Published on January 18, 2019-The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain.
On one of my travelling experiences, I was fortunate enough to visit Torres Strait Islander aka Australia and Aotearoa aka New Zealand. I was able to absorb the beautiful cultures and the beautiful landscapes in both regions, but I also learned some brief history about these regions and the Indigenous peoples who this land belongs to. I learned about how the Indigenous peoples in Australia were also colonized similarly to the Indigenous peoples of Canada, and this saddened me deeply, and allowed me to inquire more into the history of how and why this could happen worldwide? Historically speaking, “prior to British colonization, more than 500 Indigenous groups inhabited the Australian continent, approximately 750,000 people in total.[1] Their cultures developed over 60,000 years, making Indigenous Australians the custodians of the world’s most ancient living culture. Each group lived in close relationship with the land and had custody over their own Country.”
This made me stop and think, how would I have felt, if strangers barged into my home, demanding all my earthly and worldly posessions and took my freedoms away?
It’s also important to recognise that, ” from the beginning of colonisation, Indigenous people continually resisted the violation of their right to land, and its impact on Indigenous cultures and communities. It’s estimated that at least 20,000 Aboriginal people were killed as a direct result of colonial violence during this era of Australian history. Between 2,000- 2,500 settler deaths resulted from frontier conflict during the same period.[8]
Published: Aug 11, 2008
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