European Observations by Dr. Samantha Bedggood https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2 HIST1201 - Week Two, Primary Source Discussion en-us 2017-07-29 06:20:27 UTC 2026-02-25 12:21:30 UTC hello@padlet.com s_bedggood https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179674463 Share your thoughts about the source, with consideration to the analysis questions. ]]> 2017-07-29 06:31:51 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179674463 some other questions to consider... s_bedggood https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179674501 1. In what ways were Hunter's expectations challenged?
2. Why may Hunter have been so optimistic about the future of Indigenous-European relations?]]> 2017-07-29 06:35:34 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179674501 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916267 Interesting that John Hunter waited almost 7 months to take his position in the government. Did he not want to? Was he scared of something? 

]]> 2017-08-02 03:20:31 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916267 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916280 The Aboriginals didn't believe that anybody had ownership over the land so they didn't think that the Europeans coming should be viewed as a threat. However, the Europeans pretended they weren't their enemies so that they would successfully be able to come in and conquer them and take over the land. ]]> 2017-08-02 03:20:41 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916280 1. Hunter's expectations were challenged in that the natives, whom at first glance appeared to look like savages, were actually friendlier than expected once the First Fleet mingled with the Indigenous locals and followed their practices in dancing ceremonies, an act of reciprocity for the sake of building up friendship . He expected some brief skirmish at first, but that didn't happen for the initial encounter, plus the fact that there were natives actually challenged the pre-existing perception that the Great Southern Land was an uninhabited land, so naturally he was delighted in at least finding the natives to be more welcoming than expected, because good relations with the natives, who he already deems as British subjects is important for establishing conditions for successful colonization in the long term. https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916310 2017-08-02 03:21:02 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916310 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916439 The narrator is extremely confident of himself. The 'cultural baggage' of his perceived superiority. ]]> 2017-08-02 03:22:12 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916439 Hunter wrote that he expected the Natives to be stupid and in small numbers based on his readings, but was surprised to find that they were both populous and willing interact in a friendly manner. https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916463 2017-08-02 03:22:25 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916463 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916497 Hunter didn't even view the natives as a violent race of savages, but saw them as a race of a civilised nation. He also believed that they were the owners of the land and he wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardise their ownership of the land. In a way, Hunter, throughout his observations recorded in his journals, had a vision of a greater future for Indigenous-European relations. The only difference was that he was not Cook, but rather the anti-Cook. If only Hunter was the one who landed in Botany Bay in 1776, then there would have been a different and positive result for the establishment of Indigenous-European relations.]]> 2017-08-02 03:22:38 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916497 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916501 Hunter may have been optimistic because this was one of the initial meetings between the Indigenous people and the Europeans. Both groups didn't recognize the others intentions at first and thought maybe it was a friendly meeting, until the Indigenous people realized the European's intentions to claim their land and avoided contact with them. Hunter expects the Indigenous people to be friendly due to them arriving with so many gifts, etc., but he didn't understand that these people had different customs and a whole different culture from the Europeans.

]]> 2017-08-02 03:22:47 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916501 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916539 The Indigenous people were also more populous than he seemed to have expected, seen when he describes their "considerable numbers"]]> 2017-08-02 03:23:10 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916539 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916674 1. The seemingly warm welcoming (i.e., not combative) of the aboriginal nations challenged his ideas about an unclaimed land populated only by savages. He recognized intelligence and understood them to be inquisitive, and so reckoned that they weren't a savage race. 

2. lacking a force driven campaign against the europeans, Hunter would have had no understanding of how wrong his idea's about the seemingly complacent aboriginal nations were.

]]> 2017-08-02 03:24:39 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916674 erynd32 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916697 Hunter was not expecting the native people to be so numerous at the port, as the accounts with which he was familiar existed stating that there were fewer native people than he discovered. Additionally, he and his men were better received at the port rather than Botany Bay, which gave him confidence in the potential future relations with the natives.]]> 2017-08-02 03:25:00 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916697 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916719 Hunter explains that they appeared armed upon first meeting, but each side managed to communicate a willingness to negotiate and even initiate friendship]]> 2017-08-02 03:25:13 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916719 Hunter did not expect for there to be as many Aboriginal people as there were, and they were more civilised and intelligent than he had first thought. https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916779 2017-08-02 03:25:53 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916779 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916803 Hunter may have been optimistic because after the first meeting there was no specific sign of protest or conflict between the groups. He may have seen this as the Aboriginals complying with the Europeans taking authority. In this case, the Aboriginals could have misunderstood their intentions and did not realize the Europeans were planning on staying.]]> 2017-08-02 03:26:06 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916803 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916824 The narrator was more interested in creating records for the English, giving the impression of success, than he was in accurately representing Indigenous people]]> 2017-08-02 03:26:33 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916824 The background information of the author matters as all writing is influenced by our backgrounds and this could make the writing bias towards certain values and beliefs. https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916835 2017-08-02 03:26:44 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916835 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916878 The author - Hunter is from Scotland, middling background, he is educated as you can tell from the writing and has worked his way up. He has also travelled extensively. He was 50 when he arrived in Australia. These characteristics inform his views or 'baggage' which is important. The purpose of the source - his actual opinion of the Aboriginals opposed to previous ideas and to get the Governor position]]> 2017-08-02 03:27:26 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916878 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916893 Hunter did not receive much resistance from the Indigenous people but rather believed it would be easy to convince them that Europeans were not Enemies. Hunter would have been optimistic about the future and believed that the Settlement of Australia would not be difficult. ]]> 2017-08-02 03:27:45 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916893 erynd32 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916913 we know that Hunter was a white European man, most likely Christian. With this background, he brought along cultural baggage against the native people, not made better from his prior limited knowledge of the Aborigines at Botany Bay.]]> 2017-08-02 03:27:59 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916913 Hunter was a second captain, he wrote this entry with the perspective of one of the Europeans https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916960 2017-08-02 03:28:29 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179916960 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179917105 - Optimistic about the future relationships the British were to have with indigenous people.
- His preconceived ideas of indigenous Australians were challenged.

]]> 2017-08-02 03:30:06 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179917105 The entry on page 74 particularly highlights how their expectations based from what they had heard was in fact an inaccurate assumption. While the entry on page 82-83 highlights how not all encounters began negatively and may have showed the others back home that they weren’t a “savage” bunch of people. https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179917224 2017-08-02 03:32:03 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179917224 https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179917289 Other accounts of first contact seem to contrast his own experience, with Tasman not even seeing any natives. This would have given him an optimistic approach because he had already achieved more success than previous explorers, and displays surprise at how well he was received. ]]> 2017-08-02 03:33:02 UTC https://padlet.com/s_bedggood/HIST1201_Wk2/wish/179917289