Due to the nature of Aboriginal society, resistance took the form of guerrilla warfare - individuals or small groups of settlers were ambushed, isolated settlements attacked, crops, buildings and countryside burnt.
In south-eastern New South Wales this type of resistance, organised by people such as Pemulwy around Sydney and Windradyne of the Wiradjuri around Bathurst, continued into the s.
As white settlers moved further away from the centre of government, random shootings of Aboriginals and massacres of groups of men, women and children were common. Twenty-eight Aboriginals were murdered in cold blood by stockmen.
The murderers were eventually tried and some were hanged - an unprecedented event which caused an outcry in the white community. Sometimes Aboriginal water- holes were poisoned, or Aboriginal people given flour, sugar or damper mixed with arsenic. These practices, common in the 19th century, continued into the first half of the 20th century in some parts of Australia.
Because of the 'moving frontier' and the different reactions of Aboriginal people to white settlement, the nature of the relationship that existed between black and white was not the same in all parts of the State at anyone time.
The fight varied in intensity at different places and at different times. And if any of our subjects shall wantonly destroy them, or give them any unnecessary interruption in the exercise of their occupation, it is our will and pleasure that you do cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degree of the offence. The notion of Terra Nullius was created. The great southland was considered wasteland, unoccupied, and belonging to no one.
Despite common belief, there was immediate resistance by Indigenous peoples. Amongst its human cargo, the First Fleet brought with it many illnesses.
Diseases indigenous to Aboriginal people appear to have been few. Dental disease was relatively rare; smallpox, influenza, measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis, leprosy and syphilis were unknown.
The High Court ruled the Meriam people from the Murray Islands, which the Meriam people call Mer were 'entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of most of the lands of the Murray Islands'.
In recognising that native title had always existed, the Mabo ruling set a precedent in Australian law, which has now seen numerous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups regain rights over their traditional lands.
Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website contains a range of material which may be considered culturally sensitive including the records of people who have passed away. Terra Nullius While historians debate how and when the terra nullius legal concept was used to justify the colonisation of Australia, it is likely that Cook considered that the land belonged to no-one. Background information.
Joseph Lycett c. Wisdom and skills obtained over the millennia enabled them to use their environment to the maximum. For the Aboriginal people, acts such as killing animals for food or building a shelter were steeped in ritual and spirituality, and carried out in perfect balance with their surroundings.
We know our land was given to us by Baiami, we have a sacred duty to protect that land, we have a sacred duty to protect all the animals that we have an affiliation with through our totem system …1 Jenny Munro, Wiradjuri nation. Food was abundant, as was fresh water and shelter. Everything needed for a fruitful, healthy life was readily available. It was not to remain so. The British arrival brought armed conflict and a lack of understanding, which heralded the demise of the northern Sydney clans, along with the other peoples of the Sydney basin — the Dharawal to the south and the Dharug to the west.
Food shortages soon became a problem. The large white population depleted the fish by netting huge catches, reduced the kangaroo population with unsustainable hunting, cleared the land, and polluted the water.
As a result, the Aboriginal people throughout the Sydney Basin were soon close to starvation. Disease struck a fatal and extensive blow to the Aboriginal people, who until that point had been isolated for thousands of years from the diseases that had raged through Europe and Asia. They had no resistance to the deadly viruses carried by the sailors and convicts such as smallpox, syphilis and influenza.
In less than a year, over half the indigenous population living in the Sydney Basin had died from smallpox. The region, once alive with a vibrant mix of Aboriginal clans, now fell silent. Every boat that went down the harbour found them lying dead on the beaches and in the caverns of the rocks… They were generally found with the remains of a small fire on each side of them and some water left within their reach.
Lieutenant Fowell, It is difficult to comprehend how devastating this event was to the Aboriginal clans of the Sydney area. Those witnessing could not remain unmoved. At that time a native was living with us; and on our taking him down to the harbour to look for his former companions, those who witnessed his expression and agony can never forget either.
He looked anxiously around him in the different coves we visited; not a vestige on the sand was to be found of human foot; the excavations in the rocks were filled with the putrid bodies of those who had fallen victims to the disorder; not a living person was any where to be met with. British colonisation and subsequent Australian land laws were established on the claim that Australia was terra nullius, justifying acquisition by British occupation without treaty or payment.
In the Gove land rights case, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia was terra nullius prior European settlement. This judgement was unsuccessfully challenged by subsequent cases in , and However, on the 20th May , Eddie Koiki Mabo and 4 other Indigenous Meriam people began their legal claim for ownership of their traditional lands on the island of Mer in the Torres Strait.
Three of the plaintiffs did not live to hear this ruling, including Eddie Mabo, who passed away just months before the decision was handed down.
The judgement ruled that the common law as it existed:. He was raised by his Uncle, Benny Mabo, following the death of Eddie's mother during childbirth. At the age of 16, Eddie was exiled from Murray Island for breaking customary law.
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