The first recorded African-diaspora settlers were black convicts, eleven in number, transported by the British, on the First Fleet of 1788. On their release, many bought land and brought up families in the area of Pennant Hills in western Sydney.
These people would have launched their migration from Ethiopia, crossing the Red Sea at its narrowest point to the Arabian Peninsula, then rapidly pushing east along the south Asian coastline all the way to Australia.
African people migrate to Australia for many reasons, including job-seeking and civil wars caused by race, religion, nationality, and membership in particular social or political groups. In the 2020 census, over 400,000 people living in Australia recorded they were of African origin.
African migrants represent a small but growing population in Australia, with 388,179 recoded in the latest Census (about 1.7 per cent of the total population). In South Australia, there are 20,238 African migrants, 33 per cent of whom were born in South Africa and the remainder coming from 45 different countries.
Far more Australians are descended from assisted immigrants than from convicts, the majority of Colonial Era settlers being British and Irish. About 20 percent of Australians are descendants of convicts. Most of the first Australian settlers came from London, the Midlands and the North of England, and Ireland.
It is true that there has been, historically, a small number of claims that there were people in Australia before Australian Aborigines, but these claims have all been refuted and are no longer widely debated.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the first peoples of Australia, meaning they were here for thousands of years prior to colonisation.
Gubbah, also spelt gubba, is a term used by some Aboriginal people to refer to white people or non-Aboriginal people.
Slavery in Australia has existed in various forms from colonisation in 1788 to the present day. European settlement relied heavily on convicts, sent to Australia as punishment for crimes and forced into labour and often leased to private individuals.
The First Nations people of Australia consist of two culturally distinct Indigenous groups of black people, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, born inher- itors and custodians of the land.
1 The first people to migrate to the Australian continent most likely came from regions in South-East Asia between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago.
A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.
The first major genomic study of Aboriginal Australians ever undertaken has confirmed that all present-day non-African populations are descended from the same single wave of migrants, who left Africa around 72,000 years ago.
Their dark skin reflects an African origin and a migration and residence in latitudes near the equator, unlike Europeans and Asians whose ancestors gained the paler skin necessary for living in northern latitudes.
The first recorded African-diaspora settlers were black convicts, eleven in number, transported by the British, on the First Fleet of 1788. On their release, many bought land and brought up families in the area of Pennant Hills in western Sydney.
A new genetic study suggests all modern humans trace our ancestry to a single spot in southern Africa 200,000 years ago.
It is generally held that Australian Aboriginal peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia (now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and have been in Australia for at least 45,000–50,000 years.
Aboriginal origins
Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.
The sovereign country Australia, formed in 1901 by the Federation of the six British colonies, is officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia, abbreviated within the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act and the Constitution of Australia to "the Commonwealth".
goona (uncountable) (Australian Aboriginal) faeces, excrement, stool quotations ▼
Blak or Black or Blackfella or Blackfulla
The provenance of this term goes back to 1994 and Aboriginal artist Destiny Deacon, who urged art curators Hetti Perkins and Claire Williamson to use Blak instead of Black for an exhibition.
Overall there are many common words in Noongar, for example: kaya= hello, moort = family, boodja = country and yongka = kangaroo. These words are used every day but they sound slightly different from region to region.
Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians.
The First Fleet of British ships arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 to establish a penal colony, the first colony on the Australian mainland. In the century that followed, the British established other colonies on the continent, and European explorers ventured into its interior.
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as 'New Holland'. It was the English explorer Matthew Flinders who made the suggestion of the name we use today.