A Brief History of Australia

Podcast Transcript

Australia is a unique country.

By area, it’s huge. By population, however, it is dwarfed by smaller countries such as Nepal, Ghana, Yemen, and the United Kingdom.

By modern standards, the nation is quite young, yet it has a history that goes back further than almost any other country.

…and there is also the thing with the criminals.

Learn more about the history of Australia and how the continent/country came to be on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Usually, when I do an episode that covers a country, I will cover a very small country.

This time, I’m covering a country which, by comparison, is very large.

Australia.

This episode is intended to be a very broad, general overview of the history of Australia, with the intent of zooming in on particular aspects of Australian history in future episodes.

Before I dive into the history, I should briefly explain the geology and geography of Australia. There is a whole episode on this subject, but suffice it to say, Australis is extremely stable and relatively geologically inactive.

Australia is not part of the Ring of Fire in the Pacific. It isn’t near any major subduction zones. There are no major mountain ranges that are being formed.

There isn’t a whole lot going on, and it has been that way for millions of years. This tectonic stability has given rise to vast eroded landscapes, low relief features, and deeply weathered soils.

Some of the oldest exposed rocks in the world can be found in Northern Australia. They have been exposed through millions of years of steady erosion. There are some similarly old rocks in Canada, but they were exposed by glaciers plowing all of the rocks and soil on top of them off.

This geology has influenced the people who lived in Australia ever since humans first arrived.

Normally, when I talk about the history of a country, particularly an island country, the history usually begins somewhere around 2000 to 8000 years ago.

The story of Australia begins way, way earlier.

The earliest widely accepted evidence of human presence in Australia comes from sites such as Madjedbebe in Arnhem Land, where artifacts and ochre use date back at least 65,000 years.

These early people likely arrived via Southeast Asia during periods of lower sea levels, when Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Tasmania were connected in a landmass called Sahul.

Sahul wasn’t completely connected by land to Southeast Asia. There would have been water gaps between the land masses, which explains the Wallace Line, which I covered in a previous episode. So at some point, the first Australians would have had to have traveled by water for at least part of the journey.

When the glaciers retreated and the sea levels rose, the early people who arrived in Australia were cut off from the rest of the world. Many simple innovations spread slowly throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa, such as horses, metalworking, and some important crops. Things I’ve covered in many previous episodes.

However, none of that was able to make its way to Australia because of how remote it was.

That being said, the people who lived in Australia independently developed their own cultures and technologies.

The name given to the original inhabitants of Australia is Aboriginese, as they were the aboriginal inhabitants.

It is very important to note that Aboriginal Australia was not a single culture but a collection of over 250 language groups and over 500 distinct clan groups, each with their own territories, customs, and laws.

As with modern Australia, the population density was higher near the coasts, where there was more rainfall and the land was greener. Likewise, fewer people lived in the center, the more arid part of the country.

Aboriginal technologies included specialized tools like the woomera or spear-thrower, and the boomerang. They also practiced controlled burning to manage landscapes, which we now recognize as a sophisticated form of land management.

They created some of the world’s earliest rock art, and built semi-permanent dwellings and stone fish traps such as those at Brewarrina—possibly the oldest human-built structures on Earth.

You can see some incredible specimens of rock art at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. I found Kakadu to be not just the greatest National Park in Australia, but one of the greatest in the world.

The isolation of the Aboriginal people from the rest of the world wasn’t total. We know, perhaps as early as the 17th century, Macassan fishermen from what is now Indonesia visited northern Australia for sea cucumber and traded with Aboriginal groups. However, there is no evidence of sustained or large-scale influence from Asian or other Pacific cultures prior to European contact.

There is a lot more to be said about Aboriginal people and their culture, but that will be saved for a future episode.

The first recorded European contact came in 1606, when Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula. Over the 17th century, Dutch ships mapped parts of the western and northern coastlines, calling the land New Holland. Despite charting these areas, the Dutch did not attempt to colonize the continent

In 1770, British explorer James Cook charted the eastern coastline aboard the HMS Endeavour, claiming it for Britain and naming it New South Wales. This was based on the doctrine of terra nullius—the false notion that the land belonged to no one, despite the fact that Aboriginal people had lived there for tens of thousands of years.

Britain, facing overcrowded prisons and seeking to expand its imperial reach, established a penal colony at Sydney Cove in 1788, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip.

Known as the First Fleet, it consisted of 11 ships carrying about 1,480 people, including 778 convicts, consisting of 586 men and 192 women. After an eight-month journey of roughly 15,000 miles, they arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788.

Finding Botany Bay unsuitable for settlement, Phillip explored further north and established the colony at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, which is modern Sydney. The early years were extraordinarily difficult, with the settlers facing near starvation due to poor soil, unfamiliar growing conditions, and limited farming knowledge.

They were extremely isolated with supply ships arriving irregularly and there were tensions between military governors, officers, and convicts.

Britain’s decision to establish a penal colony in Australia emerged from a convergence of pressing problems in the late 18th century:

The American Revolution had closed off Britain’s previous destination for transported convicts. Before 1775, Britain had sent approximately 50,000 convicts to its American colonies, particularly to Maryland and Virginia, where they served as indentured laborers.

Britain’s prisons were severely overcrowded, partly due to the “Bloody Code” – a harsh legal system with over 200 offenses carrying the death penalty.

Many death sentences were commuted to transportation, creating a backlog of prisoners. As a temporary measure, these convicts were held on decommissioned ships called “hulks” moored in the Thames and other harbors, but these were overcrowded and disease-ridden.

At the same time, Britain was concerned about French expansion in the Pacific and wanted to establish a strategic presence in the region. Reports from James Cook’s 1770 voyage suggested that Botany Bay could support settlement.

Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia on 806 ships.

Here, I should note that the name Australia derives from the Latin terra australis incognita, meaning “unknown southern land,” a term used in medieval and Renaissance geography to refer to a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere. The name was popularized after the voyages of explorers like Matthew Flinders, who advocated for its official use in the early 19th century.

However, while British Australia had its origins as a penal colony, it didn’t remain that way.

Free settlers gradually began arriving in greater numbers, particularly after positive reports from explorers and the establishment of wool as a valuable export.

As more settlers arrived, new colonies were created throughout Australia. Van Diemen’s Land, later renamed Tasmania, was established in 1825, Western Australia in 1829, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859.

The discovery of gold in 1851 in New South Wales and Victoria triggered a gold rush, dramatically increasing the population and transforming Australia’s economy and infrastructure. It also contributed to demands for self-government and more democratic institutions.

This inflow of Europeans didn’t fare well for the Aboriginal people of Australia.

The expansion of European settlement led to the widespread displacement of Aboriginal peoples from their traditional lands. Violent conflicts erupted across the frontiers, with massacres and disease devastating Indigenous populations. The Black War in Tasmania, from approximately 1824 to 1832, and numerous massacres on the mainland represented some of the darkest chapters in Australian history.

Between 1855 and 1890, the six colonies progressively gained self-governance, establishing their own parliaments and constitutions within the British Empire. The British learned the lesson of allowing such autonomy from their experience with the American colonies.

Throughout the 19th century, the colonies remained separate and independent, but there was a growing movement to establish a union.

On January 1, 1901, the six colonies joined to form the Commonwealth of Australia, a dominion of the British Empire.

The new nation adopted a federal constitution, created a national parliament, and established policies such as the White Australia Policy, which severely restricted non-European immigration.

Despite this nation-building, Aboriginal Australians were excluded from political and legal recognition. They were not counted in the national census, and many lived under state “protection” regimes that severely limited their rights.

Australia entered World War I as part of the British Empire, and over 400,000 Australians served, with more than 60,000 killed. Despite being a military failure, the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915 became a foundational myth of Australian identity, giving rise to the ANZAC legend, which I covered in a previous episode.

Australia again joined Britain in World War II, and the Japanese threat in the Pacific brought the war directly to Australian shores. Darwin was bombed in 1942, and fears of invasion led to a new alliance with the United States, shifting Australia’s strategic focus from Britain to America, which was a greater power in the Pacific.

After the war, Australia embarked on a massive immigration program, welcoming millions from Europe and, eventually, beyond. Between the 1950s and 1970s, the White Australia Policy was gradually dismantled. The 1970s also marked the rise of immigration outside of Europe, which transformed Australian society.

In 1967, a national referendum overwhelmingly approved changes to the constitution to include Aboriginal Australians in the census and allow the federal government’s laws to apply to them.

Politically, Australia has remained a constitutional monarchy with the British monarch as head of state, though debates over republicanism have persisted. In 1999, Australia held a referendum on becoming a republic, but despite initial positive polling, the referendum failed 55 to 45 percent.

Economically, Australia has evolved into one of the wealthiest nations per capita in the world.

Australia is exceptionally rich in natural resources, which have played a pivotal role in shaping its economy. The continent holds vast reserves of iron ore, coal, natural gas, gold, bauxite, copper, and uranium, many of which are exported in large quantities to major global markets, particularly China and other Asian economies.

The mining sector has driven waves of economic growth, investment, and infrastructure development, especially in Western Australia and Queensland. During periods of high global commodity demand, such as the early 21st-century mining boom, Australia experienced robust GDP growth, low unemployment, and a strong trade surplus.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending a lot of time in Australia. Collectively, I’ve spent the better part of a year there, and I’ve driven from Darwin to Perth, Alice Springs to Adelaide, and in various segments from Adelaide to Port Douglas in the far north of Queensland.

I’ve been to every capital city and I even was able to visit Lord Howe Island, which is someplace that most Australians haven’t even visited.

What I’ve covered here just scratches the surface of the story of Australia. It’s a big country with a unique geography and history.