Timeline of Australia's Shared History

They had occupied Australia for at least 60,000 years, making Indigenous Australians the custodians of the world’s most ancient living culture. Each group lived in close relationship with the land and had custody over their own traditional country.

There was no contact, no exchange of cultures or knowledge between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the world.

1788+

Colonisation

“Full and free permission to invade, search out, capture and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers... and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery”

According to Western Criteria, there was no evidence of use of the land.

The land was, therefore, declared Terra Nullius - a land belonging to no one.

1788 - Two convict rushcutters are killed by local Aborigines at Rushcutters Bay near Sydney Cove.

Approximately 50% of the Indigenous Population around the Sydney settlement die.

1790 - Pemulwuy and his son, Tedbury, of the Eora peoples, launch a guerilla-style campaign of Aboriginal resistance.

This campaign lasts more than a decade.

1795 - The first recorded battle, the Richmond Hill Battle, occurs with Aboriginal people defending their country against the British.

1797 - Continuing his 7-year war, Pemulwuy leads the George's River and Paramatta Indigenous peoples in an attack on the settlement near Paramatta.

Pemulwuy is injured and captured, but later escapes.

1799 - The beginning of a six-year period of resistance to white settlement by Indigenous Australians, known as the Black Wars.

1801 - Governor King orders the Aboriginal people gathering around Parramatta, Georges River and Prospect Hill “to be driven back from the settler’s habitation by firing at them”.

1802 - After a 12-year guerilla war, Pemulwuy is shot and killed by two settlers.

Pemulwuy's son, Tedbury, continues the resistance for a further 8 years.

1804 - The population of New South Wales now near 7,000.

1804 - Open fire is ordered by lieutenant William Moree on a group of approximately 300 Indigenous Australians at Risdon Cove, Tasmania.

Between 30 and 60 Aboriginal people are killed. The Lieutenant tries to cover-up the incident, claiming only 3 had been shot.

1804 - Hostilities increase.

The slaughter of Aboriginal people in Australia has begun.

Settlers are authorised to shoot unarmed Aboriginal people

1804 - An estimated 100 people are killed by New South Wales Corps as Irish convicts lead the first armed uprising in the colony of NSW.

1804 - The Eora people are being disposessed of their land

1805 - Explorer, Matthew Flinders, argues that the continent should be called Australia.

The land is named Terra Australis Incognita - the original latin term for the unknown great southern land.

The name becomes popular among white settlers.

1810 - there are now nearly 12,000 white settlers in the colonies of Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales.

Here, they are taught European beliefs and used as cheap labour.

1813 - Colonists are assisted by Indigenous Australians to cross the Blue Mountains.

They create new hostilities as they pass through Aboriginal lands.

to “civilise, educate and foster habits of industry and decency in the Aborigines”

The local Aboriginal people remove their children from the school after they realise that its aim is to distance the children from their families and communities.

The school closes in 1820.

1816 - Aboriginal people attack farms on the edge of Sydney.

Macquarie sends a punitive party to arrest ‘offenders’.

They attack a camp near Appin at night and 14 Aboriginal people are killed.

1816 - Macquarie announces a set of regulations controlling the movement of Aboriginal people.

No Aboriginal person is to appear armed within a mile of any settlement and no more than six Aboriginal people are allowed to ‘lurk or loiter near farms’.

1816 - Passports or certificates are issued to Aboriginal people “who conduct themselves in a suitable manner”, to show they are officially accepted by Europeans.

1822 - A number of large-scale killings occur as conflict over dispossession of land and erosion of hunting rights continues.

1822 - Windradyne leads Wiradjuri resistance that will last for two years along the Murray River.

1829 - A colony is set up in Perth.

1831 - Yagan leads Nyoongar resistance in Western Australia for three years

1833 - Yagan is killed. His head is cut off and pickled. It is then sent to England as a museum curiosity.

One of Stirling’s men dies and many Aboriginal people are killed.

Official reports put their number at 14 but Aboriginal accounts suggest a whole clan was wiped out in the attack

This became known as the ‘Battle of Pinjarra’.

It was an attempt to punish Aboriginal people south of Perth, after conflict with settlers caused the death of a settler in April.

1835 - The Dunghutti people of north coast NSW are now confined to 40 hectares of land.

They previously owned 250,000 hectares.

A “Protector” of Aboriginal people is appointed but the Kaurna people, near Adelaide, are unable to maintain life as a group because of the expanding settlement and loss of their land.

1836 - In Van Diemen's Land, Lieutenant-Governor Arthur has quickly become one of the wealthiest men in the colony.

Using this power, he has instituted a harsh, repressive and thoroughly organised penal regime.

Protection

1837+

1837 - A British Select Committee examines the treatment of all Indigenous people in British colonies.

The treatment of Indigenous Australians is particularly criticised.

The committee justifies the 'plain and sacred right' of Aboriginal peoples to their land.

1837 - The policy of protection for Aboriginal people marks the beginning of involvement of the Catholic Church in missionary work and the establishment of schools for Aboriginal children.

1837 - A massacre of Indigenous Australians occurs at Gravesend, NSW.

More than 200 Aboriginals are killed.

1838 - Myall Creek Massacre.

12 heavily armed colonsts round up and brutally kill 28 Indigenous Australians from a group of 40 or 50 people gathered at Henry Dangar’s Station, at Myall Creek.

The massacre was believed to be a payback for the killing of several hut keepers and two shepherds. However, most of those killed were women and children on good terms with the European occupants of the station.

Seven stockmen are eventually hanged for murder, which outrages the colonial press who cannot understand why anyone should be hanged for murdering Aboriginal people.

"I knew the men were guilty of murder, but i would never see a white man hanged for killing a black".

1840s Decade - The first economic depression rocks the colonies.

The wool industry collapses completely, and bankruptcies are widespread.

1840 - Transportation to mainland Australia is ceased.

By this time, approximately 150,000 convicts have been sent to the colonies.

All future convicts are to be sent to Van Diemen's Land.

1840 - An entire community of Aboriginal people perishes in a massacre at Long Lagoon, a newly settled station in inland Queensland.

1841 - 30 Indigenous Australians are Massacred at Rufus River, NSW.

1842 - The establishment of the Native Police is ordered. This force is comprised of Aboriginal Troopers, trained to track and disperse groups of Aboriginal people.

The force is lead by European Officers.

1842 - Native Police forces attack and kill many Indigenous Australians on stations.

1843 - Aboriginal landowners of the Jagera people block the key supply routes to the Darling Downs.

White settlers attack them in the Battle of One Tree Hill in the Lockyer Valley, with the Jagera people being led by Multuggerah, an Aboriginal Warrior.

A rare eyewitness account of the battle in the form of a pencil drawing is held at the National Library.

1845 - Approximately 50 remaining Aboriginal people from the Sydney and Botany Bay peoples are living at a camp on Botany Heads.

1848- The Board of Education determine that

"it is impractical to provide any form of education for the children of blacks”.

1848 -  New South Wales Native Police Troopers are sent to Queensland to kill Indigenous Australians in order to open the land for settlement.

1857 - Aboriginal people attack settlers on the Dawson River, Queensland, leading to reprisals by local squatters and police.

1861 - The pearling industry begins in Western Australia, with Indigenous Australians being the first divers.

They are soon replaced with divers from Java, Timor and Japan.

1861 - Aboriginal people kill approximately 19 settlers near Emerald, Queensland.

1861 - Approximately 170 Aboriginal people are killed in an act of retaliation.

1863 - A Government Station is established at Somerset, on the tip of the Cape York Peninsula.

This marked the beginning of the impact of European settlement on the Torres Strait Islands

A missionary settlement followed in this location, bringing both disease and disruption to traditional lifestyles.

1868 - The first Australian Cricket Team leaves Australia to tour England.

The team is comprised of only Aboriginal Australians.

Some of the team find it difficult to adapt to the climate and return home.

One team member dies.

1868 - 150 Aboriginal people are killed resisting arrest in the Kimberley, Western Australia.

1869 - The Board for the Protection of Aborigines is established.

The governor of this board can order the removal of any child to a remormatory or industrial school.

The Protection Board can remove children from station families to be housed in dormitories.

1870 - In the early 1870s, the first Aboriginal children are enrolled in public schools in NSW.

1870 - The Kalkadoon Wars in Queensland last from 1870 until 1890.

Approximately 900 Kalkadoon people are killed as they fight to protect their land.

The war culminates in the Battle of Battle Mountain in 1884.

In 1972, the Minister for the Army names an army helicopter 'Kalkadoon' in recognition of their fighting spirit.

1876 - Truganini Dies in Hobart, aged 73.

Against her wishes, the tasmanian Museum displays her bones.

100 years later, members of Tasmanian Aboriginal community cremates them and scatters them onto the water.

The Tasmanian government does not recognise the Aboriginal heritage of people of Aboriginal descent and claims the “last Tasmanian Aboriginal person” has died. A falsehood many still believe today.

1877 - Settlers in the Daintree River area of Queensland are killed by Indigenous Australians.

1880 - approximately 200 Aboriginal children are enrolled in public schooling.

1881 - A Protector of Aborigines is appointed.

He has the the power to establish reserves and force Indigenous Australians to live there.

1883 - Mission Schools are established on reserves, with untrained teachers.

13 schools are developed by 1900.

40 by 1930.

1883 - White parents object to 16 Aboriginal children attending a public school at Yass.

The Minister for Education, George Reid, stops the children from attending stating that although in general creed or colour should not exclude a child...

“cases may arise, especially amongst the Aboriginal tribes, where the admission of a child or children may be prejudicial to the whole school”

1884 - A massacre of Aboriginal people occurs on the McKinlay River, Northern Territory.

It is unclear how many were killed.

1886 - The Victorian Aborigines Protection Act excludes ‘half-castes’ from their definition of an Aboriginal person.

As a result nearly half the residents of the missions and reserves have to leave their homes.

1888 - The phrase ‘White Australia Policy’ appears in William Lane’s Boomerang newspaper in Brisbane.

Aboriginal population reduced by 220,000 Australia-wide to an estimated 80,000.

1890 - Jandamarra, an Indigenous Australian resistance fighter declares war on European Invaders in Western Australia.

He prevents settlement for six years.

The Western Australian conflict continues for eight years.

1897 - The Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act allows for local Aboriginal people to be removed onto and between reserves, and for children to be held in dormitories.

Under the legislation, Aboriginal people are effectively confined to reserves and banned from towns.

Every aspect of their life is controlled.

Including the right to marry, guardianship of children, the right to work outside reserves and the management of assets.

1897 - Jandamarra, the Western Australian resistance fighter, is shot.

1890 - Jandamarra, an Indigenous Australian resistance fighter declares war on European Invaders in Western Australia.

He prevents settlement for six years.

1899 - Cyclone Mahina passes over Bathurst Bay, Cape York, Queensland.

12 white men and more than 100 Aboriginal people who were working on pearl luggers are killed.

1900+

Assimilation

1900 - Part Aboriginal man, Jimmy Governor, goes on a rampage killing 10 people.

He is captured and hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol, NSW.

1901

Federation.

The Commonweath Constitution states...

"in reckoning the numbers of people… Aboriginal natives shall not be counted".

The Commonwealth Constitution also states that the Commonwealth would legislate for any race except Aboriginal.

This leaves the power over Aboriginal Affairs with the states.

As a result, Aboriginal people are excluded from the vote, pensions, employment in post offices, enlistment in armed forces and maternity allowance.

The government introduces the White Australia Policy in an attempt to ban all non-Caucasian people from entering the country.

1902 - During the Boer War, approximately 50 Aboriginal trackers are taken with the British forces to South Africa to join the war.

When Australian forces withdraw later that year, it is thought that the trackers are left behind.

1903 - Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Fanny Cochrane Smith is recorded singing in her native tongue, the first and only recording of Tasmania’s Aboriginal language.

1904 - The Queensland government establishes Cherbourg, an Aboriginal community, about 30 km from Gympie.

1905 - The Western Australia Aborigines Act is passed.

This makes the Chief Protector the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ child under 16 years old.

As a result, reserves are established, a local protector is appointed and rules governing Aboriginal employment are laid down.

1908 - An Invalid and Old Age Pensioner Act is implemented.

This provides social security for some but not for Aboriginal people.

1909 - Aboriginal Schools are established in NSW as a result of exclusion of Aboriginal children from public schools following requests from the white community.

1909 - The NSW Aborigines Protection Act makes it illegal for 'half castes' to live on reserves.

This gives the NSW Aborigines Protection Board greater powers to remove children from their families for training as domestic servants.

1910 - The Aborigines Protection Board Act is passed, giving the Board ‘legal’ control over Aboriginal people on stations and reserves but not missions, in the Northern Territory.

1911 - The South Australian Aborigines Act authorizes the Chief Protector to be the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ child under 21 years old.

The Chief Protector also has control of where the child lives.

1911 - The Australian Federal Government passes the Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance.

The Chief Protector is made the legal guardian of every Aboriginal and ‘half-caste’ child under 18 years old.

This means that any Aboriginal person can be forced onto a mission or settlement and children can be removed by force.

1912 - Aboriginal man, Aya-I-Ga, is awarded the prestigious Albert Medal by King George V after he saved Constable W F Johns from drowning.

This is the first time that a medal of this nature is awarded to an Aboriginal Australian.

1914 - Beginning of World War 1.

Despite the defence act in 1909 stating that any person not of ‘substantially European’ origin is prohibited from serving, Aboriginal soldiers are among Australian troops at Gallipoli.

During this time, approximately 400-500 Aboriginal children continue to be removed from their families.

These numbers include children whose fathers are fighting at war.

1915 - The NSW Aborigines Protection Board is given powers to remove Aboriginal children without a court hearing

1918 - The Northern Territory Aboriginal Ordinance Act

states that

Aboriginal people could not drink or possess or supply alcohol or methylated spirits

could not come within two chains of licensed premises

have firearms

marry non-Aboriginal people without permission or

have sex across the colour line

1920 - The Aboriginal population is believe to be at its lowest.

The population is estimated to be between 60,000 and 70,000.

The population is widely believed to be a dying race.

Most Australians have no contact with Aboriginal people due to segregation and social conventions.

1926 - A European is killed in Dala, Western Australia.

As a consequence, 11 Aboriginal Australians are mudered while in police custody.

No prosecutions follow.

1927 - Aboriginal Australians are banned from central Perth until 1948.

1928 - Conniston Massacre in the Northern Territory.

Europeans shoot 32 Aboriginal people after a European dingo trapper and a station owner are attacked by them.

1928 - Aboriginal activist and toymaker Anthony Martin Fernando is picketing Australia House in London.

Pinned to his coat are small, white, toy skeletons.

'This is all Australia has left of my people’.

1934 - Under the Aborigines Act, Aboriginal people can apply to ‘cease being Aboriginal’ and have access to the same rights as ‘whites’.

1935 - The introduction of the Infants Welfare Act (Tasmania) is used to remove Indigenous children on Cape Barren Island from their families.

1936 - Western Australia Aborigines Act is amended to permit Aboriginal people to be taken into custody without trial or appeal and to prevent them from entering prescribed towns without a permit.

1937

Assimilation

Policy

The Aboriginal Welfare Conference of Commonwealth and State Authorities decided that the official policy for some Aboriginal people is the Assimilation Policy.

Aboriginal people of mixed descent are to be assimilated into white society whether they want to be or not.

Those not living tribally are to be educated and all others are to stay on reserves.

"In 50 years we should forget that there were any Aborigines in this country"

In practice, assimilation policies lead to the destruction of Aboriginal identity and culture, justification of dispossession and the removal of Aboriginal children.

Segregationist practices continue until 1960s with separate sections in theatres, separate wards in hospitals, hotels refusing drinks and schools able to refuse enrolment to Aboriginal children.

"The governments in the 1930s said children had to be taken away from their parents because the influence of their own communities was immoral and they were in danger of abuse and neglect, but the real agenda then was to de-Aboriginalise them".

1938 - 150 years after European occupation the Aboriginal Progressive Association declares a Day of Mourning.

These are the first of many Aboriginal protests against inequality, injustice, dispossession of land and protectionist policies.

1938 - Central Australian Aboriginal painter, Albert Namatjira, holds his first exhibition in Melbourne. All 41 works are sold in three days. He combines European painting techniques (mainly watercolors) with subject matter from his native land.

1939 - Cummeragunja Walk-off

In the first ever mass-strike of Aboriginal people, over 150 Indigenous Australians pack-up and leave Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station in protest at the cruel treatment and exploitation of residents by the management.

1939 - World War 2 begins.

Although Aboriginal people are not recognised as citizens, two Aboriginal military units are established and some Aboriginal people serve in other sections of the armed forces as formally enlisted soldiers, sailors or airmen.

Timeline of Australia's Shared History

Before contact -

Aboriginal peoples are the oldest surviving culture in the world, having established ways of managing their land and society that were sustainable and ensured good health.

1838 - The Battle of Vinegar Hill.

Mounted police (mostly European volunteers) set out in response to the rising conflict.

A battle occurs on Slaughterhouse Creek, with 60-70 Aboriginals killed, and only 1 European casualty.

Self Determination

1967+

Relationship

2014+

1975+

Recognition

1792 - Grants of land have now been handed to 177 farmer-settlers.

The settlement now comprises both Paramatta and Sydney.

1789 - A smallpox epidemic impacts Indigenous Australians.

1788 - The arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay

1803 - A second major settlement is established in Van Diemen's Land - modern day Tasmania.

The Black Wars of Tasmania last until 1830 and claim the lives of 600 Indigenous Australians and 200 white settlers.

1798 - New South Wales' white population nears on 5000.

1814 - Governor Macquarie opens a school for Aboriginal children at Parramatta called the Native Institution

1810 - Aboriginal people begin to be moved onto mission stations.

1830 - an unsuccessful attempt to drive all remaining Indigenous Australians in Eastern Australia to Tasmania occurs.

Aboriginal people in Tasmania are forcibly removed and settled

on Flinders Island.

The living conditions on Flinders Island lead to

multiple deaths.

The community is later moved to Cape

Barren Island.

1836 - The colony of South Australia is founded

1834 - Governor Stirling leads a party of men to a site near present day Pinjarra, on the Swan River and attacks 80 Aboriginal people