In addition the Europeans that colonized Australia believed that their culture was superior and the aboriginal culture would somehow disappear in a short period of time. When this did not occur drastic steps were taken to assimilate indigenous people. These steps included taking aboriginal children away from their families to be raised in white society.
Certainly this type of violent and reckless interaction led to great fear and panic because a way of life that had existed for thousands of years began to vanish. Such stressors were passed down from generation to generation. Stress is a dangerous emotion because it can cripple to immune system and also cause people not to have the will to properly take care of their health.
Government policy and exclusion
According to McCalman et al. (2005) the types of government policies adapted as a result o colonialism has also contributed to poor health amongst indigenous groups when compared to non-indigenous groups in Australia. The authors explain that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians experiences differing health transitions. While attempting to determine the disparities in health amongst indigenous and non-indigenous people, the researchers found that indigenous people and poor white people in Australia tended to be highly stressed which led to increased cases of tuberculosis mortality and infant mortality (McCalman et al., 2005). The research also found that amongst the indigenous population, there were additional burdens that arose as a result of social exclusion and racism (McCalman et al., 2005). This was even the case even though under the Half Castes Act of 1886 most indigenous people living in Victoria were legally white (McCalman et al., 2005, Anderson & Whyte, 2006). According to the authors the aforementioned act and the systematic exclusion of indigenous Australians from receiving federal entitlements during the twentieth century reversed the Aboriginal health transition. With this understood "the gap' in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is a historical product of long-term government policy and exclusion from citizenship and its entitlements (McCalman et al. 2005)."
Racism
Colonialism contributed greatly to the racism that is still prevalent in Australia. This...
This mentality still lingers and keeps indigenous people from receiving the same level of care as non-indigenous people. According to Paradies et al. (2008) systemic racism has existed so long that it has undermined the ability of indigenous people to receive adequate healthcare. This leads to greater disparities in the health when indigenous and non-indigenous people are compared to one another.
Conclusion
The purpose of this research was to explore the role of colonialism in the ill health of the indigenous people of Australia. The research found four main correlates between ill health of indigenous Australians and colonialism. The correlates included, diet, psychological stress, racism and governmental policies.
Works Cited
Aboriginal health issues. http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/aboriginal_health_issues-open
Anderson, I.,&Whyte, D. (2006). Australian Federalism and Aboriginal Health. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2, 5-16.
McCalman, J., Morley, R., & Mishra, G. (2008). A health transition: Birth weights, households and survival in an Australian working class population sample born 1857 -- 1900. Social Science & Medicine, 66, 1070-1083.
McCalman J., Smith L., Anderson I., Morley R., Mishra G. (2009) Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850 -- 1985. History of the Family 14-253 -- 265
Paradies Y., Harris R., Anderson I. (2008)the Impact of Racism on Indigenous Health in Australia and Aotearoa: Towards a Research Agenda
Richman, L.S., Bennett, G.G., Pek, J., Siegler, I. & Williams, R.B. 2007, 'Discrimination, Dispositions, and Cardiovascular Responses to Stress', Health Psychology, vol. 26, no. 6, pp. 675 -- 83.
Zubrick, S.R., Silburn, S.R., Lawrence, D.M., Mitrou, F.G., Dalby, R.B., Blair, E.M., Griffin, J., Milroy, H., De Maio, J.A., Cox, a. & Li, J. 2005, Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey: The Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Aboriginal Children and Young People, Curtin University of Technology and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth.
