Attempts by the British government to control convict colonies and prevent violence between Aboriginal people and settlers instead led to the systematic destruction of historic cultures.
This was the evidence provided to the Yoorrook Commission, which is holding hearings into injustices against Indigenous Victorians related to land, sky and waters.
The commission on Wednesday delved into the topics of protection, segregation and assimilation practices, with evidence from University of Tasmania historian Henry Reynolds and University of Melbourne anthropologist Marcia Langton.
During the 15-year period from the mid-1830s to the 1850s, convict settlers from NSW and Tasmania made their way to what is now Victoria.
"Before the gold rushes this was the great story of Australian history, that is the squatting rush," Professor Reynolds said.
At the time, the NSW government believed it had to contain the spread of settlement down south on land they saw as belonging to the crown.
Despite a 300km boundary around Sydney being created, that didn't stop the migration, which by the 1840s resulted in 700 stations established and five to six million sheep gone out into the wilderness.
"Victoria was occupied by renegades, by squatters, which the government had no control whatsoever," Prof Reynolds said.
The rapid spread into western NSW, down to Victoria and into South Australia was also a concern for the government who saw increasing violence and killings of Indigenous people whose lands were being taken over.
Back home, humanitarians had become the most significant force in British politics which saw the abolition of slavery in 1833 and had turned their attention to the treatment of Indigenous people in the empire.
"This was probably one of the most tragic periods for First Nations people, both because of the speed of the occupation, and undoubtedly the amount of violence and killing that took place," Prof Reynolds said.
To protect Indigenous populations from likely "extermination", the government established 'protectors' in reserves and missions where locals could shelter from the squatters.
The missions however ushered in the beginning of a coercive control of Indigenous people, controlling their place of residence, movement, work contracts, money and children's welfare.
"It made Aborigines wards of the state," Professor Langton said.
The Aborigines Protection Act that was meant to protect Indigenous people instead sanctioned the assimilation, absorption and disappearance of them.
"They're not allowed off the reserve to hunt or gather," she said.
"They're given substandard rations and this is one of the big killers of Aboriginal people, the inadequate nutrition on these reserves."
Dubbed the "half-caste act", it also prevented mixed-descent Aboriginal people from living in the missions or receiving aid in an effort to destroy the culture at a time when Aboriginal people were thought to have been an inferior race.
"You destroy a culture by stopping people from speaking, by removing their children, by stopping them from having ceremonies, banning their religion and all the rituals used to mark phases of life," Prof Langton said.
The hearing also delved into the topic of eugenics and the grave-robbing of Indigenous burial sites by white settlers who sold remains in the global trade.
"Settlers simply took body parts, kept no notes, sold them into a market ... this is why museums around the world have Aboriginal body parts," Prof Langton said.
The University of Melbourne at one point held about 15,000 body remains, which is now in the ownership of the Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Council.
The hearings will continue on Thursday.
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