There are difficulties in identifying the names, territorial boundaries, and language groups of the Aboriginal peoples of South Australia, including poor record-keeping and deliberate obfuscation, so only a rough approximation can be given here.
The following groups' lands include at least partly South Australian territory which includes: Adnyamathanha, Akenta, Amarak, Bungandidj, Diyari, Erawirung, Kaurna, Kokatha Mula, Maralinga Tjarutja, Maraura, Mirning, Mulbarapa, Narungga, Ngaanyatjarra, Ngadjuri, Ngarrindjeri, Nukunu, Parnkalla, Peramangk, Pitjantjatjara, Ramindjeri, Spinifex people, Warki.
In South Australia, the government tried to strengthen laws in an attempt to avoid the violence that befell earlier Australian settlements, and Aboriginal people were declared British subjects and afforded the same privileges.
[8] In July 1840, there was a massacre of Europeans by Aboriginal men in South Australia, when about 26 shipwrecked passengers and crew members of the ship Maria were murdered.
A party of which included police and the SA Protector of Aborigines, Matthew Moorhouse, and overlanders bringing cattle to market in Adelaide from New South Wales, became involved in a clash with the local Maraura people.
Mounting public pressure eventually caused Prime Minister John Howard to draft a motion of regret, passed in federal parliament in August 1999, which said that the Stolen Generation represented "the most blemished chapter in the history of this country.
"[18] Despite the inequalities that transpired during the early years of European settlement, some areas of the state are now subject to native title of varying kinds and degrees.
[19] 21st century Aboriginal people live in South Australia in a number of settings ranging from complete integration to English-speaking culture to near-traditional life in traditional homelands speaking predominantly the pre-European languages.