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Period: to
Contact between Europeans and Aboriginals
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Captain Cook's arrival
On 29 April 1770, captain James Cook landed at Botany Bay meeting the Aboriginal people of Australia. The first Australians didn't know what to think of the white fellas. At first they thought they were devils or demons on their ship until they saw people climbing up the masts of the ships. Then they thought they were possums. The indigenous acted with curiosity seeing clothes for the first time and other people from another land for the first time. -
Terra Nullius
When Captain Cook came to Australia he had the idea of Terra Nullius, empty land. He could take this land with English laws because there appeared to be no settlement. Governor Arthur Phillip was astounded by this because he knew that there were people living on the land. This was a point of conflict for many many years because the English were taking land that did not belong to them, land that allowed the indigenous to survive. -
Small Pox
In April 1789, small pox, a deadly disease quickly spread among Aboriginal communities. The disease had never been in Australia before and was most likely introduced from the first fleet. The Indigenous Australians had never been exposed to this disease so they were not immune to it like the Europeans and suffered a big drop in the population. -
Kidnapping of Bennelong
25th of November, 1789 Bennelong was kidnapped by Governor Arthur Phillip. He was kidnapped to be the person in between the two cultures so the different types of people could communicate. This was the European's way of going about it. Bennelong was kept in shackles while he learnt British way of life. In the end, Bennelong wanted to be the interpreter and establish a relationship. -
Spearing of Arthur Phillip
After Bennelong escaped government house, he went back to his clan and resumed his old way of life. After a few months, Governor Phillip found Bennelong at whale feast and wanted him to come back. Phillip was speared but not killed by one of the tribesmen to justify Bennelong's kidnapping, a form of punishment in the Aboriginal way of life. -
The death of Pemulwoy
Pemulwoy was an aboriginal leader who stood against the British because he saw them as invaders. He raided different parts of settlements. He used fire to burn down paddocks, fences, live stock and farm houses. The settlers retaliated by shooting and in one such raid Pemulwoy was unfortunate enough to get shot. The settlers took his head in a jar back to England insulting the indigenous greatly. -
Crossing of the Blue Mountains, 1813 onwards
The area around Port Jackson was like a natural prison. This led explorers to crossing the Blue Mountains looking for more land and they were successful in finding the Bathurst plains. After this, settlers started to move inland and took more and more land from the Aborigines. There were many fights and a martial law was introduced with soldiers sent to kill all of the natives. -
Battle of Pinjarra
The Noongar people, native Australians who lived around Perth were not at all happy with settlers taking over the land. They had taken all of the best food and water sources and introduced diseases. The Noongar people protested to this which lead to a battle. The settlers were the first to fire and around 15-20 people died. The rest of the tribespeople got away. -
Myall Creek massacre
The Myall Creek massacre occurred because of Aboriginal people killing 2 settlers. 12 other settlers were greatly angered by this and felt they had to justify this. The ended up taking 28 Aboriginal people, women and children among them, tied them up and beat them to death. The people killed had worked in peace with the settlers. -
Kurnai Massacres
By the year of 1858, many massacres of the Kurnai people had taken place. The Kurnai people resided in Gippsland and had a population of around 2000 before the massacres and after dropped to 80 because of the massacres and disease. The official reasons for this was that there was a shortage of game and poor treatment by settlers.
