Talk:Thomas Mitchell (explorer)

Article said:Mitchell is commemorated by the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales,Anon editor posted:

Correction.

The Mitchell Library in Sydney does not commemorate Thomas Mitchell. It is named after David Scott Mitchell, the benefactor whose personal collection of books was donated to the state to form the basis of a library, to be known as the Mitchell Library.

Article amended and reason here on discussion page--A Y Arktos (Talk) 18:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

From the Mitchell Library;s web site: The year 2007 marks the centenary of the greatest single cultural bequest to the Australian nation. On his death in July 1907, David Scott Mitchell, an avid collector of Australiana, left to the Australian people his extraordinary collections of books, documents, maps and pictures. His generosity and foresight, along with other great Library benefactors, such as Sir William Dixson and Jean Garling, will be celebrated in 2007.--A Y Arktos (Talk) 18:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

There is a proposal that he made for an Eastern Australia with the boundary part of the murray & darling rivers, and going north up to near Gladstone, shown at this 1841 map. not sure how to include this --Astrokey44 04:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the Exploration section? Was it taken out for a reason? Seems to strange to have an article on a noted explorer without any of his explorer-y stuff. 59.167.55.80 08:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)Dave

Thomas was young man. He jioned the army when he was 17.he was good at making maps,reading,mathmatics.WHEN he was 35 he took over john oxly as —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.1.46 (talk) 05:43, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

This edit was made with the assertion that it was inaccurate. Without knowing this history, can anyone confirm this? A Cite needed tag would probably be a better solution for verification? SauliH (talk) 07:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• The information on the fourth expedition was brief and not very informative but certainly not "totally wrong" as claimed by the editor who removed these sections. I'm not sure of the accuracy of the third expedition information, but I agree that a 'cite needed' tag is a far better option. Scottius11 (talk) 02:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I have re-written the section on Mitchell's First Expedition, as it had no inline references. Work is needed on the next three sections as well, and in time I hope to improve them. Summerdrought (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

8.975 knots, 9.742 knots, 9.913 knots? This is laser interferometer precision! What were the recorded values? Doug butler (talk) 06:35, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

The figures are in the Sydney Morning Herald, January 20, 1922. Reference No. 29 on the main page. Summerdrought (talk) 06:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

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I want to point out here that skirmishes between Europeans and Aboriginal people in which Aborigines were killed are often described as "massacres". And indeed, there have been situations in Australian history where the events were accurately described in that manner.

In the case of Mitchell, we have a military officer with a number of men under his control and also under his protection. Mitchell had lost one of the most valuable members of the team, from the point of his academic skills and training, Cunningham. He had a responsibility to the rest of his team, and to the teams on subsequent expeditions, to get them back alive.

21st century people, knowing that Mitchell's men had firearms, presume that they were at a great advantage over the Aboriginal people. They were not. They were greatly outnumbered by hostile men who were high skilled at using spears, both for close combat and as missiles. The Aboriginal men knew the terrain and were not constrained by ox-carts full of equipment. They were also experts at tracking. These were men who could successfully ambush kangaroos.

If Major Mitchell succeeded in ambushing a group of Aboriginal warriors on their own turf, then that was a military achievement in the extreme. If he succeeded in disciplining a group of convicts into quickly loading clumsy muzzle-loading muskets and shotguns with a skill that enabled them to defend themselves, then that too was a considerable achievement.

A "massacre" occurs when the group of people who are killed are not hostile, or are at so great a disadvantage that they cannot defend themselves. This was not the case.

Mitchell was under obligation to get his troop back to Sydney alive.

Amandajm (talk) 17:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Depends how you look at it. Try to look at it from an Aboriginal perspective.

We all know that Aboriginal people were denied their basic humanity and rights by the colonial powers, Aboriginal testimony was inadmissible in court at the time, so most crimes against Aboriginal people were unprosecutable. Contemporary news reports cheered and jeered at reports of the death of seven or more (presumably Barkindji or Ngiyampaa) people. Mitchell's explorations take place in a context where Aboriginal people are completely denied their humanity and are not fully subjects of Britain or protected by British law.

Mitchell was invading their country for a second time, after it had been made clear he was not welcome.

The majority of the Europeans were criminals (convicts), not soldiers, they were invading and attacking, they were not defending, they had no legitimate claim to the land, no permission to be there, no military justification, no reason to enter the Barkindji's country. The Europeans had invaded and laid ambush on the Barkindji's land, as unwelcome, armed invaders. If the Barkindji were equally equipped it would have been a slaughter of untrained convicts, but the opposite occurred, because despite being discovered before the attack and significantly outnumbered, the untrained convicts were far better equipped than the experienced and capable warriors they were attacking.

I personally know flintlocks and muzzle-loaders well, and they are not difficult to load, that's a completely incorrect assumption (they are much slower and far less accurate than contemporary rifles, but I can assure you, they are far superior to spears no matter the expertise of the spear-man). Besides, you would hardly go into an ambush with your weapons unloaded. Muzzle-loaders compared to spears?? There's no comparison. Again, if spears are comparable to muzzle-loaders, how did untrained convicts kill so many skilled warriors with them? Because the Barkindji were at so great a disadvantage that they could not effectively defend themselves or their country.

I can tell you this for certain, once you've been shown how to load a muzzle-loader you can get through the process in less than a minute, a muszzleloader is not clumsy. A spear is about as rudimentary as it gets, you can become very skilled at throwing them, but when all is said and done, you are throwing a sharpened stick, slightly better than throwing rocks.

The Barkindji were under obligation to protect their country and people. The facts remain, they were invaded and then slaughtered by said invaders who planned an attack, lay in ambush, and had far superior weapons by any reasonable assessment.

Besides, this page does not accuse him of committing a massacre.

Bacondrum (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

One more quick thing. I notice you referred to Aboriginal people as Aborigines. The use of the word "Aborigine" or "Aborigines" to describe Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples is generally seen as pejorative, insensitive and/or racist. If you know the subjects culture and language group ie: Barkindji, Yorta Yorta, Bundjalung it is best to refer to the subject as such, or by broader language related regional names like Koori, Noongar, Murri, Yolngu etc. If you are not sure of a persons heritage and culture, Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples is a generally recognised broad term for describing the myriad cultures you are referring to. Bacondrum (talk) 00:57, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

In the interests of avoiding edit wars and in interests of WP:NPOV, I think there are two ways to address this in the article. The first is to write what happened (P shot and killed Q, X speared Y) without using words that imply a point of view (protect, massacre). It could be pointed out that this was an example of the Australian frontier conflicts (I use "conflicts" rather than "wars" for NPOV). The second thing that could follow would be to present each two points of view above PROVIDED there are reliable sources for the statements being made. Kerry (talk) 01:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't really understand why the massacre talk section is here. The word massacre doesn't appear in the article at all. Bacondrum (talk) 03:49, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

"Mass killing" does though. But if everyone is happy with the article as it stands, then do nothing. Kerry (talk) 04:13, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi BacondrumI haven't yet reverted your bulk replacement in Thomas Mitchell (explorer) of the words "aborigine", "aborigines", with the formula "Aboriginal person", "Aboriginal people" which I find clumsy and strangely disturbing. But I strongly object to your assertion that "aborigine" is a pejorative term. It is not. It is a simple noun derived from Latin meaning "from the beginning", and whatever date science puts on their arrival in this country it's a pretty fair description. People who think more than me about the subject insist the word should be capitalized like European, though to me a better parallel would be "foreigner", "stranger", "invader", "settler" or "colonist". Doug butler (talk) 13:35, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@Doug butler: Doesn't matter if you find something disturbing. Its use in general is seen as pejorative, that's a fact, not my opinion. It should be capitalised, it's a proper name or demonym, that's basic English grammar not some lefty conspiracy. European should also be capitalised, again it's basic English grammar, capitalised is spelt with an s not a z, unless you are an American. Feel free to change the wording, just not back to Aborigine or any other offensive word. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is the safest bet, but Aboriginal, Aboriginal people, Aboriginal person or Aboriginal Australian is also fine (but clumsy, perhaps)...when talking about Mitchell's encounters on the Darling you could refer to the people there as Koorie (Koori) or Koories, that would be appropriate. If you know their launguage/tribal group ie Barkindji, Ngiyaampaa that would be even better. I don't understand why being respectful towards other cultures and using their proper names rather than ones that are offensive would be disturbing, clumsy wording perhaps, but disturbing? Bacondrum (talk) 22:09, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

https://www.commonground.org.au/learn/aboriginal-or-indigenous

https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/media/appropriate-terminology-for-aboriginal-topics

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/08/why-saying-aborigine-isnt-ok-8-facts-about-indigenous-people-in-australia/

You say that Aborigine "is a simple noun derived from Latin meaning "from the beginning"" insinuating that it therefore is inoffensive, but this is a massive over simplification in that it completely ignores all context and history. By that very same reasoning you could argue that the word nigger should not be seen as offensive and that it is merely a noun derived from the Latin word for black...but we all know it is not merely a noun derived from the Latin word for black, and to suggest such a thing is obviously absurd. Bacondrum (talk) 23:40, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Did Mitchell discover or sight the Murray and the Darling? Seeing as how the Barkindji, Latji Latji Dadi Dadi Wadi Wadi Yorta Yorta and Ngarrindjeri etc had been living there for 70,000+ years, it's more than a little inaccurate to claim he discovered these places. They were already inhabited by Homo sapiens and could not thus be discovered per se, the inhabitants had clearly discovered these places prior to Mitchell's arrival. This is all pretty self explanatory really. Any claim to the contrary is most likely based on prejudice rather than evidence. Bacondrum (talk) 22:31, 22 July 2019 (UTC)