WHO WERE THE CIVILIZED AND WHO WERE THE SAVAGES?

They said they came to civilise. But what they brought was nothing but savagery.

From Haiti to Australia to the Pacific Islands, this video unpacks the brutal truth behind Europe’s so-called ‘civilising mission.’

The Taíno and Arawak peoples of Haiti, once thriving communities with deep spiritual and agricultural systems, were nearly wiped out within decades of Columbus’s arrival. They were enslaved, mutilated, and hunted like animals all in the name of gold and empire.

In Australia, British colonisers declared the land ‘Terra Nullius’ - or nobody’s land - while thousands of Aboriginal people were massacred in cold blood. In Queensland, it’s thought over 24,000 Indigenous lives were taken by government-sanctioned forces. This was not law and order. This was ethnic cleansing, dressed in European uniforms.

Across the Pacific, the lie of civilisation took the form of ‘Blackbirding’ - kidnapping tens of thousands from Melanesia and forcing them into backbreaking labour on plantations. Meanwhile, imported diseases erased entire communities.

This is not ancient history. The scars are still fresh. The descendants of these communities are still here, still fighting, still remembering. Because colonisation was never about civilisation, it was about extraction, domination and the silencing of Indigenous voices.

This video is not just history. It’s resistance. It’s about reclaiming the narrative from Columbus and Cook and all the myths they stood on. It’s about asking, in the face of genocide and greed: Who were the real savages?