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Geek-Haven888 OP t1_j890lt7 wrote

The discovery of a trove of long-forgotten, black-and-white photographs in an Italian library has proven that a group of Indigenous Australians formed a community in South East Asia 150 years ago.

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aneille t1_j8b9w7w wrote

They weren't long-forgotten, I personally handled a few from a contemporary batch. It's probably that the archivist didn't know that information was new.

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rikashiku t1_j8cgkzw wrote

Iirc it was the Makassan people from Indonesia who made contact with First Nation Australians and formed trade pacts with the nearby nations.

Before them, the Treasure Fleet from the Ming Dynasty would chart the West, north, and East coast.

Edit: I can't open the link. So I was going off memory here.

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YourphobiaMyfetish t1_j8d5qq1 wrote

I feel like people always have this stereotype of native Australians as being some long lost forgotten people who had less contact with the outside world than the Americas. In reality they were well connected with other continents. When the first European "discovered" Australia, there was already a native man there who spoke English because he had worked as a ship hand in Indonesia.

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[deleted] t1_j8drl0v wrote

you know this stereotype was packaged like this on purpose, right? certain types of people needed to make sure that the natives were seen as barbaric/uncivilized so their colonisation would seem like a good thing.

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Schedulator t1_j8d9d4t wrote

English or Dutch?

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YourphobiaMyfetish t1_j8dfcem wrote

When I heard the story I remember it being English, but I'm not sure now.

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Schedulator t1_j8f4qyb wrote

There are cases of Aboriginal communities in Western Australia with Dutch words mixed into their languages. The theory is that Dutch ships travelling to Batavia (Jakarta) crashed into the WA coast, and survivors became part of those communities.

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rikashiku t1_j8dogbo wrote

Recently I've started learning more about the First Nations people and I'm shocked that they were actually very sophisticated and adaptable than I expected at the time. edit: because i didn't know anything about them.

The British made the awful misjudgment of considering them to be a less than human people, because some of the tribes didn't understand trade and negotiation that the British are used to.

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[deleted] t1_j8ds3jw wrote

>I'm shocked that they were actually very sophisticated and adaptable.

oh yikes. so many groups were 'sophisticated' already, it's just that the Europeans didn't see them as being up to their standards. recently saw a clip of a Zimbabwean woman going off on a Cecil Rhodes fanboy...her ancestors had a perfectly fine way of life, yet Rhodes decided they were barbaric. ugh.

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rikashiku t1_j8dtgu7 wrote

>it's just that the Europeans didn't see them as being up to their standards

Exactly. What I mean in my case was that I didn't know anything about them, and to have learned that many of the different cultures in Australia were very adaptive people who took great care of the land and its creatures, but the Western point of view I grew up with didn't even consider them to be a history worth mentioning.

Like I didn't know they migrated farming zones every few years, making the soil fertile, and ensuring animals keep to their own regions away from the settlements.

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YourphobiaMyfetish t1_j8e6304 wrote

>because some of the tribes didn't understand trade and negotiation that the British are used to.

I'm 90% sure they all did trade.

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rikashiku t1_j8e7cn4 wrote

Not the way the British wanted. It was one of the reasons they didn't consider them to be an intelligent people compared to others, and they did that a lot even between tribes.

The likes of Maori and Tongans were easier and more "human" because they had similar understanding of trade and communication.

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quokkafarts t1_j8q8rwe wrote

>When the first European "discovered" Australia, there was already a native man there who spoke English because he had worked as a ship hand in Indonesia.

Do you have a source for this? It would be fascinating to read more about this bloke.

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