1. While out searching for food in their usual hunting grounds the natives realize their land no longer belongs to them.""When we climbed over the fence , one of those men pointed one of those things-guns-at us and threatened to shoot us if we went in there again"" (14)
This was said my one of the native tribe members who was angered by being held back from hunting. I believe this is a violation of the "right to own property" because all of the natives lands were taken out from under them without consent. These people are not allowed to be on the land that they once had to themselves and are confines to wherever the Europeans want them to be.
2. Because the natives decided to strike out and steal a couple sheep from the white man because they wouldn't share, "they received several years imprisonment and were transported to Rottnest Island Penal Colony... They were never seen again." (14)
I believe that this is a direct violation of the "freedom from arbitrary arrest and exile". These men were both arrested and sent away from taking a couple sheep because they could not find any food elsewhere on the land. This tiny punishment was found unacceptable to the white people because they believed the natives were savages and had to sent the tone with stealing away people, to send a message.
3. ""Yet when old man Udja complained to the magistrate that a white man stole his wife, Nella, he was given a bag of white rice and flour and told to go home. That old man expected the same form of justice under the white man's law. He never got it."" (15)
Just because these people are from another race means that they could not be given the same rules as the white man, they were treated stricter and more brutally than any European on this island. This rule is in obstruction of the "equality before the law" declaration.
Only in America:
Just like in Australia the Europeans forced Native American tribes farther and farther out of their lands until they were cornered and too weakened to fight back. They brought down their populations with diseases, starvation, and war with better weapons. Because of the huge difference in ratio the Native American tribes had no chance and were only left tiny squares of land to live on, the least fertile and worst climate squares. Another coincidence is that the white men tired to take out Indian children to educate them in European schools and teaching them European ways. By converting them they thought that it would persuade the future generations of Indians to willingly give up their lands and join the European race.
Relocate the Children:
The European government thought that their race was superior to all others which made them believe that they had to convert and change any others that stood in their path. Even though they were not threatened or harassed the white men needed to change these other races because they wanted one educated and European race. I do not believe that the government was justified in doing this though because they ripped apart homes and families for their own selfish beliefs. They didn't stop to think about how they were affecting other communities because they don't care about these other families.

Zoe,
ReplyDeleteThis blog is really well done. It's clearly written, concise, to the point. Good work.
5/5