Before 1900, there was no actual country called Australia, only the six colonies – New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, and Western Australia. While these colonies were on the same continent, they were governed like six rival countries and there was little communication between them.
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Did Australia exist as a country before 1901?
Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901, when the British Parliament passed legislation enabling the six Australian colonies to collectively govern in their own right as the Commonwealth of Australia.
Who ruled Australia before 1901?
British
British settlement of Australia began as a penal colony governed by a captain of the Royal Navy. Until the 1850s, when local forces began to be recruited, British regular troops garrisoned the colonies with little local assistance.
What was Australia originally supposed to be?
Australia, once known as New South Wales, was originally planned as a penal colony. In October 1786, the British government appointed Arthur Phillip captain of the HMS Sirius, and commissioned him to establish an agricultural work camp there for British convicts.
What was Australia called before the white man came?
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as ‘New Holland‘. It was the English explorer Matthew Flinders who made the suggestion of the name we use today.
When was Australia first inhabited?
48,000 years ago
The minimum widely accepted time frame for the arrival of humans in Australia is placed at least 48,000 years ago. Many sites dating from this time period have been excavated. In Arnhem Land Madjedbebe (formerly known as Malakunanja II) rock shelter has been dated to around 65,000 years old.
What did Australia look like before Colonisation?
In The Biggest Estate, Gammage supports his thesis with exhaustive and compelling research from primary sources to prove that prior to British colonisation in 1788, Australia was an “unnatural” landscape, carefully and systematically managed by its traditional owners to ensure that “life was comfortable, people had
What happened when Australia was Colonised?
The most immediate consequence of colonisation was a wave of epidemic diseases including smallpox, measles and influenza, which spread ahead of the frontier and annihilated many Indigenous communities.”The Government is fast disposing of the land occupied by the natives from time immemorial.
What did the English do to the Aboriginal?
The English settlers and their descendants expropriated native land and removed the indigenous people by cutting them from their food resources, and engaged in genocidal massacres.
What was Australia called before it was called Australia?
Terra Australis
Change of name
After British colonisation, the name New Holland was retained for several decades and the south polar continent continued to be called Terra Australis, sometimes shortened to Australia.
What happened on 26th January?
Captain Arthur Phillip took formal possession of the colony of New South Wales on 26 January 1788 and raised the British flag for the first time in Sydney Cove.By 1935, January 26 was known as Australia Day in all states except New South Wales where the name ‘Anniversary Day’ prevailed.
Is the term Blackfella offensive?
This term is considered outdated and highly offensive by many people across Australia. The expression is used, though, by Aboriginal and Torrest Strait Islander people amongst ourselves. However, many would find it offensive for a person who is not Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander to use this expression.
Was anyone in Australia before the aboriginal?
It is true that there has been, historically, a small number of claims that there were people in Australia before Australian Aborigines, but these claims have all been refuted and are no longer widely debated. The overwhelming weight of evidence supports the idea that Aboriginal people were the first Australians.
Why is the word Aboriginal offensive?
‘Aborigine’ is generally perceived as insensitive, because it has racist connotations from Australia’s colonial past, and lumps people with diverse backgrounds into a single group.Without a capital “a”, “aboriginal” can refer to an Indigenous person from anywhere in the world.
How did the first Aboriginal get to Australia?
Aboriginal origins
Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.
How many Aboriginal tribes were there in Australia before settlement?
There were between 300,000 to 950,000 Aboriginal people living in Australia when the British arrived in 1788.3 At that time there were approximately 260 distinct language groups and 500 dialects. Land is fundamental to Indigenous people, both individually and collectively.
What is the average life expectancy of an Aboriginal person?
71.6 years
Aboriginal people can expect to die about 8 to 9 years earlier than non-Aboriginal Australians. On average, Aboriginal males live 71.6 years, 8.6 years less than their non-Aboriginal peers, women live 75.6 years, 7.8 years less. Compared to figures ten years earlier this is an improvement.
How many Aboriginal were killed in Australia?
After European settlers arrived in 1788, thousand of aborigines died from diseases; colonists systematically killed many others. At first contact, there were over 250,000 aborigines in Australia. The massacres ended in the 1920 leaving no more than 60,000.
What did the Australian landscape look like prior to 1788?
Aboriginal fire regimes consciously and deliberately shaped grass, trees and scrub into patterns. Fire was used to burn the land using small ‘cool’ fires in small patches (mosaics) within the landscape8. This ensured only small areas were burnt at once, leaving more established vegetation for animals to use.
What happened to the Aboriginal land when the British came?
Aboriginal peoples lived in Australia for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. They suffered greatly as a result of the arrival of the British in Australia.Settlers often killed Aborigines who trespassed onto ‘their’ land. Many Aborigines moved to the towns to try and make a living.
What would Australia be like without Colonisation?
Without colonisation, modern technology still would have found its way to our shores just like it has in countries such as Fiji, Solomon Islands & Papua New Guinea etc. Industrialisation & mining however would be nowhere near the levels that we see today and we would be better off for it.
