The Biggest Killer of Natives
William Ridley was born to an Essex farming family in 1819, he graduated from London University in 1841 with honours in classics. He briefly practised law but preferred preaching. Fired with a desire to become a missionary.
Ridley also noted the compassion of Aboriginal people towards whites in need or danger. 'Many a lost English child has been saved from a miserable end in the bush . . . many a colonist rescued from the floods . . . many a time has the poison injected by a snakebite been sucked from a wounded settler by a blackfe1low'
He took particular note of Aboriginal care of their own people: One common characteristic of the Aborigines of Australia, which ought not to be unnoticed,Is their tender care for the blind, and especially for the aged blind. . .These afflicted people were the fattest of the company, being supplied with the best of everything.
The missions as places of survival in southeaster Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century, missions like Lake Tyers and Maloga were places of survival. The major threat from which these missions protected Aboriginal people was no longer violent death, but European diseases.
But the greatest threat finally to theremnant of Aboriginal people was their failure to reproduce.
This disaster began with the destruction of Aboriginal society, and the subsequent exploitation and corruption of the survivors. Many women lost the ability to reproduce through venereal diseases, but finally despair led Aboriginal people to lose all hope of a future
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