Capricornia (novel)

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Capricornia (1938) is a novel by Xavier Herbert. It describes life in the Australian Northern Territory at the end of the 19th century. It was written in London between 1930 and 1932. Capricornia was his first book.

Highly influenced by the Jindyworobak Movement, it also describes the inter-racial relationships and abuses of the period.

It was, in part, based on Herbert's experiences being a Protector of the Aborigines in Darwin

[edit] First paragraph

"Although that northern part of the Continent of Australia which is called Capricornia was pioneered long after the southern parts, its unofficial early history was even more bloody than that of the others. One probable reason for this is that the pioneers had already had experience of subduing Aborigines in the South and hence were impatient of wasting time with people who they knew were determined to take no immigrants. Another reason is that the Aborigines were there more numerous than in the South and more hostile because used to resisting casual invaders from the near East Indies. A third reason is that the pioneers had difficulty in establishing permanent settlements, having several times to abandon ground they had won with slaughter and go slaughtering again to secure more. This abandoning of ground was due not to the hostility of the natives, hostile enough though they were, but to the violence of the climate, which was not to be withstood even by men so well equipped with lethal weapons and belief in the decency of their purpose as Anglo-Saxon builders of Empire."