Introduction
European
settlement had a severe and devastating impact on Indigenous people. Their
dispossession of the land, exposure to new diseases and involvement in violent
conflict, resulted in the death of a vast number of the Aboriginal peoples. The
small percentage of Aboriginal people who did not die during these early
decades of the colony, were not unaffected. The impact of the white settlers
changed their lives, and the lives of future generations, forever.
European Exploration
Lt James Cook lands at Botany Bay,
1770 (from a British viewpoint)
Although Dutch and English navigators had visited the western and northern coasts of the Australian continent from the seventeenth century onwards, and in 1642, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman had explored part of the coast of Tasmania, the eastern mainland of Australia remained unvisted by Europeans until 1770.
English explorer, Lieutenant James Cook, commander of HMS Endeavour, on the first of his three major voyages of discovery, explored the east coast of the Australian continent, naming it NSW and claiming the territory for Britain. To British eyes the Aborigines, though obviously present, did not seem to cultivate the land or build permanent habitations. In their view Australia was legally an empty land - "Terra Nullius" - allowing it to be annexed by the British without reference to any local inhabitants. The concept of "Terra Nullius" persisted as an Australian legal fiction for more than 200 years.
Although Dutch and English navigators had visited the western and northern coasts of the Australian continent from the seventeenth century onwards, and in 1642, Dutch navigator Abel Tasman had explored part of the coast of Tasmania, the eastern mainland of Australia remained unvisted by Europeans until 1770.
English explorer, Lieutenant James Cook, commander of HMS Endeavour, on the first of his three major voyages of discovery, explored the east coast of the Australian continent, naming it NSW and claiming the territory for Britain. To British eyes the Aborigines, though obviously present, did not seem to cultivate the land or build permanent habitations. In their view Australia was legally an empty land - "Terra Nullius" - allowing it to be annexed by the British without reference to any local inhabitants. The concept of "Terra Nullius" persisted as an Australian legal fiction for more than 200 years.
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