Rabbit-Proof Fence: An Example of New English Literature

Rabbit-Proof Fence: An Example of New English Literature

Australia
--- Capital: Canberra
--- Largest city: Sydney
--- Government: Federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy
    Monarch: Elizabeth II
    Governor-General: Quentin Bryce
    Prime Minister: Julia Gillard
--- Population:
    2011 estimate 22,611,726
    2006 census 19,855,288
--- Indigenous Australians & White Migrations:
      1) Indigenous Australians
        Brief info:
      a) Between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago, possibly with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia.
      b) During the late 18th century, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime.
      Population:
      a) Before Colonisation: n/a
      b) After Colonisation: estimated at 350,000 at the time of European settlement.
      c) Today: Indigenous people make up 2.4 per cent of the total Australian population (about 460,000 out of 22 million people).
      2) White Migrations
      The First Colony:
          New South Wales was settled as a penal colony—a place where Britain could send convicted criminals because her prisons were overcrowded. Many convicts had grown up in poverty and committed only minor offences, such as the theft of a loaf of bread. Conditions in the new colony were little better than at home—it took many years for British settlers to understand the different environment of the new colony, and disease and malnutrition were widespread during the first decades of settlement.
          Convicts formed the majority of the colony's population for the first few decades of settlement. Convicts continued being sent to New South Wales until 1823, although as time went by, convicts were increasingly seen as a source of labour to build the colony, rather than just being sent away from Britain as...