First Settlers In Australia

The first settlers arrived in Australia 35,000 years ago during the great ice age. The sea levels lowered between Indonesia and New Guinea and created a land bridge that would allow nomadic tribes to cross from Southeast Asia. Like many other humans of that era they were hunters and gatherers and traveled from place to place in search of new game. Thousands of years after these drifters arrived; the glaciers thawed and raised the seas once again, which kept the people of Australia permanently there.

The people that inhabited Australia before the English settlers were know as Aborigines or the Australian Aboriginals. Aborigines occupied most of Southeast part of the continent along the shoreline but inhabited all parts of the continent.

Their day to day lives involved hunting and fishing to ensure their survival. They did not domesticate animals or grow crops; they were completely dependent on the environment. The Aborigines were very devoted to their lives; they developed a complex ritual life as well as spirituality and law. Aborigines were at one with the land, they used their environment to their full capacity.
Religion and spirituality was a common belief amongst all the different aboriginal tribes. They all believed that their ancestors had supernatural powers that roamed the earth and left natural made objects which became sacred ground for religious and spiritual activities. To the aboriginal people the earth was created in a dreamtime; meaning that a being descended from the sky to awaken a dark and silent world and when the world was awaken, the spirit ancestors created mountains, trees, rivers and changed into human and animal forms.
Depending on what geographical location they lived in the Australia Aboriginal people used a wide variety of tools and weapons. The Aboriginal tribes that lived on the costal line used fishbone to tip their weapons where as the desert tribes used stone. The Aboriginal people were the first in the world to use stone technology and they were the first to introduce ground edges on cutting tools and to grind seeds. For hunting and protection the Aborigines used a selection of weapons. They used spears, axes, knives and the complex boomerang.
For the past 35,000 years the Aboriginal people of Australia would explain their history through art, which detailed their lives as the years passed by. A lot of the drawing was geometric figures such as circles, arches’, animal prints and dots. During the later generations they started to get creative drawing human figures hunting animals.
Before the invasion of English settlers the Aboriginal population was close to 1 million and that would drastically change after the arrival of the English. As the English settlers began to trickle in one boat load at a time they brought a killer, invisible to the eyes of the Aborigines. Smallpox, measles and influenza were diseases that the Aboriginals were not custom too. They never experience anything like this before and were not immune or had medicine to fight off the sickness. There would be killings, mass murders and diseases that would drop the Aboriginals population down to 3 percent in the decades to come. Life of the Australian Aboriginals would change as the invasion of Europe took over their land in the 17th century.
A Dutch ship commanded by Willem Janszoon sailed the South Seas in search of new land and gold and came across a continent that was unknown to Europeans. In 1606 Willem Janszoon made landfall in Australia as the first European to ever set foot on the continent. The Dutch created a map of nearly half of the Australian western coastline and gave the continent a new name, New Holland. As the Dutch explored the land throughout the years and they were not impressed. In 1629 a captain from an exploring team said, “In our judgment, this is the most arid and barren region that could be found anywhere on earth” (Time Life 49). The Dutch were not interested in establishing colonies in New Holland because of the unbearable heat and perpetual droughts; they thought this land was unfeasible to them.
A century after the Dutch made first landfall Captain James Cook took an interest of the Continent. He set sail from England in 1770 to map the eastern shore of Australia, an untouched part of the continent. He set anchor in Botany Bay (which he named because of its botanic specimens he found there) and began recording results of what he encountered. Captain James Cook first encounter with the aboriginals was unwelcomed with a volley of spears. Even though of the greeting they gave him he still put a good word in his report: “They may appear to some to be the most wretched people on earth, “but in reality they are far happier than we Europeans.”(Time Life 49). Captain James Cook took possession of the eastern coast and called it New Wales to distinguish it from New Holland.
England received Cook’s report but took little interest on establishing colonies there because of the war they lost to America in 1775. England did not want to make the same mistake that happened in America with the colonies fighting for independence, the idea would send shivers down their spine. An esquire of Captain Cook, Joseph Banks, had an idea that New Wales would be a suitable place for England’s excess convicts that overpopulated the prisons. Before America’s independence from England, it served as a dumping ground for England’s over populated prisons and those in poverty. Captain Cook would agree with Banks idea, New Wales could serve as a settlement for England’s unwanted population and possible rehabilitate them into civilized people. Captain Cook would fetch this idea to the British Government and hoped this could be a new beginning for the continent of Australia. When the British Government received Cook’s plan they thought Australia could be the next promise land. They thought, not only would it soak up some of Britain’s overpopulated jails but Australia could also provide a source of timber, a base for whalers and a port for traders. England issued the orders in 1787 and over 550 men, women and children that over populated the prisons would set sail for to established colonies in Australia.
On January 18, 1778, the first ships of England’s convicts would drop anchor in Botany Bay.

The convicts aboard were scared not knowing what is to come of them; they didn’t know they were the first to give birth to a new nation that has been silenced for thousands of years. The inmates are unskilled laborers; most of them were petty criminals of the urban population that lack farming and construction skills. Building these new colonies is going to be a struggle in the years to come. For the first few years it seemed almost impossible to establish a self producing colony with incompetent convicts that lack trade. One man would change it all, Captain Arthur Phillip, a regular naval officer that became the first governor of the new nation. For 2 years Phillip desperately asks for new tools that can help produce more corps and free men that were competent enough to help build the nation. After two years England would send the proper tools and men he needed but they would also send more convicts to add to his problems. Governor Phillip began giving land grants in 1787 to convicts who were given conditional pardon for good behavior and those whose time had expired. Gradually more and more land came under cultivation and the country became entirely self-supporting on their food supplies. Governor Phillip would use the source of labor from convicts to develop everything that a self supporting colony would need. The convict built a colony within the first few years with isolated settlements, rich farmland, stores, taverns hospitals and much more. In 1813 explorers would cross the Blue Mountains to the west and return to New South Wales with tales of endless goods and grazing lands as far as the eye can see. By 1829 when word of this got back to England they decided to extend British colonies to the west before other European rivals would take interest on the land. In the mid 1800’s the population of Australia reached 1 million, the convicts were no longer

needed for their service because for once Australia can supports itself.
In 1849 an Australian, Edward Hargraves traveled to America in hoping to strike it rich during the San Francisco Gold Rush of 1849 but came home in 1851 empty handed. He studied the geologies of his land and came to a conclusion that where he lived in Australia had the same features of San Francisco. He was determined to find gold that which he did in his own district of Bathurst, New South Wales in 1851. Edward would call his gold claim Ophir and would attract just over 100,000 prospectors in the first 4 months. The gold he discovered would start a gold frenzy in Bathurst and by 1852 he would yield just over 850,000 ounces of gold. The state of Victoria, not happy with most of its population moving to New South Wales offered 200 pounds for any gold discovered within 200 miles of Melbourne, six months later they discovered gold in Ballarat and Bendigo Creek. Australia started to see an influx of immigration from all parts of the world, America, Europe and China; by 1861 370,000 immigrants migrated to Australia with China making up 3.3 percent of Australia’s population in 1852. During the 1850’s the state of Victoria alone contributed over one thirds of the world’s gold and went from a population of 400,000 to 1.9 million. Australia supplied over one-thirds of the world’s gold and with all that gold it built the country’s economy and started huge investments which brought in big businesses. Because of all the gold miners traveling back and forth, Australia finally built a rail road system and telegraph company. During the 1860’s Australia started to charge a miners fee called a gold-seekers license, if you wanted to dig for gold you would have to pay. The license is a way for the government to tax the digger weather they found gold or not. Governor Hotham had his Gold Commissioned Police force conduct license checks twice a week which started an enormous uproar within the miner community with protest and fighting against authorities. One day on October in 1854 the Gold Commissioned Police force would beat an Irish digger to death for not having a license. This would start the Eureka Stockade. Thousands of miners would begin to burn their digger license with thousands more in the coming weeks. On November 30 another mass burning of license took place, the miners formed a stockade in Bakery Hill. On the morning of December 3rd authorities launched a strike on the stockade, killing more than twenty diggers and declaring martial law three days later. By the end of the 19th century the gold rush ended. Australia went from small colonial to well established cities within the time period of the rush. All the influences of other countries had definitely shown its presents within the cities. America introduced commodities such as cocktails, restaurants and leather-suspended Concord coaches. The gold rush started a revolutionary era of Australia and they definitely benefitted from it.
Many people think that Australia gained its independence from England in 1901 but actually it only became a self-governing colony still under the control of England. The newly formed Australian Commonwealth established itself in 1901 with the signing of the Commonwealth of Australian constitution. Australia was able to self-govern itself but was still colonies under the control of British government. This meant that the British monarch was still head of state and the Australian Commonwealth had limited power to make laws. Everything had to go through the British Government before Australia could make any final decision. Australia could not enter into any international arrangements; the British government handled any international negotiations on the behalf of Australia. Australia gained more independence after World War One in 1919 by demanding to have a seat at the table during the Paris Peace Conference and for the first time Australia signed an international peace treaty. Every decade that Australia is gaining more and more independence from England. In 1931 the Statute of Westminster passed, which prevented the British government to make laws for its dominions. Australia used the Statute of Westminster to pass several laws over the course of the 20th century to acquire external territories. Under the control of Britain for nearly two centuries, Australia asks Britain in 1986 to pass the Australia Act, which would terminate the British Parliament from making any laws for Australia or its states. For much of the 20th century the British controlled Australia but after the Australian Act passed on March 3, 1986 Westminster parliament no longer controlled Australia’s constitutional documents. It is that day in 1986 the Australia achieved full independence from Britain.