The shameful history of persecution of the Aborigines in Australia. The secret history of Australia is a historical conspiracy of silence. Written history has long applied selectivity to what it records, largely ignoring the shameful way that the Aborigines were, and continue to be, treated. Because Aborigines had not cultivated the land they were seen by British colonists as having no proprietorial rights to the land. They had no treaty and therefore no rights under British colonial rule. Little of their resistance is recorded.