After
Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) scientific journeys through South
America and the Pacific, especially his visit to the Galapagos
Islands (1831-36), he publishes his
theories on evolution in The Origin of Species through Natural
Selection in 1859. He built on the earlier ideas of biologists
such as Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) from Sweden. Linnaeus divided
the living world into categories, from the main divisions of
mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, fish and plants, to species
and sub-species.
His system is still used to this day with little change--along
with all those Latin names Linnaeus gave to each and every living
thing. But where Linnaeus saw his system as unchanging, Darwin
brought in the idea that animals and plants were always changing,
evolving, and that new species had their origins in older ones.
Darwin also created the modern idea of extinction, that species
of animals were constantly disappearing, dieing out as new species
arose, "the survival of the fittest."
Linnaeus also marks the start of modern racism. Just as animals
were divided up into categories, so were people. Linnaeus identified
five races: European, Asian, African, American and "wildmen".
Darwin's theories were used to support the idea of the superiority
of one race over another (Darwin himself never said this however).
It just so happened that the people who thought up these ideas,
Europeans, were also identified as the "superior"
race. This in turn was used to justify the European domination
of everyone else. In the most extreme form such theories would
lead to the racism of Nazi Germany. The idea of race, while
still commonly believed, no longer has any scientific basis.
Modern genetic research has shown that all people around the
world are very closely related. Comparing the genes of two brown-skinned
Africans, for example, you could find more differences than
between the genes of one of those Africans and a white-skinned
European.
Kamehameha, chief and greateast warrior of thePolynesian island
of Owhyhee (or Hawaii as we now call it), conquers the other
local chiefs one by one in what was then called the Sandwich
Islands by Europeans. Kamehameha was born around 1750. One island
after another, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Oahu, fell to his warriors.
By 1810, he was ruler of the new kingdom of Hawaii, called King
Kamehameha I. Only one island, Kauai, could not be defeated,
but Kamehameha married the daughter of the high chief of Kauai,
bringing the island into his realm by alliance. Kaahumanu was
her name, and she became the king's favourite wife (Hawaiians
could marry more than once). It was through her wisdom and the
loyalty of her powerful family that Kamehameha governed Hawaii.
The Hawaiian kingdom lasted to 1893.
The Treaty of Waitangi is seen as the founding document of the
nation of New Zealand. It was signed in 1840 by representatives
of the British crown, Queen Victoria, and Maori chiefs. Due
to differences in culture and language, (for example, there
is no exact word in Maori for the English word "government"
or "sovereignty") there was a huge misunderstanding.
To the British, the treaty meant that the Maori's had given
up their sovereignty or independence and had become subject
to the English queen and government. The Maori chiefs saw the
treaty as an agreement of friendship with the British, but it
did not reduce their independence.
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