History of racist attitudes and fear The Immigration Restriction
Act 1901 (Cth), was the result of the widely accepted view that
the Australian population should remain a 'white society.' These
views, however, stretched back to British settlement in 1788
where the white-settlers formed racist beliefs about the
Aboriginal people. Support for the Act increased during the
latter half of the 19th century when non-white labour was being
used to work in the goldfields, on sugarcane plantations and in
deep sea diving. Feelings of British superiority were spread
through literature which was read to children at school. British
settlers and the Aboriginal people In 1770 when Captain James
Cook claimed the eastern portion of the Australian continent in
the King's name, he was also aware of the land's Aboriginal
inhabitants. The British, however, did not perceive the several
hundred tribes of Aboriginal people who lived there as owners of
the land. They believed that it was a 'terra nullius' (territory
belonging to nobod