A peer-reviewed study estimates that 2.2 million Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lived in Australia before the First Fleet arrived in 1788, compared with earlier estimates of about 250,000. The research says colonisation caused about 2.06 million excess deaths between 1788 and 1861, reducing the population to roughly 7% of its original size.
Why earlier estimates were lower
Earlier continent-wide estimates were based largely on observations made after the effects of colonisation had begun. Social anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people, while later estimates included Noel Butlin’s figures of about 900,000 and then 1.1 million to 1.3 million, and an estimate of 750,000 by John Mulvaney and J. Peter White.
The researchers said historical counts were weakened by lethal disease, frontier and structural violence, the absence of systematic censuses, and changes in who identified or was identified as Aboriginal. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were not properly counted in the Australian census until 1971. Read the context: Research Identifies Four Main Groups of Thinkers Based on Everyday Thoughts.
Key points
- The research was conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures.
- The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Human Behaviour.
- The modelling combined archaeological evidence, climate and land-productivity reconstruction, and genetic data.
What the modelling says about colonisation
The research attributes the excess deaths to smallpox and other diseases, massacres, dispossession, malnutrition and other effects of colonisation. Diseases mentioned in the research include measles, influenza, tuberculosis and typhoid, alongside multiple smallpox epidemics.
Co-author Professor Corey Bradshaw said an 1789 smallpox outbreak alone may have killed as many as 220,000 Aboriginal people. He also argued that massacre databases may substantially undercount killings because those responsible had little incentive to record them.
Why the findings matter
Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt described the result as a demographic catastrophe at the heart of Australia’s history. The authors said the revised estimate could support truth-telling, reconciliation and policymaking addressing intergenerational trauma.
The research also places the population history alongside the survival and recovery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In the 2021 census, 812,728 people identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander; post-census recounts revised that figure to 983,257.
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