European Invasion Research Paper

When the British arrived in 1788 roughly 500,000 Aboriginal people lived on the continent of Australia. Today only 270,000 remain. Governor Macquarie, tried to do what he described as “civilize” them, which meant

During the Frontier period, Indigenous peoples resisted the non-Indigenous settlement of Australia, throughout 1770-1890. During approximately throughout the 1890’s to 1970’s, the non-Indigenous retaliations occurred, resulting in protection, segregation and the stolen generations. Which initiated an ongoing impact on Indigenous communities.

When the European settled in Australia, it impacted on Indigenous people drastically. They deemed the land as Terra Nullius, meaning the land belonged to no one despite the Indigenous people being there first (Treatyrepublic.net, 2014). When the European possessed the land and exposed the Indigenous community to new diseases, it resulted in a vast number of deaths of the Aboriginal people. The minority of Aboriginal people that were left, who were not killed in violent conflict or died during the early decades of colonization, did not go unaffected. In fact, they were the most affected. The key historical socio-economic and political policies and events that impacted Indigenous Australians were segregation, protection and assimilation.

-White settlement affected the Indigenous people in a number of ways”{They} made them (the Aboriginals) outcasts on their own land*” by calling it terra nullius under the English Law, despite knowing the existence of the Aboriginals. Terra nullius is a latin term that means “land that belongs to no one.”They believed it belonged to no one because the Aboriginals didn’t use the land in the same way as the British. The Aboriginals believed that Mother Nature would provide them with what they needed, so they didn’t need to hunt and mark the land. The British completely ignored the deep spiritual connections the Aboriginals had with the land. They cut down trees, put up fences and built towns. They believed they had to own the land. But the Aboriginals were outraged when saw the settlers building farms where they had originally been hunting and gathering at, this was because there wasn’t enough food for them. They killed many white settlers in revenge and a clash of cultures began. Pemulwuy was an Aboriginal warrior that lead raids against the British. He also speared John McIntyre, Governor Phillip's gamekeeper, in December 1790. When the Indigenous people resisted the British, it lead to many conflicts which eventually left a irreversible damage to the lives of Indigenous people.

The powerful interaction of power and privilege is thoughtfully explored throughout The Secret River (2015) by Diana Reid which shows the discriminatory ,ethnocentric practices between the Australian Colonizers and the Indigenous people that defines the period. Before Colonization in 1788, Aboriginal Civilization was composed of over 600 different nations that organized the Australian landscape which was more than 40millenbia (Broome 2010). Privilege is a benefit that only a single person or group of individuals usually has because of their position whereas Power is the potential to control the people and events .(Barbara 1994). Several factors lead to power differences between the Indigenous and European cultures that resulted in dispossession

Tom Dystra, an Aboriginal Elder recalling the differentiating the differences of land uses: “We cultivated our land, but in a way different from the white man. We endeavor to live with the land; they seemed to live off it” (Koori, 2012). The entire continent was under the control of the British Monarchy and was declared “Crown Land” being deliberately ignorant towards the Aborigines and their traditional custodianship. Invasions on the Indigenous land started when the colonists started clearing land, sacred sites and fencing properties which cut access to waterholes and hunting grounds without the permission of the elders. The Europeans didn’t obey the rules set by the Aborigines, held no respect for their traditional rituals and sacred places and started killing vast numbers of innocent Aborigines for hunting for food or trespassing on the ‘European’ land. Their anger and emotion can still be felt today as describe by F. Gale: “Sacred place. All over our Aboriginal land was sacred, but we see now they have made a map and cut it up into six states” (Gale,

This resulted in the Indigenous occupants being on the receiving end of injust treatment. Torture, abuse and exploitation were among the cruel activities that were practised by the Europeans. The British in Australia treated the Indigenous viciously to the extent of offering them food that had been poisoned. Rights and freedom of speech had been taken away from the Indigenous people. From their actions, the Europeans were selfish and heartless and did not allow any other opinion except of their own race. They did not contemplate on their actions, instead of a peace offering they took the violent path to negotiate a solution with the Indigenous

However, was this outrageous act nothing more than an honest mistake? Upon finding such promising land, did the European colonies believe they were impartial to possessing and commanding it as they please? Only for the fact that the current Indigenous owners were using it for means they could not understand? Did they believe that the only significance the land had to the Indigenous people was a spiritual and emotional connection, and the land could be therefore put to better use? Historical facts support all of these statements, and therefore are proving one of the largest acts of injustice Australia has ever

Despite tracking being used as a life skill to the Indigenous people, it became a valuable skill that benefited the white settlers in conquering Australia’s land. White people needed the native trackers because they had difficulty exploring the new environment they wanted to nab. Once new white settlers started embezzling extra land, the Aboriginal people’s homes were seized by the white people. The white people made the natives inferior by limiting their hunting and killing more natives unfairly: “Soon the white people would take [their] land from [them] and there would be no recourse for any injustices committed against his people” (13). The white people would always win battles against the Aboriginal people because, “the evil white invaders [had] their muskets, swords, and pistols” (3) while the native

The Indigenous people were thought to be inferior by the colonisers, and as a result, were the victims of injust treatment. In both situations, the Indigenous people were met with torture and abuse, as well as manipulation. Their rights were cruelly taken away and they were forced to become slaves for the colonisers, who took advantage of the skills and abilities of the Indigenous people. In Australia, the Indigenous Aboriginals were poisoned and hunted by the European settlers, and were victims of racist

However the Aborigines had a different idea. They resisted the white man's attempts to take their land and their way of life. Early Australian history is laced with horror stories of massacres and deadly clashes. As the white people moved out from the coastal settlement the Aboriginals lost their hunting grounds, watering holes and plants on which they lived. They also caught diseases of the white man and they followed the example of drinking alcohol which caused many fights between them.

The indigenous cultures of Australia are the oldest living cultural history in the world and have occupied the land for at least 50,000 years. Prior to European colonisation Aboriginal people lived a semi-nomadic, hunting and gathering lifestyle. European settlement of Australia beginning in 1788 had devastating impacts the on existing indigenous population such as the introduction of many fatal, foreign diseases and loss of land and resources. European establishment brought rapid changes to Aboriginal society; in particular disease brought by the settlers played a fundamental role in the breakdown of Indigenous society. Prior to the Macassan visits and the arrival of the Europeans, Aborigines were generally free from disease however introduced

When the first fleet first landed in Australia they impacted many Aboriginal tribes of Australia, and around the Sydney area these included the Cammeraigal, the Kameygal, the Birrabirragal, the Eora and the Illawarra tribes. Indigenous Australia refer to themselves in different ways and often in new south wales aboriginal australians refer to themselves as the ‘Korris’ (Korries) meaning peoples or persons (educationscotland.gov.uk, 2016) . Europeans initially had short term impacts on the Sydney tribes, such as violence, dispossession and disease. These short term impacts then led to long term impacts through decreased population. There were further long term impacts when Europeans forced Indigenous Australians to change their lifestyle to

The frontier wars in Australia (1788-1934) were considered as a series of a conflict waged between the European settlers and the Indigenous Australians which lasted for a span of 146 years.However,the British colonisation in various locations of Australia has created the population of Aborigines in jeopardy by capturing their land and heritage.As a result of the violent massacre, the indigenous fatalities has reached significantly to a great extend ranged between20,000and 30,00(challenge magazine).There is an ongoing debate in Australia about the frontier war that whether it was cosidered as a morally justifiable war or not.Some people believe that Australia has a uniquely peaceful history of settlement.Although,for the last 20 years,a new wave of historians,such as Henry Reynold argued that Aborginals

Ironically, the civilised people who brought the ‘improvements’ could not cope to live in peace with the natives, where countless Aboriginal lives vanished under the ‘superior’ governance of the new settlers. Regardless which part of the continent including Tasmania, the history has shown many unfair