Page 47 - The Disasters Darwinism Brought To Humanity

A
L
I
N
I
I
S
N
C
O
M
L
O

M
S
D
N
A
I

S
'
C
A
R

R
W
D D A R W I N ' S R A C I S M A N D C O L O N I A L I S M 47
A
natural selection when exterminating the inferior Australian and Maori
races… and we appropriate their patrimony coolly. 32
And in 1890 the Vice-President of the Royal Society of Tasmania,
James Barnard, wrote: "the process of extermination is an axiom of the law
of evolution and survival of the fittest." There was therefore, he conclud-
ed, no reason to suppose that "there had been any culpable neglect" in the
murder and dispossession of the Aboriginal Australian. 33
As a result of these racist, ruthless, and savage views nourished by
Darwin, a terrible massacre was begun with the aim of exterminating the
aborigines. Aboriginal heads were nailed over station doors. Poisoned
bread was given to Aboriginal families. In many parts of Australia, abo-
rigine settlement areas disappeared in a savage manner within 50 years. 34
The policies aimed at aborigines did not end with massacres. Many
members of the race were treated like experimental animals. The Smith-
sonian Institute in Washington D.C. held the remains of 15,000 people of
various races. 10,000 Australian aborigines were sent by ship to the British
Museum with the aim of seeing whether or not they were the "missing
link" in the transition from animals to human beings.
Museums were not just interested in bones, at the same time they
kept brains belonging to aborigines and sold them at good prices. There
is also proof that Australian aborigines were killed to be used as speci-
mens. The facts below bear witness to this ruthlessness:
A death-bed memoir from Korah Wills, who became mayor of Bowen,
Queensland in 1866, graphically describes how he killed and dismembered
a local tribesman in 1865 to provide a scientific specimen.
Edward Ramsay, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney for 20 years
from 1874, was particularly heavily involved. He published a museum
booklet which appeared to include Aborigines under the designation of
"Australian animals". It also gave instructions not only on how to rob
graves, but also on how to plug up bullet wounds in freshly killed "speci-
mens".
A German evolutionist, Amalie Dietrich (nicknamed the 'Angel of Black
Death') came to Australia asking station owners for Aborigines to be shot for
specimens, particularly skin for stuffing and mounting for her museum