History of Australia before 1788

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History of Australia

Prehistory

Before 1788

The first definite sighting of Australia by European explorers was in 1606. This date may be taken as a convenient starting point for the written history of Australia. Although humans had lived in Australia for approximately 40-45,000 years (possibly a lot more) before 1606, this era is referred to as prehistory rather than history because there are no written records of human events in Australia.

1 Theories of European discovery
2 Chinese sightings
3 Dutch sightings
4 Captain Cook
5 References

[edit] Theories of European discovery

In about 1300, Marco Polo made reference to the reputed existence of a vast southern continent, although there is no evidence that he had specific knowledge of Australia. Some writers have suggested that maps compiled in Europe from the late 1400s show parts of the Australian coastline. Some believe in the theory that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to sight Australia, that the continent was sighted by a Portuguese expedition led by Cristóvão de Mendonça in about 1522. A number of relics and remains have been interpreted as evidence that the Portuguese reached Australia in the early to mid 1500s, 200 years before Cook. These clues include the Mahogany Ship, an alleged Portuguese caravel that was shipwrecked six miles west of Warrnambool, Victoria (although its remains have never been found); the so-called Dieppe maps, secret maps drawn by the Portuguese; a cannon and five keys found near Geelong. Most historians do not accept these relics as proof that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach Australia.

The French navigator Binot Paulmier de Gonneville ^[1] claimed to have landed at a land east of the Cape of Good Hope in 1504, after being blown off course. For some time it had been thought he discovered Australia, but nowadays the land where he landed has been shown to be Brazil.^[2]

A Spanish expedition commanded by Pedro Fernandez de Quiros and piloted by Luis Vaez de Torres set out for Terra Australis in 1605. When de Quiros landed on the New Hebrides, he named the island group "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo", translated as "South Land of the Holy Spirit". After Quiros had left the expedition, Torres sailed from east to west along the southern coast of Papua, and sighted the islands of Torres Strait.^[2]^[3]

[edit] Chinese sightings

There is a theory known as the 1421 hypothesis that the great Chinese explorer Zheng He charted the west coast of Australia in 1421.^[4] His maps maybe the source of the 15th century European maps showing Australia.

An early map of the known world, made in 1603 by Father Matteo Ricci, a Portuguese Jesuit who spent a long time in China, noted in a blank space where Australia lies: No one has ever been to this land in the south, hence we know nothing about it. In smaller characters he brushed the Chinese characters Fire Land and Land of Parrots^[5]suggesting the Chinese were aware of and had perhaps visited Australia.

[edit] Dutch sightings

The first undisputed sighting of Australia by a European was made in 1606. The Dutch vessel Duyfken, captained by Willem Jansz, followed the coast of New Guinea, missed Torres Strait, and explored perhaps 350 km of western side of Cape York, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, believing the land was still part of New Guinea. ^[3] The Dutch made one landing, but were promptly attacked by Aborigines and subsequently abandoned further exploration.

The discovery that sailing east from the Cape of Good Hope until land was sighted, and then sailing north along the west coast of Australia was a much quicker route than around the coast of the Indian Ocean made Dutch landfalls on the west coast inevitable. Most of these landfalls were unplanned. The first such landfall was in 1616, when Dirk Hartog landed on what is now called Dirk Hartog Island, off the coast of Western Australia, and left behind an inscription on a pewter plate. (This plate may now be seen in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.) The most famous and bloodiest result was the mutiny and murder that followed the wreck of the Batavia.

Hollandia Nova, 1659 map prepared by Joan Blaeu based on voyages by Abel Tasman and Willem Jansz, this image shows a French edition of 1663

Further voyages by Dutch ships explored the north coast of Australia between 1623 and 1636, giving Arnhem Land its present-day name. In 1642, Abel Tasman sailed on a famous voyage from Batavia (now Jakarta), to Papua New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand and, on November 24, sighted Tasmania. He named it Van Diemen's Land, after Anthony van Diemen, the Dutch East India Company's Governor General at Batavia, who had commissioned his voyage. Tasman claimed Van Diemen's Land for the Netherlands. In 1644 he made a second voyage, on which he mapped the north coast of Australia from Cape York westward. Other notable Dutch explorers of the Australian coast include François Thyssen (with Pieter Nuyts on board) who discovered much of the south coast in 1627 and Willem de Vlamingh who mapped the west coast in 1696-1697.^[3]^[2]

William Dampier was the first Englishman to see Australia. He explored the north-west coast of Australia in 1688, in the Cygnet, a small trading vessel. He made another voyage in 1699, before returning to England. He described some of the flora and fauna of Australia, and was the first European to report Australia's peculiar large hopping animals.

[edit] Captain Cook

James Cook is widely regarded as the most important naval explorer of Australia. He has often been incorrectly credited as being the person who 'discovered' Australia. Cook had been sent to chart the transit of Venus from Tahiti, but he also charted much of the Australian and New Zealand coastlines. He reached New Zealand in October 1769, and mapped its coast. He then sailed across to south-east Australia, which he first sighted on April 20, 1770 at a point between Orbost and Mallacoota on the south east coast of what is now Victoria. He then sailed all the way up the east coast. He claimed the east coast, which he named New South Wales, for Great Britain on August 22, 1770. Cook's expedition identified Botany Bay as an appropriate place for settlement.

The last great naval explorer was Matthew Flinders, who was responsible for filling in the gaps in the map left by other explorers. In 1796 (after settlement), with George Bass, he took a 2.5 metre long open boat and explored some of the coastline south of Sydney. He suspected from this voyage that Tasmania was an island, and in 1798 Bass and he led an expedition to circumnavigate it and hence prove his theory. He returned to his homeland of England, but was soon sent back to Sydney with a much more ambitious task—to circumnavigate Australia. He did this in 1802-03, sailing first along the south coast to Sydney, then completing the circumnavigation back to Sydney. At the same time of Flinders's expedition, the Australian coast was also mapped by Frenchman Nicolas Baudin.^[2]