
Tom C. answered 08/24/20
Bachelor of Secondary Education - History/Social Studies
Hi Hhs,
The colonisation of Australia affected the Indigenous peoples in universally negative ways.
Indigenous Australians, who practiced the worlds oldest continually operating culture, saw their land, language and culture all stripped away from them. The British declared the entire Australia continent ‘tera nullius’ which means empty land. This allowed them to ‘legally’ acquire the entire continent for Britain. This also stripped Indigenous people of their rights to the land under the laws of the new colony. This led to Indigenous Australians being massacred and forcefully relocated, in many cases to areas far from the traditional national territory. They were also forced to drop their native languages and learn English, this further separated Indigenous people from their cultural heritage. Racist laws were enacted to ensure that Indigenous Australians were not able to participate in society on an equal footing with Whites. Those had the effect of disrupting 60,000+ years of culture in a short time.
Indigenous people began to suffer from the same problems that many colonised populations have. With the loss of traditional ways of life, land and culture and the difficulties of living in the face of racist government policies Indigenous people today are more likely to find themselves unemployed, in prison or below the poverty line than non-Indigenous Australians. Even today Indigenous Australians face massive institutional and everyday racism in housing, employment, and policing.
So in short, the affect was negative. Indigenous Australians lost land, language, culture, their rights and were relegated to second class citizens - these effects are still being felt today.
Hope this helps.