Chapter II. British colonization of Australia in the late 18th - early 19th centuries

In Australia Australia recently ran out of new parliamentary elections. The Workers' Party, which dominated the lower house with 44 deputies out of 75, was defeated. She now had only 36 deputies out of 75. The majority went over to the liberals, but the majority

History of Australia - Europeans on the Continent

First steps in the discovery of Australia by Europeans

The first Europeans to enter Australia were probably the Portuguese navigators. There is evidence that they visited the western, northern and northeastern coasts of Australia as early as the first half of the 16th century.

Sections of the coast of Australia are already depicted on some maps of the 16th century. (for example, on the map of the Atlas of Nicholas Vallard of 1547). However, before the beginning of the XVII century. these visits to Australia were most likely accidental.

From the beginning of the 17th century the continent attracts the attention of several European powers at once.

In 1606, a Spanish expedition led by Luis Vaes Torres discovered the strait separating Australia from New Guinea (Torres Strait).

At the same time, Dutch navigators also joined the exploration of Australia. In 1606, the Gulf of Carpentaria and the coast of the Cape York Peninsula were surveyed by the expedition of the Dutchman Willem Jansson. The purpose of the expedition was to explore the southern part of New Guinea.

In 1616, another Dutchman, Derk Hartog, landed on the coast of Western Australia.

Further expeditions to the coast of Australia were equipped by Dutch sailors in 1623, 1627, 1629. By the beginning of the 18th century, the efforts of Dutch, English and French navigators had explored and mapped the western coast of Australia. No attempts were made to settle the territory during this period. The open lands were named New Holland.

In 1642-1643. the Dutchman Abel Tasman sailed with the aim of further exploring Australia. In this expedition, Tasman could not come close to the shores of the continent, but discovered the western coast of the island of Tasmania. In 1644

Tasman made a second voyage, during which he mapped 4.7 thousand km of the northern coast of Australia and proved that all the lands discovered by the Dutch earlier were part of one mainland.

British Explorations of Australia

The English artist, writer and pirate William Dampier, sailing under a pirate flag, in 1688 accidentally stumbled upon the west coast of Australia.

Upon returning to his homeland, W. Dampier published notes about his journey, where he spoke about what he saw. From that moment on, the British also began to show interest in New Holland.

U. Dampiru was allocated a ship from the Royal Navy, and he led an expedition to the shores of the mainland.

However, this attempt by the British ended unsuccessfully, except for the discovery of pearl shells, which subsequently brought significant benefits to the English treasury. In 1768

preparations began for a large Pacific scientific expedition led by James Cook. She started in 1769 on the ship Endeavor, and in 1770

Cook discovered the southeast coast of Australia, declared the entire east coast of Australia discovered by him a British possession and called it New South Wales.

Shortly after Cook's voyage to England, it was decided to colonize the country he had discovered. Of decisive importance was the independence of the 13 North American colonies.

Thus, England lost not only the vast territories of the New World, but also the opportunity to send exiles there. That is why the initial development of Australia took place in the form of the organization of hard labor settlements there.

The settlement of Australia by Europeans and the continuation of the "development" of the continent

On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip, appointed Governor of New South Wales, founded the settlement of Sydney Cove, which became the predecessor of the city of Sydney. With his squadron, the first European settlers arrived on the mainland - 850 prisoners and 200 soldiers. This event is currently celebrated as the beginning of the history of modern Australia and a national holiday - Australia Day.

The first group of "free" settlers from England arrived in 1793, but until the middle of the 19th century. their proportion among Europeans in Astralia was small.

Thus began the gradual settlement of Australia. The British colony included not only Australia, but also New Zealand. The settlement of Tasmania began in 1803. At the beginning of the 19th century. The British opened the strait separating Tasmania from Australia. In 1814, navigator Matthew Flinders suggested calling the southern mainland Australia (Terra Australis). From the end of the XVIII century. and throughout the 19th century. continued exploration of the interior of the continent.

In 1827, the government of England officially announced the establishment of British sovereignty over the entire continent. The center of the British presence was the southeast coast of the mainland with the islands, the colony of New South Wales. In 1825, a new colony, Tasmania, was separated from its composition. AT

In 1829, the Swan River Colony was founded, which became the core of the future state of Western Australia.

Initially, it was a free colony, but then, due to an acute shortage of labor, it also began to accept convicts.

Later there are: South Australia (in 1836), New Zealand (in 1840), Victoria (in 1851), Queensland (in 1859). In 1863, the Northern Territory was founded, formerly part of the province of South Australia.

Sending convicts to Australia was reduced only in 1840, and completely stopped by 1868.

Colonization was accompanied by the founding and expansion of settlements across the continent. The largest of them are Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During this colonization, large areas were cleared of forests and shrubs and began to be used for agricultural purposes.

The fate of the aboriginal population

The arrival of Europeans in Australia proved detrimental to the Aborigines. Aborigines were driven away from water sources and hunting grounds, especially in the most attractive and favorable areas for life in the south and east of the mainland.

Many of the natives died of hunger and thirst or were killed in clashes with white settlers.

Many died from diseases introduced by the Europeans to which they had no immunity.

The aboriginal population was used as cheap labor in the livestock farms (ranches) of white settlers in the interior of the country.

In the middle of the XIX century. the remaining native population was moved, partly voluntarily, partly by force, to missions and reservations. By 1921, the total number of Australian Aborigines had decreased to 60 thousand people.

Self-government of Australian territories

In 1851, the "gold rush" began in Australia.

This has seriously changed the demographic situation in Australia. An influx of immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, other European countries, North America and China began. In the 1850s alone, the population of the colonies almost tripled, from 405,000 to 1.2 million people. This created the prerequisites for the development of self-government here.

The first Australian territory to receive self-government within the British Empire was New South Wales in 1855.

This happened after the uprising in the gold fields of Victoria. The rebels demanded the introduction of universal suffrage and the abolition of special permits for the right to mine gold. Somewhat later, in 1856, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia received self-government, in 1859 - Queensland, in 1890 - Western Australia.

In addition, the uprising of 1855 gave impetus to the development of the labor movement.

Trade unions of urban and agricultural workers began to emerge, who fought for higher wages and shorter working hours. It was here in Australia that for the first time in the world, skilled workers achieved the establishment of an eight-hour day.

In 1900, the Australian colonies united to form the Commonwealth of Australia, a dominion of the British Empire.

Melbourne became the capital of the Union. Uniform postal rules were established in the Union, armed forces were created. All this contributed to the acceleration economic development Australia.

In the same year, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia was presented to the House of Commons and signed by Queen Victoria of England. In 1911, the construction of a new capital, Canberra, began. Between the First and Second World Wars, Australia received from Great Britain some territories previously directly subordinate to London: Norfolk Island (1914), Ashmore and Cartier Islands (1931) and claims to the Australian Antarctic Territory (1933).

Independent Australia within the British Commonwealth

Australia received its independence under the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which was ratified by it only in 1942. The British king remained the head of state.

In World War II, Australia fought as a member of the British Commonwealth on two fronts: in Europe against Germany and Italy, and in the Pacific against Japan.

Although Japan was unable to conduct a ground operation in Australian territory, it constantly threatened to invade, and Japanese aircraft bombed cities in northern Australia.

After the Second World War, the Australian government began a massive program to receive immigrants from Europe.

Between 1948 and 1975 two million immigrants arrived in Australia. Since 1973, the flow of Asian migrants began, which significantly changed the demographic and cultural life of the country. After the Second World War, in connection with this, the Australian economy began to develop dynamically.

Since 1986, Australia has finally ceased constitutional ties with Great Britain, but the British Queen is still considered the formal head of state. The de facto head of state is the Prime Minister of Australia.

The main direction of Australia's modern foreign policy is interaction with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

What is the history of Australia? Let's take a brief look at the events that are associated with its discovery. Some researchers express their assumptions, according to which, the first Europeans who reached the coast of Australia at the beginning of the seventeenth century were the Portuguese.

What is the history of the discovery and exploration of Australia? Briefly, this information is presented in encyclopedias, but they do not contain interesting points that confirm the interest of travelers in this territory. Among the evidence that it was the Portuguese who became the discoverers of Australia, the following arguments can be made:

1. Maps of Dieppe, which were published in the middle of the 16th century in France, contain an image of a large land area between Antarctica and Indonesia, called Java la Grande. All explanations and symbols on the map are in Portuguese and French.
2. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Portuguese colonies were located in Southeast Asia. For example, the island of Timor, which is located 650 kilometers from the Australian coast, was attributed precisely to Portuguese travelers.

French "trace"

What else Interesting Facts contains the history of the discovery of Australia and Oceania? We will also briefly tell that the French navigator Binot Polmier de Gonneville told that it was he who landed on unknown lands near the Cape of Good Hope in 1504. This happened after his ship blew the winds off the intended course. Thanks to this statement, it was this traveler who was credited with the discovery of Australia for a long time. After some time, it was found out that he was on the coast of Brazil.

Discovery of Australia by the Dutch

Let's continue the conversation about what is the history of the discovery of Australia and Oceania. Let us dwell briefly on the first indisputable fact documented in the winter of 1606. The expedition of the Dutch East India Company, led by Willem Janson, managed, together with his comrades, to land on the coast from the ship Dove. After sailing from the island of Java, they went to the southern part of New Guinea, moving along it, the Dutch expedition managed after some time to reach the shores of the Cape York Peninsula, located in northern Australia. The team members were confident that they were still off the coast of New Guinea.

It is the history of the development of Australia that is briefly considered in school course by geography. The expedition did not see which divides the coast of Australia and New Guinea. On February 26, members of the team landed near the site where the city of Weipa is currently located. The Dutch were immediately attacked by the natives. Later, Janson and his men explored about 350 kilometers of the coast of Australia, sometimes making landfalls. His crew constantly ran into hostile natives, so several Dutch sailors were killed during fierce battles with the natives. The captain decided to return. He never realized that he and his team managed to discover a new continent. Since Janson, in describing his exploration of the coast, described it as a swampy and deserted place, no one attached much importance to his new discovery. The East India Company sent expeditions in the hope of enriching themselves with jewels and spices, and not at all for serious geographical discoveries.

Luis Vaes de Torres

Describing briefly the history of the exploration of Australia, one can also say about how this traveler moved through the same strait through which Janson's team first passed. Geographers have suggestions that Torres and his comrades managed to visit the northern coast of the continent, but no written confirmation of this hypothesis has been found. After some time, the strait began to be called Torres in honor of Luis Vaez de Torres.

Notable expeditions

The story of the discovery and exploration of Australia is also of interest, briefly telling about the voyage of the next ship of the Dutch East India Company, which was driven by Dirk Hartog. In 1616, the ship managed to reach the western coast of Australia, near Shark Bay. For three days, sailors explored the coast, and explored the nearby islands. The Dutch found nothing of interest, so Hartog decided to continue sailing north along a coastline that had not been explored before. The team then headed to Batavia.

Where is the history of the discovery of Australia described? Briefly, grade 7 studies information about expeditions here from Europe in the 16-17 centuries. For example, educators talk about how in 1619 Jacob d'Erdel and Frederick de Houtman went on two ships to explore the Australian coast. As they moved north, they discovered a band of reefs called Houtman's Rock.

Continued research

After this expedition, other Dutch sailors repeatedly found themselves near these shores, calling the land New Holland. They did not even try to explore the coast, as they did not find any commercial interest here.

The beautiful coastline, even if it aroused their curiosity, clearly did not stimulate them to explore what useful resources Australia has. The history of the country briefly tells about the exploration of the northern and western coasts. The Dutch concluded that the northern lands were barren and unsuitable for use. The sailors did not see the eastern and southern coasts at that time, so Australia was undeservedly recognized as uninteresting for use.

First buildings

In the summer of 1629, the Batavia, an East India Company ship, was shipwrecked off the Houtman Rocks. Soon there was a mutiny, as a result of which a small fort was built by part of the crew for protection. It became the first European construction in Australia. Geographers suggest that at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, about fifty European ships reached the territory of Australia.

The history of the development and settlement of Australia briefly tells about the discoveries made by ships. In 1642, he tried to go around New Holland from the south, while discovering an island called Van Diemen's Land. Some time later it was renamed Tasmania. With the subsequent advance to the east, after some time, the ships ended up near New Zealand. Tasman's first voyage was not successful; travelers failed to approach Australia.

The history of Australia briefly tells that Tasman was able to study the northwestern coast in detail only in 1644, to prove that all the lands that were discovered and analyzed in earlier expeditions are components of one mainland.

English Studies

The history of Australia briefly notes the English contribution to its study. Until the second half of the seventeenth century, there was practically no information in England about the lands that were discovered by Dutch travelers. In 1688, a pirate ship carrying an Englishman, William Dampier, ended up on the northwest coast, near Lake Melville. This fact has been preserved by the history of Australia. Briefly, the surviving records say that after the repair, the ship returned to England. Here, Dampier published a story about the journey, which aroused genuine interest among the English Admiralty.

In 1699, Dampier set out on a second voyage to the coast of Australia on the ship Roebuck. But as part of this trip, he did not find anything interesting, so the Admiralty decided to stop funding the expedition.

Cook's expedition

Talking about the history of the discovery of Australia, one cannot leave without due attention the expedition of 1170, led by Lieutenant James Cook. On the sailboat "Attempt" his team went to the South Pacific. The official purpose of the expedition was to make astronomical observations, but in fact Cook received from the Admiralty the task of studying the southern part of the continent. Cook believed that since New Holland has a west coast, therefore, there must be an east coast.

At the end of April 1770, an English expedition landed on the east coast of Australia. The landing site was first named Stingray Bay, then it was renamed Botany Bay because of the unusual plants that were found there.

The open lands were named New Wales by Cook, and then the New Englishman did not even realize how massive the discovery he made was.

British colonies

The lands that Cook discovered were decided to be colonized, using them as the first colonies for convicts. The fleet, led by Captain Arthur Philip, included 11 ships. He arrived in Australia in January 1788, but, recognizing the region as inconvenient for settlement, they moved north. Governor Philip issued an order establishing the first British colony in Australia. The soils around Sydney Harbor were not suitable for farming, so farms were established near the Parramatta River.

The second fleet, which arrived in Australia in 1790, brought various materials and supplies here. During the journey, 278 convicts and crew members died, so in history it is called the "Death Fleet".

In 1827, a small British settlement was built at King Georges Sound by Major Edmund Lockyer. He became the first governor of a colony created for convicts.

South Australia was founded in 1836. It was not intended for convicts, but some of the former prisoners moved here from other colonies.

Conclusion

It was mastered almost fifty thousand years before its official discovery by European travelers. For more than one century, people with an original culture and religion have lived in the waterless deserts and tropical jungles of the continent. After the colonization of the Australian coast, a period of active exploration of the territory began. Among the first serious researchers who managed to study the channels of the rivers Macquarie, Loklan, geographers name John Oxley. Robert Burke became the first Englishman to cross the mainland from north to south. The discovery of Australia was the result of a centuries-old search for the Dutch, Portuguese, and British of the Southern country.

In 2006, archaeologists discovered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in Australia. This fact led to the promotion of an original hypothesis about the discovery of the contingent by the Egyptians.

Scientists agreed that 1606 can be considered the most likely time for the discovery of Australia. It was then that the famous Dutchman V. Janszon explored the northeastern part - the Cape York Peninsula.

The history of the settlement of Australia is briefly described in this material. Until now, it is associated with numerous mysteries that scientists have yet to solve. For example, cannons found during archaeological excavations give reason to believe that the Portuguese visited this territory in the fifteenth century. A complete map of the British colony, which was Australia, scientists managed to draw up only at the beginning of the last century.

Since 1788, the British government began to send criminals convicted to hard labor to Australia. Many of these people chose to live here forever after the end of the term of hard labor to which they were sentenced. In Australia began to arrive and voluntary immigrants from Britain. Some wanted to acquire land and start raising sheep and other livestock, someone was attracted by the opportunity to get rich by finding a deposit of gold or other minerals.

Life in 19th century Australia was difficult and full of danger. One of these dangers was the robbery of gangs of runaway convicts, among which the most famous was Ned Kelly's gang. As settlers arrived from England, the Australian Aborigines (the original inhabitants of Australia) lost more and more of their ancestral lands. Many natives died at the hands of European colonists or died from diseases they introduced.

Treaty of the British and Maori

The first settlers from Europe arrived in New Zealand in the 1790s. In 1840, the British government officially took New Zealand under its rule.
The British governor and the chiefs of the Maori tribe who lived on the islands entered into an agreement that determined which territories would pass to the British. But the treaty that determined which territories would pass to the British. But the treaty was often violated, and violent armed clashes took place between the Maori and the Europeans.

For a long time, the lands discovered by Captain Cook in the South Pacific were not used in any way. Only when the American colonies declared their independence and refused to accept further exiles, England was forced to look for new lands for its prisoners.

On January 26, 1788, a caravan of ships moored to the deserted shores of Australia. It was the first English fleet, commanded by Sir Arthur Phillip. On 11 ships of the fleet there were 750 settlers, men and women, four crews of sailors and a supply of food for two years. Philip arrived in Botany Bay on 26 January, but he soon moved the colony to Sydney Harbour, where the water and land were better. The colony of New South Wales was formally inaugurated by the raising of the flag in Sydney on February 7, 1788.

For the new arrivals, New South Wales was a terrible place and the threat of starvation hung over the colony for 16 years. Governor Phillip constantly solves one problem - how to provide food for the prisoners. Life there is very harsh, and the first two years the colony survived only by a miracle. The discipline was very tough, physical punishments were used.

The first of the colonial administration of New South Wales to pay attention to New Zealand was Philip King, Arthur Phillip's assistant in managing the exile settlement on Norfolk Island. In November 1793, the ship Britannia arrived at Norfolk. King decided to use the opportunity and get acquainted with New Zealand with a view to organizing a British settlement there. The indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand - the Maori were friendly and hospitable. But distrust of the pale-faced, they could not overcome in themselves, despite the rich gifts of the British.

In subsequent years, whaling ships entered New Zealand more frequently. In early 1775, the first sperm whale was killed in the South Pacific, and after that, whaling gradually began to develop here.

The South Seas also attracted attention as a place to catch seals. It was in connection with this that the first, short-lived British settlement in New Zealand was created.

New Zealand also began to visit the ships sailing to Australia from India. After delivering the cargo to Sydney, they entered the waters of New Zealand on the way back and filled their holds with goods, which they then sold in China and India. At the same time, the number of visits to New Zealand harbors by whaling ships and cat hunters increased.

There were more and more British trading expeditions to New Zealand. But the British were by no means monopolists in contacts with the Maori. From the very first steps, they met strong competition from the Americans, who began their whaling operations in the Pacific Ocean in 1791. The French were also very active in Pacific waters.

The colonization of Australia took place in three stages: prisoners deported until 1851, farmers and squatters in 1850, and gold seekers in 1880. There were approximately 123,000 male convicts and 25,000 women. Two-thirds of them were from England, a third from Ireland and a few people from Scotland.

As the colonization of Australia developed and expanded, some of the prisoners were sometimes used as draft animals in the farms of the new colonists. Others were sent to a new colony on Norfolk Island, located in the Pacific Ocean, 1,600 km northeast of Sydney. Today's Norfolk is under the jurisdiction of the Australian federal government. Now it is a busy tourist center. By 1820, prisoners and their descendants made up the bulk of the population and most of the laborers who built Australia.

The first free colonists appeared in Sydney in 1793. At first there were few of them, but gradually the number of colonists increased and increased sharply by 1850 - the time of the "gold rush". Just like Sydney, the first cities were created at the landing site of the colonists. Melbourne was founded in 1835, Adelaide in 1836.

Between the departure of Governor Phillip in 1792 and the arrival in 1795 of a new governor, John Hunter, a small group of officers from an army corps called the "Rum Corps" from New South Wales took over the administration. These officers and their assistants created many difficulties for the authorities. They wanted to have prisoners at their disposal, as well as a monopoly on imports, in particular on rum, which became a bargaining chip - they were paid wages. This rule, based on tyranny and Roma, proved disastrous for the small community, for its future.

The most interesting episode in the reign of officers from New South Wales is connected with Captain Blythe. In 1805 he was appointed governor and tried to forbid the use of rum as payment. A year and a half later, he was dismissed by the Rum Corps. Everything calmed down only when this corps was sent to England. A statue of Captain Blythe and a replica of the Bounty are located on Circular Quay in Sydney.

Lachlan Macquarie, appointed governor in 1810, received permission to impose his own regime on the colony. His policy favored the release of prisoners, they had a chance to free themselves and become small farmers. This man, whom everyone unanimously calls the father of Australia, built public buildings, founded a bank, invested a lot of effort in the development of the continent and the development of sheep breeding. He introduced money into circulation to break the Roma monopoly. He also contributed to the expansion of the colony.

In 1813, they managed to cross the Blue Mountains, beyond which there were pastures suitable for livestock. There are still official buildings built by Macquarie in Sydney. Lady Macquarie's chair, carved into the rock at the end of the Royal Botanic Gardens, is a favorite place for tourists. From here you have one of the best views of Sydney.

Beginning in 1788, for more than 50 years, the British government used Australia as a place of exile for criminals and political offenders. The administration of the penal colony seized vast areas of fertile land, which were cultivated by the forced labor of exiled settlers. The indigenous population was pushed back into the deserts of central Australia, where it died out or was exterminated. Its number, reaching by the time the British appeared at the end of the 18th century. 250-300 thousand, decreased by the end of the next century to 70 thousand people

Gradually, English colonies were formed in Australia, representing the continuation of the capitalist metropolis in terms of language, economy and culture. At first, these colonies were not connected with each other in any way, and only by the beginning of the 20th century. formed the Australian Federation, which received the rights of the English dominion.