HomeOld_PostsThe ‘new world’ and genocides against blacks: Part Four

The ‘new world’ and genocides against blacks: Part Four

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THE British criminals who arrived in Australia after surviving the first voyage were 1 300 in number.
They arrived in 11 ships.
The invasion of the land of the Black-fellaz of Australia was unexpected and the Europeans were in such numbers as to discourage the indigenous people from fighting back.
In December of 1790, a white settler called McIntyre, who had made a sport of shooting Black-fellaz while, supposedly, hunting game was killed by a karaji (clever man) called Pemulwuy.
This name meant ‘man of earth’.
Governor Philip was enraged and felt humiliated as white people did not perceive the life of the indigenous blacks to be equal and as valuable as that of the white man.
The Black-fellaz were in jubilation at the news of McIntyre’s death for he had been known and hated for killing the Black-fellaz.
Four days after the murder of the white settler by Pemulwuy the karaji, Governor Philip sent a search party of armed soldiers.
They were given hatchets to cut off heads of Black-fellaz and bags to carry the heads.
The search party was outmanoeuvered by Pemulwuy and failed to capture him. Because they were unfamiliar with the land, the whites almost perished in quick sand on several points and so they abandoned the mission.
A year after this, Governor Philip resigned and returned to Britain.
Bennelong, the first Black-fella to make contact with the Europeans had successfully been turned into a sellout.
He along with another Black-fella called Yemmerawanyea boarded the ship to South Wales at the expense of their wives and kinsmen who urged them not to go.
Yemmerawanyea would eventually die in England, but Bennelong would return. Unfortunately he would find his wife remarried to another Black-fella.
Such are examples of how Europeans groomed blacks to hate themselves and love whites.
To this day, a lot of blacks like Bennelong unwittingly leave their families and wealth in Africa, and try to go to Europe and be citizens, only to lose their identity and heritage.
After Governor Philip left, the white settlers began advancing for land grabs.
The displacement of the Black-fellaz accelerated and they were forced to take action against the whites.
Military officers who had guarded the convicts on the voyage got in charge of the colony and they were ruthless to the Black-fellaz.
Karajis such as Pemulwuy were summoned and the Black-fellaz produced an army of their own.
Pemulwuy became the leader and sought to target the farms and food storages of the settlers because he knew they could not do without food.
The whites had grown corn in place of the indigenous yam and had stored some food they had shipped from England.
Strategically, Pemulwuy led the burning of the settler crops and storages.
He understood fire and the wind well, and he was also familiar with the environment.
The Black-fellaz also broke the legs of the livestock owned by Europeans.
Desperate, the settlers decided to attack the Black-fellaz that had embraced them at the persuasion of Bennelong.
These Black-fellaz were not part of the resistance and some of them had even saved the lives of whites yet they were killed in cold blood and were defenceless. They were beheaded and this consoled the humiliated Brits only temporarily, for they were eager to find and kill Pemulwuy.
When the whites finally caught Pemulwuy, they beheaded him and put his head in a glass container filled with alcohol.
The settlers shipped the head to Britain as a trophy.
This is what Europeans did to most indigenous leaders who led wars of resistance against white occupation including Makoni Chingaira and others in Zimbabwe.
After the resistance had been contained, the displacement of blacks of Australia continued and accelerated to include areas further to the west.
They were sold and fooled into taking alcohol and a significant number of them became alcoholics.
Bennelong, the sellout, returned from Britain disillusioned and became a drunkard.
Pemulwuy became a martyr and the Black-fellaz hoped they would again fight the white people another day.
The settlers advanced as far west as they could, but were hindered by a mountain range for 25 years from crossing to the western side of Australia.
When they finally crossed they found the largest single Black-fella tribe on the land.
The tribe was known as Waradjuri, and though surprised by the coming of the settlers they proved very friendly and were not hostile against whites.
A Waradjuri leader called Windradyne showed the settlers the good land and water as a gesture of welcome.
Before long, the settlers were offering the land of the Waradjuri to any white settler who made it west and this alarmed the Black-fellaz.
The whites appointed a Governor called Brisbane to govern the land and it was not known to the Waradjuri that their authority was being taken away.
After realising that the settlers had come to stay, the Black-fellaz concluded that all that was built, reared and cultivated belongs to the settlers, and all that is natural and from the land was theirs.
Therefore they isolated themselves from the settlers.
On one fateful day, a white settler offered some Black-fellaz of Windradyne’s family some potatoes to eat.
The Black-fellaz did not know potatoes and had not perceived them to be edible until then.
When the white farmer found out that the Black-fellaz were taking his potatoes, he followed them and shot them to death.
Many of Windradyne’s family members were tragically killed that day for a crime which is not worth the punishment.
He rallied up his people and his first victim of slaughter was a white man who had been known to have once poisoned some Black-fellaz.
This man was called Samuel Terry and he was killed along with two other whites. His house and property were burnt.
By the end of that month, Windradyne had slain 13 whites and many settlers fled from the west, heading back east in fear.
Windradyne was seen as the new Pemulwuy and he struck fear in the hearts of the British settlement.
When the uprising peaked, the whites were ordered by the most influential farmer of that time to, “Shoot all the blacks, manure the ground with their carcasses, which is all the good they are fit for.”
At the meeting they agreed that black children and women in particular should be killed so as to guarantee that the race of the black does not continue to grow. Martial law was imposed and the ethnic cleansing began.
The whites mobilised a large army with men on horses, armed with guns and swords.
Every black man, woman and child in their way was brutally killed.
Children and women were shot defenseless in their houses and beheaded.
Forty-five (45) heads of the Black-fellaz were collected by the whites and after a few months of such barbarism, Windradyne sought to end the bloodshed.
Windradyne was known as ‘Saturday’ to the Europeans and they had come to respect him for his courage.
Governor Brisbane wrote of Windrandyne saying, “Saturday is the manliest black negro we have ever encountered.”
Soon after this, the settlers returned to the western lands of Australia and their land grabs spread.

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