The expansion of European settlement in the Americas and Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought settlers into direct conflict with the indigenous peoples who had lived there for thousands of years. In both North America and Australia, the result was the displacement, dispossession and near-destruction of native populations. This chapter examines how and why indigenous peoples were pushed from their lands, and the consequences of that displacement.
The displacement of indigenous peoples was driven by the hunger of European settlers and governments for land. As white settlement spread westwards in North America and across the Australian continent, native peoples were forced off their traditional territories through treaties, warfare, removals and the destruction of the resources on which they depended. The process was justified by ideas of racial superiority and by the belief that indigenous peoples were 'backward' and would inevitably give way to 'civilisation'.
The consequences were devastating. Disease, warfare and forced removal reduced native populations drastically. In North America, the Trail of Tears carried the Cherokee and other nations from their homes to reservations in the west. In Australia, the doctrine of terra nullius treated the land as legally empty, and Aboriginal peoples were pushed from their hunting grounds. The chapter also considers indigenous resistance and survival.
When Europeans first arrived in North America, hundreds of distinct Native American nations lived across the continent, with varied cultures, languages and economies. Some, like the Pueblo peoples of the southwest, were farmers; others, like the Plains peoples, were nomadic hunters of the buffalo; while the Iroquois of the northeast lived in settled villages. Native land was held communally, a concept that clashed with European ideas of private property.
As the thirteen colonies grew and then as the United States expanded westwards, pressure on native lands increased. The government of the United States adopted a policy of negotiating treaties with native nations, but these treaties were repeatedly broken as white settlement advanced. Native peoples were pressured to sell their lands, and when they resisted, they were defeated by military force, their populations already weakened by epidemic disease.
The policy of removal was formalised under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, passed during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Native nations of the southeast, including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole — the 'Five Civilised Tribes' — were forced to move to lands west of the Mississippi. The forced march of the Cherokee in 1838-39, known as the Trail of Tears, was marked by terrible suffering; thousands died on the way.
On the Great Plains, the way of life of native peoples depended on the buffalo (American bison). The buffalo supplied food, clothing, shelter and tools, and was central to the economy and culture of the Plains peoples. In the late nineteenth century, however, the buffalo was hunted almost to extinction.
The destruction of the buffalo was deliberate and devastating. Professional hunters slaughtered millions of buffalo for their hides, while railways and settlers divided and occupied the plains. Some American military leaders encouraged the destruction of the buffalo precisely because it would destroy the food supply and independence of the Plains peoples, forcing them onto reservations.
With the buffalo gone, the independent life of the Plains peoples collapsed. They were confined to reservations — fixed areas of land set aside for them — where they were made dependent on government rations. Their nomadic way of life, their religions and their social organisation were all undermined. The 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee marked the end of armed native resistance on the Plains.
The Aboriginal peoples of Australia are among the oldest living cultures in the world, having inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years. They lived as hunter-gatherers, moving with the seasons, and their relationship to the land was expressed through the Dreaming — the sacred stories of creation that linked people, land and ancestors.
When the British began to settle Australia in 1788, they claimed the land under the doctrine of terra nullius — the legal fiction that the land belonged to no one because the Aborigines did not farm it in the European manner. On this basis, Aboriginal land was taken without treaties or compensation. As sheep runs and farms expanded, Aboriginal peoples were pushed off their lands, and conflict, disease and dispossession devastated their communities.
The impact was catastrophic. Aboriginal populations fell dramatically, and survivors were often forced onto missions and reserves. Children were removed from their families in policies of assimilation. It was only in 1992, in the landmark Mabo decision, that the Australian High Court rejected the doctrine of terra nullius and recognised native title. Since then, there has been a slow process of recognising the rights and histories of Aboriginal peoples.
The discovery of gold brought waves of settlers that accelerated the displacement of indigenous peoples. In North America, the California gold rush of 1848-49 drew hundreds of thousands of prospectors to lands inhabited by native peoples, leading to violent conflicts and massacres. In Australia, the gold rushes of the 1850s similarly drew large numbers of settlers onto Aboriginal lands.
Gold rushes changed the balance of power decisively in favour of the settlers. The influx of population made it impossible for native peoples to maintain their lands, and governments increasingly adopted policies of removal and control. The gold fields also brought settlers into conflict not only with indigenous peoples but with each other, as at the Eureka Stockade in 1854 in Australia, where miners rebelled against government authority.
The indigenous peoples responded to displacement in many ways. Some fought, some adapted, and many preserved their languages, religions and identities in the face of overwhelming pressure. Their survival into the present — as Native Americans in the United States and as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia — is a testimony to their resilience, and their struggles for land rights and recognition continue today.
| Feature | North America | Australia |
|---|---|---|
| Indigenous peoples | Native Americans (hundreds of nations) | Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples |
| Legal basis of land-taking | Treaties, often broken; Indian Removal Act 1830 | Doctrine of terra nullius |
| Famous event | Trail of Tears, 1838-39 | Forced removals to missions and reserves |
| Turning point | Wounded Knee, 1890 | Mabo decision, 1992 |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1830 | Indian Removal Act in the United States |
| 1838-39 | Trail of Tears |
| 1848-49 | California gold rush |
| 1854 | Eureka Stockade in Australia |
| 1890 | Wounded Knee massacre |
| 1992 | Mabo decision recognising native title |
The displacement of indigenous peoples in North America and Australia was one of the great human tragedies of the modern era. Driven by settlers' hunger for land and justified by doctrines of racial superiority, European expansion pushed native peoples from their homes through broken treaties, warfare, forced removal and the destruction of their resources. The Trail of Tears, the near-extinction of the buffalo, the legal fiction of terra nullius and the catastrophes of disease reduced native populations and destroyed ways of life. Yet indigenous peoples survived, adapted and resisted, and in our own time their struggles for land rights and recognition — culminating in decisions like Mabo — have begun to reverse centuries of injustice. Their history remains a powerful reminder of the cost of expansion.