The European exploration of Australia first began in February 1606, when Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed in Cape York Peninsula and on October that year when Spanish explorer Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through, and navigated, Torres Strait islands.Brett Hilder (1980) The Voyage of Torres. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland. Twenty-nine other Dutch navigators explored the western and southern coasts in the 17th century, and dubbed the continent New Holland. Most of the explorers of this period concluded that the apparent lack of water and fertile soil made the region unsuitable for colonisation.
Other European explorers followed until, in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook charted the east coast of Australia for Great Britain. Later, after Cook's death, Joseph Banks recommended sending convicts to Botany Bay (now in Sydney), New South Wales. A First Fleet of British ships arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788Lewis, Balderstone and Bowan (2006) p. 25 to establish a penal colony, the first colony on the Australian mainland. In the century that followed, the British established other colonies on the continent, and European explorers ventured into its interior.
Earliest European explorations
Although a theory of Portuguese discovery in the 1520s exists, it lacks definitive evidence.McIntyre, K.G. (1977) The Secret Discovery of Australia, Portuguese ventures 200 years before Cook, Souvenir Press, Menindie Robert J. King, "The Jagiellonian Globe, a Key to the Puzzle of Jave la Grande", The Globe: Journal of the Australian Map Circle, No. 62, 2009, pp. 1–50.Robert J. King, "Regio Patalis: Australia on the map in 1531?", The Portolan, Issue 82, Winter 2011, pp. 8–17. In 1606, Dutch explorers made the first recorded European sightings of, and first recorded landfalls on, the Australian mainland. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, and made landfall on 26 February at the Pennefather River near the modern town of Weipa on Cape York.. The Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent "New Holland" during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, and again in 1699 on a return trip.
The Dutch, following shipping routes to the Dutch East Indies to trade in spices, china and silk, proceeded to contribute a great deal to Europe's knowledge of Australia's coast.Manning Clark; A Short History of Australia; Penguin Books; 2006; p. 6 In 1616, Dirk Hartog, sailing off course, en route from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, landed on an island off Shark Bay, West Australia. In 1622–23 the made the first recorded rounding of the south west corner of the continent, and gave her name to Cape Leeuwin.
In 1627 the south coast of Australia was accidentally encountered by François Thijssen and named 't Land van Pieter Nuyts, in honour of the highest ranking passenger, Pieter Nuyts, extraordinary Councillor of India. In 1628 a squadron of Dutch ships was sent by the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies Pieter de Carpentier to explore the northern coast. These ships made extensive examinations, particularly in the Gulf of Carpentaria, named in honour of de Carpentier.
Abel Tasman's voyage of 1642 was the first known European expedition to reach Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight Fiji. On his second voyage of 1644, he also contributed significantly to the mapping of Australia proper, making observations on the land and people of the north coast below New Guinea.* Edward Duyker (ed.) The Discovery of Tasmania: Journal Extracts from the Expeditions of Abel Janszoon Tasman and Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne 1642 & 1772, St David's Park Publishing/Tasmanian Government Printing Office, Hobart, 1992, p. 106, .
A map of the world inlaid into the floor of the Burgerzaal ("Burger's Hall") of the new Amsterdam Stadhuis ("Town Hall") in 1655 revealed the extent of Dutch charts of much of Australia's coast.A floor plan of the Groote Burger-Zaal (Great Salon of Burgesses) in the Amsterdam Town Hall, including the engraved map of the world, was published in Jacob van Campen, Jacob Vennekool and Danckert Danckerts, Afbeelding van't Stadt Huys van Amsterdam in dartigh coopere Plaaten [Depiction of Amsterdam town hall on thirty copper plates], Amsterdam, 1661; Jacob van Campen, Jacob Vennekool and Danckert Danckerts, De gront en vloer vande Groote Burger-Zaal (View of the floor of the Civic Hall) geordineert door Jacob van Campen en geteeckent door Jacob Vennekool met Speciael Octroy van de Heeren Staten voor 15 Jaren, 1661, reproduced in Margaret Cameron Ash, "French Mischief: A Foxy Map of New Holland", The Globe, No. 68, 2011, pp. 1–14. Based on the 1648 map by Joan Blaeu, Nova et Accuratissima Terrarum Orbis Tabula, it incorporated Tasman's discoveries, subsequently reproduced in the map, Archipelagus Orientalis sive Asiaticus published in the Kurfürsten Atlas (Atlas of the Great Elector).National Library of Australia, Maura O'Connor, Terry Birtles, Martin Woods and John Clark, Australia in Maps: Great Maps in Australia's History from the National Library's Collection, Canberra, National Library of Australia, 2007, p. 32; this map is reproduced in Gunter Schilder, Australia Unveiled, Amsterdam, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976, p. 402; and in William Eisler and Bernard Smith, Terra Australis: The Furthest Shore, Sydney, International Cultural Corporation of Australis, 1988, pp. 67–84. Image at: home
In 1664 the French geographer Melchisédech Thévenot published a map of New Holland in Relations de Divers Voyages Curieux.Melchisedech Thévenot, Relations de divers Voyages curieux qui n 'ont point esté publiées, Paris, Thomas Moette, IV, 1664. Thévenot divided the continent in two, between Nova Hollandia to the west and Terre Australe to the east.Sir Joseph Banks, 'Draft of proposed Introduction to Captn Flinders Voyages', November 1811; State Library of New South Wales, The Papers of Sir Joseph Banks, Series 70.16; quoted in Robert J. King, "Terra Australis, New Holland and New South Wales: the Treaty of Tordesillas and Australia", The Globe, No. 47, 1998, pp. 35–55 Emanuel Bowen reproduced Thevenot's map in his Complete System of Geography (London, 1747), re-titling it A Complete Map of the Southern Continent and adding three inscriptions promoting the benefits of exploring and colonising the country. One inscription said:
In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain.
Colonisation
With the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day, Australia Day. Phillip sent exploratory missions in search of better soils, fixed on the Parramatta region as a promising area for expansion, and moved many of the convicts from late 1788 to establish a small township, which became the main centre of the colony's economic life.Phillip cited in Trina Jeremiah; "Immigrants and Society" in T. Gurry (1984) pp. 121–22
Seventeen years after Cook's landfall on the east coast of Australia, the British government decided to establish a colony at Botany Bay. Following the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Britain lost most of its territory in North America and considered establishing replacement colonies. In 1779 Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent scientist who had accompanied James Cook on his 1770 voyage, recommended Botany Bay as a suitable site for settlement, saying that "it was not to be doubted that a Tract of Land such as New Holland, which was larger than the whole of Europe, would furnish Matter of advantageous Return".Journals of the House of Commons, 19 Geo. III, 1779, p. 311 ; John Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire: Joseph Banks, the British State and the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 187.
Georg Forster, who had sailed under Lieutenant James Cook in the voyage of (1772–1775), wrote in 1786 on the future prospects of the British colony: "New Holland, an island of enormous extent or it might be said, a third continent, is the future homeland of a new civilized society which, however mean its beginning may seem to be, nevertheless promises within a short time to become very important."Georg Forster, "Neuholland und die brittische Colonie in Botany-Bay", Allgemeines historisches Taschenbuch, (Berlin, December 1786), English translations at web.mala.bc.ca and at australiaonthemap.org.au
Britain claimed territory encompassing all of Australia eastward of the meridian of 135° East and all the islands in the Pacific Ocean between the latitudes of Cape York and the southern tip of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). The western limit of 135° East was set at the meridian dividing New Holland from Terra Australis, as shown on Emanuel Bowen's Complete Map of the Southern Continent,A Complete map of the Southern Continent survey'd by Capt. Abel Tasman & depicted by order of the East India Company in Holland in the Stadt House at Amsterdam; E. Bowen, Sculp. published in John Campbell's editions of John Harris' Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or Voyages and Travels (1744–1748, and 1764).Robert J. King, "Terra Australis, New Holland and New South Wales: the Treaty of Tordesillas and Australia", The Globe, No. 47, 1998, pp. 35–55, 48–49. It was a vast claim which elicited excitement at the time: the Dutch translator of First Fleet officer and author Watkin Tench's A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay wrote: "a single province which, beyond all doubt, is the largest on the whole surface of the earth. From their definition it covers, in its greatest extent from East to West, virtually a fourth of the whole circumference of the Globe."Beschrijving van den Togt Naar Botany-Baaij....door den Kapitein Watkin Tench, Amsterdam, Martinus de Bruijn, 1789, p. 211.
A British settlement was established in 1803 in Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, and it became a separate colony in 1825.. The United Kingdom formally claimed the western part of Western Australia (the Swan River Colony) in 1828.. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859.. The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia.. South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony.. Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts..Convict Records Public Record office of Victoria; State Records Office of Western Australia . A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848.
Exploration of the continent
Early days