How the Australian Gulf Country was Settled in the 1880s

"…Adults and children received a bullet to the brain, while babies – whether injured or not – were held by the ankles “just like goanna”, their skulls smashed against trees or rocks.30 A crying baby left behind when Garrwa people fled a camp on the Robinson River was thrown onto the hot coals of a cooking fire, still crying."[1]

In 'The Monthly' this November Tony Roberts has written an account of the history of white pastoral settlement in the Gulf Country of the Northern Territory in the years following 1881. At that time the colonial government (administered from the Southern city of Adelaide) handed over an area equivalent in size to the Australian state of Victoria to just 14 landholders. All but two had a policy of shooting dead the local aboriginal population to facilitate the easy commercialisation of land-use.

It's interesting to note that Tony Roberts has pointed his finger for these unhindered massacres at particular individuals in power at the time. All with a 'Sir' in front of their names; a reward from the British global empire.

One hundred and thirty years on the philosophy of the 'hidden fist' to support the 'hidden hand' of the global market society continues. This time emanating from the ebbing American empire:

"For globalism to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is....The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist-McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps (Friedman, 1999)."

[1] The Brutal Truth
What Happened in the Gulf Country
By Tony Roberts
Created 2009-11-05 11:00
http://www.themonthly.com.au/print/2127