effects of The Frontier on Indigenous Australians
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Due to the European invasion of Australia in 1788, the Aboriginal societies of the continent were affected by the impact of the frontier. When Captain Cook landed in Australia, he declared it as Terra Nullius, and this alone gives great insight as to the acknowledgement of the Aboriginals and their importance. As the need for land increased and settlers began to venture outwards from the settlements, the frontier broadened and the Europeans came into closer contact with the Aboriginals. In doing this, the frontier had many factors that affected the Aboriginal people, such as disease, violence including massacres, and dispossession which led to and effected Aboriginal resistance. This essay will define each of these aspects with reference to ongoing debates over the nature of the frontier by writers of Australian 'history' such as Reynolds, Windschuttle and Manne. This essay will then discuss in detail the effects that all of these factors had on the lives of Aboriginals during the frontier.
The spread of disease throughout Australia and the frontier is an issue of debate amongst many writers. They debate on the number of Aboriginal deaths from diseases, how these diseases spread, if the diseases were spread on purpose, and the actual existence of diseases, such as smallpox. "An epidemic thought to have been smallpox (but which was possibly chicken-pox) killed half of the Gamaraigal people around Sydney in 1789 and then swept down as far as Port Phillip."(Broome, 2001, pp...