Aboriginal land was taken over by British colonists on the premise that the land belonged to no-one ('terra nullius'). The history of Aboriginal dispossession is central to understanding contemporary Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations.
Starting in 1794, mass killings were first carried out by British soldiers, then by police and settlers – often acting together – and later by native police, working under the command of white officers, in militia-style forces supported by colonial governments.
Colonisation of Australia
First Nations people's rights to land have been challenged ever since the British arrived to occupy the Australian continent. Despite resisting the occupation, many communities were no longer able to live on Country.
The map above shows that between the establishment of the British penal colony of New South Wales in 1788 and the mid-1960s, Indigenous Australians were deprived and dispossessed of virtually all their land.
Aboriginal land was eventually taken over by British colonists who claimed the it belonged to no one when they arrived. Years later, colonists would move surviving members of the Aboriginal community from their homes, segregate them, and frequently remove their children from their homes.
In the 1860s, Victoria became the first state to pass laws authorising Aboriginal children to be removed from their parents. Similar policies were later adopted by other states and territories – and by the federal government when it was established in the 1900s.
Aboriginal people were subjected to a range of injustices, including mass killings or being displaced from their traditional lands and relocated on missions and reserves in the name of protection. Cultural practices were denied, and subsequently many were lost.
Nationally as at June 2022, 16.1 per cent of Australia's land area was owned or controlled by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (see above) provides the basis upon which Aboriginal Australian people in the Northern Territory can claim rights to land based on traditional occupation. The freehold land cannot be sold or transferred, but it can be leased.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rights and interests in land are formally recognised over around 50 per cent of Australia's land mass. Connection to land is of central importance to First Nations Australians.
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. The overwhelming weight of evidence supports the idea that Aboriginal people were the first Australians.
Between 11,000 and 14,000 Aboriginal people died, compared with only 399 to 440 colonisers. The tallies of the dead are not the only measure of what took place, according to Dr Bill Pascoe, a digital humanities specialist and key researcher on the project. “We are always using conservative estimates,” Pascoe said.
They have a profound spiritual connection to land. Aboriginal law and spirituality are intertwined with the land, the people and creation, and this forms their culture and sovereignty. The health of land and water is central to their culture.
By the 1830s, frontier violence around NSW had become so widespread that the murder of Aboriginal people by British colonial stockmen, settlers and convicts was generally accepted, despite British law clearly articulating that it was a crime punishable by death.
"Captain Cook, as good as a man as I think he was, he was not cruel or sadistic. He had a great humanity to him. But he fired at the first indigenous warrior he saw. "And here we are, 249 years down the track, and we Australians didn't know that.
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.
There are some amounts don't need to be include as income in your tax return. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Indigenous holding entities don't need to pay income tax or capital gains tax on native title payments or benefits.
The mining magnate Gina Rinehart is Australia's biggest landholder, controlling more than 9.2m hectares, or 1.2% of the entire landmass of the country, according to data compiled by Guardian Australia.
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.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
The earliest conclusively human remains found in Australia are those of Mungo Man LM3 and Mungo Lady, which have been dated to around 50,000 years BP.
Summary. On January 1, 1901, six colonies were joined together to create the Commonwealth of Australia, a self-governing Dominion in the British Empire. While the new nation was sovereign when it came to its domestic affairs, the United Kingdom maintained control over its relations with the wider world.
The forcible removal of First Nations children from their families was based on assimilation policies, which claimed that the lives of First Nations people would be improved if they became part of white society.
The oldest human remains in Australia were found at Lake Mungo in south-west New South Wales, part of the Willandra Lakes system. This site has been occupied by Aboriginal people from at least 47,000 years ago to the present.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders: Australia's First Peoples.