What was Australia originally known as?
Australia, once known as New South Wales , was originally planned as a penal colony. In October 1786, the British government appointed Arthur Phillip captain of the HMS Sirius, and commissioned him to establish an agricultural work camp there for British convicts.
What was the first day of Australia?
On January 26, 1788 , Captain Arthur Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales, effectively founding Australia. After overcoming a period of hardship, the fledgling colony began to celebrate the anniversary of this date with great fanfare and it eventually became commemorated as Australia Day. In recent times, Australia Day has become increasingly controversial as it marks the start of when the continent's Indigenous people were gradually dispossessed of their land as white colonization spread across the continent.
Why is Australia Day so controversial?
In recent times, Australia Day has become increasingly controversial as it marks the start of when the continent's Indigenous people were gradually dispossessed of their land as white colonization spread across the continent. Australia, once known as New South Wales, was originally planned as a penal colony.
When did Australia become a national holiday?
In 1818, January 26 became an official holiday, marking the 30th anniversary of British settlement in Australia. As Australia became a sovereign nation, it became the national holiday known as Australia Day.
Who captured Barcelona?
Franco captures Barcelona. During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona, the Republican capital of Spain, falls to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco. In 1931, King Alfonso XIII approved elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor ...read more.
Who was the first European explorer to reach Brazil?
First European explorer reaches Brazil. Spanish explorer Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reaches the northeastern coast of Brazil during a voyage under his command.
What did Phillip say before leaving England?
As Phillip said before leaving England: “In a new country there will be no slavery and hence no slaves.”. Though Phillip returned to England in 1792, the colony became prosperous by the turn of the 19th century. Feeling a new sense of patriotism, the men began to rally around January 26 as their founding day.
When did Australia start immigration?
Immigration history of Australia. The immigration history of Australia began with the initial human migration to the continent around 80,000 years ago when the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians arrived on the continent via the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and New Guinea. From the early 17th century onwards, ...
When did Australia become multicultural?
From early federation in 1901, Australia maintained the White Australia Policy, which was abolished after World War II, heralding the modern era of multiculturalism in Australia. From the late 1970s there was a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries.
How many Asian refugees were there in Australia in the 1970s?
During the 1970s and 1980s around 120,000 southern Asian refugees migrated to Australia. During that twenty years, Australia first began to adopt a policy of what Minister of Immigration Al Grassby termed " multiculturalism ".
What happened in 1975?
The fall of Saigon in 1975, the start of migration waves from Indo-China to Western countries and Australia. The fall of East Timor to Indonesian's troops in 1975, which led many East-Timorese to seek refuge in Australia.
Why was immigration so strict in Australia?
Immigration was still strict in allowing non-Europeans to immigrate into the country due to the White Australia Policy. The White Australia Policy began to be abandoned in 1966, under Prime Minister Harold Holt. The last reside of the policy was finally abolished in 1973 under the Government of Gough Whitlam .
How many people were in Australia by 1868?
By the end of the penal transportation in 1868, approximately 165,000 people had entered Australia as convicts. From about 1815 Sydney began to grow rapidly as free settlers arrived from Britain and Ireland and new lands were opened up for farming.
What was the impact of the Galbally Report on Australia?
The development of Australia's multicultural policy was heavily influenced by the Galbally Report of 1978, which addressed issues with living in and planning for a multicultural Australian society. Migration to Australia in the late twentieth century was influenced by a number of world events, including:
Was Australia a European country?
Australia has not yielded readily to development by Europeans. Even on the relatively favoured eastern periphery, the first European settlers were perplexed by the environment. Later, when they penetrated the mountains of the Great Dividing Range, they had to fight even harder against searing droughts, sudden floods, and voracious bushfires. They also continued to clash, often ruthlessly, with Aboriginal communities. Pioneer settlers took pride in conquering the continent’s prodigious distances, and that became a national trait. The spread of railway networks in the latter part of the 19th century and the subsequent introduction of the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, and the Internet gradually reduced the friction of distance, but the conquest was far from complete even by the beginning of the 21st century.
Is Australia arid or semiarid?
Extensive arid and semiarid areas in Western Australia, Northern Territory, and South Australia are routinely labeled as actually or virtually uninhabited. This description also applies to remote sections of west-central Queensland and to scattered patches of dry or mountainous wilderness in Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania. On the northern and central mainland some large Aboriginal reserves punctuate the open territory.
When did Jewish settlers begin arriving in Australia?
By the 1930s , Jewish settlers began arriving in greater numbers, many of them refugees from Hitler’s Europe. However the 1929 stockmarket crash and the Great Depression put an end to sponsored migration and it was not until Australia had again fought a war that it was resumed.
What was the first immigration restriction in Australia?
Assisted passages were offered to encourage migration with priority still being given to the British and Irish. Despite comparatively large numbers of Chinese residents in Australia, the first legislation passed by the new parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act. Often referred to as the ‘White Australia policy’ this effectively banned Asian migration for the next fifty years. That same year the Federal Parliament passed the Pacific Islands Labourers Act to prohibit their employment as contract labourers and to deport those already here.
How many people live in Australia today?
In 1788, when European settlement began, Australia’s Aboriginal population was about 400,000. Today, over 20 million people live here. Migration has been the main driver for this change. In New South Wales, four out of every ten people are either migrants or the children of migrants.
What was the White Australia policy?
Often referred to as the ‘White Australia policy’ this effectively banned Asian migration for the next fifty years. That same year the Federal Parliament passed the Pacific Islands Labourers Act to prohibit their employment as contract labourers and to deport those already here.
How many people arrived in New South Wales in the 1830s?
Altogether 80,000 arrived in New South Wales between 1788 and 1840. From the 1830s they were joined by small numbers of voluntary migrants, again principally from Britain and Ireland. Some came under their own resources, others with assistance from one of the public or private schemes then available.
When did Australia become a multicultural country?
The quota system, based on country of origin and preservation of racial ‘homogeneity’, was replaced by ‘structured selection’. Migrants were to be chosen according to personal and social attributes and occupational group rather than country of origin. In 1973, declaring Australia a ‘multicultural’ society, Al Grassby announced that every relic of past ethnic or racial discrimination had been abolished. The Australian Citizenship Act of that year declared that all migrants were to be accorded equal treatment.
When did the Fitzgerald inquiry end?
The assisted passage scheme had ended in 1981 and only refugees are given any level of support on their arrival in Australia.
Where were the first settlements in Australia?
Settlements were established in Hobart (Tasmania) in 1803, on the Brisbane River (Queensland) in 1824, on the Swan River (Western Australia) in 1829, on Port Phillip Bay (Victoria) in 1835 and on Gulf St Vincent (South Australia) in 1836. Today, the capital cities of five States are on those sites.
When did the colonies become the Commonwealth of Australia?
Population growth and economic expansion prompted the colonies to call for self-government. On 1 January 1901 the six colonies joined in a federation of States to become the Commonwealth of Australia.
How long ago did the Aboriginal people live?
It is generally thought that Aboriginal people began living on the continent 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, and some authorities believe their occupation may date back 100,000 years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people totalled 265,378 at the last census, nearly 1.5 per cent of the population. Two thirds of the indigenous people live in towns ...
What was the biggest city in Australia?
The settlement grew to be Sydney, Australia�s biggest city. For many years, the rugged Blue Mountains blocked western expansion of the Sydney settlement but in 1813 the discovery of a passage over the mountains opened the way for inland exploration.
Who was the Dutchman who landed in Tasmania?
In 1642, Dutchman Abel Tasman reached Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land. Other sightings and landings occurred, but it was not until 1770 that the more fertile east coast was sighted by Captain James Cook, of the British Royal Navy. British settlement. On 13 May 1787, a fleet of 11 ships sailed from England.
Where do indigenous people live?
Two thirds of the indigenous people live in towns and cities. Many others live in rural and remote areas, and some still have a broadly traditional way of life. In 1606, Spanish navigator Luis Vaez de Torres sailed through the strait which now bears his name.
Overview
The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of Australia's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson in the lands of the Eora Nation, and the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales as part of the British Empire. It further covers the European scientific exploration of the continent and the establishment of the other Australian colonies that make up the modern states of Australia.
Colonisation
The decision to establish a colony in Australia was made by Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney. This was taken for two reasons: the ending of transportation of criminals to North America following the American Revolution, as well as the need for a base in the Pacific to counter French expansion. Approximately 50,000 convicts are estimated to have been transported to the …
European exploration
While the actual date of original exploration in Australia is unknown, there is evidence of exploration by William Dampier in 1699, and the First Fleet arrived in 1788, eighteen years after Lt. James Cook surveyed and mapped the entire east coast aboard HM Bark Endeavour in 1770. In October 1795 George Bass and Matthew Flinders, accompanied by William Martin, sailed the boat Tom Thum…
Aboriginal resistance and accommodation
Aboriginal reactions to the arrival of British settlers were varied, but often hostile when the presence of the colonists led to competition over resources, and to the occupation of Aboriginal lands. European diseases decimated Aboriginal populations, and the occupation of land and degradation of food resources sometimes led to starvation. By contrast with New Zealand, no valid treaty wa…
Politics and government
Traditional Aboriginal society had been governed by councils of elders and a corporate decision-making process, but the first European-style governments established after 1788 were autocratic and run by appointed governors—although English law was transplanted into the Australian colonies by virtue of the doctrine of reception, thus notions of the rights and processes established by …
Economy and trade
The instructions provided to the first five governors of New South Wales show that the initial plans for the colony were limited. The settlement was to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade, shipping and ship building were banned in order to keep the convicts isolated and so as not to interfere with the trade monopoly of the British East India Company. There wa…
Religion, education, and culture
Since time immemorial in Australia, Indigenous people had performed the rites and rituals of the animist religion of the Dreamtime. The permanent presence of Christianity in Australia however, came with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. As a British colony, the predominant Christian denomination was the Church of England, but one tenth of all the convicts wh…
Representations in literature and film
• Marcus Clarke's 1874 novel, For the Term of his Natural Life, and the 1983 television adaptation of the novel.
• Eleanor Dark's 1947 Timeless Land trilogy, which spans the colonisation from 1788 to 1811. The 1980s television drama, The Timeless Land, was based on this trilogy.
• D. Manning Richards. Destiny in Sydney: An epic novel of convicts, Aborigines, and Chinese embroiled in the birth of Sydney, Australia. First book in Sydney series. Washingt…
• Marcus Clarke's 1874 novel, For the Term of his Natural Life, and the 1983 television adaptation of the novel.
• Eleanor Dark's 1947 Timeless Land trilogy, which spans the colonisation from 1788 to 1811. The 1980s television drama, The Timeless Land, was based on this trilogy.
• D. Manning Richards. Destiny in Sydney: An epic novel of convicts, Aborigines, and Chinese embroiled in the birth of Sydney, Australia. First book in Sydney series. Washington DC: Aries Books, 2012. ISBN 9…