Genocide of Indigenous Australians

Destruction of Indigenous Australian peoples and their cultures

Genocide of Indigenous Australians

1888 illustration of a massacre by Australian native police in Queensland, Australia

Location| Australia
Date| 1788 - 1970
Target| Aboriginal Australians
Torres Strait Islanders

Attack type

| Genocidal massacre, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, starvation, cultural genocide
Perpetrators| British colonisers
Australian colonial, state and federal governments
Motive| Settler colonialism
White supremacy
Assimilation
Welfare
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Many scholars have argued that the British colonisation of Australia and subsequent actions of various Australian governments and individuals involved acts of genocide against Indigenous Australians.[1] They have used numerous definitions of genocide including the intentional destruction of Indigenous groups as defined in the 1948 United Nations genocide convention, or broader definitions involving cultural genocide, ethnocide and genocidal massacres.[2][3] They have frequently cited the near extermination of Aboriginal Tasmanians,[4] mass killings during the frontier wars,[5] forced removals of Indigenous children from their families (now known as the Stolen Generations),[6] and policies of forced assimilation as genocidal.[7]

When Britain established its first Australian colony in 1788, the Aboriginal population is estimated to have been 300,000 to more than one million people[8][9][10] comprising about 600 tribes or nations and 250 languages with various dialects.[11][12] By 1901 the Aboriginal population had fallen to just over 90,000 people, mainly due to disease, frontier violence and the disruption of traditional society.[8] In the 20th century many Aboriginal people were confined to reserves, missions and institutions, and government regulations controlled most aspects of their lives. Thousands of Indigenous children of mixed heritage were removed from their families.[13]

There is an ongoing debate over whether imperial, colonial and Australian governments intended to destroy Indigenous peoples in whole or in part, or whether their intention was to end resistance to settler colonisalism, protect Indigenous people from settler violence and promote the welfare of Indigenous people by assimilating them into British-Australian society.[1] There is also debate over whether the legal definition of genocide sufficiently captures the range of harm inflicted on the Indigenous peoples of Australia.[14] Since 1997 the state, territory and federal governments of Australia have formally apologised for the stolen generations and for other injustices against Indigenous Australians.[15]

## Historical context

[edit]

Further information: History of Indigenous Australians

When Britain established its first Australian colony in 1788, the Aboriginal population is estimated to have been 300,000 to more than one million people[16][9][10] whose ancestors had inhabited the land for 50,000 to 65,000 years.[17] They were complex hunter-gatherers with diverse economies and societies. There were about 600 tribes or nations and 250 languages with various dialects.[11][12] In the 150 years that followed, the number of Aboriginal Australians fell sharply due to introduced diseases and violent conflict with the colonists that many scholars argue included acts of genocide.[5] When the Australian colonies federated in 1901 and the Commonwealth of Australia was established, the Aboriginal population had fallen to just over 90,000 people.[16]

The Torres Strait Islands were progressively annexed to the British colony of Queensland from 1872. The Torres Strait Islander people first settled their islands around 2,500 years ago. Culturally and linguistically distinct from mainland Aboriginal peoples, they were seafarers and obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. They developed agriculture on some islands and established villages by the 14th century.[18][19]

Following federation, Aboriginal affairs was a state responsibility, although the Commonwealth became responsible for the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory from 1911. By then the Commonwealth and all states except Tasmania had passed legislation establishing Protectors of Aborigines and Protection Boards with extensive powers to regulate the lives of Aboriginal Australians including their ownership of property, place of residence, employment, sexual relationships and custody of their children. Reserves were established and Church groups ran missions providing shelter, food, religious instruction and elementary schooling for Indigenous people.[20]

Some officials argued that the growing number of Aboriginal children of mixed heritage was inconsistent with the white Australia policy. Laws concerning Aboriginal Australians were progressively tightened to make it easier for officials to remove Aboriginal children of mixed descent from their parents and place them in reserves, missions, institutions and employment with white employers.[21] The policy of forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents created the "stolen generations", and the Australian Human Rights Commission concluded in 1997 that this policy constituted genocide.[22]

## Alleged acts of genocide

[edit]

Illustration of the Myall Creek massacre, 1838.[23] New South Wales Mounted Police killing Aboriginal warriors during the Waterloo Creek massacre of 1838 Aboriginal Australians in chains at Wyndham prison, 1902[24]

Scholars have used various definitions of genocide to argue that acts of genocide against Indigenous Australians occurred after 1788. The most widely used definition of genocide is that of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. Under the convention, genocide requires the perpetrator to commit acts with the intention to destroy, wholly or partly, "a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".[2] Genocidal acts include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions on them calculated to destroy them, taking measures to prevent the group bearing children, and forcibly transferring their children to other groups.[2]

Some scholars have used different definitions of genocide[2] or have argued that colonist committed acts not captured by the UN convention which they variously describe as cultural genocide,[25] genocidal massacres, ethnocide or Indigenocide.[3]

Scholars have argued that acts of genocide against Indigenous Australians included:

1. Massacres.[26][5] Particularly in the frontier wars, there were numerous recorded and unrecorded massacres of Indigenous Australians by colonists, government authorities and militias.[27] These acts were often carried out pre-emptively or in retaliation against violent resistance by Indigenous Australians against the occupation of their lands.[28]
2. Dispersal campaigns. Some scholars have described campaigns undertaken in the 1800s aimed at dispersing and displacing indigenous Australians from their lands as a form of genocide.[29] Haebich argues that an example of this was a collaboration between white settlers and government officials in Western Australia to erase the presence of Indigenous Australians from the southwest of the state between 1900 and 1940.[30]
3. Forced removals of children. Some scholars have described various colonial government, state government and federal government policies involving the removal of Indigenous children from their families as genocidal.[31] This practice has been acknowledged by the term "Stolen Generations",[32] whereby Indigenous children of mixed heritage were placed in institutions or forcibly adopted by non-Indigenous families with the intent of assimilating them into white society and discouraging indigenous languages and culture.[33][34][35] These policies were sometimes undertaken by eugenicists such as A. O. Neville who argued that children of mixed ancestry would be better off if raised in white households.[36] In the early 20th century it was commonly thought that Indigenous Australians were dying out.[37] In 1937, Neville asked:[38][page needed]

> "Are we going to have a population of 1,000,000 blacks in the Commonwealth, or are we going to merge them into our white community and eventually forget that there ever were any aborigines in Australia?"

4. Assimilation policies. Other policies were designed to assimilate Indigenous Australians into majority Australian society.[39] In many schools, children were punished for speaking their native language. Additional restrictions were placed on movement, marriage, employment, and the practice of traditional ceremonies and legal systems.[40] Some scholars have argued that these policies, collectively, were an act of cultural genocide. Others have argued that after 1945 these policies were not genocidal in intent but were intended to ensure the survival of indigenous peoples.[7]
5. Ongoing cultural genocidal policies. Some scholars have argued that genocide against Indigenous Australians continues, especially through contemporary cultural destructive policies.[41][42] These scholars are part of a minority opinion in both formal academic scholarship on genocide and in popular discourse.[29]

## Particular instances

[edit]

### Tasmania

[edit]

Main article: Black War

Samuel Thomas Gill's depiction of a night-time punitive raid on an Aboriginal camp

The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population[43] has been described as an act of genocide by scholars including Robert Hughes, James Boyce, Lyndall Ryan, Tom Lawson, Mohamed Adhikari, Benjamin Madley, Ashley Riley Sousa, Rebe Taylor, and Tony Barta.[44][45] The author of the concept of genocide, Raphael Lemkin, considered Tasmania the site of one of the world's clear cases of genocide[46] and Hughes has described the loss of Aboriginal Tasmanians as "the only true genocide in English colonial history".[47] However, other historians – including Henry Reynolds, Richard Broome, and Nicholas Clements – do not agree that the colonial authorities pursued a policy of destroying the Indigenous population, although they do acknowledge that some settlers supported extermination.[48][49]

As early as 1852 John West's History of Tasmania portrayed the obliteration of Tasmania's Aboriginal people as an example of "systematic massacre"[50] and in the 1979 High Court case of Coe v Commonwealth of Australia, judge Lionel Murphy observed that Aboriginal people did not give up their land peacefully and that they were killed or forcibly removed from their land "in what amounted to attempted (and in Tasmania almost complete) genocide".[51]

Boyce has claimed that the April 1828 "Proclamation Separating the Aborigines from the White Inhabitants" sanctioned force against Aboriginal people "for no other reason than that they were Aboriginal". However, as Reynolds, Broome and Clements point out, there was open warfare at the time.[48][49] Boyce describes the decision to remove all Aboriginal Tasmanians after 1832—by which time they had given up their fight against white colonists—as an extreme policy position. He concludes: "The colonial government from 1832 to 1838 ethnically cleansed the western half of Van Diemen's Land and then callously left the exiled people to their fate."[52]

Historian Henry Reynolds says there was a widespread call from settlers during the frontier wars for the "extirpation" or "extermination" of the Aboriginal people.[53] But he has contended that the British government acted as a source of restraint on settlers' actions. Reynolds says there is no evidence the British government deliberately planned the wholesale destruction of indigenous Tasmanians—a November 1830 letter to Arthur by Sir George Murray warned that the extinction of the race would leave "an indelible stain upon the character of the British Government"[54]—and therefore what eventuated does not meet the definition of genocide codified in the 1948 United Nations convention. He says Arthur was determined to defeat the Aboriginal people and take their land, but believes there is little evidence he had aims beyond that objective and wished to destroy the Tasmanian race.[55] In contrast to Reynolds' argument, historian Lyndall Ryan, based on a sample of massacres taking place in the Meander River region in June 1827, concludes that massacres of Aboriginal Tasmanians by white settlers were likely part of an organised process and were sanctioned by government authorities.[56][page needed]

Clements accepts Reynolds' argument but also exonerates the colonists themselves of the charge of genocide. He says that unlike genocidal determinations by Nazis against Jews in World War II, Hutus against Tutsis in Rwanda and Ottomans against Armenians in present-day Turkey, which were carried out for ideological reasons, Tasmanian settlers participated in violence largely out of revenge and self-preservation. He adds: "Even those who were motivated by sex or morbid thrillseeking lacked any ideological impetus to exterminate the natives." He also argues that while genocides are inflicted on defeated, captive or otherwise vulnerable minorities, Tasmanian natives appeared as a "capable and terrifying enemy" to colonists and were killed in the context of a war in which both sides killed noncombatants.[57]

Lawson, in a critique of Reynolds' stand, argues that genocide was the inevitable outcome of a set of British policies to colonise Van Diemen's Land.[58] He says the British government endorsed the use of partitioning and "absolute force" against Tasmanians, approved Robinson's "Friendly Mission" and colluded in transforming that mission into a campaign of ethnic cleansing from 1832. He says that once on Flinders Island, indigenous peoples were taught to farmland like Europeans and worship God like Europeans and concludes: "The campaign of transformation enacted on Flinders Island amounted to cultural genocide."[59]

### Queensland

[edit]

Main article: Australian frontier wars § Queensland

Queensland represents the single bloodiest colonial frontier in Australia.[60][page needed][61][page needed] Thus the records of Queensland document the most frequent reports of shootings and massacres of indigenous people and the most disreputable frontier police force.[62] Thus some sources have characterised these events as a "Queensland Aboriginal genocide".[63][64][page needed] In 2009 professor Raymond Evans calculated the Indigenous fatalities caused by the Queensland Native Police Force alone as no less than 24,000.[65][page needed]

## Scholarly and popular debate

[edit]

### Scholarly debate

[edit]

Further information: Australian history wars § Genocide debate

There is an ongoing scholarly debate about whether there were acts of genocide in Australia and, if so, the form they took.[66] Robert van Krieken argues that the debate often involves how broadly the concept of genocide ought to be understood. Narrow conceptions of genocide, such as that in the UN convention, are restricted to killing and other forms of physical elimination, whereas the broader definition includes other ways a human group can be destroyed, including the destruction of cultural identity.[67]

Scholars are also divided over whether colonists and Australian governments acted with an intention to destroy Indigenous peoples in whole or in part and therefore committed genocide as defined by the UN convention. Reynolds argues that while some settlers and colonial officials talked of extermination of Aboriginal people in the context of the frontier wars, this was not official policy and killing of Aboriginal groups ended once their violent resistance to colonisation ended.[68] Barta, however, argues that conflict between an expanding settlement and traditional owners of the land established "relations of genocide" and that a genocidal intent can be inferred from the actions of government agents which were contrary to declared policy.[69]

Many scholars argue that the actions taken against Indigenous Australians were not systematic or intentional like other genocidal events.[70][page needed] Others also argue that the high death toll among Indigenous Australians following colonisation was mainly a result of the introduction of diseases, and that deliberate acts of violence and the effects of dispossession did not meet the legal definition of genocide.[71][72] Lawyer Michael Legge, however, concludes: "Australia's record on Indigenous Australians is at best ambiguous, and at worst an example of genocide by eugenics".[73][page needed]

### Popular debate

[edit]

Further information: Denial of genocides of Indigenous peoples § Australia

The publication of the Bringing Them Home report in 1997 and Keith Windschuttle's The Fabrication of Aboriginal History (2002) led to a heated public debate on genocide and frontier violence.[74][75] Historians and commentators such as Windschuttle accused those who argued that Indigenous Australians had survived genocide of fabricating evidence and writing "black armband" history that claimed that "much of Australian history was a disgrace".[76][74] Others argue that since the violence and dispossession happened in the past, it has no relevance to the current state of affairs.[77][78] Proponents of the genocide thesis, in turn, often accused their critics of denialism and ignoring the evidence of frontier massacres, the violent dispossession of Indigenous Australians of their land, and the systematic removal of Aboriginal children from their families.[74][79][80]

## Legacy and recognition

[edit]

Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd on screen in Federation Square, Melbourne, apologising to the stolen generations in 2008.

The recognition of historical injustices in Australia has been relatively slow.[81][82] A watershed moment was the Bringing Them Home report, which contained the findings of the federal government inquiry into the removal of thousands of Aboriginal children.[32] The report argued that the Commonwealth Government was guilty of the crime of genocide; under the United Nations Convention defining genocide as "intentional destruction of a racial, religious, national, or ethnic group".[83]

Since 1998 Australia has acknowledged the harms caused to Indigenous Australians in a National Sorry Day on May 26.[84] In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Australian Parliament, deliver an apology to the stolen generations and to all Indigenous Australians who had suffered because of the unjust government policies of the past. However, the apology did not specifically acknowledge genocide.[85]

In 2025, the Yoorrook Justice Commission, set up by the Victoria State Government and the First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria concluded that from British colonisation in 1834, the indigenous peoples of Victoria had been subjected to genocide.[86][87]

## See also

[edit]

* Karuwali
* List of massacres of Indigenous Australians
* Mass poisonings of Aboriginal Australians

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Reynolds 2022, pp. 138–139, 148–151.
2. ^ a b c d Kiernan, Madley & Taylor 2023, pp. 1–3.
3. ^ a b Evans 2023, p. 511.
4. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 48.
5. ^ a b c Ryan 2023, p. 480.
6. ^ Reynolds 2001, pp. 30–31.
7. ^ a b McGregor 2012, p. 290: "This chapter contests recent characterizations of post–1945 Aboriginal assimilation policies as genocidal.¹ Far from seeking elimination of the Aborigines, these policies of sociocultural assimilation were the first in more than a century to seriously envisage Aboriginal survival, to seek to ensure survival, and to prescribe strategies predicated upon their survival. Precisely because it envisaged Aboriginal survival, the postwar state turned more resolutely to their governance."
8. ^ a b "1301.0 – Year Book Australia, 2002" Archived 16 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 25 January 2002.
9. ^ a b McCalman & Kippen 2013, p. 294.
10. ^ a b Flood 2019, pp. 30–35.
11. ^ a b Flood 2019, pp. 21–22, 37.
12. ^ a b Broome 2019, p. 12.
13. ^ "Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families". humanrights.gov.au. April 1997. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
14. ^ Haebich 2023, pp. 559–560.
15. ^ Reynolds 2022, pp. 37–39.
16. ^ a b "1301.0 – Year Book Australia, 2002" Archived 16 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 25 January 2002.
17. ^

* Veth & O'Connor 2013, p. 19
* Clarkson et al. 2017
* Williams et al. 2021
* McCutchan & Campbell 2023

18. ^ Veth & O'Connor 2013, pp. 34–35.
19. ^ Flood 2019, pp. 198–199.
20. ^ Haebich & Kinnane 2013, pp. 333–334.
21. ^ Broome 2019, pp. 195–198.
22. ^ "Bringing them Home Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families". humanrights.gov.au. April 1997. Archived from the original on 4 March 2025. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
23. ^ "Exploring Democracy. Myall Creek massacre". Museum of Australian Democracy. 9 June 2021. Archived from the original on 17 August 2022.
24. ^ "Australian Aborigines in chains at Wyndham prison, 1902". Rare Historical Photos. 28 December 2015. Archived from the original on 22 July 2020.
25. ^ Reynolds 2022, p. 156.
26. ^ "New evidence reveals Aboriginal massacres committed on extensive scale". University of Newcastle, Australia. 1 January 2020. Archived from the original on 8 May 2025. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
27. ^ Kociumbas 2012, p. 90.
28. ^ Moses 2012, pp. 13–14.
29. ^ a b Crook & Short 2019, p. 145: "This chapter examines the full range of literature on aboriginal participation in the Australian economy. Most of the scholarly works that consider the question of genocide in Australia focus on the "dispersal" extermination campaigns of the 1800s and/or the issue of the "Stolen Generations." While writers like Tony Barta and Patrick Wolfe imply that genocidal structuring dynamics are at work in Australia, theirs is a distinct minority opinion in genocide scholarship and popular discourse."
30. ^ Haebich 2012, p. 267.
31. ^ Cassidy 2009, p. 114.
32. ^ a b Perry 1997.
33. ^ Manne 2012, p. 218.
34. ^ Haebich 2012, p. 274.
35. ^ Cruickshank & McKinnon 2023, pp. 93–94.
36. ^ Haebich 2023, p. 558.
37. ^ Manne 2012, pp. 219–220.
38. ^ Savage 2013.
39. ^ Moses 2012, p. 8.
40. ^ Haebich 2012, pp. 271–272.
41. ^ Short 2010.
42. ^ Klein 2019.
43. ^ Taylor 2023, pp. 481–484.
44. ^ Hughes 1987, p. 120; Boyce 2010, p. 296; Ryan 2012, pp. xix, 215; Lawson 2014, pp. xvii, 2, 20; Adhikari 2022, p. xxix; Madley 2004; Sousa 2004; Taylor 2023, p. 484; Barta 2023, p. 51
45. ^ Shipway 2017, pp. 4–6.
46. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 50.
47. ^ Hughes 1987, p. 120.
48. ^ a b Broome 2019, p. 44.
49. ^ a b Clements 2013, pp. 110–112.
50. ^ Lawson 2014, p. 8.
51. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 29.
52. ^ Boyce 2010, pp. 264, 296.
53. ^ Reynolds 2001, pp. 52–54.
54. ^ Reynolds 2001, p. 59.
55. ^ Lawson 2014, pp. 15, 78, 85.
56. ^ Ryan 2008.
57. ^ Clements 2014, pp. 56–58.
58. ^ Lawson 2014, p. 14.
59. ^ Lawson 2014, pp. 51, 205.
60. ^ Loos 1970.
61. ^ Loos 1976.
62. ^ Ørsted-Jensen 2011.
63. ^

* Gibbons, Ray. "The Partial Case for Queensland Genocide". Academia. Archived from the original on 27 December 2023.
* Baldry, McKeon & McDougal 2015[page needed]
* Palmer 1998[page needed]

64. ^ Tatz 2006.
65. ^ Evans 2011.
66. ^ Reynolds 2022, p. 148.
67. ^ van Krieken 2008, p. 128.
68. ^ Reynolds 2022, pp. 29, 117–118, 142, 149–155.
69. ^ Barta 2023, pp. 48, 62–65.
70. ^ Moses 2003.
71. ^ Moses 2004, pp. 15, 16.
72. ^ Havemann 2003.
73. ^ Legg 2002.
74. ^ a b c Broome 2019, pp. 310–316.
75. ^ Attwood, Bain (2001). "The Stolen Generations and genocide: Robert Manne's". Aboriginal History. 25. ANU Press: 163–172\. ISSN 0314-8769. JSTOR 45135477. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
76. ^ McKenna, Mark (10 November 1997). "Different Perspectives on Black Armband History". Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
77. ^ Davidson, Helen (22 September 2014). "John Howard: there was no genocide against Indigenous Australians". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 31 May 2025. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
78. ^ Tatz 1999, pp. 315–352.
79. ^ Tatz 1999.
80. ^ Ryan 2023, pp. 469–474.
81. ^ Vines 2023.
82. ^ Falls & Anderson 2022.
83. ^ Manne 2012, p. 217: "Bringing Them Home, the findings of the federal government inquiry into the removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their mothers, families, and communities in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, was published in 1997. It argued that the Commonwealth government and the governments of several Australian states were guilty of the crime of genocide."
84. ^ Carlson 2022.
85. ^ Broome 2019, pp. 347–349.
86. ^ Lam, Lana (2 July 2025). "Inquiry finds British committed genocide on Indigenous Australians". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2 July 2025.
87. ^ Muzaffar, Maroosha (3 July 2025). "Australia's first truth-telling inquiry finds British committed genocide of Indigenous people". The Independent. Archived from the original on 3 July 2025.

### Works cited

[edit]

* Adhikari, Mohamed (25 July 2022). Destroying to Replace: Settler Genocides of Indigenous Peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1647920548.
* Baldry, Hannah; McKeon, Alisa; McDougal, Scott (2015). "Queensland's Frontier Killing Times – Facing Up to Genocide". QUT Law Review. 15 (1): 92–113\. doi:10.5204/qutlr.v15i1.583. ISSN 2201-7275.
* Barta, Tony (2008). "Sorry, and not sorry, in Australia: how the apology to the stolen generations buried a history of genocide". Journal of Genocide Research. 10 (2): 201–214\. doi:10.1080/14623520802065438. S2CID 73078524.
* Barta, Tony (2023). "A Very British Genocide: Acknowledgement of Indigenous Destruction in the Founding of Australia and New Zealand". In Kiernan, Ben; Blackhawk, Ned; Madley, Benjamin; Taylor, Rebe (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Vol. II: Genocide in the Indigenous, Early Modern and Imperial Worlds, from c.1535 to World War One. Cambridge University Press. pp. 46–68\. doi:10.1017/9781108765480. ISBN 978-1-108-48643-9.
* Boyce, James (2010). Van Diemen's Land. Melbourne: Black Inc. ISBN 978-1-86395-491-4.
* Broome, Richard (2019). Aboriginal Australians: a history since 1788 (5th ed.). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760528218.
* Carlson, Bronwyn (26 May 2022). "National Sorry Day is a day to commemorate those taken. But 'sorry' is not enough – we need action". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 13 November 2024. Retrieved 11 November 2024.
* Cassidy, Julie (2009). "Unhelpful and inappropriate?: The question of genocide and the stolen generations" (PDF). Australian Indigenous Law Review. 13 (1). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
* Clarkson, Chris; Jacobs, Zenobia; et al. (19 July 2017). "Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago" (PDF). Nature. 547 (7663): 306–310\. Bibcode:2017Natur.547..306C. doi:10.1038/nature22968. hdl:2440/107043. PMID 28726833. S2CID 205257212.
* Clements, Nicholas (2013). Frontier Conflict in Van Diemen's Land (PDF) (PhD). University of Tasmania.
* Clements, Nicholas (2014). The Black War. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-70225-006-4.
* Crook, Martin; Short, Damien (2019). "A political economy of genocide in Australia: The architecture of dispossession then and now". Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781351214100-7. ISBN 978-1-351-21410-0.
* Cruickshank, Joanna; McKinnon, Crystal (2023). "Australia's Stolen Generations, 1914–2021". In Kiernan, Ben; Lower, Wendy; Naimark, Norman; Straus, Scott (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Vol. III: Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914–2020\. Cambridge University Press. pp. 93–117\. doi:10.1017/9781108767118. ISBN 978-1-108-48707-8.
* Evans, Raymond (3 October 2011). "The country has another past: Queensland and the History Wars". In Peters-Little, Frances; Curthoys, Ann; Docker, John (eds.). Passionate Histories: Myth, memory and Indigenous Australia. Aboriginal History Monograph. Vol. 21\. ANU Press. doi:10.22459/PH.09.2010. ISBN 978-1-921666-64-3.
* Evans, Raymond (2012). ""Pigmentia": Racial Fears and White Australia". In Moses, A. Dirk (ed.). Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History. Vol. 6\. Berghahn Books. pp. 103–124\. doi:10.2307/j.ctt9qdg7m.9. ISBN 9781782381693. JSTOR j.ctt9qdg7m.9.
* Evans, Raymond (2023). "Genocide in Northern Australia, 1824-1928". In Kiernan, Ben; Blackhawk, Ned; Madley, Benjamin; Taylor, Rebe (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Vol. II: Genocide in the Indigenous, Early Modern and Imperial Worlds, from c.1535 to World War One. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108765480. ISBN 978-1-108-48643-9.
* Falls, Thomas; Anderson, Joel (6 March 2022). "Attitudes towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia: a systematic review". Australian Journal of Psychology. 74 (1). Informa UK Limited. doi:10.1080/00049530.2022.2039043. ISSN 0004-9530.
* Flood, Josephine (2019). The Original Australians: The Story of the Aboriginal People (2nd ed.). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 9781760527075.
* Haebich, Anna (1992). For Their Own Good: Aborigines and Government in the South West of Western Australia, 1900–1940 (2nd ed.). Nedlands, Western Australia.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
* Haebich, Anna (2012). ""Clearing the Wheat Belt": Erasing the Indigenous Presence in the Southwest of Western Australia". In Moses, A. Dirk (ed.). Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History. Vol. 6\. Berghahn Books. pp. 267–289\. doi:10.2307/j.ctt9qdg7m.16. ISBN 9781782381693. JSTOR j.ctt9qdg7m.16.
* Haebich, Anna; Kinnane, Steve (2013). "Indigenous Australia". In Bashford, Alison; Macintyre, Stuart (eds.). The Cambridge History of Australia. Vol. 2: The Commonwealth of Australia. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107011540.
* Haebich, Anna (2023). "Genocide and the Forcible Removal of Aboriginal Children in Australia, 1800–1920". In Kiernan, Ben; Blackhawk, Ned; Madley, Benjamin; Taylor, Rebe (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Vol. II: Genocide in the Indigenous, Early Modern and Imperial Worlds, from c.1535 to World War One. Cambridge University Press. pp. 537–561\. doi:10.1017/9781108765480. ISBN 978-1-108-48643-9.
* Havemann, Paul (8 August 2003). "Denial, Modernity and Exclusion: Indigenous Placelessness in Australia" [2005] MqLawJl 4; (2005) 5 Maquarie Law Journal 57". Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII). Retrieved 10 November 2024.
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* Klein, Elise (2019). "Settler colonialism in Australia and the cashless debit card". Social Policy & Administration. 54 (2): 265–277\. doi:10.1111/spol.12576.
* Kociumbas, Jan (2012). "Genocide and Modernity in Colonial Australia, 1788-1850". In Moses, A. Dirk (ed.). Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History. Vol. 6\. Berghahn Books. pp. 77–102\. doi:10.2307/j.ctt9qdg7m.8. ISBN 9781782381693. JSTOR j.ctt9qdg7m.8.
* Lawson, Tom (2014). The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania. London: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-78076-626-3.
* Legg, Michael (2002). "Indigenous Australians and International Law: Racial Discrimination, Genocide and Reparations". Berkeley Journal of International Law. doi:10.15779/Z38KM0Q. S2CID 152433767.
* Loos, Noel (1970). Frontier conflict in the Bowen district 1861–1874 (other). James Cook University of North Queensland. doi:10.25903/mmrc-5e46. Archived from the original on 9 July 2024. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
* Loos, Noel (1976). Aboriginal-European relations in North Queensland, 1861–1897 (PhD). James Cook University. Archived from the original on 6 June 2024. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
* Madley, Benjamin (2004). "Patterns of frontier genocide 1803–1910: the aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia". Journal of Genocide Research. 6 (2): 167–192\. doi:10.1080/1462352042000225930. S2CID 145079658.
* Manne, Robert (2012). "Aboriginal Child Removal and the Question of Genocide, 1900–1940". In Moses, A. Dirk (ed.). Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History. Vol. 6\. Berghahn Books. pp. 217–243\. doi:10.2307/j.ctt9qdg7m.14. ISBN 9781782381693. JSTOR j.ctt9qdg7m.14.
* McCalman, Janet; Kippen, Rebecca (2013). "Population and health". In Bashford, Alison; Macintyre, Stuart (eds.). The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume 1, Indigenous and Colonial Australia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-1070-1153-3.
* McCutchan, Ellen; Campbell, David (8 September 2023). "Gerard Rennick says there's no archaeological evidence to prove Indigenous Australians have been here for 60,000 years. What are the facts?". ABC News, RMIT factcheck. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
* McGregor, Russell (2012). "Governance, Not Genocide: Aboriginal Assimilation in the Postwar Era". In Moses, A. Dirk (ed.). Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History. Vol. 6\. Berghahn Books. pp. 290–311\. doi:10.2307/j.ctt9qdg7m.17. ISBN 9781782381693. JSTOR j.ctt9qdg7m.17.
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* v
* t
* e

Genocide

Genocides
(chronological list)|

Before 1490

* Destruction of Carthage (146 BCE)
* Asiatic Vespers (88 BCE)
* Gauls (50s BCE)
* Eburones
* Bar Kokhba (132–136)
* Ancestral Puebloans (800s)
* Harrying of the North (1069–1070)
* Mongol conquests (1200s–1360s)
* Cathars (1209–1229)
* Mongols in the Delhi Sultanate (1311)
* Timur (1393–1394)
* Guanches (1402–1496)

1490 to 1912

* Taíno (1493–1550)
* Jaragua massacre (1503)
* Ainu (1500s–)
* Indigenous peoples in Brazil
* 11th Parallel massacre (1963)
* Tanaru (1970s–2009)
* Helmet massacre (1988)
* Akuntsu (1990)
* Haximu (1993)
* Aztecs (1521)
* Kashmiri Shias (1548–1872)
* Huguenots (1572)
* Kalinago (1626)
* Indigenous peoples in the United States
* Pequots (1636–1638)
* Beaver Wars (1609–1701)
* Huron
* Sullivan Expedition (1779)
* Indian removal (1830–1847)
* Trail of Tears (1830–1850)
* California (1846–1873)
* Dakota (1862)
* Osage Indian murders (1918–1931)
* Cultural genocide
* Indigenous peoples in Canada
* Beaver Wars (1609–1701)
* Beothuk (1700s–1800s)
* Residential school system (1874–1996)
* Sixties Scoop (1951–1985)
* Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
* Jews in the Cossack Hetmanate (1648–1657)
* 1740 Batavia massacre (1740)
* Great Gypsy Round-up (1749)
* Dzungars (1750s)
* Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II (1780–1783)
* Chechens (1785–2017)
* French Hatians (1804)
* Meiteis (1819–1826)
* Indigenous peoples in Australia
* Black War (1825–1832)
* Stolen Generations (1869–1977)
* Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
* Pacification of Algeria (1830–1875)
* El Ouffia
* Charrúa (1831)
* Moriori (1835)
* Assyrians in Hakkari (1843–1846)
* Manchus (1850–1864)
* Circassians (1860s)
* Mapuche (1870s–1884)
* Indigenous peoples in Putumayo (1879–1913)
* Congolese (1885–1908)
* Hazaras (1888–1893)
* Selknam (1890s–1900s)
* Hamidian massacres (1894–1896)
* Herero and Nama (1904–1907)
* Ukame (1905–1907)
* Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction
* Albanians in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913)

1913 to 1945

* Late Ottoman genocides
* Greeks (1913–1923)
* Pontic Greeks
* Thracian Bulgarians (1913)
* Assyrians (1915–1919)
* Armenians (1915–1917)
* Christians in Diyarbekir (1915)
* Kurds (1916–1934)
* Indigenous peoples in Venezuela
* Pemon
* Kyrgyz (1916–1917)
* Jews during the Russian Civil War (1917–1920)
* Russian White Terror
* Cossacks (1919–1933)
* Ingrian Finns (1920s–1930s)
* Volga Tatars and Germans (1921–1922)
* Kantō Massacre (1923)
* Napalpí massacre (1924)
* Swiss Yenish, Sinti, and Manouche (1926–1973)
* Japanese war crimes in the Pacific War
* Manchukuo (1931–1945)
* Nanjing Massacre (1937–1938)
* Three Alls policy (1940–1942)
* Sook Ching (1942)
* Nanshitou massacre (1942–1945)
* Libyan Arabs (1929–1934)
* Kazakhs (1930–1933)
* La Matanza (1932)
* Holodomor (1932–1933)
* Simele massacre (1933)
* Romani Holocaust (1935–1945)
* Spanish White Terror (1936–1947)
* Yekatit 12 (1937)
* Polish Operation (1937–1938)
* Alevi Kurds (1937–1938)
* Parsley massacre (1937)
* Generalplan Ost (1939–1945)
* Poland
* Baltic lands
* Croatia
* Czech lands
* Ukraine
* Hunger Plan
* The Holocaust (1941–1945)
* German atrocities committed against Soviet POWs (1941–1945)
* Serbs in Croatia (1941–1945)
* Muslims and Croats in Serbia (1941–1945)
* Volhynian and Eastern Galician Poles (1943–1945)
* Chechens and Ingush (1944–1948)
* Crimean Tatars (1944–1948)

1946 to 1999

* Hyderabadi Muslims (1948)
* Indigenous peoples in Paraguay (1956–1989)
* Maya (1962–1996)
* Arab and Indian Zanzibaris (1964)
* 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom (1966)
* Biafra (1966–1970)
* Feyli Kurds (1970–2003)
* Bangladesh (1971)
* Acholi and Lango (1972–1979)
* Burundi
* 1972
* 1993
* East Timor (1974–1999)
* Cambodian (1975–1979)
* Jummas (1977–1997)
* Afghans (1979–1989)
* Baganda (1981–1985)
* 1982 Hama massacre (1982)
* Sabra and Shatila massacre (1982)
* Sri Lankan Tamils (1983–2009)
* Gukurahundi (1983–1987)
* Anfal (1986–1989)
* Isaaq (1987–1989)
* National Population Program (1987–2002)
* Amhara (1990–)
* Ahwaris (1991–2003)
* Bosnian (1992–1995)
* Srebrenica massacre
* Rwandan (1994)
* Hutus during the First Congo War (1996–1997)

21st century

* Effacer le tableau (2002–2003)
* Darfur (2003–)
* Masalit massacres
* Iraqi Sunni Arabs (2003–)
* Southern Kaduna (2011–2023)
* Iraqi Turkmen (2014–2017)
* Yazidis (2014–2017)
* Shias under ISIS (2014–)
* Christians under ISIS (2014–)
* Rohingyas, Kachins, and Burmese Muslims (2017–)
* Yanomami (2019–2023)
* Tigrayans, Kunamas, and Irobs (2020–2022)
* Bucha massacre (2022)
* Gazans (2023–)

Terms|

* Cultural genocide
* Democide
* Autogenocide
* Domicide
* Ecocide
* Ethnocide
* Eugenics
* Gendercide
* Androcide
* Transgender genocide
* Genocide of indigenous peoples
* Memoricide
* Policide
* Politicide
* Classicide
* Eliticide
* Utilitarian genocide
* War of annihilation

Methods|

* Cultural genocide
* Death marches
* Death squades
* Ethnic cleansing
* Extermination camp
* Forced adoption
* Forced assimilation
* Forced conversion
* Incitement
* Massacres
* Killing Fields
* Pogroms
* Mass killing
* Rape
* Settler colonialism
* Urbicide

Denial|

* The Holocaust
* Trivialization
* Armenian
* Japanese history textbook controversies
* Nanjing
* Serbian
* Bosnian
* Rwandan
* Holodomor
* Cambodian
* Indigenous

Issues|

* Definitions
* Names of the Holocaust
* Terminology of the Armenian genocide
* Holocaust terminology
* Genocide law
* Prevention
* Effects on young survivors
* Politics of recognition
* Justification
* Mass killings under communist regimes
* Anti-communist mass killings

Legal proceedings|

Holocaust trials (1943–2022)

* Krasnodar trial (1943)
* Kharkov trial (1943)
* Épuration légale (1944–1951)
* Majdanek trials (1944–1989)
* Chełmno trials (1945–2001)
* Dachau trials (1945–1947)
* Belsen trials (1945–1948)
* Euthanasia trials (1945–1949)
* Nuremberg trial (1945–1946)
* Minsk trial (1945–1946)
* Riga trial (1946)
* Stutthof trials (1946–1947)
* Post–World War II Romanian war crime trials (1946–1953)
* Supreme National Tribunal (1946–1948)
* Hamburg Ravensbrück trials (1946–1948)
* Nuremberg Military Tribunals (1946–1949)
* Erich von Manstein (1949)
* Ulm Einsatzkommando trial (1958)
* War crimes trials in Soviet Estonia (1961–1962)
* Eichmann trial (1961)
* Belzec trial (1963–1965)
* Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (1963–1989)
* Treblinka trials (1964–1970)
* Sobibor trial (1965–1966)
* Fedorenko trial (1986)
* Finta trial (1994)

20th century

* Budak trial (1945)
* International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946–1948)
* Belgrade Process (1946)
* Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal (1946–1948)
* Bosnian genocide case (1993–2007)
* International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1993–2017)
* Slobodan Milošević (2002–2006)
* Radovan Karadžić (2008–2016)
* Ratko Mladić (2011–2017)
* Trials of the Derg members (1994–2008)
* International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1994–2015)
* Khmer Rouge Tribunal (1997–2022)
* Croatia–Serbia genocide case (1999–2015)

21st century

* International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur (2005–)
* Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Sri Lanka (2010–2023)
* International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh (2012–)
* Mohammad Salimullah v. Union of India (2017)
* Rohingya genocide case (2019–)
* International Criminal Court investigation in Bangladesh/Myanmar (2019–)
* Uyghur Tribunal (2020–2021)
* International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine (2022–)
* Ukraine v. Russian Federation (2022–)
* South Africa v. Israel (2023–)
* Defense for Children International – Palestine et al v. Biden et al (2023–2024)
* Nicaragua v. Germany (2024)

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