THE MAKING OF AUSTRALIA

There were people in Australia long before Europeans discovered the continent in the 1600s.
Aborigines didn´t have metal or pottery, but they had very rich form of art, painting, song, poetry and mythology.  There were around 500 different tribes with different languages and a complex system of trade. They lived by collecting food and hunting with spears and boomerangs.

In 1770 James Cook landed in the eastern part of Australia,  which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain and declared it a British colony.
At this time, Britain was looking for a place to send its prisioners and criminals. Australia was the perfect place, it was very far from Britain !!!  Cook's discoveries prepared the way for establishment of a new penal colony. Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet into Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. This date became Australia's national day, Australia Day
 At the beginning only prisioners and their guards arrived there, thousands and thousands to different parts of Australia.

 
 

Over time, many free people arrived from Europe, not only from Britain. They built new cities and  in the 1850s, they discovered gold.A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848

Life was very difficult because there was very little water, climate was very hard and cities were not well equipped.

Aborigines suffered a lot more because Europeans stole their land, killed thousands of them and brought new deseases. Those new deseases destroyed almost all of the aborigins in some parts of the country.
In 1770 there were 300,000 aborigines, now there are about 120,000 and it is becoming harder and harder for them to continue their traditional way of life.

A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s,and the Eureka Rebellion against mining licence fees in 1854 was an early expression of civil disobedience. Between 1855 and 1890, the six colonies individually gained responsible government, managing most of their own affairs while remaining part of the British Empire. The Colonial Office in London retained control of some matters, notably foreign affairs, defence, and international shipping.

 

On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies was achieved after a decade of planning, consultation, and voting. The Commonwealth of Australia was established and it became a dominion of the British Empire in 1907. The Federal Capital Territory (later renamed the Australian Capital Territory) was formed in 1911 as the location for the future federal capital of Canberra. Melbourne was the temporary seat of government from 1901 to 1927 while Canberra was constructed.
Today Australia is a modern , industrial country, independent from Britain. 22 million people live there.