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Dutchman Willem Jansz and his ship Duyfken explore the western coast of Cape York Peninsula and were the first Europeans to have contact with Australian Aboriginal people
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Englishman Willian Dampier visits the west coast of Australia
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Anticipating that Captain Cook would discover the great southern land he was issued with special instructions to 'with the consent of the natives take possession of convenient situations in the name of the King... or if you find the land uninhabited Take Possesion for His Majesty'.
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Captain James Cook in the Endeavour entered Botany Bay. After an encounter with local people in Botany Bay Cook wrote that 'all they seem'd to want was us to be gone'
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Captain Arthur Phillip entered Botany Bay. A total of nine ships sailed into Botany Bay over three days.
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Arabanoo is the first Aboriginal person captured by Europeans
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Smallpox decimates the Aboriginal population of Port jackson, Botany Bay and Broken Bay, spreading inland along the coast
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The British Government chose Botany Bay as a penal colony
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Beginning of a six-year period of resistance to white settlement by Aboriginal people in the Hawkesbury and Parramatta areas. Known as the "Black Wars"
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Proclamation stating- His Majesty forbids any act of injustice or wanton cruelty to the Natives, yet the settler is not to suffer his property to be invaded or his existence endangered by them, in preserving which he is to use the effectual, but at the same time the most humane, means of resisting such attacks
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The establishment of a "Native institution at Parramtta" by Governer Macquarie to "civilise, educate and foster habits of industry and decency in the Aborigines"
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Passports or certificates are issued to Aboriginal people "who conduct themselves in a suitable manner" to show they are officially accepted by Europeans
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The Myall Creek Massacre occurs. 12 heavily armed colonists rounded up and brutally kill 28 Aborigines from a group of 40 or 50 people gathered at Henry Dangar's Station, at Myall Creek