A People’s History of the United States essay

A People’s History of the United States essay A People’s History of the United States essay A People’s History of the United States essayFirst of all, I would like to state my viewpoint on what I have learnt about the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. It has surely been a great discovery and a turning point in the history of the United States. I should admit that during the course I had learnt a number of things that I was not aware of before. The most impressive for me was to learn about the treatment of native population of America by the Spaniards. Howard Zinn stated that, â€Å"in the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships† (6). In fact, it was so frustrating to learn how evil and bloody the treatment of the native people of the New World by Spaniards was. I wonder if these were the first signs of slavery that would later become customary for the South of America. Was all this for the sake of gold, treasures and prosperity? It seems like it was indeed so. Zinn writes, â€Å"many slaves died in captivity† (6). I was really surprised to learn how great the number of the slaves who died for nothing was. So I think that although Spaniards wanted to bring Christian religion to the New World, they failed to follow the basic principles of the Bible.I was also so much surprised of what I learnt during this semester about slave marriages. I think not many people nowadays know â€Å"how high was the incidence of marriage among slave men and women, and how stable these marriages were† (Zinn 161). What I’ve learnt is that slave marriages were characterized with â€Å"unusual fidelity† (Zinn 161). Howard Zinn gave a great number of interesting and surprising examples of how married slave couples were devoted to each other and how they loved their children, so that even the separation from children could not destroy this affection. Mor eover, Zinn states that, â€Å"this family solidarity carried into the twentieth century† (162). All this is so unlike what we have today, as families being sacred social institutions more and more often lose their true meaning and value and we can see that more and more couples nowadays face conflicts and lack of loyalty or even get divorced.I have also learnt much about the social classes within the United States and it was new for me to learn that different classes have not only different educational opportunities, but also different attitudes to studying. In fact, it appears that children from low-income families tend to achieve more success in educational sphere than those coming from well-to-do families. Loewen states that â€Å"teachers are often surprised and even distressed when poor children excel† (198). Personally I think that in modern days more and more teachers stand for the equality of opportunities and quality of education disregarding the social class a child belongs to. Reading of Loewen’s study made me think that the poorer a child is the more he or she relies only on his or her own efforts in order to succeed in the future and that is why poor children try to achieve the best possible results in education so as to get a good job and become a more or less qualified worker.To conclude, all of the readings I studied during the semester were of much value to me. And although Loewen states that, â€Å"history is the only field in which the more courses [high school] students take, the stupider they become† (2), I consider that the history course I went through enriched my knowledge of history and other related issues with much valuable and simply interesting information.

Lady Gaga Can Teach You How to Never Give Up

Lady Gaga Can Teach You How to Never Give Up Everybody fails. Even the fanciest and most successful of celebrities, historical figures, and our most idolized idols. Even Lady Gaga. She’s won 5 Grammy awards. She’s been Billboard’s Artist of the Year as well as one of Forbes’ 100 most powerful women, and one of TIME’s most influential people. She’s broken records for record sales and made absurd amounts of money on global tours. Plus, she’s universally accepted as analogous for cool.But before she was Lady Gaga, she was Stefani Germanotta, a little girl who lived in Manhattan and played the piano by the age of four. She went to NYU’s conservatory to study music at the age of 17, but dropped out two years later to try and make it as a musician. The Stefani Germanotta band played a few local gigs, and netted her a manager, but was disbanded within a year.That manager, Rob Fusari, took her on, but had a very difficult time convincing the major labels to do the same. She was to ld she didn’t have the right look, the right sound, and that her songs just weren’t hits. She even left one meeting at Sony in a rage of tears.Then, an accident of autocorrect occurred. Fusari typed her name and his phone corrected it to â€Å"Lady Gaga.† A star was born? Not so fast. The newly named Lady Gaga then got a great deal with Island Def Jam records and began work on an album, only to be dropped without explanation after three months. She hit a low point, turning to drinking and drugs for solace, trying not to give up on her dreams despite being told she wasn’t pretty enough to be a singer songwriter and simply play and sing at a piano. The only work she could get was writing songs for other artists, which did nothing to satisfy her desire to perform herself.For the next couple of years, she took to the NYC underground scene, experimenting, working with performance art, dressing like a goth stripper, drawing attention, making waves. She died her hair platinum blond after being confused with Amy Winehouse. And then, finally, another artist took notice and forced the Interscope label head to listen to one of her songs. That song was â€Å"Just Dance.† A star was born? Yep. You know the rest.At any point, Gaga could have given up. But she didn’t. She tried and tried and failed, and she changed her tactic, changed her brand. When she hit on the right one, she was ready for the results.So remember: don’t be afraid of failure. Use it to push yourself in a better, new direction. One that just might put you in the groove and get you where you need to go.

Platelet Expression of COX1, IL1 and IL10 Research Proposal

Platelet Expression of COX1, IL1 and IL10 - Research Proposal Example Platelets are approximately 20% of the diameter of the red blood cells. They have proteins on their surfaces that enable them to stick to break in blood vessels. Their count is 150,000-350,000 per every microliter of blood (Andre, 2014). Each megakaryocyte produces an average of 1000-3000 platelets in a lifetime. An un-activated platelet is biconvex and disc-shaped, about 1-3 micrometers. In human beings, the average lifespan of a platelet is 7-10 days; however, the lifespan of an individual platelet is determined by the internal apoptotic regulating pathway (Machlus and Italiano, 2013). Platelets are formed from the cytoplasm of the megakaryocytes which are found in the bone-marrow. The megakaryocytes are approximately 75 micrometers in diameter. The megakaryocytes become polyploidy by endomitosis to assemble and release the platelets. They then mature, where the majority of the cytoplasm is packaged into proplatelets and the nucleus extruded. The platelets form at the tip of the proplatelets (Machlus and Italiano, 2013). The platelet formation is divided into two phases; one where the megakaryocyte mature ad when the megakaryocyte generate the platelets. The whole process takes place approximately in 5 days. During the first phase, the megakaryocyte matures and develops and it requires specific megakaryocyte growth factors. The megakaryocyte’s cytoplasm nuclear proliferates and enlarges as the megakaryocyte is filled with cytoskeletal proteins, platelet-specific granules and a sufficient membrane that completes the platelet assembly. The second phase is short and the megakaryocyte generates platelets by remodeling their cytoplasm into pro-platelets and later into pre-platelets that undergo fission and generate discoid platelets. The second phase may just take place in hours. Cytokines are antibody proteins that are mediators between the cells. Most of the cytokines are

NBA relates to Popular Culture of America Essay

NBA relates to Popular Culture of America - Essay Example Besides, the numerous advantages the NBA offers explain why American people embrace the sport and recognize it as part of their popular culture. The National Basketball Association has been around since the 19th century and has undergone different transformations since its creation: â€Å"Dr. James A. Naismith invented the game of basketball in 1891† (Staffo). However, the leagues have met various hardships throughout the years since their implementation. The road was difficult and filled with various challenges as people learn their way through, improve and expand the leagues. This critic informs: â€Å"Until the recent surge in popularity of the NBA, professional basketball leagues had led tenuous existences. Professional basketball leagues began as early as 1898 only seven years after the invention of the game, but often professional barnstorming teams were more successful† (Nelson). This painful learning process leads to the successful industry we know today. Throug hout these years, the organization has known different names, increased the number of teams and even changed the configuration of the leagues. Many of the names of the teams were different from what we know today, and of course some were more successful than others. This statement indicates: â€Å"The literature on the history of professional basketball is extremely sparse prior to the emergence of the NBA in 1950. What has been written acknowledges the superiority of the Celtics, but generally recycles the same stories regarding them† (Nelson). This lack of interest reflects the level of the organization during that time, which did not have much popularity. In addition, the differences between the old teams and the current ones are considerably remarkable in almost all aspects. They may even be confusing if we know that the current Celtics are in Boston while the old team was in New York. This significant detail may be hard to understand for those not aware of the NBA histor y. However, regardless of its location, the team seems to have always been successful. This assertion reveals: â€Å"Probably the most famous and, arguably, the most successful was the Original Celtics of New York, a team inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1959† (Nelson). Besides, professional basketball has not always been prominent; it was actually a game for the lower class, especially African Americans. These ethnic groups’ inability to afford college compels them to become professionals with the hope to earn money and improve their living conditions. According to this author: â€Å"College basketball was the game of the middle and upper classes, while professional basketball, only recently removed from the settlement houses of ethnic neighborhoods, was the game of the lower class and the "ethnic" middle class† (Nelson). This difference between college basketball and the NBA totally conflicts with what we know today because professional basketball ha s become more proficiently and successful. This recent success of the NBA comes with much popularity because many people embrace the sport and make it their own. This popularity explains why NBA has become part of American popular culture because numerous people buy expensive tickets to attend games or subscribe to cable TV to follow their favorite teams.

Implications of Information Technology in Developing Countries Essay Example for Free

Implications of Information Technology in Developing Countries Essay The survival and growth of organizations in an increasingly turbulent environment would depend upon effective utilization of information technology for aligning the organizational structure with environmental preferences and for creating symbiotic interorganizational structures. How can IT help the organizations in responding to the challenges of an increasingly complex and uncertain environment? How can IT help the organizations achieve the flexible organization structure? These are the topics that remains to be a matter of question for many developing countries. Although Information technology is still a . black box . technology for developing countries, it is largely applied in industrialised countries to the disadvantage of the majority of developing countries. This paper will try to illuminate the aspects and the impact of Information Technology in managing organizational change and its implications for developing countries. 1. Introduction The rate and magnitude of change are rapidly outpacing the complex of theories. economic, social, and philosophical on which public and private decisions are based. To the extent that we continue to view the world from the perspective of an earlier, vanishing age, we will continue to misunderstand the developments surrounding the transition to an information society, be unable to realize the full economic and social potential of this revolutionary technology, and risk making some very serious mistakes as reality and the theories we use to interpret it continue to diverge..-Arthur Cordell(1987). We have modified our environment so radically that we must modify ourselves in order to exist in this new environment..Norbert Wiener(1957) The survival and growth of organizations in an increasingly turbulent environment would depend upon effective utilization of information technology for aligning the organizational structure with environmental preferences and for creating symbiotic interorganizational structures. How can IT help the organizations in responding to the challenges of an increasingly complex and uncertain environment? How can IT help the organizations achieve the .flexible. organization structure? These are the topics that remains to be a matter of question for many developing countries. This study will try to illuminate the aspects and the impact of Information Technology in managing organizational change and its implications for developing countries. 2. Aspects of Information Technology Information technology (IT) may be defined as the convergence of electronics, computing, and telecommunications. It has unleashed a tidal wave of technological innovation in the collecting, storing, processing, transmission, and presentation of information that has not only transformed the information technology sector itself into a highly dynamic and expanding field of activity creating new markets and generating new investment, income, and jobs- but also provided other sectors with more rapid and efficient mechanisms for responding to shifts in demand patterns and changes in international comparative advantages, through more efficient production processes and new and improved products and services (e.g. replacing mechanical and electromechanical components, upgrading traditional products by creating new product functions, incorporating skills and functions into equipment, automating routine work, making technical, professional, or financial ser vices more transportable). The development of IT is intimately associated with the overwhelming advances recently accomplished in microelectronics. Based on scientific and technological breakthroughs in transistors, semiconductors, and integrated circuits (chips), micro-electronics is affecting every other branch of the economy, in terms of both its present and future employment and skill requirements and its future market prospects. Its introduction has resulted in a drastic fall in costs as well as dramatically improved technical performance both within the electronics industry and outside it (Malone and Rockart, 1993). The continuous rise in the number of features on a single micro-electronic chip has permitted lower assembly costs for electronic equipment (each chip replacing many discrete components), faster switching speeds (thus faster and more powerful computers), and more reliable, smaller, and lighter equipment (fewer interconnections, less power and material). Similar dramatic falls in costs occurred in the transport and steel industries in the nineteenth century and in energy in the twentieth, associated with the emergence of the third and fourth Kondratiev cycles, respectively. The potential effects of microelectronics are thus very far-reaching, for its use in production saves on virtually all inputs, ranging from skilled and unskilled labor to energy, materials, andcapital. All sectors of the economy have been influenced by the development of IT applications: information technology opens up greater opportunities for the exploitation of economies of scale and scope, allows the more flexible production and use of labor and equipment, promotes the internationalization of production and markets, offers greater mobility and flexibility in capital and financial flows and services, and is frequently the precondition for the creation of innovative financial instruments. Information system developments are constantly being applied to increase the productivity, quality, and efficiency of finance, banking, business management, and public administration. In manufacturing, and to some extent in agriculture, many processes have been automated, some requiring highly flexible, self-regulating machines, or robots. The engineering industry has been transformed by computer-aided design and three-dimensional computerized screen displays. The pace of technological change in IT will most likely accelerate the already observable growth in the interdependence of international relations not just economic or financial, but also political and cultural. National economies have become more susceptible to the effects of policy decisions taken at the international level, and domestic economic measures are having increased impacts on economic policies of other countries. World markets for the consumption of similar goods are growing, and so are common lifestyles across national borders. The advance of telecommunications and computerization has recently enabled large companies to use information systems to transmit technical and economic information among numerous computer systems at different geographical locations, subjecting widely dispersed industrial plants to direct managerial control from a central location; this affects the international division of labor and production and international trade, changing the patterns of industrial ownership and control, altering the competitive standing of individual countries, and creating new trading partners. It is the integration of functions that confers on information technology its real economic and social significance. More than just a gradual and incremental technological evolution leading to improved ways of carrying out traditional manufacturing processes (i.e. simply the substitution of new technologies for existing systems and the rationalization of standard activities), IT offers the opportunity for completely new ways of working through systems integration. Rather than applying one item of new technology to each of the production functions now performed at distinct stages of the production process, i.e. design, production, marketing, and distribution (in what could be called stand-alone improvements or island automation), having evolved in to new technologies, i.e. Enterprise Resource Planning systems, IT offers the possibility of linking design to production (e.g. through programmable manufacturing, measuring, and testing equipment responding to the codification of design), planning and design to marketing and distribution (e.g. through a variety of computer aids and databases that sense an d collect changing market trends), production to distribution (e.g. by automatically incorporating orders and commissions by customers and suppliers into the production process), etc. The complete integration of all these production subsystems in a synergistic ensemble is still more a long-term trend than a reality, but use of automated equipment to link together individual items of equipment belonging to hitherto discrete manufacturing operations has already made IT a strategic issue for industry. More technical advances are expected soon in the automation of telecommunications and the linkage of computers by data transmission that will enhance the possibilities of systems integration. Such programmable automation, or computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM), has the capability of integrating information processing with physical tasks performed by programmable machine tools or robots. CIM offers radical improvements in traditional problem areas confronting manufacturers, such as: reduced lead time for existing and new products; reduced inventories; more accurate control over production and better quality production management information; increased utilization of expensive equipment; reduced overhead costs; improved and consistent quality; more accurate forecasting; improved delivery performance (Miles et al., 1988). These features characterize information technology as a new technological system, in which far-reaching changes in the trajectories of electronic, computer, and telecommunication technologies converge and offer a range of new technological options to virtually all branches of the economy. Moreover, IT forms the basis for a reorganization of industrial society and the core of the emerging techno-economic paradigm. The reason for the pre-eminence of the new technological system clustered around information technology over the equally new technological systems clustered around new materials and biotechnology is the fact that information activities of one kind or another are a part of every activity within an industrial or commercial sector, as well as in our working and domestic lives. Almost all productive activities have high information intensity (some involve little else, such as banking or education). Further more, along with the premier of internet technology and e-business architectures; powerful concepts like inventory control, supply chain management, customer relationship/service management, and management resource planning through the internet under the name of Enterprise Resource Planning have enabled IT to be capable of offering strategic improvements in the productivity and competitiveness of virtually any socio-economic activity. Other than industrial or commercial sectors, information technology is also applicable in education sector and in public institutions. Thus, Information Technology is universally applicable. Probably only a fraction of the benefits derived from information technology-based innovations have so far been reaped and the rest remain to be acquired in the next decades. The shift towards systems integration to capitalize the full potential benefits of IT requires considerable adaptations, learning processes, and structural changes in existing socioecon omic institutions and organizational systems. The tradition in most current organizations is still to operate in a largely disintegrated fashion, reminiscent of the Ford-Taylorist management approaches that dominated the fourth Kondratiev cycle: high division of labor, increasing functional specialization/differentiation and de-skilling of many tasks, rigid manufacturing procedures and controls, long management hierarchies with bureaucratic decision-making procedures and a mechanistic approach to performance. Under these conditions, use of IT is restricted to piecemeal technology improvements. By contrast, information technology-based systems offer organizations the opportunity of functional integration, multi-skilled staff, rapid and flexible decision-making structures with greater delegation of responsibilities and greater autonomy of operating units, a more flexible and organic approach enabling a quick adjustment to changing environmental conditions. (Piore and Sabel, 1984.) But this means that information management skills require the ability to make choices about the optimal arrangements for particular situations: unlike earlier generations of technology, IT offers not a single best way of organization but a set of more or less appropriate alternative organizing, staffing, and managing options that may be adopted in different organizational contexts. There is no determinism in the way information technology influences the socioinstitutional framework. Therefore, organizational innovation is a crucial part of the requirement for firms to adapt to survive (Miles, 1988). Unfortunately, this is true for all the institutions as well. Further, it is even more dramatic for the organizations in developing countries because of not being able to properly adapt to this so-called .black-box. technology. No matter how frustrating it is interpreted for these countries, IT still has significant impact on their development. Although socio-economic structure of these countries resists organizational or institutional changes, the complex interrelations between these changes and information technologies have significant implications for the way IT does and will affect the societies and economies of developing countries. As a matter of fact, the negative and positive potential impacts of IT on these countries are a matter of great controversy among economists and politicians. The main short term issues usually discussed are the potential erosion of the comparative advantages of low labor costs, particularly in relation to assembly facilities, and the effects of automation, particularly on internal markets and international competitiveness. Implications of information technology for those countries hold great importance. 3. Implications for Developing Countries The first direct effect of the micro-electronics revolution was the location of production for export in third world countries. While production of mainframe computers continued to be located largely in industrialized countries, production of smaller computers and of microelectronic devices, more subject to price competition, was shifted to low-wage locations, mainly in East Asia, where countries presented low wage costs as well as political stability, a docile labor force, and government incentives. Location of production for local and regional consumption followed, but the countries concerned were mainly middle income: three quarters of US investment in third world micro-electronic industries was concentrated in 11 countries, namely the four Asian dragons, India, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia (Steward, 1991). Export-oriented investments in these countries were associated more with direct foreign investment from larger firms in industrialized countries than with firms producing for the local market; on the other hand, licensing was more associated with smaller firms (Tigre, 1995). The automation of production decreases the relative importance of labor-intensive manufacturing and cost of labor, thereby eroding the competitiveness of low labor costs. For instance, automation led to a sharp decrease in the difference between manufacturing costs of electronic devices between the United States and Hong Kong: in manual processes, manufacturing costs were three times higher in the United States, and the introduction of semi-automatic processes made the difference practically disappear (Sagasti, 1994). Equally, the expansion of automation in Japan has contributed to a reduction of Japanese investments in the Asia/Pacific region involving firms in electronics, assembly parts, and textiles (Sagasti, 1994). The trend to increasing systems optimization and integration is most likely to induce large producers in industrialized countries to bring back a significant share of their production located in developing countries (offshore production). This movement has been called comparative advantage reversal. As integration increases, with functions previously obtained by assembling pieces being incorporated in the electronic components, value-added is pushed out of assembly processes into the components themselves and upwards towards servicing. In addition, the growing technological complexity of electronic devices increases the value of the parts manufactured by firms located in industrialized countries The amount of value-added obtained in offshore assembly has thus been constantly decreasing (Sagasti,1994). Global factories constructed in locations of least cost, often at a considerable distance from final markets, were economically worthwhile because labor was one of the major determinants of costs. Technology and rapid responsiveness to volatile local markets are becoming more important components of competitiveness. The reduction of product cycles due to the growing resistance to obsolescence of programmable machines and equipment has led to a concentration of manufacturing investment in capital-intensive flexible manufacturing, further adding to the erosion of the comparative advantages of developing countries. The assembly of systems will probably continue in some developing countries that have adopted protective legislation for local production targeted at particular market segments (e.g. Brazil), although this is changing very rapidly (Steward, 1991). The types of equipment produced under these circumstances are used largely in internal markets and are hardly competitive on the international level; they tend to be far more expensive than comparable equipment available abroad, and often their installation and use are also more costly because of expensive auxiliary installations, under-use, and lack of management skills. Nevertheless, they may at least provide the country with the capacity to follow the development of information technologies more closely. In other countries, assembly of equipment is taking place from components bought practically off the shelf, but as the level of hardware integration and the amount of software incorporated into the chips (firmware) grow, valueadded will be taken away from the assembly process, reducing or eliminating its economic advantages. The introduction of microelectronics requires certain new skills of design, maintenance, and management, as well as complementary infrastructural facilities such as reliable telephone systems and power supplies. Deficiencies in these factors prevent the widespread adoption of information technology in developing countries (Munasinghe et al., 1985). The more advanced developing countries, with a wider basis of skills and infrastructure and a more flexible labor force, may be in a better position to adopt IT and to increase their productivity and their international competitiveness. But the less developed countries, with inadequate skills and infrastructure, low labor productivity, and lack of capital resources, will find it difficult to adopt the new technologies; they are likely to suffer a deterioration in international competitiveness vis-Ã  -vis both industrialized and the more advanced developing countries (Stewart et al., 1991). Quality, too, requires an adequate level of skills, infrastructure, and managerial know-how that is generally lacking in developing countries. This greatly reduces the synergies, number of options, faster responses, and more informed decisions that can be implemented in the firm by the optimization of the systems performance. In turn, the composition of the labor force existing within firms located in industrialized countries will further improve their systems performance and further reinforce the advantages derived from automation. The proportion of the labor force employed in production is constantly decreasing in the industrialized countries, implying that performances at the systems level and innovation, not manufacturing, are becoming the key to profit, growth, and survival (Sagasti, 1994). Like biotechnology, information technology is a proprietary technology, vital technical information regarding design engineering specification, process know-how, testing procedures, etc., being covered by patents or copyrights or closely held as trade secrets within various electronic firms from industrialized countries. Many companies in the software area do not patent or copyright their products because it entails disclosing valuable information, and firms are generally reluctant to license the more recent and advanced technologies. Therefore, technology transfer takes place mainly among established or important producers, hindering the access to developing countries. Moreover, the main issue facing developing countries is not so much the access to a particular technology but to the process of technological change, because of the dynamism of this process. Sagasti implies this issue in the book The Uncertain Guest: science, technology and development (1994) that recent trends in int er-firm relationships seem to indicate that this access takes place essentially through the participation in the equity of the company holding the technology.

Castles Essay -- essays research papers fc

Castles   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In medieval times, castles served as the home and fortress of a monarch or noble. The earliest castles were built from earth and wood. By the 12th century, most castles were built from stone. The stones came from local mines or quarries if possible, but sometimes they had to be carried long distances by water or on ox wagons. The roofs of castles were covered with slates, clay tiles, or wooden shingles.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Castles were built on steep hill sides or at the top of rocky cliffs. This was for protection from attackers. It made it harder for them to reach the castle.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Castles also had additional purposes. They sometimes served as barracks, prisons, storehouses, armories, treasure houses, and the center for local government. Castles sometimes had brewhouses, a laundry a huge bakers oven, workshops, dovecotes, and stables (MacDonald, p.12)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Castle walls surrounded the entire castle and were usually several meters thick. They usually had 3 layers: a rough stone inner shell, a thick, solid filling of flint and rubble, and an outer layer of stone called ashlar. (MacDonald, p.8) There was usually a walkway along the top of the walls so guards could keep watch. Some castle walls had spaces at the top called embrassures, which allowed archers to shoot with the protection of the wall. These openings also permitted stones or boiling water to be thrown down on the enem...

White Settlement

â€Å"What was the impact on White Settlement on Indigenous life between 1788- 1861? Describe the meeting of two cultures that we see in Bennelong and William Buckley. † 1. Early years in Sydney- Arthur Phillip and Bennelong In 1788, led by Captain Arthur Phillip (Australia’s first governor), the Europeans had arrived in Australia with the first fleet. They saw no sign of life and had no idea that the Indigenous people had been living in Australia for thousands even tens of thousands of years. But the Indigenous people were very aware that they had come and were deeply fascinated by them. At first they thought they were ghosts or evil spirits but they soon realized that these white-skinned and strangely-dressed people were planning to stay, and that they were. These â€Å"white-skinned’ people were in fact convicts who was shipped to do hard laborious work for their committed crime. Life before Europeans had settled in Australia was a very different place. There was either clear land and/or lots of bush. There were no boats, building or roads, in fact the Indigenous people probably had no idea there was such thing. This was probably why Arthur Phillip presumed the land could be theirs because no-one held sovereign right. But the Indigenous people were living there. The Indigenous people lived happily and peacefully with guidance from their elders who knew local dream time stories and customs. They comfortable living together, helping and sharing with one another and stayed alive by eating animals and berries from the bush. They didn’t need fancy clothes, building or roads unlike the Europeans to live a good life. On the 25 November 1789, Captain Arthur Phillip, captured elder Bennelong and used him as a way to learn about the language and customs of the indigenous people. Bennelong willingly liaised between the cultures, and adopted European dress and other ways. 2. Victoria- Buckley and batman After convict William Buckley’s escape from the Victorian settlement he was discovered by the Wathaurang people who thought this pale, 198cm giant carrying a spear was the ghost of one of their leaders. Buckley had arrived at Port Phillip Bay from England in 1803 with about 300 soldiers, settlers and convicts after being sentenced to transportation for life. Before the European settlement was abandoned, Buckley escaped. He wandered alone for weeks before he was befriended by the Wathaurang people. Over the next 32 years Buckley lived with the Wathaurang, learnt their language and customs, married and had a daughter. In 1835 he finally emerged to meet Batman’s colonising party and tried to work as an intermediary between settlers and aborigines, but felt he wasn’t trusted by either. 3. Overview of their decline and dispossession of land Victoria was originally the home to many Indigenous tribes that had been living there for a long period of time. Although when the Europeans settled in Australia Batman planned to negotiate his way into ‘buying’ the land of the Indigenous people. Once Batman arrived in Victoria he approached the local Indigenous leaders with a contract, to ‘buy' their land. His negotiations were successful, and he walked away with 240,000 hectares of prime farming terrain – almost all of the Kulin nation’s ancestral land even though they were technically not eligible to sell the land as it wasn’t really their land. However the transaction went ahead, and it was agreed that batman was to on a annual basis, give them 40 blankets, 30 axes, 100 knives, 50 scissors, 30 mirrors, 200 handkerchiefs, 100 pounds of flour and 6 shirts in exchange for the land. Because of this transaction between the Indigenous People and Batman the majority of Victoria’s population is, as the Indigenous people originally called us, â€Å"white-skinned†.