2015-08-12
1358
1) The first people to occupy the Australian continent were the Aborigines, who arrived in Australia at least 50000 years ago. After the arrival of the Aborigines and before the arrival of the Europeans, several other cultures probably touched Australian’s northern shores. There is evidence that the Indians, the Arabs and the Chinese knew of the continent. Fishing boats from Maccasar (now part of Indonesia) frequently visited the north coast.
The first recorded Europeans to see Australia were the Dutch in 1606. The Europeans had long believed in the existence of a great south land that they named Terra Australis Incognita. The first Europeans in the region to the north of Australia were the Portuguese and Spaniards in the 1500s. Some historians claim that the east coast of the Australia was explored by the Portuguese. In 1606 a Dutch expedition led by Willem Jansz entered the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia and sailed along the west coast of Cape York Peninsula (February 26). This was the first authenticated landing of a European on Australian soil. The same year the Spaniard Pedro Fernandez de Quiros discovered the islands of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) – named these islands Australia del Espiritu Santo. In 1616 another Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landed in Shark Bay in Western Australia.
The most significant of the Dutch expeditions were those led by Abel Tasman. On 24 November 1642 Abel Tasman sighted the island now named Tasmania. He sailed around the southern part of the island and claimed it for Holland. On 13 December he discovered land on the north-west coast of the South Island, New Zealand, becoming the first Europeans to do so. In 1644 - during his second pacific voyage along the Australian coast - Tasman charted the northern coast of Australia and named the land New Holland. From the point of view of the Dutch East India Company, Tasman had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. The Dutch lost their interest in it. For over a century Tasmania and New Zealand were not visited by Europeans – mainland Australia was visited, but usually only by accident.
In 1688 and again in 1699 William Dampier, English buccaneer, who searching for new British trade routes in the Pacific, visited the northwestern coast of Australia. He was appalled by the ugly landscape of the coast, the fruitless trees, naked savages. The British had also shown little interest in the continent. Dampier’s views of the country were as negative as those of the Dutch.
In 1768 British Lieutenant James Cook was sent from England on an expedition to the Pacific Ocean to observe the transit of the planet Venus from Tahiti. He was also ordered to find and take possession of the southern continent. Having fulfilled his duties in Tahiti Cook sailed south to New Zealand and then sailed further westwards and on April 19, 1770 sighted east coast of the Australian continent. On April 28 his ship Endeavour sailed into Botany Bay near Sydney. Cook's expedition carried botanist Joseph Banks, for whom a great many Australian geographical features and at least one native plant are named. They stayed a week at this bay. It left an unforgettable impression on expedition. No naturalists before have ever collected in such short time so many specimens of plants, birds and animal life. Sailing north, Cook sighted and named Port Jackson, Sydney’s great harbor. On June 10, Cook’s ship struck a reef that was a part of the Great Barrier Reef. After the repair of the ship in the mouth of the river (received the name of the ship) in northern Queensland, in August 1770 Cook reached Cape York and claimed the east coast of the continent for Britain – New South Wales. As opposed to Dutch, instead of a hostile desert country Cook found a country where he believed crops would grow and farm animals could thrive.
During his second voyage of 1772-1775 Cook finally destroyed the historical myth of the Great South Land by using the westerly winds to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent. Thus he showed that the unknown southland didn’t exist and the known southland of New Holland (Australia) did exist.
Cook’s third voyage of 1776-1779 was less significant for Australia and turned to be fatal to himself – he dead in the Hawaii Islands which he had discovered.
2) The first settlements of convicts in New South Wales was founded by Captain Arthur Phillip on the bay Port Jackson where Sydney is now located, on January 26, 1788 (this date is still celebrated as Australia Day). Sydney became the first European colony on the Australian continent. Van Diemen's Land (unknown as Tasmania) was colonized in 1803 and received a statute of separate colony in 1825. United Kingdom officially claimed the Western Australia their property in 1828. Britain’s jails and hulks became overcrowded with prisoners and a new place for the transportation of convict was required. The site had to be isolated place to prevent any escapees from returning home. It also had to have land capable of supporting agriculture, so that colony could provide its own food.
Over time, parts of New South Wales formed individual colonies: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 by allocating part of the territories of South Australia. South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia were based as so-called "free colony ", i.e. there were never brought the prisoners, but in the last two colonies soon also began to bring prisoners. A reluctance of residents of New South Wales to accept convict prisoners led to the end of colonization; the last ship of convicts arrived in 1868.
3) The first people to occupy the Australian continent were the Aborigines, who arrived in Australia at least 50000 years ago. The Aborigines lived in clan groups of 10 to 50 or more people.
These people used tools and weapons made of wood and stone. They were a nomadic people. Their economy was based on the hunting activities of the men and fishing and gathering activities of the women. But the Aborigines were not simply passive users of the environment. Their movement and diet were controlled by the seasons and by the type of country in which they lived. They also modified it to ensure food supplies. They burned vegetation to encourage the growth of plants either for eating and to attract animals.
The Aboriginal culture and beliefs evolved from land. The Aborigines learned how to survive in even the harshest regions by gathering the offerings of nature. The Aborigine believed that nature and the land were inseparably bound and interdependent. In this state of unity he achieved a balance with his environment. Each tribe recognized the local landmarks and linked them with the rich mythology of the Dreamtime. Dreamtime was the basis of all traditional Aboriginal thought and practice. It was the Aborigine’s cultural, historical and ancestral heritage. Dreamtime was the dawn of all creation when the land, the rivers, the rain, wind and all living things were generated.
Tribal elders, who possessed special knowledge of the community and the land, were charged with the responsibility of maintaining the clan’s group identity through its totemistic religion. Groups of people formed special bonds with a totem, usually an animal or plant which acted as a protector and symbol of group identity. Through special ceremonies and other social and religious practices, the elders transmitted their knowledge.
Tribal elders would entrust their secrets to the young boys and they in turn wouldn’t only become trustees of tribal lore but skilled hunters. Political or religious power was rarely inherited, it had to be earned. Superstition and sorcery were common, and magic spells were used to gain power over and adversary or brining death to an enemy.
The Aborigines celebrated the adventures of their Dreamtime spirit heroes in painting, songs and sacred dances. The heroes took both human and animal form. The rock paintings were of special significance, bearing the strongest psychological and rituals values. As no Aboriginal language was written, these rock paintings, along with oration of legends by tribal leaders, were responsible for passing the Dreamtime stories from generation to the next.
The Aboriginal ceremony of celebrating with song and dance was called corroboree. The men dancers were expert in mimicking the movements of animals. Bodies were elaborately painted and songs were chanted to the accompaniment of music sticks and boomerangs clapped together.
Basic dance themes dealt with hunting, and food gathering, or sex and fertility. Some tribes used a long, hollow piece of wood which, when blown, emitted a weird droning sound. This was the didgerigoo. Its sound was said to resemble the calling of the spirits. Aborigines believed a person’s spirit didn’t die upon physical death – the spirit left the body and became re-embodied elsewhere – in rocks, trees, animals, or perhaps in other human forms.
The arrival of European settlers in Australia changed the Aboriginal lifestyle in a way which had a devastating effect. As the early colonial settlements expanded, taking the most fertile areas of land, the nomadic way of traditional Aboriginal life was disrupted. Forceful measures were taken by white settlers in their quest for development. Tribes, clans and families were dispersed simultaneously with the seizure of land. When Captain Phillip landed with his soldiers and convicts, it was estimated that 300,000 Aboriginal people lived across the continent. By the beginning of the 20th century the Aboriginal population had been reduced to about 60,000 and many of the tribal languages lost.
