New Research Reveals Underestimated Indigenous Population

A recent study has dramatically revised the estimated number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia before colonisation, suggesting that the population was around 2.2 million rather than the previously believed 250,000. This research, conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF), highlights the severe impact of diseases and massacres on Indigenous populations.

Historical Context

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Human Behaviour, indicates that historical population estimates have been inaccurate due to several factors, including:

  • Lethal diseases
  • Frontier and structural violence
  • Lack of systematic censuses

The authors emphasize that rectifying these estimates is crucial for truth-telling and reconciliation efforts in Australia. They caution that the content of the study may be distressing for some readers.

Key Findings

The modelling conducted by the research team revealed that millions of excess deaths occurred due to:

  • Smallpox and other diseases
  • Massacres
  • Dispossession and malnutrition

Prof. Corey Bradshaw, a co-author and global ecology professor at Flinders University, noted that a 1789 smallpox outbreak alone may have killed as many as 220,000 Aboriginal people. He expressed confidence that massacre databases have been underestimated significantly, stating:

“

"If you’re a frontier farmer, a colonialist that came out to a new area, and you were trying to remove people from ‘your’ land, you’re not going to write extensively about how many people you killed to do that."