The Aboriginal Legacy

Abstract

In order to understand the legacy and contribution of Aboriginal people to the transitional Australian economy up to 1850, we first need to understand the nature of the hunting and gathering processes that supported these people for 50 000 years or more. One core economic issue is how Aboriginal people deal with scarcity, but this chapter also addresses production, allocation and distribution. Butlin emphasised scepticism about the historical record as no colonist ever ‘saw’ Aboriginal people in ‘their pre-contact conditions’ because of the long-range ef ect of smallpox and other diseases (1983, p. 175). In a sense, the main subject of this chapter is the economic prehistory of Aboriginal Australia in the early colonial period. It also describes the first contact between Aboriginal people and the outside world. While such contact did involve some positive aspects, including cultural and economic exchange with the Macassans of Indonesia and Papua New Guineans, the spread of disease and frontier conl ict and the contestation over the possession of the land had catastrophic consequences for the initial inhabitants of this continent.