Many people believe that Australia was discovered in 1788 by the British, or was it? There are multiple theories that not only were the British not the first people to discover Australia, but that they may have landed in Australia many years prior to Captain Cook's voyages. This essay will discuss the various theories of countries visiting Australia before the British, British arrival before Cook, and then my opinion of the validity of these theories. When reading this essay it is important to note that most of these theories cannot be proven 100%, so it is important that nothing written should be taken as the entire truth as all evidence is only put forward by historians.
While Australia was first settled by the British, that does not mean that no other countries were here prior, much like America and the Vikings who discovered it before Columbus. One country that could have possibly beaten Cook by many decades is Admiral
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It is believed by many that by about 50,000 years ago humans had reached Papua New Guinea and surrounding areas, but had no way to make it across the 90 kilometre stretch of sea. They were still in the Stone Age by the time they reached the water which separated Australia and Papua New Guinea, so they didn't have the mental capacity to build a boat which would be capable of sailing across the water.
Many historians agree that humans arrived in Australia by complete accident. They could have floated here on pieces of debris after a major flood or tsunami. It is most likely that they landed in the north, most likely in the Northern Territory. Some historians believe that this could have been just one pregnant female who began the entire aboriginal race. Some historians even believe that the aboriginals may be a mix of Chinese and Indonesian humans who both ended up in Australian and then
Australia was first claimed by Captain Cook in early 1770, but it wasn’t settled until 1788 when the first fleet of 11 ships arrived at Botany Bay, carrying 1,530 passengers - mostly convicts, as well as some marines and officers. They moved to Port Jackson to begin establishing a settlement. Specific prisoners were chosen for the trip, the ones with skills in building, farming and other things that would have been useful to create a “liveable” environment for the new inhabitants. The first “free” settlers only arrived in 1793, thus beginning the colonisation of New South Wales.
Within the 1600s the dutch were the first europeans to reach australia, although in 1770 James Cook claimed australia for britain. Australia still had been distant, forty thousand years ago the first settlers had probably been citizens from southeast asia. But it was known that the first years of settlement were nearly disastrous. Supposedly the land had been cursed with spoiled soil, unfamiliar climate,
Before the 1700’s, the ethnicities in Australia were mainly restricted to only that of the Aborigines, and there were mainly only Aboriginal cultures present in Australian society, but by the 1770’s and the claiming of Australia for Britain, Australia became a melting pot of many different societies. Before the British arrived, Australia was made up of mainly Aboriginal and indigenous people who had lived in Australia for a long period of time. These people had no government nor specific social system, their existing form of “social classes” was simply kinship groups and small tribal groups. There were no wealthy landowners or any special “elite” people that were held at a higher standard in regards to society. The tribes usually kept to themselves, except for when trading, and the kinship groups were made of large immediate and extensive families. Over time, when the British moved people into Australia, this changed to model a more Europeanized society, like that of Britain. To kick off the large diversity in the ethnicities and the change in society of Australia, convicts, slaves, and various people were transported to Australia from Britain in 1778. These people were recorded in James Cook’s record books, and their ethnicities were recorded to help show the inflow of people into Australia’s society. With this flow of people from Britain
In 1770, New Holland, now known as New South Wales, was discovered by Captain Cook. He sailed all of the coast before reporting back to the British government about how suitable this land would be for settlement. As the land was not cultivated by the aboriginals living on it, the land was identified by the government to be uncivilised.
In 1770 Colonisation interrupted over 500 different First Peoples nations in Australia with the introduction of foreign
Although Australia participated in lots of wars, it still has world connections with the United States of America, China, New Zealand, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. In Australia, has almost every religions, 64% are Christian, 25.8% are Catholic, 2.7% are Muslims and 0.7 are Hinduism. The natives in Australia are called the Aboriginals. They came from Asia, and there are 500-600 different groups of them. In the year of 1788, on January, the first fleet of the follow convicts, which were most English, arrived on Botany Bay: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They were commanded by Captain Arthur Phillips.
In the 17th century, a group of explorers from Britain set foot on the only continent in the southern hemisphere. They named the continent New Holland, which is now Australia. After James Cook declared this place to the United Kingdom, Britain also began colonizing the continent(https://www.australia.com/en/facts-and-planning/history.html ). The first immigrants settled in Sydney. They called themselves the first people living on this continent.
Captain James Cook first discovered Australia in 1770, but Australia was founded by Captain Arthur Phillip on January 26, 1788. Captain Phillip brought in convicts to the colony of the New South Wales, establishing Australia. An agricultural work farm was established by Captain Phillip for the British convicts. Later on, January 26 1818 became the official anniversary of British settlement in Australia. And the year 1986 was when Australia became Independent from Great Britain.
Since the beginning of civilising Australia, the Aboriginal people have been troubled and trapped into an unfamiliar world, ever since the devastating European Invasion of Australia, which took place in the year of 1788. Along with the settlement of the English people to Australia, several diseases were brought which dramatically decreased the population of the native-aboriginals. Statistics state that between the years of ‘1788 to 1900’, the indigenous population of Australia was decreased by a devasting percentage of 90%. Some of the diseases which were brought, such as smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza, measles, whooping cough and the common cold as well. As time passed, the British continued to expand and colonise Australia whilst driving
There’s a chance that the first people came to Australia were from Asia. They were the Aborigines,who lived by hunting. In 1600, Dutch explorers sailed around Australia, but did not stay. James Cook landed Botany Bay in 1770 and claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain. Britain wanted to send prisoners there. In 1788 in Sydney Harbor convict ships arrived. The continent was divided into 6 states and 2 territories. Gold was discovered Europe came in
Since James Cooke’s possession of the entire Australian east coast in 1770, followed by the arrival of the first fleet in 1788, British perceived domination has caused momentous and historic controversy between the rightful owners of the land, the aboriginal people, and the early settlers, the British.
Cook could not even take the consent of the native people living there and this led to the beginning of the legal issues about the usage of the Australian Land. This possession led Cook to have an encounter with many aboriginal people of Australia. Firstly he has an encounter with few aboriginal people when he landed for the first time in the Southern Continent. When he looked at the people he thought that they would not resent giving their land but to his dismay they refused to give away their land. They did not want their land to be taken away.
Cook’s voyage of exploration had sailed under instructions to take possession of the Southern Continent if it was uninhabited, or with the consent of the natives if it was occupied. Either way, it was to be taken. Upon his arrival, Lt Cook declared the land he called New South Wales to be the property of Britain’s King George III, and ignored the inconvenient fact that the land was already well populated. His failure to even attempt to gain the consent of the natives began the legal fiction that Australia was waste and
The Aborigines are the indigenous people of Australia. According to their traditional beliefs, the Aborigines have inhabited Australia since the beginning of time, but most modern dating techniques have placed the first native Australians at closer to 60,000 years ago, based on carbon dating of fossils and knowledge of geological changes in the region. Sea levels have fluctuated throughout history and were 200 meters lower at the time the ancestors of the Aborigines were thought to have made their way to Australia. This still left large expanses of open water that had to be crossed- up to 100 km- indicating that these people had developed some sort of sea-faring technology long before any other people. The Aboriginal
The First Fleet sailed from Portsmouth in 1787 by captain Arthur Philip which carried 729 convicts to Australia where they had to live in a penal colony and work for the government. In 1788, eleven ships had anchored on Australian shores(Dunn.C and McCreadie. M. 2010). Australia then encountered a drastic amount of change, hopeful beginnings, hopeless failures and noble achievements. The settlers did not question the aboriginals for the permission to settle on their land but