Australia Day or Invasion Day? Timeline of indigenous peoples

Australia Day or Invasion Day? Timeline of indigenous peoples

The Indigenous people in Australia see January 26 as the start of widescale massacres, land grabs and oppression. Indigenous Australians, instead of marking it as Australia Day in homage to British settlers. Aboriginal Australians call it Invasion Day, Survival Day or Day of Mourning.


Less Australians are gravitating towards renaming the country’s well known Australia Day Invasion Day, a recent Roy Morgan poll shows, although more over 2 out of 3 of those surveyed still favor the holiday’s original name!

Australia's Indigenous peoples timeline since 1788

Australia's First Peoples continue to endure a tumultuous relationship with their British colonizers, which dates back to 1788, since Indigenous people still face disproportionate unemployment and poor access to health care to this day


  • 1788, on January 25, British Navy captain Arthur Phillip docks at Sydney with first convicts
  • 1788-1930, Estimated 8,140 Indigenous people killed in 304 massacres by colonial forces
  • 1868, Influx of convicts ends
  • 1924, Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, first activist group, formed
  • 1938, Indigenous men forced to re-enact arrival of first fleet; Aboriginals observe Day of Mourning
  • 1962, Indigenous Australians granted right to vote under Commonwealth Electoral Act
  • 1967, Australians vote to include Aboriginal, Torres peoples in census
  • 1994, on January 26 declared Australia Day to make colonists landing
  • 2008, Kevin Rudd issues first official apology to Aboriginal and Torres peoples

  • How British colonizers invasion affected indigenous Australians

    After colonizers arrived on Sydney's shores, Australia's Indigenous tribes faced massacres, debilitating illness and had their children torn away from them in what is today called the stolen generations.

    Colonization set back Australia's indigenous people as their population decreased by 90% since 1788 to 1900. 60% of deaths linked to diseases carried in by British colonizers, 10 to 33% of indigenous children estimated separated from families from 1910 to 1970. At least 38000 outstanding aboriginal land claims in just NSW.


    sources: TRT World

    Posted Article in Politics
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