AUSTRALIA'S HISTORY

The original inhabitants of Australia were the Aboriginal People, probably descending from south-east Asia to reach the continent about 12,000 years ago. They were tribal, nomadic people who lived by hunting and gathering, a way of life many of their descendants still follow today in the Outback. Their population at the time the first European settlers arrived has been estimated at about 300,000 but numbers soon dwindled. The Tasmanian Aboriginal people have been extinct since about the 1880s and the Aboriginal population of the mainland is now estimated at approximately 160,000.

Dutch explorers first sighted Australia in 1606 but it wasn't until Dutch navigator Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania that anyone was interested in this apparently barren land.

In 1770, Captain James Cook explored the fertile eastern coast of Australia and claimed the land for Great Britain. In 1778 the first settlement was founded in Sydney at an excellent harbour on the southeast coast. This site was to be used as a penal colony. A prison settlement was established at Port Jackson, just north of Botany Bay. A second penal extension was made in Port Arthur,Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) the site now known for its massacre by a mad gunman. The early years were ones of great hardship and near starvation.

As more and more colonies were established the division between states was also decided upon.

Apart from the widely separated colonies around its coasts, little was known of Australia until its interior began to be explored, especially after 1840. From then to the end of the century, many intrepid explorers such as Robert O'Hara Burke, Edward John Eyre, John Forrest, John McDouall Stuart, Charles Sturt, Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, and Ludwig Leichhardt trekked inland, often with camels, only to discover its barren, inhospitable, even forbidding nature.

The discovery of gold in Victoria and New South Wales in the 1850s, led to new settlements, as mining towns sprang up across the states. With the discovery, it brought a flood of migrants all searching for that lucky break. For the progress of the nation it was great thing for it developed Australia as a country in the world. It also produced conflicts, sometimes erupting into violence as in the miners' rebellion at Eureka, Victoria, in 1854. Miners fought between the British police over unfair gold license fees. People were injured and killed and consequently, empowered by the Australian Colonies Government Act of 1850, all colonies, except Western Australia, adopted representative and responsible forms of government by 1860.

Subsequent industrialization has been rapid, and today Australia ranks as one of the world's most economically developed countries, although vast areas of the interior, known as the Outback, remain all but uninhabited.

[AUSTRALIA] - [ACT] - [NSW] - [NT] - [QLD] - [SA] - [TAS] - [VIC] - [WA]

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