Elinda wrote:
Aripyanfar wrote:
That's one ugly **** necklace.
But it's not bad looking currency.
I know no actual beads were involved in this particular "transaction" but beads as currency, no matter how current, tend to make me wince.
Quote:
John Batman recorded in his journal that he had signed a treaty with the local Aboriginal people, the Wurundjeri to buy 2,000 km of land around Melbourne and another 400 km around Geelong. In exchange he gave the eight chiefs whose marks he acquired on the treaty, a quantity of blankets, knives, tomahawks, scissors, looking-glasses, flour, handkerchiefs and shirts.
Under British law, the treaty was legally invalid as the land belonged to the Crown, not to the Wurundjeri, and they had no more right to sell the land than Batman had to buy it. The Wurundjeri had no chiefs or concept of land ownership and would never have agreed to alienate their land even if they had understood what Batman was proposing.