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HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA
Many different people discovered Australia before the British came and staked their claim to the continent.
Some 50,000 years ago, the Aborigines arrived and settled there. That makes them first, by a long shot. It is believed they came from somewhere in Asia. They were nomadic hunters, of various tribes, that occupied various regions of the country.
They are still there today, playing a vibrant part in modern Australian society.
After the Aborigines, from 100 A.D. onwards, Malay and Indian traders, from what is now Indonesia, arrived in Australia. They were expert sailors and merchants that had a regular trade with China. This included shipments of sea slugs, collected from the Australian coast. The sea slugs were a highly prized delicacy in China.
The Chinese were probably the next discoverers of Australia, because between the 12th and 15th centuries they sent huge fleets to Indonesia. It is highly likely that the Chinese explored the northern coastline of Australia during that time.
The first Europeans did not arrive on the scene until 1606, when Dutchman William Jansz sighted Australia and explored the Gulf of Carpentaria.
In 1616 the Dutch ship Eendracht, commanded by Captain Dirk Hartog, was the first European ship to land on Australian soil at Shark Bay, Western Australia.
Another Dutchmen that explored the coast of Australia is Abel Tasman. In the 1640s, he discovered Tasmania and New Zealand and proved that Australia was not joined to the Antarctic continent. Tasman named Tasmania, "Van Dieman's Land," after the governor of the Dutch East Indies who had commissioned his expedition.
On their maps the Dutch named Australia "New Holland," but strangely they never formally claimed or occupied the country. They saw little trade value in the country and seemed content to stay in nearby Batavia (now Jakarta) in Indonesia.
Until that time, the Australian continent was not known to the West. It existed only in myth as a "Great Southern Land" or "Terra Australis" (southern land).
Between 1698 and 1700, an English buccaneer, William Dampier, made two trips to Australia; the British were unimpressed by his reports about the place.
It was not until nearly 70 years later, that the British sent Captain James Cook to take another look at Terra Australis. He went to Australia while he was on a general expedition of exploration in the pacific area.
Cook landed at Botany Bay, on the East Coast, in 1770 and at Possession Island, where on August 23, he claimed for Great Britain. He named it New South Wales.
New South Wales was initially established as a penal colony. In those early days, half of the Australian continent was called New South Wales. Later, the other half was known as Western Australia.
Then came the gradual introduction of other breakaway colonies like South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. They would later become States, along with New South Wales and Western Australia.
Britain did not officially claim the entire Australian continent until 1827.
It was in 1819 that the name "Australia " began to be used regularly for the southern continent, mostly because of a British Colonial Office inspector named Judge John Thomas Bigge.
The name Australia has been used ever since.
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