5.5.2

The Native Population

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Aborigines

Australia was established as a British penal colony in 1787, but this had serious repercussions for the native people.

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Aborigines

  • As with America, the British were not colonising an empty land.
  • Australia was inhabited by native Australians, known as Aborigines.
  • Like the Native Americans, they were nomadic hunter-gatherers, and they had lived in Australia for over 50,000 years.
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Disease

  • British settlement of Australia was a disaster for the Aborigines.
  • Many caught British diseases brought over by the settlers and died from them.
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Extermination

  • Many were also exterminated by settlers who were intent on taking control of the land.
  • Between the British arrival and 1900, it is thought that the Aboriginal population fell by 90%.
  • On the Australian island of Tasmania, Aborigines were completely wiped out within a hundred years.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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