Doctor Scratch wrote: The problem here being, of course, that it was precisely this sort of view that led to slavery being acceptable in the first place: a kind of colonialist attitude that marginalizes people and places.
Not really:
Slavery and the rise of capitalism.
This explanation of the rise of Caribbean slavery was pioneered by Eric Williams in his 1943 work, Capitalism and Slavery. Williams outlined the shifts from enslavement of the local Indian populations, to the use of white convict or indentured labour to black slavery. In Williams' words, the origin of black slavery lay with economic, not racial motives: "It had to do not with the colour of the labourer, but the cheapness of the labour".
Eric Williams.
"No good" came out of convict transportation, either:
Convicts and the British colonies in Australia.
Most of the convicts were thieves who had been convicted in the great cities of England. Only those sentenced in Ireland were likely to have been convicted of rural crimes. Transportation was an integral part of the English and Irish systems of punishment. It was a way to deal with increased poverty and the severity of the sentences for larceny. Simple larceny, or robbery, could mean transportation for seven years. Compound larceny - stealing goods worth more than a shilling (about $50 in today's money) - meant death by hanging.
In the mid-1830s only around six per cent of the convict population were 'locked up', the majority working for free settlers and the authorities around the nation. Even so, convicts were often subject to cruelties such as leg-irons and the lash. Places like Port Arthur or Norfolk Island were well known for this.
Another perspective. Did any good come out of the white settlement ("invasion") of Australia?:
White Settlement In Perspective:
It is fashionable in certain quarters to argue that white settlement devastated a utopian Aboriginal society and replaced it with two centuries of racism, murder, oppression and neglect. Those who make such arguments almost always present a sanitised version of traditional Aboriginal society; fail to acknowledge the great developments of white settlement; and judge the past by the standards of the present.
There was nothing utopian about traditional Aboriginal society, which was characterised by tribal warfare, violent punishments, sexism, superstition, and famine. The Aboriginals were essentially a stone age society, failing during a period of 50,000 years to develop any form of writing, agriculture or wheeled transport.
White settlement brought to Australia all the advantages of one of the greatest civilisations in history: democracy, law, philosophy, art, literature, science, technology, agriculture and music. All these factors have been developed over 200 years to produce a nation which is the envy of the world....At the same time it cannot be denied that many Aborigines suffered severely because of white settlement. But it is not acceptable or intellectually honest to judge the actions of the past by the standards of the present. The White settlement of Australia occurred only a few months before the French Revolution, which was, of course, characterised by the bloody murder of hundreds of people simply because of their social status.
As usual, the "scholarly analysis" here on this board takes all sides into consideration, exacting fairness with cartoonist depictions and empty shouts of
"racism!!".
But by all means, continue the Peterson/Schryver hatefest.