The year 1788 marks the beginning of a regular contact between Europeans and Aborigines. In the surrounding of Sidney there were only a few important confrontations between colonists and the native Australians.

However with the settlement of Van Diemen’s Land, now called Tasmania, a great destruction of Aboriginal communities on the island began. Because of inferior weapons the Aborigines were reduced to a small number by the colonists (today there are only about 200.000 left).

On the Australian continent the farmers, who were looking for suitable land for their sheeps, constantly kept on pushing native groups to the dry inland of the country. There in the outback food was scarce and consequently the number of Aborigines decreased further.

Thousands were also killed by diseases the British brought with them. When they fought back whole tribes were massacred. The Aborigines who survived were put into reservations and church missions (which often have been like prison camps).

Rape of Aboriginal women was common, and soon many children were born with some white blood. These half-caste children were taken away from their families by force and sent to hostels in the cities. There they learned the European way of life. This policy had its origin in the 19th century Social Darwinist belief that half-caste Aborigines could be more easily assimilated into white society than Aborigines of full descent. Until the mid-1960s an estimated 100.000 young Aborigines were forcibly separated from their families and placed in state and church care centres under the government policy. They call themselves the ‘stolen generation’.

In these days now finally several of them lodged writs at courts and High Court claiming that the law which allowed them to be taken away from their families was constitutionally invalid and against international human rights.

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