| Genocide of Indigenous Australians | |
|---|---|
 1888 illustration of a massacre by Australian native police in Queensland, Australia | |
| Location | Australia |
| Date | 1788 - 1970 |
| Target | Aboriginal Australians Torres Strait Islanders |
Attack type | Massacre, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, starvation, cultural genocide |
| Perpetrators | British colonisers Australian colonial, state and federal governments |
| Motive | Settler colonialism White supremacy Assimilation Welfare |
| Part of a series on |
| Genocide of indigenous peoples |
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| Issues |
Many scholars have argued that the British colonisation of Australia and subsequent actions of various Australian governments and individuals involved acts of genocide against Indigenous Australians.[1] They have used numerous definitions of genocide including the intentional destruction of Indigenous groups as defined in the 1948 United Nations genocide convention, or broader definitions involving cultural genocide, ethnocide and genocidal massacres.[2][3] They have frequently cited the near extermination of Aboriginal Tasmanians,[4] mass killings during the frontier wars,[5] forced removals of Indigenous children from their families (now known as the Stolen Generations),[6] and policies of forced assimilation as genocidal.[7]
When Britain established its first Australian colony in 1788, the Aboriginal population is estimated to have been 300,000 to more than one million people[8][9][10] comprising about 600 tribes or nations and 250 languages with various dialects.[11][12] By 1901 the Aboriginal population had fallen to just over 90,000 people, mainly due to disease, frontier violence and the disruption of traditional society.[8] In the 20th century many Aboriginal people were confined to reserves, missions and institutions, and government regulations controlled most aspects of their lives. Thousands of Indigenous children of mixed heritage were removed from their families.[13]
There is an ongoing debate over whether imperial, colonial and Australian governments intended to destroy Indigenous peoples in whole or in part, or whether their intention was to end resistance to settler colonisalism, protect Indigenous people from settler violence and promote the welfare of Indigenous people by assimilating them into British-Australian society.[1] There is also debate over whether the legal definition of genocide sufficiently captures the range of harm inflicted on the Indigenous peoples of Australia.[14] Since 1997 the state, territory and federal governments of Australia have formally apologised for the stolen generations and for other injustices against Indigenous Australians.[15]
- ^ a b Reynolds 2022, p. 138-139, 148-151.
- ^ Kiernan, Madley & Taylor 2023, pp. 1–3.
- ^ Evans 2023, p. 511.
- ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 48.
- ^ Ryan 2023, p. 480.
- ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 30-31.
- ^ McGregor 2012, p. 290: "This chapter contests recent characterizations of post–1945 Aboriginal assimilation policies as genocidal.¹ Far from seeking elimination of the Aborigines, these policies of sociocultural assimilation were the first in more than a century to seriously envisage Aboriginal survival, to seek to ensure survival, and to prescribe strategies predicated upon their survival. Precisely because it envisaged Aboriginal survival, the postwar state turned more resolutely to their governance."
- ^ a b "1301.0 – Year Book Australia, 2002" Archived 16 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 25 January 2002.
- ^ McCalman & Kippen 2013, p. 294.
- ^ Flood 2019, pp. 30–35.
- ^ Flood 2019, pp. 21–22, 37.
- ^ Broome 2019, p. 12.
- ^ "Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families". humanrights.gov.au. April 1997. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
- ^ Haebich 2023, p. 559-560.
- ^ Reynolds 2022, pp. 37–39.