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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. In 1788, the British Empire established its first settlement in Australia, and for the next century, the country remained under British control. During this period, Australia served as a penal colony, with convicts transported from Britain making up a significant portion of the population. Over time, free immigrants also began to arrive, and the colonies gradually gained more autonomy, with each colony establishing its own parliament and managing its own affairs while remaining under British rule. In 1901, the six colonies united to form the Commonwealth of Australia, a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire. Australia gradually gained control over its external affairs, achieving complete autonomy from the British Parliament in 1942.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Date of becoming a nation | 1 January 1901 |
| Number of colonies that united to form the nation | 6 |
| Names of the colonies | New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania |
| Year of the first British settlement | 1788 |
| Year when the British claim was extended to the whole Australian continent | 1827 |
| Year when the British Empire gained control over the Territory of New Guinea (formerly German New Guinea) | 1920 |
| Year when the Balfour Declaration was issued, recognising the autonomy of Australia and other Dominions | 1926 |
| Year when the Statute of Westminster was approved, codifying Australia's relationship with the UK | 1931 |
| Year when Australia gained complete autonomy from the British Parliament | 1942 |
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What You'll Learn
British settlement of Australia
The British settlement of Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson on 26 January 1788. The fleet was comprised of 11 ships carrying convicts from Britain to Australia, marking the beginning of the European colonisation of the continent. The colony was formally proclaimed by Governor Phillip on 7 February 1788 at Sydney Cove, which offered a freshwater supply and a safe harbour. The territory of New South Wales claimed by Britain included more than half of mainland Australia, as well as many of the surrounding islands.
The establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales was followed by the founding of other colonies that make up modern-day Australia. In 1789, the New South Wales Corps was formed as a permanent regiment of the British Army to relieve the marines who had accompanied the First Fleet. The colony gradually expanded and developed an economy based on farming, fishing, whaling, trade, and construction using convict labour.
In the early years of British settlement, most European settlers in Australia were convicts sent by the British government. However, there were also some free settlers who paid their own way to Australia and were typically quite prosperous. To encourage free settlement among the less wealthy, the British colonial government began to pay the transportation costs for many migrants in the early 1800s and provided them with free land and agricultural tools.
By the 1820s, the grazing of sheep and cattle expanded rapidly, and the colony spread beyond its official bounds. In 1825, the western boundary of New South Wales was extended, and the territory reached its greatest extent, covering the area of modern-day Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and the Northern Territory. Free settlements were established at the Swan River Colony in Western Australia in 1829, the Province of South Australia in 1836, and in the Port Philip District in 1836.
The British settlement of Australia had devastating effects on the Indigenous people, who were displaced from their traditional lands and suffered from introduced diseases and violent conflict. By the late 1800s, the Australian continent had been divided into six colonies, each with its own government and distinctive pattern of settlement. While the colonies shared many common experiences, they also had unique qualities, and the decision to unite as one nation under Federation shaped the future of Australian democracy.
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Australia as a penal colony
Australia was founded by the British as a penal colony in 1788. Over the next 80 years, more than 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, instead of being given the death penalty. The convicts were transported as punishment for crimes, often minor, committed in Britain and Ireland. In Australia, they helped build the young colony. Most convicts were transported for petty crimes, particularly theft: thieves comprised 80% of all transportees. Many did little more than steal a bag of sugar, and some were children or political prisoners.
The American colonies were the main destination for convict transportation in the 18th century, but this came to an abrupt halt with the American Revolutionary War. After America gained independence, it stopped accepting convicts from Britain. In 1783, James Matra, one of the few Europeans to have seen the continent of Australia, proposed to the British government that Botany Bay was a suitable location for a colony. The plan was reformulated to comprise mostly convicts instead of being an asylum for British loyalists who wanted to leave America. In 1785, the British government issued Orders in Council for the creation of a penal colony in New South Wales.
Penal transportation to Australia peaked in the 1830s, with nearly 7,000 people arriving in one year. Convicts who arrived after 1820 were far less likely to become property owners, marry, and establish families. Growing opposition to the convict system culminated in its abolition in the eastern colonies by the 1850s. In 1868, the last convict ship arrived in Western Australia, and for at least a century after convict transportation ended, the Australian colonies tried to hide their founding legacy.
Today, about 20% of Australians are descendants of convicts, and locals are embracing their crime-ridden past.
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Australia gains autonomy
Australia's history as a country controlled by another country began in 1788 when the British established a penal colony governed by a captain of the Royal Navy. The British settlement of Australia continued throughout the 19th century, with the arrival of both convicts and voluntary immigrants. In 1827, the British claim was extended to the entire Australian continent when Major Edmund Lockyer established a settlement on King George Sound (modern-day Albany). Over time, separate colonies were carved from New South Wales: Tasmania in 1825, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859.
The six colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania—individually gained responsible government between 1855 and 1890, managing most of their own affairs while remaining part of the British Empire. However, the Colonial Office in London retained control of some matters, notably foreign affairs.
On January 1, 1901, these six colonies united to form the Commonwealth of Australia, marking the country's transition to a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire. While Australia was now sovereign in its domestic affairs, the United Kingdom maintained control over its external relations.
Over the following decades, Australia gradually gained control over its external policy. The Balfour Declaration of 1926 recognised that the United Kingdom and the Dominions were "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs." This relationship was further codified with the approval of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, although its provisions did not come into effect until formally adopted by the Australian government.
Finally, in 1942, Australia's legislature ratified the Statute of Westminster, achieving complete autonomy from the British Parliament. This marked the end of Australia's journey to full autonomy and self-governance.
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Aboriginal Australians' resistance to British settlement
Australia was treated by the British as a colony of settlement, not of conquest, from 1788. The British colonists took over Aboriginal land on the premise that the land belonged to no one ('terra nullius'). The assumption that European culture was superior to all others and that Europeans could define the world in their terms was central to the colonial takeover.
The Aboriginal Australians' resistance to British settlement took the form of guerrilla warfare. Individuals or small groups of settlers were ambushed, isolated settlements attacked, crops, buildings, and the countryside burnt. In south-eastern New South Wales, this type of resistance, organised by people such as Pemulwuy around Sydney and Windradyne of the Wiradjuri around Bathurst, continued into the 1820s. As white settlers moved further away from the centre of government, random shootings of Aboriginal people and massacres of groups of men, women, and children were common. The most infamous massacre in New South Wales occurred at Myall Creek Station in 1838, where 28 Aboriginal people were murdered. The murderers were tried, and some were hanged, causing an outcry in the white community.
In addition to guerrilla tactics, Aboriginal Australians also engaged in a form of economic warfare, killing livestock, burning property, attacking supply-carrying drays, and destroying telegraph lines in Western Australia in the 1890s. It is estimated that about 2,500 European settlers and police died in this conflict, with the number of Aboriginal Australians killed being far higher, at about 20,000.
The first frontier war began in 1795 when encroaching British settlers established farms along the Hawkesbury River west of Sydney. Some of these settlements were established by soldiers as a means of providing security to the region. The British occupation had a monumental impact on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their lifestyle, and their native lands. Before the arrival of the First Fleet, Indigenous peoples were the only people to have lived in Australia, belonging to hundreds of different nations or groups, each with its own language or dialect, laws, beliefs, and customs. European contact brought a sudden and swift disruption to this traditional way of life.
The consequences of colonisation on Indigenous Australians were devastating. Most scholars have estimated that the Indigenous population before European settlement was between 300,000 and 750,000 people, with some estimates ranging up to 1 million. The exact number of Indigenous deaths is unknown, but many Indigenous men, women, and children died from introduced diseases such as smallpox, influenza, and measles, to which they had no resistance. Many also died in random killings, punitive expeditions, and organised massacres.
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Federation of Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania.
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia (which also governed what is now the Northern Territory), and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia. The colonies of Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation.
The movement for the Federation of the colonies arose in the late 1880s, a time when there was increasing nationalism amongst Australians, most of whom were native-born. The idea of being Australian began to be celebrated in songs and poems. This was fostered by improvements in transport and communications, such as the establishment of a telegraph system between the colonies in 1872. The Australian colonies were also influenced by other federations that had emerged around the world, particularly the United States and Canada.
In 1889, Sir Henry Parkes, then Premier of New South Wales, gave a rousing address calling for "a great national government for all Australians". This provided the momentum that led to Australia becoming a nation. A number of conventions were held during the 1890s to develop a constitution for the Commonwealth. On 1 January 1901, when the Constitution of Australia came into force, the six colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Following federation, the six colonies that united to form the Commonwealth of Australia as states kept the systems of government (and the bicameral legislatures) that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation.
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Frequently asked questions
Australia was controlled by Britain and was a penal colony governed by a captain of the Royal Navy.
Australia became a country on January 1, 1901, when six British colonies—New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania—united to form the Commonwealth of Australia.
Australia gained autonomy from Britain in 1942 when its legislature ratified the 1931 Statute of Westminster.
