it is estimated that 50,000 aboriginal lives were lost during colonisation.

February 11, 2026

It is not accurate to say only 50,000 Aboriginal lives were lost during colonisation ; modern historical research indicates the death toll was far higher and, in many regions, catastrophic.

What historians currently estimate

At the time of first British invasion (1788), estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population commonly range from about 300,000 to over 700,000 people.

By around 1900, some analyses suggest that in many areas up to 90% of the Aboriginal population had been lost due to disease, violence, dispossession and related harms.

One detailed scholarly project mapping large “frontier massacres” alone (attacks that killed 6 or more people) has conservatively documented over 10,000 Aboriginal victims in massacres, stressing this is a minimum and does not include all killings, smaller incidents, disease, starvation or other causes.

These figures show that 50,000 deaths is not a firm or consensus estimate; it is more likely a simplified or outdated classroom factoid than a reflection of current research.

Why numbers are hard to pin down

Early colonial records rarely counted or valued Aboriginal lives, and many killings were hidden or went unrecorded.

Population counts for First Nations people before 20th‑century censuses are indirect estimates rather than precise headcounts.

Deaths came from overlapping causes: introduced disease, deliberate violence, massacres, poisoning, forced removals, loss of land and food sources, and policies that disrupted families and communities.

Because of this, historians usually talk in ranges and percentages (such as a 70–90% collapse of population in some regions) rather than a single neat figure.

Frontier violence in context

The massacre-mapping work has identified hundreds of large-scale killings across the continent, with totals exceeding 10,000 known deaths and likely many more unrecorded.

In those datasets, Aboriginal people were overwhelmingly the victims, while relatively small numbers of colonists were killed in frontier conflicts.

Scholars and many First Nations voices argue that the combined impact of this violence and associated policies amounts to a pattern that borders on, or constitutes, genocide.

An example: one national project documents more than 400 frontier massacres between 1788 and 1930, with over 10,000 Aboriginal victims, yet openly states these numbers are conservative minimums.

How to treat the “50,000” statement

If you see the claim:

“It is estimated that 50,000 Aboriginal lives were lost during colonisation.”

the safest way to treat it is:

As an oversimplified or low-end figure , not a reliable summary of current evidence.

As something that should be updated or contextualised, for example:
- “Modern research suggests far more than 50,000 Aboriginal people died as a result of colonisation, and in many regions populations collapsed by up to 90%.”

Simple HTML table for clarity

html

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Claim or estimate</th>
    <th>What current research suggests</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>“50,000 Aboriginal lives were lost during colonisation.”[web:4]</td>
    <td>Considered a low, oversimplified figure; actual deaths from violence, disease and dispossession were likely far higher.[web:1][web:3][web:7]</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Documented frontier massacre deaths</td>
    <td>Over 10,000 Aboriginal people killed in large massacres alone (6+ victims), acknowledged as a conservative minimum.[web:1][web:5][web:8]</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Overall population impact</td>
    <td>In many areas, up to an estimated 90% reduction in Aboriginal population between 1788 and 1900.[web:3][web:7]</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.