Aborigines - The First Australians
The Aborigines of Australia are one of the oldest civilizations in the world.  The word Aborigine literally means "from the beginning".  This is what the European settlers called the native Australians in much the same way that settlers called Native Americans Indians.  The native Australians do not call themselves Aborigines, they prefer the term Koori.

Aborigines probably came from Asia 50,000 - 60,000 years ago.  They survived by hunting and gathering fruits and native vegetation. There were many groups of Aborigines in several different territories.  Each territory had it's own language and culture.
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In the 1770's Captain James Cook landed in Australia.  This was probably the first time that an Aborigine had ever seen a European.  They must have been shocked to see such strange cultures, clothes, and their comparatively pale skin.  It was most likely the misunderstanding of one another's culture that led to the first conflicts between the Aborigines and the Europeans.
The Europeans were taking land and animals as well as the culture of the Aborigines. The Aborigines began to fight back, killing some settlers. In return, settlers began destroying the land and killing the wildlife that the Aborigines were dependent on.

The Europeans also brought many new diseases with them when they landed in Australia. Aborigines became ill with diseases such as smallpox.  Within two years smallpox killed nearly half of the Aborigines in the area now known as Sydney.

British colonists claimed that the land was theirs.    The Aborigines were pushed further and further away from their native areas.  They were often driven to live in difficult areas where survival became nearly impossible. Colonists broke up their families, stole their children, and sent them to schools to make them "civilized".

This continued well into the 20th century. While there was once nearly 300,000 Aborigines, there are now only 60,000.   The Aborigines, much like the Native Americans, were second class citizens in their own land.  They did not have the same rights as the white Europeans who had come to settle on their land.  Aborigines did not get the right to vote until 1967.

The Mabo Ruling
When settlers first came they declared that Australia was "terra nullius", which meant that no humans lived on the land.  Based on this assumption, the Europeans claimed Australia as their own.  In 1992 the High Court handed down a ruling called the Mabo Ruling.  This states that the idea of "terra nullius" was wrong and declares that Aborigines were the first humans on the continent. There has been an attempt in recent years to return the land and rights to the Aborigines and to rebuild their culture.  At this time the Aborigines are the poorest, least educated group in Australia.