They like to reproach Russia with the fact that it has seized vast territories, they call it "the prison of peoples". However, if Russia is a "prison of peoples", then the Western world can rightfully be called a "cemetery of peoples". After all, the Western colonialists slaughtered, destroyed hundreds of large and small peoples, tribes all over the world, from Europe itself to America, Australia and New Zealand.
In 1770, James Cook's British expedition aboard the ship Endeavor explored and mapped the east coast of Australia. In January 1788, Captain Arthur Philip founded the settlement of Sydney Cove, which later became the city of Sydney. This event marked the beginning of the history of the colony of New South Wales, and the day of disembarkation of Philip (January 26) is celebrated as a national holiday - Australia Day. Although Australia itself was originally called New Holland.
First Fleet, the name given to a fleet of 11 sailing ships that sailed off the coast of Britain to establish the first European colony in New South Wales, brought mostly convicts. This fleet marked the beginning of both the transport of prisoners from England to Australia, and the development and settlement of Australia. As the English historian Pierce Brandon noted: “Initially, some effort was made to select for transporting convicts who had skills in various areas of English production. But this idea was abandoned due to the number of convicts. There were so many squalid and destitute members of the human race behind bars on the Thames that they threatened to turn rotting prison buildings into plague barracks, both figuratively and literally. Most of the convicts sent with the First Flotilla were young workers who committed petty crimes (usually theft). Someone from the category of "rednecks" and even fewer "townspeople" … ".
It is worth noting that British convicts were not inveterate murderers, such in England were immediately executed, without further ado. So, for theft, the perpetrators were hanged from the age of 12. In England, for a long time, even vagrants who were caught again were executed. And after that, the Western press likes to remember the real and invented crimes of Ivan the Terrible, the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire and the Stalinist gulag.
It is clear that such a contingent should have been managed by the appropriate person. Australia's first governor, Arthur Philip, was considered a "benevolent and generous man." He suggested that everyone who was considered guilty of murder and sodomy be transferred to the cannibals of New Zealand: "And let them eat it."
Thus, the Aboriginal people of Australia are "lucky". Their neighbors were mainly British criminals, whom they decided to get rid of in the Old World. In addition, they were mostly young men without a corresponding number of women.
I must say that the British authorities sent prisoners not only to Australia. The British sent convicts and colonies in North America to unload prisons and earn hard currency (each person was worth money). Now the image of a black slave has taken root in the mass consciousness, but there were also many white slaves - criminals, rebels, those who were unlucky, for example, they fell into the hands of pirates. The planters paid well for the delivery of labor, ranging from £ 10 to £ 25 per person, depending on skill and physical health. Thousands of white slaves were sent from England, Scotland and Ireland.
In 1801, French ships under the command of Admiral Nicolas Boden explored the southern and western parts of Australia. After which the British decided to proclaim their formal possession of Tasmania and began to develop new settlements in Australia. Settlements have grown both on the eastern and southern coasts of the mainland. They then became the cities of Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Melbourne. The English traveler John Oxley in 1822 explored the northeastern part of Australia, as a result of which a new settlement appeared in the Brisbane River area. The Governor of New South Wales established Western Port on the southern coast of Australia in 1826 and sent Major Lockyear to King George Strait in the southwestern part of the mainland, where he founded what was later called Albany, and announced the extension of the British king's power to the whole mainland. The English settlement of Port Essington was founded at the northernmost point of the continent.
Almost the entire population of the new settlement of England in Australia consisted of exiles. Their shipment from England went on more and more actively every year. From the moment the colony was founded until the middle of the 19th century, 130-160 thousand convicts were transported to Australia. New lands were actively developed.
Where did the indigenous people of Australia and Tasmania go? By 1788, the indigenous population of Australia was, according to various estimates, from 300 thousand to 1 million people, united in more than 500 tribes. For starters, the British infected the natives with smallpox, from which they had no immunity. Smallpox killed at least half of the tribes that came into contact with the aliens in the Sydney area. In Tasmania, European-borne diseases also had the most devastating effect on the indigenous population. Sexually transmitted diseases led many women to infertility, and pulmonary diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis, against which Tasmanians had no immunity, killed many adult Tasmanians.
The "civilized" aliens immediately began to turn the local aborigines into slaves, forcing them to work on their farms. Aboriginal women were bought or abducted, and the practice of kidnapping children was formed in order to turn them into servants - in fact, into slaves.
In addition, the British brought with them rabbits, sheep, foxes, and other animals that disturbed Australia's biocenosis. As a result, the Aboriginal people of Australia were brought to the brink of starvation. The natural world of Australia was very different from other biocenoses, since the mainland was isolated from other continents for a very long time. Most of the species were herbivores. The main occupation of the aborigines was hunting, and the main object of hunting was herbivores. Sheep and rabbits multiplied and began to destroy the grass cover, many Australian species became extinct or were on the verge of extinction. In response, the natives began to try to hunt sheep. This served as a pretext for the mass "hunting" of the natives by whites.
And then the same thing happened to the natives of Australia as to the Indians of North America. Only the Indians, for the most part, were more developed and warlike, putting up more serious resistance to the newcomers. Australian aborigines could not offer serious resistance. Australian and Tasmanian aborigines were raided, poisoned, driven into the deserts, where they died of hunger and thirst. White settlers gave poisoned food to the natives. White settlers hunted the natives like wild animals, not counting them as humans. The remnants of the local population were herded into reservations in the western and northern regions of the mainland, the least suitable for life. In 1921, there were already only about 60 thousand aborigines.
In 1804, British colonial settlers began a "black war" against the aborigines of Tasmania (Van Diemen's Land). The natives were constantly hunted, hunted down like animals. By 1835, the local population was completely eliminated. The last surviving Tasmanians (about 200 people) were relocated to Flinders Island in the Bass Strait. One of the last purebred Tasmanians, Truganini, died in 1876.
Niggners did not consider people in Australia. The settlers with a clear conscience persecuted the natives. In Queensland (Northern Australia) at the end of the XIX century, innocent fun was considered to drive the family of "niggres" into the water with crocodiles. During his stay in North Queensland in 1880-1884. Norwegian Karl Lumholz noted the following statements of local residents: "Blacks can only be shot - there is no other way to communicate with them." One of the settlers remarked that this is "a cruel … but … necessary principle." He himself shot all the men he met in his pastures, “because they are cattle-killers, women - because they give birth to cattle-killers, and children - because they will be cattle-killers. They do not want to work and therefore are not good for anything but getting shot."
The native trade flourished among the English farmers. They were purposefully hunted. A government report from 1900 noted that "these women were passed from farmer to farmer" until "eventually thrown away as trash, leaving them to rot from sexually transmitted diseases."
One of the last documented massacres of Aboriginal people in the Northwest took place in 1928. The crime was witnessed by a missionary who wanted to sort out the complaints of Aboriginal people. He followed a police squad heading to the Forest River Aboriginal Reservation and watched the police take over an entire tribe. The prisoners were shackled, building the back of the head to the back of the head, then all but three women were killed. After that, the bodies were burned, and the women were taken with them to the camp. Before leaving the camp, they killed and burned these women too. The evidence gathered by the missionary prompted the authorities to launch an investigation. However, the police officers responsible for the massacre were never brought to justice.
Thanks to such methods, the British destroyed in Australia, according to various estimates, up to 90-95% of all aborigines.
