Report on Reconciliation
Invasion/Settlement
From 1788, Australia was found and colonized by the British as a colony of settlement. Aboriginal land was taken by the British saying that “ This land belongs to no one”. A colony could be founded by persuading the indigenous inhabitants to submit to their power by gaining the rights to buy land and settle on it by one sided possession, on the basis of first discovery and effective occupation. The land was known as terra nullius, or wasteland, because Cook and Banks considered there were few 'natives' along the coast. They assumed that there would be fewer or none inland. Their observations were soon proven incorrect. The governors of the first settlements soon found that Aboriginal people lived inland, and had special territories and associations with land on a spiritual basis. Nonetheless, they did not cancel the terms of British control.
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Estimates of how many Indigenous people lived in Australia at the time of European settlement vary from 300,000 to 1 million. The exact number of Indigenous deaths is unknown, many Indigenous men, women and children died of introduced diseases to which they had no cure such as smallpox, the flu and measles. Many also died in random killings, penal expeditions and organized massacres.
Assimilation
From the 1920’s to the late 1960’s , Australians believed that if there was a child who was half aboriginal and half European (Half Castes) they must be taken away to be assimilated into European society. Assimilation was used in the instance that half castes aboriginal’s would be changed and be taught the white European culture.
Half Aboriginals and half Australians otherwise known as half-casts were taken away from there home and brought to missions which were organized by fathers and nuns where they would be forced to speak and act like