Between 1788 and 1900, the Aboriginal Australians’ population was lessened by 90%. Mainly because as the British settlers came, the carried with them European diseases such as chickenpox, smallpox, influenza and measles that were unfamiliar to the Aboriginal Australians. As a result of these diseases being infectious, they spread very quickly and caused may deaths especially among large communities. Loss of land is also affected by the British Empire and by the 1870s all the fertile areas of Australia that belonged to the Aboriginal people had been taken from them and instead granted to the white settlers. Such actions put Aboriginal people who were left with no where to settle nor to hunt food and were already weakened by the recent diseases