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European Exploration: Dutch
First Europeans to sail to Australia were the Dutch (Netherlands) in 1606, but they didn’t settle there.
The Dutch made one landing, were attacked by Aborigines, and then abandoned further exploration -
Captain James Cook sailed around Australia
Captain Cooked founded an area and named it New South Wales.
He Ignored the Aborigines living there & claimed the land for England. Sailors also mapped the coast eastern Australia -
The First Fleet
British ships called the “First Fleet” left England with convicts to establish a prison colony. The First Fleet is the name given to the 11 ships which left Great Britain on 13 May 1787 to found a penal colony that became the first European settlement in Australia. -
New South Wales
New South Wales was officially a penal (prison) colony consisting mainly of convicts, marines (guards), and the marines’ families.
Only 20% of the first convicts were women.
British transported prisoners to Australia until 1868.
By this time, many free immigrants were settling there. -
Aborigines
Archaeologists have found early Aboriginal inventions which were rock art, boomerangs, ground axes, and grindstones. There is no written record of prehistoric Aborigines. Settled in the same places as present-day Australians. Aborigines lived on Australia’s coast, which is where the Europeans wanted to settle. Europeans waged war against the Aborigines in order to take their land -
Aboriginal Australians
he category "Aboriginal Australians" was coined by the British after they began colonising Australia in 1788, to refer collectively to all people they found already inhabiting the continent, and later to the descendants of any of those people.
Until the 1980s, the sole legal and administrative criterion for inclusion in this category was race, classified according to visible physical characteristics or known ancestors. -
Prisoners As Colonists
American Revolution forced the British to stop sending prisoners to Georgia (used as a penal colony at the time)
Great Britain had to start looking for another place to send its prisoners…
Australia seemed like a good choice: no chance of escape, no colonies around it, and very few indigenous people lived there -
Commonwealth of Australia
Nonprisoner colonization continued.
Major coastal settlements became 7 independent colonies.
In 1861,the government officials created boundaries for the colonies that are still in place today.
Melbourne served as the national capital until Canberra was completed in 1927. -
"White Australia"
This badge from 1910 was produced by the Australian Natives' Association, comprising Australian-born whites. Prime Minister Alfred Deakin was a member. -
Australian Act
All legal ties with the British Empire were severed.
Today, Australia is a parliamentary democracy (constitutional monarchy) with Elizabeth II as queen.
55% of voters rejected the idea of becoming an independent republic.
