The arrival of the First Fleet on Gadigal land at Sydney Cove in 1788 brought around 1,400 convicts, sailors, soldiers and administrators to Australia. Over the next 100 years the British occupied more land, establishing settlements and dispossessing Traditional Owners. What started as a series of precarious British outposts eventually grew to become six self-governing colonies which claimed the entire continent. These colonies competed for migrants from across the British Empire.  

Migrants also came from Europe, the United States, China, South Asia and the Pacific. By the 1880s Australia’s population exceeded 2.25 million people. Over the same period, it is estimated that the Indigenous population fell from approximately half a million to less than 200,000.