Editing History of Australia (section)

==== Disease ====
The relative isolation of the Indigenous population for some 60,000 years meant that they had little resistance to many introduced diseases. An outbreak of smallpox in April 1789 killed about half the Aboriginal population of the Sydney region. The source of the outbreak is [[Australian history wars|controversial]]; some researchers contend that it originated from contact with Indonesian fisherman in the far north while others argue that it is more likely to have been inadvertently, or deliberately, spread by settlers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=MacKnight|first=Campbell|date=2011|title=The view from Marege': Australian knowledge of Makassar and the impact of the trepang industry across two centuries|journal=Aboriginal History|volume=35|pages=121–43|doi=10.22459/AH.35.2011.06|jstor=24046930|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2014-04-17|title=Was Sydney's smallpox outbreak of 1789 an act of biological warfare against Aboriginal tribes?|url=https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ockhamsrazor/was-sydneys-smallpox-outbreak-an-act-of-biological-warfare/5395050|access-date=2023-12-21|website=ABC listen|language=en-AU}}</ref><ref name="Warren Christopher-2013">{{cite journal|author=Warren Christopher|year=2013|title=Smallpox at Sydney Cove – Who, When, Why|journal=Journal of Australian Studies|volume=38|pages=68–86|doi=10.1080/14443058.2013.849750|s2cid=143644513}}</ref>

There were further smallpox outbreaks devastating Aboriginal populations from the late 1820s (affecting south-eastern Australia), in the early 1860s (travelling inland from the Coburg Peninsula in the north to the Great Australian Bight in the south), and in the late 1860s (from the Kimberley to Geraldton). According to Josphine Flood, the estimated Aboriginal mortality rate from smallpox was 60 per cent on first exposure, 50 per cent in the tropics, and 25 per cent in the arid interior.<ref>Flood, Josephine (2019). pp. 153–55</ref>

Other introduced diseases such as measles, influenza, typhoid and tuberculosis also resulted in high death rates in Aboriginal communities. Butlin estimates that the Aboriginal population in the area of modern Victoria was around 50,000 in 1788 before two smallpox outbreaks reduced it to about 12,500 in 1830. Between 1835 and 1853, the Aboriginal population of Victoria fell from 10,000 to around 2,000. It is estimated that about 60 per cent of these deaths were from introduced diseases, 18 per cent from natural causes and 15 per cent from settler violence.<ref>Broome, Richard (2019). pp. 76–77</ref>

Venereal diseases were also a factor in Indigenous depopulation, reducing Aboriginal fertility rates in south-eastern Australia by an estimated 40 per cent by 1855. By 1890 up to 50 per cent of the Aboriginal population in some regions of Queensland were affected.<ref>Flood, Josephine (2019). p. 156</ref>