The British Meet the Aboriginals
Initially, the British were curious of the Aborigines and wanted to assimilate them as a British colony and have them work for the white settlers. Arthur Phillip, who at this point was the governor of the new land, wanted to avoid conflict with the Aborigines and ordered his soldiers to not shoot at them. The Aborigines tried to help the white settlers in their first years because they were unfamiliar with the new land, but mostly tried to stay away from them. However, as the British colony grew, confrontations between the Europeans and the Aborigines became unavoidable. There were conflicts over land, resources and culture, and soon the British turned to violence. The white settlers were consuming many of the resources that the native people depended on for survival, and as a result some Aboriginal people willingly became part of the white settlement and others were left with no choice but to work as servants for the British in order to survive. This fueled the belief of white settlers that indigenous people were incapable of surviving by themselves, and that white people were superior. Additionally, the arrival of the Europeans brought diseases that spread among the Aborigines. All of this led to the Aboriginal population dropping by about 90% over the next century and a half.