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Edward Eyre - An explore explains why aborigines attached frontier settlers

The famous explorer Edward Eyre set out to explain why Aborigines attacked frontier settlers. He gave seven reasons.
EJ. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of discovery etc.,
2 vol., London, 1845, 1, PP.167-72.

First, That our being in their country at all is, so far as their ideas of right
and wrong are concerned, altogether an act of intrusion and aggression.

Secondly, That for a very long time they cannot comprehend our motives
for coming amongst them, or our object in remaining, and may very
naturally imagine that it can only be for the purpose of dispossessing
them.

Thirdly, That our presence and settlement, in any particular locality, do,
in point of fact, actually dispossess the aboriginal inhabitants.

Fourthly, That the localities selected by Europeans, as best adapted for
the purposes of cultivation, or of grazing, are those that would usually be
equally valued above others, by the natives themselves, as places of
resort, or districts in which they could most easily procure their food.
This would especially be the case in those parts of the country where
water was scarce, as the European always locates himself close to this
grand necessary of life. The injustice, therefore, of the white man's
intrusion upon the territory of the aboriginal inhabitant, is aggravated
greatly by his always occupying the best and most valuable portion of it.

Fifthly, That as we ourselves have laws, customs, or prejudices, to which
we attach considerable importance, and the infringement of which we
consider either criminal or offensive, so have the natives theirs, equally,
perhaps, dear to them, but which, from our ignorance or heedlessness,
we may be continually violating, and can we wonder that they should
sometimes exact the penalty of infraction? do not we do the same? or is
ignorance a more valid excuse for civilized man than the savage?

Sixthly, What are the relations usually subsisting between the Aborigines
and settlers, locating in the more distant, and less populous parts of the
country: those who have placed themselves upon the outskirts of
civilization, and who, as they are in some measure beyond the protection
of the laws, are also free from their restraints? A settler going to occupy a
new station, removes, perhaps, beyond all other Europeans, taking with
him his flocks, and his herds, and his men, and locates himself wherever
he finds water, and a country adapted for his purposes. At the first,
possibly, he may see none of the inhabitants of the country that he has
thus unceremoniously taken possession of; naturally alarmed at the
inexplicable appearance, and daring intrusion of strangers, they keep
aloof, hoping, perhaps, but vainly, that the intruders may soon retire.
Days, weeks, or months pass away, and they see them still remaining.
Compelled at last, it may be by enemies without, by the want of water in
the remoter districts, by the desire to procure certain kinds of food,
which are peculiar to certain localities, and at particular seasons of the
year, or perhaps by a wish to revisit their country and their homes, they
return once more, cautiously and fearfully approaching what is their
own-the spot perhaps where they were born, the patrimony that has
descended to them through many generations;-and what is the
reception that is given them upon their own lands? often they are met by
repulsion, and sometimes by violence, and are compelled to retire again
to strange and unsuitable localities. Passing over the fearful scenes of
horror and bloodshed, that have but too frequently been perpetrated in
all the Australian colonies upon the natives in the remoter districts, by
the most desperate and abandoned of our countrymen; and overlooking,
also, the recklessness that too generally pervades the shepherds and
stock-keepers of the interior, with regard to the coloured races, a
recklessness that leads them to think as little of firing at a black, as at a
bird, and which makes the number they have killed or the atrocities that
have attended the deeds, a matter for a tale, a jest or boast at their
pothouse revelries; overlooking these, let us suppose that the settler is
actuated by no bad intentions, and that he is sincerely anxious to avoid
any collision with the natives, or not to do them any injury, yet under
these even comparatively favourable circumstances, what frequently is
the result? The settler finds himself almost alone in the wilds, with but
few men around him, and these, principally occupied in attending to
stock, are dispersed over a considerable extent of country; he finds
himself cut off from assistance, or resources of any kind, whilst he has
heard fearful accounts of the ferocity, or the treachery of the savage; he
therefore comes to the conclusion, that it will be less trouble, and
annoyance, and risk, to keep the natives away from his station altogether;
and as soon as they make their appearance, they are roughly waved away
from their own possessions: should they hesitate, or appear unwilling to
depart, threats are made use of, weapons perhaps produced, and a
show, at least, is made of an offensive character, even if no stronger
measures be resorted to. What must be the natural impression produced
upon the mind of the natives by treatment like this? Can it engender
feelings otherwise than of a hostile and vindictive kind; or can we
wonder that he should take the first opportunity of venting those feelings
upon his aggressor?

But let us go even a little further, and suppose the case of a settler,
who, actuated by no selfish motives, and blinded by no fears, does not
discourage or repel the natives upon their first approach; suppose that he
treats them with kindness and consideration (and there are happily many
such settlers in Australia), what recompense can he make them for the
injury he has done, by dispossessing them of their lands, by occupying
their waters, and by depriving them of their supply of food? He neither
does nor can replace the loss. They are sometimes allowed, it is true, to
frequent again the localities they once called their own, but these are
now shorn of the attractions which they formerly possessed-they are no
longer of any value to them-and where are they to procure the food that
~the wild animals once supplied them with so abundantly? In the place of
the kangaroo, the emu, and the wallabie, they now see only the flocks
and herds of the strangers, and nothing is left to them but the prospect of
dreary banishment, or a life of misery and privation. Can it then be a
matter of wonder, that under such circumstances as these, and whilst
those who dispossessed them, are revelling in plenty near them, they should
sometimes be tempted to appropriate a portion of the superabundance
they see around them, and rob those who had first robbed them? The
only wonder is, that such acts of reprisal are so seldom committed.
Where is the European nation, that thus situated, and finding themselves,
as is often the case with the natives, numerically and physically stronger
than their oppressors, would be guilty of so little retaliation, of so few
excesses? The eye of compassion, or of philanthropy, will easily discover
the anomalous and unfavourable position of the Aborigines of our
colonies, when brought into contact with the European settlers. They are
strangers in their own land, and possess no longer the usual means of
procuring their daily subsistence; hungry, and famished, they wander
about begging among the scattered stations, where they are treated with
a familiarity by the men living at them, which makes them become
familiar in turn, until, at last, getting impatient and troublesome, they are
roughly repulsed, and feelings of resentment and revenge are kindled.
This, I am persuaded, is the cause and origin of many of the affrays with
the natives, which are apparently inexplicable to us. Nor ought we to
wonder, that a slight insult, or a trifling injury, should sometimes hurry
them to an act apparently not warranted by the provocation. Who can tell
how long their feelings had been rankling in their bosoms; how long, or
how much they had borne; a single drop will make the cup run
over, when filled up to the brim; a single spark will ignite the mine,
that, by its explosion, will scatter destruction around it; and may not one
foolish indiscretion, one thoughtless act of contumely or wrong, arouse
to vengeance the passions that have long been burning, though
concealed? With the same dispositions and tempers as ourselves, they
are subject to the same impulses and infirmities. Little accustomed to
restrain their feelings, it is natural, that when goaded beyond endurance,
the effect should be violent, and fatal to those who roused them;-the
smothered fire but bursts out the stronger from having been pent up; and
the rankling passions are but fanned into wilder fury, from having been
repressed.

Seventhly, There are also other considerations to be taking into the
account, when we form our opinion of the character and conduct of the
natives, to which we do not frequently allow their due weight and
importance, but which will fully account for aggressions having been
committed by natives upon unoffending individuals, and even sometimes
upon those who have treated them kindly. First, that the native considers
it a virtue to revenge an injury. Secondly, if he cannot revenge it upon the
actual individual who injured him, he thinks that the offence is equally
expiated if he can do so upon any other of the same race; he does not
look upon it as the offence of an individual, but as an act of war on the
part of the nation, and he takes the first opportunity of making a reprisal
upon anyone of the enemy who may happen to fall in his way; no matter
whether that person injured him or not, or whether he knew of the
offence having been committed, or the war declared. And is not the
custom of civilized powers very similar to this? Admitting that
civilization, and refinement, have modified the horrors of such a system,
the principle is still the same. This is the principle that invariably guides
the native in his relations with other native tribes around him, and it is
generally the same that he acts upon in his intercourse with us.
Shall we then arrogate to ourselves the sole power of acting unjustly, or
of judging of what is expedient? And are we to make no allowance for the
standard of right by which the native is guided in the system of policy he
may adopt? Weighing candidly, then, the points to which reference has
been made, can we wonder, that in the outskirts of the colony, where the
intercourse between the native and the European has been but limited,
and where that intercourse has, perhaps, only generated a mutual
distrust; where the objects, the intentions, or the motives of the white
man, can neither be known nor understood, and where the natural
inference from his acts cannot be favourable, can we wonder, that under
such circumstances, and acting from the impression of some wrong, real
or imagined, or goaded on by hunger, which the white man's presence
prevents him from appeasing, the native should sometimes be tempted
to acts of violence or robbery? He is only doing what his habits and ideas
have taught him to think commendable. He is doing what men in a more
civilized state would have done under the same circumstances, what
they daily do under the sanction of the law of nations-a law that
provides not for the safety, privileges, and protection of the Aborigines,
and owners of the soil, but which merely lays down rules for the
direction of the privileged robber in the distribution of the booty of any
newly discovered country.