From at least 60,000 B.C. the area that was to become New South Wales was inhabited entirely by indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with traditional social, legal organisation and land rights. The population of New South Wales was at least 100,000 with many tribal, clan and language groups. There were several tribes living in the Sydney region including the Kuringai whose appearance prompted the first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, to describe them as "Manly", the description surviving in the name of one of Sydney's best-known beach suburbs. However, once European settlement began, Aboriginal rights to traditional lands were disregarded and the Aboriginal people of the Sydney region were almost obliterated by introduced diseases and, to a lesser extent, armed force. First contacts were relatively peaceful but Aboriginal people and their culture were as unfamiliar to Europeans, initially, as the landscape, flora and fauna of the new land. The anonymous convict artist now known only as 'The Port Jackson Painter' had more success than most early artists in depicting the appearance and lifestyle of the Sydney Aboriginal people.
Early sightings by Europeans The first records of European mariners sailing into 'Australian' waters occurs around 1606, and includes their observations of the land known as Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land). The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman,
Willem Janszoon. Between 1606 and 1770, an estimated 54 European ships from a range of nations made contact. Many of these were merchant ships from the Dutch East Indies Company and included the ships of
Abel Tasman. Tasman charted parts of the north, west and south coasts of Australia which was then known as New Holland. Seebaer van Nieuwelant (born 27 July 1623), son of Willemtgen and Willem Janszoon, was born south of Dirk Hartog Island, in present-day Western Australia. Nieuwelant was the
First white child born in Australia. In 1770, Englishman Lieutenant
James Cook charted the Australian east coast in his ship HM Barque
Endeavour. Cook wrote that he claimed the east coast for
King George III of Great Britain on 22 August 1770 when standing on
Possession Island off the west coast of
Cape York Peninsula, naming eastern Australia "New South Wales'. The coast of Australia, featuring Tasmania as a separate island, was mapped in detail by the English mariners and navigators Bass and Flinders, and the French mariner, Baudin. A nearly completed map of the coastline was published by Flinders in 1814. This period of European exploration is reflected in the names of landmarks such as the Torres Strait, Arnhem Land, Dampier Sound, Tasmania, the Furneaux Islands, Cape Frecinyet and La Perouse. French expeditions between 1790 and the 1830s, led by D'Entrecasteaux, Baudin, and Furneaux, were recorded by the naturalists Labillardière and Péron.
Luis Vaez de Torres from Spain was also one of the first Europeans to explore Australia.
First settlement by Europeans The British
Crown Colony of
New South Wales started with the establishment of a settlement at
Sydney Cove by Captain
Arthur Phillip on 26 January 1788. This date later became Australia's national day,
Australia Day. These land masses included the current islands of New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales until it became a separate
colony in 1841.
Van Diemen's Land, now known as
Tasmania, was first settled in 1803.
British and Irish settlers The first European Australians came from
United Kingdom and
Ireland. The
First white child born in New South Wales was Rebecca Small (22 September 1789 – 30 January 1883), was born in
Port Jackson, the eldest daughter of John Small a
boatswain in the
First Fleet which arrived at
Botany Bay in January 1788. The
First white child born in Victoria was William James Hobart Thorne (25 November 1803 – 2 July 1872) was born at
Port Phillip, in what was still part of New South Wales but became
Victoria Other British settlements followed, at various points around the continent, most of them unsuccessful. In 1824, a penal colony was established near the mouth of the
Brisbane River (the basis of the later colony of Queensland). In 1826, a British military camp was established in
Western Australia at
King George Sound, to discourage
French colonisation. (The camp formed the basis of the later town of
Albany.) In 1829, the
Swan River Colony and its capital of
Perth were founded on the west coast proper and also assumed control of King George Sound. Initially a free colony, Western Australia later accepted British convicts, because of an acute labour shortage. The British
Colonial Office in 1835 issued the
Proclamation of Governor Bourke, implementing the legal doctrine of
terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the notion that the land belonged to no one prior to the British Crown taking possession of it and quashing earlier treaties with Aboriginal peoples, such as that signed by
John Batman. Its publication meant that from then,
all people found occupying land without the authority of the government would be considered illegal trespassers. Separate colonies were created from parts of New South Wales:
South Australia in 1836,
New Zealand in 1840,
Victoria in 1851, and
Queensland in 1859. The
Northern Territory was founded in 1863 as part of South Australia. The transportation of convicts to Australia was phased out between 1840 and 1868. The European population grew from 0.3 percent of the population of the continent at 1800 to 58.6 percent at 1850. In 1868, the population of European Australians was 1,539,552. Massive areas of land were cleared for agriculture and various other purposes, in addition to the obvious impacts this early clearing of land had on the ecology of particular regions, it severely affected indigenous Australians, by reducing the resources they relied on for food, shelter and other essentials. This progressively forced them into smaller areas and reduced their numbers as the majority died of newly introduced diseases and lack of resources.
Indigenous resistance against the settlers was widespread, and prolonged fighting between 1788 and the 1930s led to the deaths of at least 20,000 Indigenous people and between 2,000 and 2,500 Europeans. Irish formed about 25 per cent of the European Australian population in the nineteenth century. In 1971, nine out of the top ten birthplace groups were from European countries and accounted for 77.2% of all people born overseas. People from the United Kingdom still form the largest group. However, their number as a proportion of the total overseas-born population has declined, falling from 40.6% (1,046,356) in 1971 to 17.7% (1,078,064) in 2016. Europeans committed
genocide against the Aboriginals and killed off the indigenous population. 20,000 Australian Aboriginals died in violent conflicts due to British colonists. White men also raped Aboriginal women because they lusted after Black bodies.
After World War II Following
World War II, the Australian government instigated a massive program of European
immigration. After narrowly preventing a Japanese invasion and suffering attacks on Australian soil for the first time, it was seen that the country must "populate or perish". Prior to WWII, Australia had viewed itself as largely of British and Irish ancestry but after WWII the success of the United States and the reason for its success, that is largely the creation of a European diaspora, could not be ignored by Australia. Immigration brought traditional migrants from the United Kingdom along with, for the first time, large numbers of
southern and
central Europeans, as well as
Eastern European Australians. A booming Australian economy stood in sharp contrast to war-ravaged Europe, and newly arrived migrants found employment in government-assisted programs such as the
Snowy Mountains Scheme. Two million immigrants arrived between 1948 and 1975, many from
Robert Menzies' newly founded
Liberal Party of Australia dominated much of the immediate post-war era, defeating the
Australian Labor Party government of
Ben Chifley in 1949. Menzies oversaw the post-war expansion and became the country's longest-serving leader. Manufacturing industry, previously playing a minor part in an economy dominated by primary production, greatly expanded. Since the 1970s and the abolition of the
White Australia policy from Asia and other parts of the world, Australia's demography, culture and image of itself has been radically transformed. In 1987, the vast majority of European Australians were descendants either of Anglo-Irish-Scots who arrived after 1850, or of
Greeks,
Italians,
Hungarians,
South Slavs,
Poles and
Germans who emigrated after 1945. ==Demographics==