The indigenous people who lived in Australia before the white settlement didn’t have courts or governments. Disputes and punishments where dealt through negotiations in the community. A group who were known as Elders where around to deal with the arguments that could not be settled in the normal community. Elders were usually men who had experience and information about sacred matters and were not considered as judges but as teachers. Clan obligations, insult and neglect of family, unauthorised physical assault, adultery and theft where seen as crimes. Punishments can cover anything from confronting a team of spearmen and simply a small shield as protection to a payment settlement. Normal life was resumed as quickly as possible as there was no jail in indigenous life. Formal battles, ritual punishment and negotiation where used to settle disputes between various Indigenous groups. Great gatherings came out of settling disputes under Indigenous law. Major ceremonies would have trading of food and objects as well as teach each other new songs and dances. People where taught from an early age what was allow in the Indigenous was and what wasn’t. Stories, dance, art, music and other ceremonies where used to teach children about law. Indigenous people ruled their behaviour through The Dreaming, behaviours of all things in the lands, responsibilities and rights where all decided by ancestral beings. What foods that could be eaten where typically dictated by these laws as well as sharing of the food, if laws are broken, family rules, marriage or social events, ceremonies and ritual rules and taking care of sacred sites. When Captain Cook did land in Botany Bay on 17 April 1770 his view was that the Indigenous people did not have a legitimate social organisation. Cook claimed that he “Did not see one inch of cultivated land in the whole colony”. Therefor the British viewed that the Indigenous where not in possession of the land, and so claiming it as “terra nullius” mean that that Australia was landed that belonged to no one, and so by European law legal to claim the land. We know now days that Indigenous people had a very spiritual connection to the land and had as much of a legitimate government, laws and rights as the British. After the British began to settle in Australia in 1788 conflict rose between them and the Indigenous peoples, one of the biggest conflicts being the enormous difference in Aboriginal Law and European Law.