Tasmania:

“Despite over 170 years of debate over who or what was responsible for this near-extinction, no consensus exists on its origins, process, or whether or not it was genocide.” Madley, Benjamin: From Terror to Genocide: Britain’s Tasmanian Penal Colony and Australia’s History Wars Journal of British Studies, vol. 47 no. 1 (January 2008), p 78 So while Madley personally believes that it was genocide, he does state quite clearly that there is no consensus on the issue. Webley442 (talk) 14:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Black Arm Band

As a reaction to the black armband comments from Blainey, Howard, et al, an Australian indigenous band calling itself the Black Arm Band has come into existence. There is plenty of citable material on the band. It has been quite successful.

To me, the choice of the band's name is an obvious further step in the Black Armband debate, even if it's not making explicit comments in the debate. I'd like to see it mentioned in the article. Thoughts anyone? HiLo48 (talk) 08:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

What references do you have to support it's inclusion here? (eg, articles about the band talking about how they chose their name, etc). Nick-D (talk) 08:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

That's going to be difficult. It's not the kind of thing that's spoken of overtly. It's an "everybody knows" situation. Part of its power is in not having to explain it. I acknowledge that Wikipedia demands references, but that does eliminate clever political actions of this kind. It would be a shame, however, to exclude such a story from Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 11:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Though it is an interesting fact that an Australian indigenous band is called the Black Arm Band, I think we need to bear in mind the need to keep the article readable and stick to the point. If it doesn't add to the reader's understanding of the Black Armband debate with regard to Australian history, it shouldn't be there.Webley442 (talk) 13:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

A philosophical problem for Wikipedia

Been thinking about Wikipedia's need for written citations. Someone above quoted Governor Arthur's proclamation. That's excellent. We certainly have an accurate record of the official position. The sad thing is that the Aboriginal people had no written language, so at that time, no Aboriginal person was writing down their perspective.

Now, I don't pretend to know what it was. We will never know. And that's my point.

HiLo48 (talk) 11:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

There are sources that try to correct for this imbalance, and introducing these sources can put Arthur's noble proclamations in context. For example, there is a newspaper from the era that says that despite the noble-sounding sentimental decrees, Arthur's government did not prosecute a single European for the murder of a single Aboriginal. If you wish to introduce these sources to provide balance, I strongly support that. At the moment, the article is slanted toward the 19th century European settler perspective, which is not the dominant position in academia anymore, and is a tiny fringe position outside of Australia. My attempts to include these sources were met with opposition from two editors. But the text and sources are preserved in the discussion above, and the archived discussions over the past year or so.Likebox (talk) 15:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

But those sources were not written by Aboriginal people. Without getting involved at all in your ongoing debate here, I am looking at this issue in the much broader context of how the views of those who weren't writing things down can be fairly represented, especially when he have a whole population who did not record things in writing. HiLo48 (talk) 15:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia's requirement for professionally published written sources does lead to this kind of problem and results in inbuilt bias. However, it shares this with the historiography of the European settlement of Australia, which for the reasons you identify can't provide adequate coverage to Indigenous viewpoints and experiences. This can be partially addressed through using published sources which have drawn on Indigenous oral history traditions. Nick-D (talk) 21:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does apply to all articles describing early interactions between Europeans and Australian indigenous people, and probably to similar interactions elsewhere in the world. Do you know if there's a broader discussion on the matter elsewhere in Wikipedia? HiLo48 (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven’t come across any such discussion; however, you’ve raised an issue for which there really is no equitable answer. Because the Aborigines were non-literate, colonists created all the records. So we are trying to see through the filter of their pre-conceptions and inherent biases.

The use of ‘oral history’ is fraught with problems, the principal one being reliability. I imagine everyone is aware of cases where a story has been passed down from one generation to another and accepted as true only to have it exposed later as being false. How many families have an ‘oral history’ passed down along the lines that grandpa was a war hero and in how many cases would a little investigation into the records have found that grandpa never served during ‘the war’ or that he never was anywhere near the front-lines? If you read the newspapers, we get people exposed every now and then for claiming a false service record or wearing medals they never won.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is historians who try to understand how the Aboriginal culture worked, who try to understand the motivations and concepts that drive actions and behaviour in such cultures and who then apply this understanding to the actions and behaviour of the Tasmanian Aborigines. Such as the issue of whether Aboriginal raids on settlers’ homes was true guerrilla warfare or just a way of obtaining what were, to them, highly desirable ‘exotic’ goods like flour, tea, sugar, knives and other metal implements.

(PS: If anyone is interested in a little reading on the problems involved in getting convictions for killing Aborigines in colonial times and the debate in colonial circles over the admission of evidence from Aborigines who couldn’t take the oath [because they didn’t believe in a ‘Supreme Being’], try Kirkby, Diane Elizabeth and Coleborne, Catharine (editors): Law, history, colonialism: the reach of empire, Manchester, Manchester University Press, and N.Y. Palgrave, 2001, Chapter Nine “The problem of Aboriginal evidence in early colonial New South Wales” by Nancy E. Wright, p140. In NSW, the law wasn’t changed to allow such testimony until 1876.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Webley442 (talk • contribs) 01:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC) These bots really are useful creatures!Webley442 (talk) 01:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It's all a little sad really. I understand the essential limitations of Wikipedia, but find them hard to accept at times. We can't use oral history, unless someone not from that culture writes it down, but we accept almost anything that's written down. (I know we reject some known doubtful "sources" routinely.) But even mainstream sources such as daily newspapers can't be said to be all that reliable. I'm not famous or anything but I happen to be in a situation where things I'm directly involved in are quite often reported on by the print media. I haven't yet seen such a print report without an error in it. There are usually many.

The absence of the Aboriginal voice is a very serious matter for the Australian situation. I like to describe the culture difference in terms of time rather than specific characteristics. In the case of Australia, we had social separation for 40,000 years. Just look at the differences between some modern cultures on the same continent. Despite all the best intentions of some of the recorders of early contact, for Europeans to think they really had any idea what was going on is just ludicrous. HiLo48 (talk) 06:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you are overstating the case here--- Bonwick records conversations with surviving Aboriginal people in great detail in his book, which is an essential source, available freely and out of copyright. Modern scholarship tries to get a complete picture, correcting for the biases introduced by illiteracy by giving greater weight to incidents like guerilla attacks which would be viewed one way by the Aboriginal population but in a different way by the settlers. This is hard work, but people have been doing it, so I don't think that it is reasonable to take the position "oh well, we'll never know from the published sources." because there are a lot of things that we do know.Likebox (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that some great scholarly work has been done. I will just retain my view that while we do know a lot of what went on, we can never know it all. One of the weirdest (to Europeans) and most difficult cultural differences is that of some Aboriginal people who traditionally answered questions not with what we would see as the truth, but with what they see as most likely to please the questioner. Think of the challenges of doing research in that environment. HiLo48 (talk) 21:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

If that doesn’t make the matter difficult enough, we also have the added problem of people just making stuff up including things that the Aborigines are supposed to have said; for example, Henry Melville included in his 1835 ‘history’ book an interview that supposedly took place between an Aborigine known as Black Tom (Tom Birch who was working for the Government at the time) and Lieutenant-Governor Arthur. At page 76 of the book, Melville reports Black Tom as saying: “Put him in gaol, Mata Guberna!! You take it him own country, take it him black woman, kill’t right out, all him litta child – den you put him in your gaol. Ah, Mata Guberna, dat a very good way. ‘Pose you like dat way – ‘pose all same dat black un! I nebber like dat way. You better kill it right out.”

This is portrayed by Melville, and later historians who relied on his book, as an authentic representation of what Tom Birch is supposed to have said. The problem is that Tom Birch didn’t speak in some sort of pidgin English; he spoke perfectly good colloquial English as he had been raised in the home of a British merchant in Hobart. Tom Birch’s British foster mother told James Bonwick (Last of the Tasmanians, pp 95-96) that Tom ‘spoke English perfectly’ (and could read and write). There are other accounts of Tom that confirm this fact. Melville simply invented the whole thing (along with much of the rest of the ‘history’ in his book).Webley442 (talk) 03:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You may well be right Webley442, but that's not the point of this discussion. I'm sure there are many discussions elsewhere in Wikipedia about the veracity of various written sources. My concern is the lack of any written sources at all from the people who are the subject of this topic. HiLo48 (talk) 04:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

My point was that the only written sources that we have for the Aborigines' point of view is where it has been recorded by the colonists and even then it may not be an accurate or genuine record. That's all we've got to work with. But historians can't choose not to report on the issues simply because they have an limited or imperfect knowledge of how things looked from the Aborigines' perspective. The only thing that historians can do is look at the actions taken by the various parties and try to work out intentions and motivations from what the evidence shows. Wikipedia isn't able to do more than the historians can. We have to formulate the article with the sources that exist and try to avoid relying on the unreliable ones. Webley442 (talk) 06:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. You have missed my point completely. Please take your whinging about WRITTEN sources elsewhere. HiLo48 (talk) 06:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Your words as above: “My concern is the lack of any written sources at all from the people who are the subject of this topic.” Who’s whinging about written sources? It seems to be you whinging about the absence of written sources from the Aborigines. Well there aren’t any and no amount of ‘discussion’ will change that. Your ‘point’ seems to be that you want to complain about the fact that there are no written sources from the Aborigines without making any suggestions about how to treat the sources that do exist; basically a waste of time. Webley442 (talk) 08:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you understand why I used the word "philosophical". HiLo48 (talk) 09:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, it was obvious that when you opened this new section that you simply wanted to make a comment on the ‘injustice’ of the situation, i.e. that there are no indigenous sources being heard from. But when you open up a new section on a talk page, the other users will make of the opportunity what they will. There is no controlling how the discussion develops or what other issues will be raised. Not everything written in this section was necessarily directed at 'resolving' the issue you raised. Webley442 (talk) 10:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Please take your anger somewhere else, and stop assuming that you know what everybody else's goals and motives are. HiLo48 (talk) 11:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be the only one who is angry here so perhaps it's better that you raise "philosophical" issues that worry you about Wikipedia at another venue and use this page for practical suggestions for improving the article, which is what talk pages are supposed to be about.Webley442 (talk) 13:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I know I should really be ignoring you, but I can't help hoping that people can move on from totally confrontational positions. Please have a careful read of the early posts in this section. Mine and others. It doesn't seem that you have. Otherwise you wouldn't make that kind of suggestion. HiLo48 (talk) 20:20, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

ENOUGH! This is not a chat room. Webley442, please, I request that you do not respond to the above comment. Just let it drop. HiLo48 please, if you have something to say about developing the article, say it, otherwise leave this alone. Don't fill up this page with chit-chat that is irrelevant to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.202.43.53 (talk) 02:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Volume 3 and Rabbit Proof Fence

The use of 'refuted' implies that Windschuttles claims regarding the Rabbit Proof fence removals have been proven wrong by the claims made in the linked newspaper article. That's too strong a claim considering what's actually in that article. The newspaper article uses the term 'rejected' and that seems to be an accurate description. Webley442 (talk) 08:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)