Australia
History
Before the arrival
of the first European settlers,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people inhabited most areas of the
Australian continent. They spoke one or
more of hundreds of separate languages,
with lifestyles and cultural traditions
that differed according to the region in
which they lived. Their complex social
systems and highly developed traditions
reflect a deep connection with the land
and environment.
Asian and Oceanic
mariners and traders were in contact
with Indigenous Australians
for many centuries
before the European expansion into the
Eastern Hemisphere.
Some formed
substantial relationships with
communities in northern Australia.
The first recorded
European contact with Australia was in
March 1606, when Dutch explorer Willem
Janszoon (c.1570 – 1630) charted the
west coast of Cape York Peninsula,
Queensland. Later that year, the Spanish
explorer Luis Vaez de Torres sailed
through the strait separating Australia
and Papua New Guinea. Over the next two
centuries, European explorers and
traders continued to chart the coastline
of Australia, then known as New Holland.
In 1688, William Dampier became the
first British explorer to land on the
Australian coast.
It was not until
1770 that another Englishman, Captain
James Cook, aboard the Endeavour,
extended a scientific voyage to the
South Pacific in order to further chart
the east coast of Australia and claim it
for the British Crown. Britain decided
to use its new outpost as a penal
colony; the First Fleet of 11 ships
carried about 1500 people—half of them
convicts. The fleet arrived in Sydney
Harbour on 26 January 1788, and it is on
this day every year that Australia Day
is celebrated.
In all, about 160
000 men and women were brought to
Australia as convicts from 1788 until
penal transportation ended in 1868. The
convicts were joined by free immigrants
from the early 1790s. The wool industry
and the gold rushes of the 1850s
provided an impetus for free settlers to
come to Australia.
A Nation is Born
The Commonwealth of
Australia was formed in 1901 through the
federation of six states under a single
constitution. The non-Indigenous
population at the time of Federation was
3.8 million. Half of these lived in
cities, three-quarters were born in
Australia, and the majority were of
English, Scottish or Irish descent.
While one of the
first acts of the new Commonwealth
Parliament was to pass the Immigration
Restriction Act 1901, which restricted
migration to people of primarily
European origin, this was dismantled
after the Second World War.
Today Australia
has a global, non-discriminatory policy
and is home to people from more than 200
countries. Western Australia
continues to have the fastest