Justifications
Over the centuries, nations that have invaded and seized the lands of others have often attempted to justify their takeovers.
However justification has seldom been regarded as necessary when the land occupied is literally a terra nullius, with no one living there. Usually it's simply a matter of 'finders keepers' and the only argument might be about which colonising power got there first.
But it's somewhat different when land is inhabited. Justification is usually sought by claiming that the inhabitants are inferior in some way and, in Western thinking, this takes us to the idea of the "barbarian".
Eminent thinkers such as Aristotle and St Thomas Aquinas pondered the barbarian, and some thinkers even developed scales for measuring degrees of barbarity and savagery. So, the lower the level at which a particular people are placed, the less they need to be taken into account during a takeover.
In Defence Of The Indians
Text
1550-1551
Anaya, S. James, barbarism, colonialism, colonisation, Columbus, Christopher, Europe, indigenous people, International law, New World, property law, terra nullius
Belonging To Country
Topic
aborigines, Australia, dreamtime, indigenous Australians, land ownership, land rights, sacred
Atninga avenging party
Image and Text
May, 1, 1901
aborigines, anthropology, Baldwin Spencer, Walter, cultural preservation, culture, custom, warriors
