{"id":2022,"date":"2017-11-02T04:47:09","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T04:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/course.oeru.org\/inda102\/?page_id=2022"},"modified":"2017-11-02T04:47:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T04:47:09","slug":"racial-thinking-and-indigenous-histories","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/course.oeru.org\/inda102\/learning-pathways\/protection-segregation-and-assimilation-policies\/racial-thinking-and-indigenous-histories\/","title":{"rendered":"Racial Thinking and Indigenous Histories"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\"key\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Key Idea<\/h2>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Throughout the nineteenth century, scientists and government officials began to see Indigenous Australians as a \u2018dying race\u2019, an idea which was backed up by \u2018Social Darwinism\u2019. These ideas helped shape policy intervention into Indigenous life into the twentieth century.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n
Aboriginal Australians montage <\/p>\n

Top row<\/b>: Windradyne (File:Windradyne, Aust. Aboriginal warrior from the Wiradjuri.jpg), David Gulpilil(File:David Gulpilil.jpg), Albert Namatjira (File:Namatjira govt house sydney.jpg), David Unaipon (File:David Unaipon.jpg), Mandawuy Yunupingu (File:201000 – Opening Ceremony Yothu Yindi perform 2 – 3b – 2000 Sydney opening ceremony photo.jpg)<\/p>\n

Bottom row<\/b>: Truganini (File:Trugannini 1866.jpg), Yagan (File:Yagan Statue Head.jpg), Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu (File:Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu in Nov 2012.jpg), Bennelong (File:Bennelong.jpg), Robert Tudawali (File:Robert Tudawali at Darwin’s Bagot Reserve 1960.jpg)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Previously we have studied the way that European ways of thinking about human difference shaped non-Indigenous views of Indigenous people at the time of exploration and colonial settlement. These ideas helped justify the dispossession of Indigenous people from their country. <\/p>\n

As violence, disease and dispossession led to population decline, in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries non-Indigenous people came to see Indigenous people as a \u2018dying race\u2019, and policies were implemented based on the assumption that Indigenous people would soon \u2018die out\u2019. These ideas were also justified by the development of scientific thought about human difference and increasingly hardened views about the role of \u2018race\u2019 to explain human difference.\n<\/p>\n

The publication of Charles Darwin\u2019s The Origin of Species<\/i> in 1859 led to a revolution in science, marking the development of ideas about evolution. While Darwin\u2019s early work did not really mention people, his ideas soon began to be translated to human society, and became used to explain differences between people. \u2018Social Darwinism\u2019 suggested that:\n<\/p>\n