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Initial invasion and colonisation (1788 to 1890)

The arrival of Lieutenant James Cook, and then Arthur Phillip in 1788, marked the beginning of ‘white settlement’.

From 1788, Australia was treated by the British as a colony of settlement, not of conquest. Aboriginal land was taken over by British colonists on the premise that the land belonged to no-one (‘terra nullius’).

The history of Aboriginal dispossession is central to understanding contemporary Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations. Colonial takeover was premised on the assumption that European culture was superior to all others, and that Europeans could define the world in their terms. A colony could be established by persuading the indigenous inhabitants to submit themselves to its overlordship; by purchasing from those inhabitants the right to settle part or parts of it; by unilateral possession, on the basis of first discovery and effective occupation.

Possession of Australia was declare