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Originally Posted by h2co-pilot
Assuming that there is no land that has been occupied by the same peoples and customs for 10 thousand years- Prolly not. Though, (thinking of long standing Aboringines of regions) Australia was not formed by war and it's settlers did not fight the native peoples. They obtained Independence gradually and only knew war from WWI- present and really none of their own. Maybe Australia. 
(I haven't had my coffee yet so I'm a little crusty/confused- I may edit more later  ) |
An extract from an Aboriginal history paper
"European settlers with more advanced technology arrived in 1788 from England and began re-colonizing.
They got on rather badly with the locals. Two primitive cultures based on force and exlptation (and nothing else in common) were bound to clash badly.
The European settlers were embarrassed by this, and the English ordered the Australian Governor to make a treaty with the native population. He was unable to do so, partly because of limited resources (life was not just brutish and short for the Aboriginal population) but mostly because there was no central Aboriginal authority to deal with. The Aborigines were in relatively small tribes, spoke many different languages and spent much of their surplus waring with each other. Negotiating with all of them was nearly impossible. The Local Governor reported this to his English command.
The English were embarrassed by this, and as a convenience they declared Australia 'Terra Nullius' (effectively uninhabited).
The European settlers passed many diseases to the Aborigines, who through their isolation for so long, had little resistance. In particular, two plagues of small-pox in 1792 and 1822 swept through the Aboriginal populations and wiped many of them out. There was also a plague of venereal disease, but many believe this was contracted from non-European fishermen in the north of Australia.
There was a low level war over a period of time. Aborigines would take sheep from local farmers (and eat them). Farmers would go and kill the Aborigines.
The area became the nation of Australia in 1901, and though it was basically democratic, Aborigines were not eligible to vote. They were not classified as 'Australians'.
The last mass-killing of Aborigines was in 1926 after a European-Australian was reported killed by an Aborigine, and a local-policemen collected a gang of people to kill the local tribe. The more senior authorities were embarrassed by this, and took steps to prevent it reoccurring. Generally Aborigines were encouraged to move to 'settlements' away from the European infrastructure where they would cause less trouble."
In fact Aboriginies were not given the right to call themselves Australians until 1967.
So that counts Australia out then.
06-10-2006, 05:53 PM
Re: History
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