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The history of Australia is the history of the land and peoples of the continental land mass and offshore territories which now comprise the Commonwealth of Australia.The Commonwealth of Australia came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a federation of former British colonies, however the human history of Australia commences with the arrival of the first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians by ...
- Theory of Portuguese Discovery
Historiography Development of the theory in the 19th...
- European Exploration of Australia
Melchisédech Thévenot (1620?–1692): map of New Holland 1664,...
- Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a...
- Theory of Portuguese Discovery
- Overview
- History of Australia
- Early contacts and approaches
- The Portuguese
- The Spanish
- The Dutch
- The British
- Later explorations
This article discusses the history of Australia from the arrival of European explorers in the 16th century to the present. For a more detailed discussion of Aboriginal culture, see Australian Aboriginal peoples.
This article discusses the history of Australia from the arrival of European explorers in the 16th century to the present. For a more detailed discussion of Aboriginal culture, see Australian Aboriginal peoples.
Prior to documented history, travelers from Asia may have reached Australia. China’s control of South Asian waters could have extended to a landing in Australia in the early 15th century. Likewise, Muslim voyagers who visited and settled in Southeast Asia came within 300 miles (480 km) of Australia, and adventure, wind, or current might have carrie...
The quest for wealth and knowledge might logically have pulled the Portuguese to Australian shores; the assumption has some evidential support, including a reference indicating that Melville Island, off the northern coast, supplied slaves. Certainly the Portuguese debated the issue of a terra australis incognita (Latin: “unknown southern land”)—an ...
Viceroys of Spain’s American empire regularly sought new lands. One such expedition, from Peru in 1567, commanded by Álvaro de Mendaña, discovered the Solomon Islands. Excited by finding gold, Mendaña hoped that he had found the great southern land and that Spain would colonize there. In 1595 Mendaña sailed again but failed to rediscover the Solomo...
Late in 1605 Willem Jansz (Janszoon) of Amsterdam sailed aboard the Duyfken from Bantam in the Dutch East Indies in search of New Guinea. He reached the Torres Strait a few weeks before Torres and named what was later to prove part of the Australian coast—Cape Keer-Weer, on the western side of Cape York Peninsula. More significantly, from 1611 some Dutch ships sailing from the Cape of Good Hope to Java inevitably carried too far east and touched Australia: the first and most famous was Dirck Hartog’s Eendracht, from which men landed and left a memorial at Shark Bay, Western Australia, October 25–27, 1616. Pieter Nuyts explored almost 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the southern coast in 1626–27, and other Dutchmen added to knowledge of the north and west.
Most important of all was the work of Abel Tasman, who won such respect as a seaman in the Dutch East Indies that in 1642 Gov.-Gen. Anthony van Diemen of the Indies commissioned him to explore southward. In November–December, having made a great circuit of the seas, Tasman sighted the west coast and anchored off the southeast coast of what he called Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). He then explored the island of New Zealand before returning to Batavia, on Java. A second expedition of 1644 contributed to knowledge of Australia’s northern coast; the Dutch named the new landmass New Holland.
The Netherlands spent little more effort in exploration, and the other great Protestant power in Europe, England, took over the role. In 1688 the English buccaneer William Dampier relaxed on New Holland’s northwestern coast. On returning to England, he published his Voyages and persuaded the Admiralty to back another venture. He traversed the western coast for 1,000 miles (1699–1700) and reported more fully than any previous explorer, but he did so in terms so critical of the land and its people that another hiatus resulted.
The middle decades of the 18th century saw much writing about the curiosities and possible commercial value of the southern seas and terra australis incognita. This was not restricted to Great Britain, but it had especial vigour there. The British government showed its interest by backing several voyages. Hopes flourished for a mighty empire of commerce in the eastern seas.
Cook’s voyages led to settlement but did not complete the exploration of the Australian coasts. Marion Dufresne of France skirted Tasmania in 1772, seeing more than had Tasman. The count de La Pérouse, another French explorer, made no actual discoveries in Australia but visited Botany Bay early in 1788. In 1791 the British navigator George Vancouver traversed and described the southern shores discovered by Pieter Nuyts years before. The French explorer Joseph-Antoine Raymond de Bruni, chevalier d’Entrecasteaux, also did significant work, especially in southern Tasmania.
Two Britons—George Bass, a naval surgeon, and Matthew Flinders, a naval officer—were the most famous postsettlement explorers. Together they entered some harbours on the coast near Botany Bay in 1795 and 1796. Bass ventured farther south in 1797–98, pushing around Cape Everard to Western Port. Flinders was in that region early in 1798, charting the Furneaux Islands. Late that year Flinders and Bass circumnavigated Tasmania in the Norfolk, establishing that it was an island and making further discoveries. Several other navigators, including merchantmen, filled out knowledge of the Bass Strait area; most notable was the discovery of Port Phillip in 1802.
Meanwhile Flinders had returned home and in 1801 was appointed to command an expedition that would circumnavigate Australia and virtually complete the charting of the continent. Over the next three years Flinders proved equal to this task. Above all, he left no doubt that the Australian continent was a single landmass. Appropriately, Flinders urged that the name Australia replace New Holland, and this change received official backing from 1817.
France sponsored an expedition, similar in intent to Flinders’s, at the same time. Under Nicolas Baudin, it gave French names to many features (including “Terre Napoléon” for the southern coast) and gathered much information but did little new exploration. It was on the northern coast, from Arnhem Land to Cape York Peninsula, that more exploration was needed. Two Admiralty expeditions—under Phillip Parker King (1817–22) and John Clements Wickham (1838–39)—filled this gap.
Australia's history. Australian History on the Internet A useful guide by the National Library of Australia. Documenting a Democracy - Australia's story The (hi)story of Australia's Democracy. The National Archives of Australia We care for valuable Commonwealth government records and make them available for present and future generations to use.
4 days ago · Australia, the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia’s capital is Canberra, located in the southeast between the larger and more important economic and cultural centres of Sydney and Melbourne. Australia.
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The history of Australia is the history of the land and peoples of the continental land mass and offshore territories which now comprise the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a federation of former British colonies, however the human history of Australia commences with the arrival of the first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians ...
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.
