Imperialism and Colonialism: Australia
- In 1770, Captain James Cook of Great Britain sailed to Australia, landing only at Botany Bay (as named by him), and claimed the coastline for the British Crown — though it would be another 18 years before any attempt was made to establish a colony there.
- Australia was eventually chosen for settlement, and colonisation of Australia began in 1788, when the first British expedition arrived at Port Jackson under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, laying the foundation of the colony of New South Wales.
Why Colonisation of Australia Started?
Loss of American Colonies
- Following the loss of the American colonies after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Great Britain needed to find alternative land for a new colony.
Overcrowding in the British Prison System
- The colonisation of Australia was also driven by the need to address overcrowding in the British prison system, prompting a search for a new penal colony.
- This function had previously been served by the American colonies; with American independence, a new convict settlement was required, and Botany Bay appeared well suited to the purpose.
No Opposition
- What made Australia ideal for colonisation was that it was, in British eyes, an untouched and empty continent that could be occupied without opposition.
- Although Dutch navigators had discovered parts of Australia long before Cook’s arrival, their countrymen made no attempt at settling there.
- In 1788, a French expedition also arrived off Botany Bay but departed, never to be seen again.
- Cook had noted the presence of a native population, but observed them to be largely docile and unlikely to resist European incursions.
- A colony could, in principle, be established by:
- persuading the indigenous inhabitants to submit to its overlordship;
- purchasing from those inhabitants the right to settle part or parts of the land; or
- unilateral possession, on the basis of first discovery and effective occupation.
Phases of Colonization
Phase I: As a Penal Colony
- Australia’s colonisation began first as a penal colony, where criminals were transported.
- From 1788 to 1868, Britain transported more than 160,000 convicts from its overcrowded prisons to the Australian colonies.
- Convict discipline was harsh: those who refused to work or disobeyed orders were punished by flogging or placed in stricter confinement.
Why Australia Was Suited for a Penal Colony
- The continent proved an unfriendly host in many respects: the natives were hunter-gatherers who had not cultivated land or built settled communities, leaving no existing infrastructure to take over or imitate.
- The wildlife was impossible to tame or farm (a kangaroo, after all, cannot be milked), and the land harboured many deadly and poisonous snakes, spiders, and scorpions.
- The climate was scorching away from the coast, and most rivers were highly seasonal, drying up completely for months at a time.
- There were no obvious natural resources worth exploiting and shipping back to England — raising the question of why anyone would want to colonise the place at all.
- The answer lay precisely in its remoteness and harshness: these were exactly the properties needed when the old country wanted to export its most troublesome commodity — its criminals and undesirables.
- Australia was thus perfectly suited to becoming a penal colony.
- However, addressing prison overcrowding alone was not economically viable justification for transporting prisoners halfway around the world.
- Many convicts were skilled tradesmen or farmers who were put to work setting up the colony’s infrastructure.
- Convicts were often pardoned prior to or upon completion of their sentences and allocated parcels of land to farm.
- This first settlement led to the founding of Sydney, the establishment of farming, industry, and commerce, and the exploration and settlement of other regions.
- Many settlers occupied land beyond authorised settlement limits; known as squatters, they eventually formed the basis of a powerful landowning class.
Why Transportation of Convicts Ended
- Several well-established colonial areas began refusing to accept convicts, as they were now attracting free emigrants capable of carrying out the labouring work.
- Settlers who had arrived legally resented having prisoners sent to live among them.
- Transportation had also grown very expensive, prompting the government to seek cheaper solutions to Britain’s domestic criminal problem.
- A mass demonstration against convict transportation took place in Sydney in 1849; mindful of the earlier rebellion of the American colonies, the government decided to end the system, although it continued in some parts for a few more years.
- Transportation was finally abolished following the Penal Servitude Act of 1857, though some convicts continued to be transported for a while afterward — the last transportation took place in 1868.
Phase II: Arrival of Free Immigrants
- Between 1793 and 1850, nearly 200,000 free settlers chose to migrate to Australia in search of a new life — the majority being English agricultural workers or domestic servants, along with Irish and Scottish migrants who formed the basis of early Australian society.
- The discovery of coal and the introduction of merino sheep helped develop the colony, and sheep-rearing became an important business.
- As free emigrants poured in, the interior was gradually opened up and new settlements founded, giving rise to six flourishing colonies:
- New South Wales
- Queensland
- Victoria
- South Australia
- Western Australia
- Tasmania
The Gold Rush
- In 1851, gold deposits were discovered, attracting a large wave of immigrants and accelerating Australia’s development.
- Thousands of Chinese migrants arrived during the 1850s gold rushes; by 1901, they constituted the third-largest migrant group in Australia after the British and Germans.
- When the gold was exhausted, many took up market gardening or established businesses such as restaurants and laundries.
Labourers
- In the second half of the 19th century, South Sea Islanders were recruited to work on Queensland’s sugar plantations, while Japanese divers contributed to the development of the pearling industry.
Impact of Colonisation on the Native Aboriginal Population
- Prior to British settlement, more than 500 Indigenous groups inhabited the Australian continent, totalling approximately 750,000 people; Indigenous Aboriginal people had lived in Australia for at least 50,000 years.
- From the very beginning of colonisation, Indigenous people continually resisted the violation of their land rights and the erosion of their cultures and communities.
- By 1800, the Indigenous population of Australia is estimated to have declined by 90%, driven primarily by:
- the introduction of new diseases;
- settler acquisition of Indigenous lands; and
- direct and violent conflict with the colonisers.
- The most immediate consequence of colonisation was a wave of epidemic diseases — including smallpox, measles, and influenza — that spread ahead of the settlement frontier and devastated many Indigenous communities.
- Massacres of Indigenous people often took the form of mass shootings or driving groups of people off cliffs.
Process of Decolonisation
- The oldest legislative body in Australia, the New South Wales Legislative Council, was created in 1825 as an appointed body to advise the Governor of New South Wales.
- The Australian Patriotic Association — Australia’s first political party — was formed in 1835 to demand democratic government for New South Wales.
- By the mid-19th century, a strong desire for representative and responsible government had taken hold across the colonies, fuelled further by:
- the democratic spirit fostered on the goldfields, where people worked side by side; and
- the ideas of the great reform movements sweeping Europe, the United States, and the wider British Empire.
- The end of convict transportation also accelerated reform through the 1840s and 1850s.
- Australia’s first parliamentary elections were held for the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1843, with voting rights (for males only) tied to property ownership or financial capacity.
- Voter rights were extended further in New South Wales in 1850, and elections for legislative councils were held in Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania under the Australian Colonies Government Act, 1850.
Australian Colonies Government Act, 1850
- This landmark legislation granted representative constitutions to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.
- The colonies enthusiastically set about drafting constitutions that produced democratically progressive parliaments — though these constitutions generally preserved the role of the colonial upper houses.
Between 1855 and 1890
- The six colonies individually gained responsible government, managing most of their own affairs while remaining part of the British Empire.
- The Colonial Office in London retained control over certain matters, notably foreign affairs, defence, and international shipping.
Closer Union of Australian Colonies
- The Australian colonies long maintained a separatist attitude, further accentuated by differences in tariffs; proposals for closer union were periodically made but repeatedly rejected.
Why the Need for Union Was Felt
- The growing presence of other European powers — particularly Germany in the Pacific — and the rise of Japan revealed the underlying weaknesses of disunion.
- Concerted measures were also considered necessary for excluding Chinese immigrants.
- Consequently, schemes for federation were renewed and, after long discussion, ultimately accepted.
- Under the Australian Commonwealth Act, which came into force in 1901, the various Australian colonies were federated together.
- New Zealand alone declined the invitation to join the Commonwealth.
- The Commonwealth of Australia was thus established, becoming a dominion of the British Empire in 1907.
- Britain’s Statute of Westminster, 1931 formally ended most of the constitutional links between Australia and the UK; Australia formally adopted the statute in 1942.
New Zealand
- New Zealand, initially part of the colony of New South Wales, became a separate Colony of New Zealand on 1 July 1841.
- It gained a representative government in 1852, and the first New Zealand Parliament met in 1854.
- In 1856, the colony effectively became self-governing, gaining responsibility over all domestic matters other than native policy (control over which was granted in the mid-1860s).
- Amid concerns that the South Island might form a separate colony, premier Alfred Domett moved a resolution to transfer the capital from Auckland to a locality near the Cook Strait.
- Wellington was chosen for its harbour and central location, with Parliament officially sitting there for the first time in 1865.
- As immigrant numbers increased, conflicts over land led to the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s and 1870s, resulting in the loss and confiscation of much Māori land.
- (The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. The Polynesian peoples comprise various ethnic groups speaking Polynesian languages — a branch of the Oceanic languages — who inhabit Polynesia; the native Polynesian peoples of New Zealand and Hawaii are minorities within their own homelands.)
- In 1891, the Liberal Party, led by John Ballance, came to power as the first organised political party.
- The Liberal Government, later led by Richard Seddon, passed several important social and economic measures.
- In 1893, New Zealand became the first nation in the world to grant all women the right to vote, and in 1894 it pioneered compulsory arbitration between employers and unions.
- In 1898, Seddon’s government passed the Old-Age Pensions Act, the first general pensions scheme in the British Empire.
- In 1907, at the request of the New Zealand Parliament, King Edward VII proclaimed New Zealand a dominion within the British Empire, reflecting its self-governing status; the title “Dominion of New Zealand” dates from this year.
- In 1947, the country adopted the Statute of Westminster, confirming that the British Parliament could no longer legislate for New Zealand without its consent.
New Guinea
- The first European contact with New Guinea was made by Portuguese and Spanish sailors in the 16th century.
- A successive European claim occurred in 1828, when the Netherlands formally claimed the western half of the island as Netherlands New Guinea.
- In 1883, following a short-lived French annexation of New Ireland, the British colony of Queensland annexed south-eastern New Guinea — a claim subsequently revoked by its superiors in the United Kingdom, which formally assumed direct responsibility in 1884, the same year Germany claimed north-eastern New Guinea as the protectorate of German New Guinea.
- The first Dutch government posts were established in 1898 and 1902; the German, Dutch, and British colonial administrators each attempted to suppress the still-widespread practices of inter-village warfare and headhunting within their respective territories.
- In 1905, the British government transferred partial administrative responsibility over south-eastern New Guinea to Australia (which renamed the area the “Territory of Papua“), followed by the transfer of all remaining responsibility in 1906.
- During World War I, Australian forces seized German New Guinea, which in 1920 became the Territory of New Guinea, administered by Australia under a League of Nations mandate.
- The territories under Australian administration became collectively known as The Territories of Papua and New Guinea (until February 1942).
- During World War II, Netherlands New Guinea and the Australian territories were invaded by the Japanese in 1942.
- The Australian territories were placed under military administration and known simply as New Guinea; Papuans often gave vital assistance to the Allies, fighting alongside Australian troops.
- Approximately 216,000 Japanese, Australian, and U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen died during the New Guinea Campaign.
- Since World War II: following the return to civil administration, the Australian section was known as the Territory of Papua-New Guinea (1945–49) and subsequently as Papua and New Guinea.
- Although the rest of the Dutch East Indies achieved independence as Indonesia on 27 December 1949, the Netherlands retained control of western New Guinea.
- During the 1950s, the Dutch government began preparing Netherlands New Guinea for full independence, allowing elections in 1959; the elected New Guinea Council took office on 5 April 1961 and adopted the name West Papua, along with an emblem, flag, and anthem.
- On 1 October 1962, the Dutch handed over the territory to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority, until 1 May 1963, when Indonesia took control.
- In 1969, under the 1962 New York Agreement, Indonesia organised a referendum known as the Act of Free Choice, in which Papuan tribal elders reached a consensus to continue the union with Indonesia.
- There has been sustained resistance to Indonesian integration and occupation, both through civil disobedience and via the formation of the Free Papua Movement in 1965.
- More than 100,000 Papuans — one-sixth of the population — have died as a result of government-sponsored violence against West Papuans.
- From 1971, the name Papua New Guinea was used for the Australian territory. On 16 September 1975, Australia granted full independence to Papua New Guinea.
