Aboriginal people resist the occupation of their land and the process of colonisation. Pemulwuy leads a campaign of resistance to British settlers on the land of the Darug people. Governor Macquarie orders punitive campaigns against Aboriginal people living around Sydney
Colony of Port Jackson is established in 1788 and transportation of convicts begins. Some 60 nationalities, ethnic backgrounds and religions are recorded among First Fleet. 1789: Outbreak of smallpox introduced by the British leads to the devastation of the Aboriginal
1770: Captain Cook lands in Botany Bay, home of the Eora people, and claims possession of the East Coast of Australia for Britain under the doctrine of ‘terra nullius’. This means that the British declare the land as uninhabited and
Trepangers from the Makassar region of Sulawesi (modern day Indonesia) begin visiting the coast of northern Australia sometime around the middle of the 1700s, first in the Kimberley region, and some decades later in Arnhem Land, to collect and process trepang
Earliest recorded contact between Europeans and Aboriginal people – by crew of Dutch ship Dwyflken under Captain Willem Jansz on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula. During the 1600s parts of the Australian coast become known to European explorers,
Macassan praus sail to the north-eastern coast of the Northern Territory. Trade continues between Aboriginal people and Macassans until the early 1900s.
Aboriginal people living in the coastal areas of what is now Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory have contact with people from the various Melanesian groups of Papua New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands for many years. Explorers
For thousands of years the Australian continent is isolated from the rest of the world. During this time, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies develop their network of diverse cultures with separate laws and ceremonial traditions, home country, Dreamings and