History of Australia

Aboriginal peoples have lived in Australia for tens of thousands of years. During that time, records —some dating from extreme antiquity— were passed down through the generations through spoken allegories, myths, and songs.

The written history of Australia began in 1606, when Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, a Portuguese navigator sailing for the Spanish Crown, reached there in 1606. Fernandes sighted a very large island south of New Guinea, which he named La Australia del Espiritu Santo (now Vanuatu). After becoming separated from its flagship, a ship in said expedition (commandeered by Spaniard Luis Váez de Torres) passed through Torres Strait, from where he might have sighted Australia's northern coast. . These discoveries inspired several mariners —among them, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman— to further chart the area.

Though Tasman is best known for his voyage of 1642 —in which he became the first known European to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight the Fiji islands— he also contributed significantly to the mapping of Australia proper. With three ships on his second voyage (Limmen, Zeemeeuw and the tender Braek) in 1644, he followed the south coast of New Guinea westward. He missed the Torres Strait between New Guinea and Australia, but continued his voyage along the Australian coast and ended up mapping the north coast of Australia making observations on the land and its people.

In spite of these voyages, however, Australia remained largely unvisited by Westerners up until the first British explorations. In 1769, James Cook sailed the HMS Endeavour in an extensive effort to locate the supposed Southern Continent to the south and west of Tahiti. The expedition eventually led in 1770 to the British discovery and charting of the eastern coastline of Australia.

The interpretation of the history of Australia is currently a matter of contention, particularly regarding the British settlement and the early treatment of Indigenous Australians. In light of this, Gavin Menzies (among others) has suggested that the legendary Chinese Admiral Zheng He and his fleet might have come to Australia in the early fifteenth century, about 200 years before any European explorers. But his thesis has been discounted by most professional historians including many Chinese historians.

First human habitation

Main articles: History of Indigenous Australians and Prehistory of Australia

The consensus among scholars for the arrival of humans of Australia is placed at 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, but possibly as early as 70,000 years ago. The earliest human remains found to date are that of Mungo Man which have been dated at about 40,000 years old. At the time of first European contact, it has been estimated the absolute minimum pre-1788 population was 315,000, while recent archaeological finds suggest that a population of 750,000 could have been sustained The population was split into 250 individual nations, many of which were in alliance with one another, and within each nation there existed several clans, from as few as five or six to as many as 30 or 40. Each nation had its own language and a few had multiple, thus over 250 languages existed, around 200 of which are now extinct.

The mode of life and material cultures varied greatly from nation to nation. The greatest population density was to be found in the southern and eastern regions of the continent, the River Murray valley in particular. Indigenous Australians lived and utilised resources on the continent sustainably, agreeing to cease hunting and gathering at particular times to give populations and resources the chance to replenish. Indigenous Australians were amongst the oldest, most sustainable and most isolated cultures on Earth prior to European settlement beginning in 1788.

For centuries, Macassar had traded with Indigenous Australians on Australia's north coast, particularly the Yolngu of north-east Arnhem Land. See also Macassan contact with Australia.

An early map of the known world, made in 1603 by Father Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit who spent a long time in China, noted in a block space where Australia lies: No one has ever been to this land in the south, hence we know nothing about it. In smaller characters he brushed the Chinese characters Fire Land and Land of Parrots suggesting the Chinese were aware of and had perhaps sighted Australia. The reference to parrots may mean that someone had in fact made a landing on the continent after all, or had heard about Australia via word of mouth. However, the reference to Fire Land may suggest the frequent volcanic activity of the Indonesian archipelago, and Land of Parrots may refer to the Parrot species throughout the islands to Australia's north.

Indigenous Australians

Main article: Indigenous Australians

See also: Aboriginal History of Western Australia

Indigenous Australians are the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands.

A wave of massacres and resistance followed the frontier of European settlement. In 1838, twenty-eight Indigenous people were killed at the Myall Creek massacre. The convict settlers responsible for the massacres were hanged. The Kalkadoon of Queensland resisted the settlers, and there was a massacre of over 200 people on their land at Battle Mountain in 1884. There was a massacre at Coniston in the Northern Territory in 1928. Poisoning of food and water had been recorded as early as the 1840s.

The removal of indigenous children, which the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission argue constituted attempted genocide, had a major impact on the Indigenous population. Such interpretations of Aboriginal history are disputed by Keith Windschuttle as being exaggerated or fabricated for political or ideological reasons. This debate is part of what is known within Australia as the History Wars.

Indigenous Australians were given the right to vote in Commonwealth elections in Australia in November 1962, and in Western Australian state elections in the same year. Aboriginals in Queensland were given the vote in state elections in 1965. There were never any racial qualifications to vote in the other four states. The 1967 federal referendum allowed the Commonwealth to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people, and for Aboriginal people to be included when the country does a count to determine electoral representation. The referendum passed with a 90.2% majority, the largest affirmative vote in the history of Australia's referendums.

On 13 February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologised to the Aborigines of the stolen generation.

British settlement and colonisation

Main article: History of Australia (1788–1850)

See also: Convicts in Australia

A pioneering settler family, ca. 1900

The British Crown Colony of New South Wales started with the establishment of a settlement at Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day, Australia Day. These land masses included the current islands of New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales. Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, was settled in 1803.

Other British settlements followed, at various points around the continent, most of them unsuccessful. In 1824, a penal colony was established near the mouth of the Brisbane River (the basis of the later colony of Queensland). In 1826, a British military camp was established in Western Australia at King George Sound, to discourage French colonisation. (The camp formed the basis of the later town of Albany.) In 1829, the Swan River Colony and its capital of Perth were founded on the west coast proper and also assumed control of King George Sound. Initially a free colony, Western Australia later accepted British convicts, because of an acute labour shortage.

The British Colonial Office in 1835 issued the Proclamation of Governor Bourke, implementing the legal doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it and quashing earlier treaties with Aboriginal peoples, such as that signed by John Batman. Its publication meant that from then, all people found occupying land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers.

Separate colonies were created from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, New Zealand in 1840, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1863 as part of South Australia. The transportation of convicts to Australia was phased out between 1840 and 1868.

Massive areas of land were cleared for agriculture and various other purposes, in addition to the obvious impacts this early clearing of land had on the ecology of particular regions, it severely affected indigenous Australians, by reducing the resources they relied on for food, shelter and other essentials. This progressively forced them into smaller areas and reduced their numbers as the majority died of newly-introduced diseases and lack of resources. Indigenous resistance against the settlers was widespread, and prolonged fighting between 1788 and the 1930s led to the deaths of at least 20,000 Indigenous people and between 2,000 and 2,500 Europeans. During the mid-late 19th century, many indigenous Australians in south eastern Australia were relocated, often forcibly, to reserves and missions. The nature of many of these institutions enabled disease to spread quickly and many were closed as their populations fell.

Colonial self-government and the discovery of gold

Main article: History of Australia (1851–1900)

The discovery of gold in remote areas was followed by tradesmen.

A Gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, and the Eureka Stockade rebellion in Ballarat in 1854 was an early expression of nationalist sentiment; the flag that was used to represent it has been seriously considered by some as an alternative to the Australian flag. The gold rushes brought many immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, continental Europe, North America and China.

New South Wales in 1855 was the first colony to gain responsible government, managing most of its own affairs while remaining part of the British Empire. Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia followed in 1856; Queensland, from its foundation in 1859; and Western Australia, in 1890. The Colonial Office in London retained control of some matters, notably foreign affairs, defence and international shipping.

The gold led to a period of prosperity, but eventually the economic expansion came to an end, and the 1890s were a period of economic depression.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was formed from New South Wales in 1911 to provide a location for the proposed new federal capital of Canberra (Melbourne was the capital from 1901 to 1927). The FCT was renamed to the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in 1938. The Northern Territory was transferred from the control of the South Australian government to the Commonwealth in 1911.

20th century

The opening of the first Parliament of Australia in 1901

On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies was achieved after a decade of planning, consultation and voting, and the Commonwealth of Australia was born. In 1911, His Majesty King George V proclaimed Australia as a Dominion of the British Empire.

First World War

Main article: Military history of Australia during World War I

Australian soldiers in Egypt with a kangaroo as regimental mascot, 1914.

Australia sent many thousands of troops to fight for Britain during the First World War between 1914 and 1918. Thousands lost their lives at Gallipoli, on the Turkish coast and many more in France. Both Australian victories and losses on World War I battlefields contribute significantly to Australia's national identity. At the time it was referred to as Australia's 'Baptism of Fire'.

The Australian 4th Battalion lands at the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April 1915.

Over 60,000 Australians died during the conflict and 160,000 were wounded. Australia still has an annual holiday to remember its war dead on ANZAC Day, 25 April, each year, the date of the first landings at Gallipoli in 1915

Australia achieved Independent Sovereign Nation status for the first time in 1919 following the end of WW1. Australia became a foundation member state of the League of Nations on the 28th June 1919 at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in the 'Hall of Mirrors' in the Palace of Versailles in France. The original manuscript and transcript are held in the Swiss Government Archives in Geneva.

Australia's independence and sovereign nation status was officially recognised by all world nations when the Charter and Articles of the League of Nations legally became International Law in January 1920. British rule ceased at that point. No ruling British Monarch has held any valid legal power of authority since. Australia also became a foundation member state of the United Nations in 1945.

From 1 February 1927 until 12 June 1931, the Northern Territory was divided up as North Australia and Central Australia at latitude 20°S. New South Wales has had one further territory surrendered, namely Jervis Bay Territory comprising 6,677 hectares, in 1915. The external territories were added: Norfolk Island (1914); Ashmore Island, Cartier Islands (1931); the Australian Antarctic Territory transferred from Britain (1933); Heard Island, McDonald Islands, and Macquarie Island transferred to Australia from Britain (1947).

Great Depression

Main article: Great Depression in Australia

The Great Depression of the 1930s was an economic catastrophe that severely affected most nations of the world, and Australia was not immune. In fact, Australia, with its extreme dependence on exports, particularly primary products such as wool and wheat, is thought to have been one of the hardest-hit countries in the Western world along with Canada and Germany.

Unemployment reached a record high of 29% in 1932 and gross domestic product declined by 10% between 1929 and 1931. There were also incidents of civil unrest, particularly in Australia's largest city, Sydney.

Second World War

Main articles: Military history of Australia during World War II and Australian home front during World War II

The light cruiser HMAS Sydney, lost in a battle in the Indian Ocean, November 1941.

Australia again sent its armed forces to fight alongside Britain during the Second World War. In 1940-41, Australian forces played prominent roles in the fighting in the Mediterranean theatre, including Operation Compass, the Siege of Tobruk, the Greek campaign, the Battle of Crete, the Syria-Lebanon campaign and the Second Battle of El Alamein. Menzies was judged an unsuitable wartime leader, and in 1941, Labor returned to office under John Curtin. The war came closer to home when HMAS Sydney and the German raider Kormoran sank each other off Western Australia: the 645-strong crew of the Sydney were all lost.

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor and on Allied states throughout East Asia and the Pacific, from 8 December (Australian time) 1941, Curtin insisted that Australian forces be brought home to fight Japan. After the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, 15,000 Australian soldiers became prisoners of war. A few days later, Darwin was heavily bombed by Japanese planes, the first time the Australian mainland had ever been attacked by enemy forces, an event which caused a state of near-panic throughout the country. Over the following 19 months, Australia was attacked from the air almost 100 times. The shock of Britain's defeat in Asia in 1942 and the threat of Japanese invasion caused Australia to turn to the United States as a new ally and protector.

Bombing of Darwin, 1942

An Australian light machine gun team in action near Wewak in June 1945

Curtin forged a close alliance with the United States, a fundamental shift in Australia's foreign policy. General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Area, moved his headquarters to Australia. In May 1942, Japanese midget submarines sank one troop transport in a daring raid on Sydney Harbour. On 8 June 1942, the Japanese submarine I-24, not a midget submarine, shelled three Sydney suburbs. The target was the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ten shells where fired in four minutes. Only one exploded and the largest injury sustained was a fractured foot[2]. The threat of Japanese invasion was averted by Allied successes in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway.

Australian forces then fought bitterly Japanese attempts to take Port Moresby, by way of the Kokoda Track, in the highlands of New Guinea. The Australian victory in the Battle of Milne Bay was the first Allied defeat of Japanese land forces. However, the Battle of Buna-Gona set the tone for the bitter final stages of the New Guinea campaign, which persisted into 1945. It was followed by Australian-led amphibious assaults against Japanese bases in Borneo (see Borneo campaign (1945).

Post World War 2

Main article: History of Australia since 1945

Following World War II, the Australian government instigated a massive program of European immigration. After narrowly preventing a Japanese invasion and suffering attacks on Australian soil for the first time, it was seen that the country must "populate or perish". Immigration brought traditional migrants from the United Kingdom along with, for the first time, large numbers of southern and central Europeans. A booming Australian economy stood in sharp contrast to war-ravaged Europe, and newly-arrived migrants found employment in government assisted programs such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Two million immigrants arrived between 1948 and 1975.

Robert Menzies' newly-founded Liberal Party of Australia dominated much of the immediate post war era, defeating the Australian Labor Party government of Ben Chifley in 1949. Menzies oversaw the post-war expansion and became the country's longest-serving leader. Manufacturing industry, previously playing a minor part in an economy dominated by primary production, greatly expanded. Since the 1970s and the abolition of the White Australia policy from Asia and other parts of the world, Australia's demography, culture and image of itself has been radically transformed. However, despite the abolition of the policy, instances of racism continue.

The ANZUS defence treaty was signed in 1951 with the United States and New Zealand, and Australia committed troops to the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency. Melbourne hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and joint British-Australia nuclear tests and rocket launches began near Woomera, South Australia. The population reached 10 million in 1959.

Since 1951, Australia has been a formal military ally of the U.S. under the auspices of the ANZUS treaty. The final constitutional ties between Australia and Britain ended in 1986 with the passing of the Australia Act 1986, ending any British role in the Australian States, and ending judicial appeals to the UK Privy Council.

Australia remains a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II the Queen of Australia; the 1999 referendum to establish a republic was marginally rejected. Australia's formal links to its British past are increasingly tenuous, although people-to-people and cultural connections between Australia and Britain remain significant. Since the election of the Whitlam Government in 1972, there has been an increasing focus on the nation's future as a part of the so-called "Asia-Pacific" region.

Territories transferred in this period were: Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The Coral Sea Islands Territory was established as a Territory of the Commonwealth under the Coral Sea Islands Act 1969. In 1989 when the Australian Capital Territory achieved self government, Jervis Bay became a separate territory administered by the Ministry of Territory.

See also

• Territorial evolution of Australia
• Australian archaeology
• History of Oceania
• Military history of Australia
• History of present-day nations and states
• Proclamation Declaring the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia
• Australian telegraphic history
• History of monarchy in Australia

References

• Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, Cambridge University Press 2004, ISBN 0521601010

External links

• Australia: The Official History, by Professor John Hirst, February 2008, The Monthly
• History of the Australian nation - State Library of NSW
• The Australian History page at Project Gutenberg of Australia
• Bush Poetry a source of Australian History
• "Some Inspirational (Australian) People" Profiled by Laurence MacDonald Muir.
• From Terra Australis to Australia, State Liberty of New South Wales
• European discovery and the colonisation of Australia - Australian Government

• Smyth, Dacre. "Immigrant Ships to Australia".