Early Australia
Australia was first discovered by the British between 1768 and 1779 by Captain James Cook. During that time, around 750,00 natives lived there. When the British arrived, they brought new diseases and animals that disrupted their way of life. the number of natives dropped by 90% by 1920. When the natives tried to move into towns and try and better their lives, they were discriminated against and could not find good work.
Australia and Convicts
With every civilization, you need a jail for convicts. The British empire took that a step further. In the late 1700's they wanted to use one of their colonies for all the criminals. They originally wanted to use the Americas as the jail, but the Americas revolted in the 1770's so they turned to Australia. The first camps were established in the 1780's. There were two original convict colonies: Tasmania and New South Wales. Life was rough for the convicts in these colonies. They were taken from their families and were forced to do labor and had a poor life. The transportation of convicts ended in 1852, but by then over 165,000 convicts had been sent to Australia.
Settlers
Settlers began coming to Australia in the 1800's around was small at first. The increase in settlers began in the 1830's with the crisis in Ireland. During the 1940's, there was a large famine and caused many people from Ireland to leave and seek a better life in America or Australia. Settlers increased also in the 1850's when Australia was found to have deposits of gold which intrigued many. People came to get rich and helped boost the economy of Australia. The economy of Australia during this time was dominated by gold and wool and caused the economy to skyrocket. Due to this economic success, many people wanted to be apart of it. This lead to land disputes and violence between the people and the government
Leaving the Empire
The independence of Australia was different to other British colonies. Australia didn't have a bloody war with the British like America did. They gained independence when the British passed legislation to allow the colonies to govern themselves as the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The commonwealth was a constitutional monarchy and they wrote their constitution in the 1890's. they completely left the Empire in 1940.