"It is a 'damaging myth' that Captain Cook ..." Topic

…discovered Australia

"Who would have thought the mere suggestion that Captain Cook did not in fact discover Australia would be so controversial?

It seems to have taken some people by surprise, the idea that people were here for more than 60,000 years before the Endeavour dropped anchor.

What were we doing all that time, just waiting for white people to find us?…"

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Amicalement
Armand

I thought Tasman was the first European to 'discover' Australia, not Cook.

Didn't the Aborigines discover Australia?

I'll wager that I'll catch Holy H*LL from our Aussie friends for that crack. (smile)

Whilst I appreciate the points the article makes, it is surely not an unreasonable use of language to describe someone as 'discovering' something which they had not previously known about?

Yes, it is Eurocentric; but it was the Europeans who had not known the Australian continent was there, and so 'discovered' it, whereas the indigenous people had known about it all along.

An actual Aussie explains…

YouTube link

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Nobody discovered Australia, did Tolkien discover middel earth? Did that other guy discover Narnia?
No!

Cook made up a story about a fantasy land were everything kills you. And everyone just plays a long with the joke.

Hell, new Zealanders go online pretending to Australians to keep of the charade.

From European perspective a Dutchman, Willem Jansz, discovered Australië in 1606. Cook was born a century later.

It might be fair to say that the white man invented Australia.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

To be accurate, the Aborigines discovered most of Australia but far from all of it. It's a big place and some parts are very remote or inhospitable so I would argue that Australia wasn't fully discovered until satellite photography became available!

Who 'Discovered' Australia is irrelevant.
What's relevant is who established a nation and rule of law and turned it from a sparsely populated profoundly large island into a 1st World productive nation that has contributed to world wide advancement.
A nation at the forefront of science and economics and social advancement.
That chain of events commenced with Captain James Cook.

I remember 1970, the centenary year well. A big deal was made of Cook's voyage and discoveries at school. Even then, no one claimed Cook discovered Australia. We were all taught about Van Diemen, Hartog and Dampier. It was always known that Cook only discovered the East coast of Australia. And yes, of course the indigenous population were already there, that goes without saying.
And for the record, some aboriginals (they don't like the noun aborigine) believe that they didn't migrate here, they were always here.

'White man, white law, white gun.'

Actually, long before any white man set foot on this continent all indigenous nations had, and some still have, the 'rule of law'.

If the 'profoundly large island' has shrunk since settlement commenced it's only because sea-levels have risen due to the effects of 'science and economics'.

Australia remains only partially a '1st World Nation'.

I rest my case, your honour.

As someone British (and as an aside someone born within a 10 minute walk of Cooks birthplace) I'd make the observation that indeed Australia was colonized, but "so what"
I said above I'm British, so I could be Jute, Angle, Saxon, Roman, Viking or Norman heritage, with only a very slim chance of any native "Briton" in the family tree. All these "foreign" peoples have at some time invaded & colonised part or all of "my" country.
Invasion & cultural domination/influence are part of most if not every nations history, so what aboriginals have gone through is as old as they are. They're now aboriginals AND Australian, and will eventually be indistinguishable.

Well put, Mr Astrolabe.

My grandparents were all native Hellenes – born in the Greek Peloponnesus, the Island of Lesbos and a small island in the Sea of Marmara. Somewhere along their ancestral lines, strains of Mongol DNA came to be added (most likely courtesy of the Ottomans).

No part of this earth can be claimed as exclusive to any race, people or tribe. Time marches on and things inevitably change over the course of human history.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

'White man, white law, white gun.'

They make good lyrics for a song,.. but hardly a historical revelation now is it.

"Actually, long before any white man set foot on this continent all indigenous nations had, and some still have, the 'rule of law'."

Yeah,.. a really just and well developed law. Trial by spear is excellent and very much in keeping with ‘due process'. I'll try and be more precise. English Common Law was brought to Australia and it's a pretty good system. Not perfect,.. (nothing's perfect no matter how much people try and make stuff perfect).

"If the 'profoundly large island' has shrunk since settlement commenced it's only because sea-levels have risen due to the effects of 'science and economics'."

Oh,.. well rising sea levels is another subject we can discuss (they haven't in any appreciable way risen). I thought the ‘shrinking world analogy would have been obvious. You can now move around Australia in a way unimaginable 220 years ago.

"Australia remains only partially a '1st World Nation'".

Well I'm sorry but that's simply not true. Australia is a 1st world nation. As such we won't force people to live in a 1st world manner. If people WISH to live in primitive communities they are welcome to do so,.. actually I'm pretty sure if I as a white man wanted to move into certain areas of Australia and make a lean to out of bark and start killing indigenous wildlife I'd soon be given short shift. I know indigenous Australians can hunt and kill animals in a way that would land me in the dock.
And I don't get access to the types of welfare they do so,…. in short it's not all bad.
Now if we could undo history and take back all the changes that have occurred in Australia due to the colonisation by the British Empire and later by Federation I just wonder how many would sign up for that?

"I rest my case, your honour"
I'll hold you to that.

I must admit I don't understand how this post is related to Wargaming?
Can anyone explain its relevance?