Indigenous Australia Research Paper

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Indigenous Australians is a term used to identify the earliest inhabitants of Australia, they have been occupying Australia 40,000 years before British settlement. During this time, Indigenous Australians lived their lives through cultivating the land, hunting and fishing. They were able to establish their own culture based on spiritual practises and traditional styles of doing craft (known as the Dreamtime) and similarly creating one of the oldest civilisations present today. However, this culture and civilisation was challenged by the settlement of the British. On August 26th 1768, Captain James Cook set off from England’s Plymouth Harbour in his ship HM Barque Endeavour to observe the planet Venus as it passed through Earth. However, under…show more content…
When the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson, British convicts started settling in the land, but this land belonged to the Eora indigenous people who were curious about their British arrivals, just as the British were of them. In the start, Indigenous groups and British settlers kept their distance from each other, and both groups were able to manage to co-exist on the land with very little conflict. But, during 1789 Captain Arthur Phillip (who had been elected Governor of Sydney) tried to befriend and communicate to the local indigenous Australians. So, he captured a man named Bennelong. Afterwards, Bennelong became a confidant of Governor Phillip and they taught each other about their different cultures and living. Similarly this relationship was seen between the British settlers and the indigenous Australians. Many indigenous Australians became guides for the British settlers; the indigenous Australians showed the British settlers the country, their tracks, how to find fresh water, bush food, and which areas were good for building and…show more content…
One of these disadvantages, were having their land taken over by British settlers. The indigenous Australians lived a very nomadic lifestyle; surviving on the natural environment around them because of this, British settlers assumed that they could be easily driven away from their lands. This led to malnutrition in indigenous Australians and having no shelter to live in. British settlers also created health problems in indigenous Australians. This was by forcing the indigenous Australians to live like them thus no longer eating foods that they had ate for thousands of years. The indigenous Australians were only offered flour, sugar and tea; this did not provide them with sufficient nutrients to keep them healthy. British settlers introduced harmful substances like tobacco and alcohol to indigenous Australians. And because of the problems, the British settlers had caused for the indigenous Australians; the indigenous Australians turned to heavy drinking and smoking to relieve the stress. British settlers also introduced diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, typhoid, influenza, whooping cough, the cold and many other common diseases in Britain. indigenous Australians had never experienced these diseases before, therefore had no medicine or immunity to overcome these diseases. This caused a huge impact on the population of indigenous Australians. Furthermore,

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