First Settlers In Australia

The first settlers arrived in Australia 35,000 years ago during the great ice age. The sea levels lowered between Indonesia and New Guinea and created a land bridge that would allow nomadic tribes to cross from Southeast Asia. Like many other humans of that era they were hunters and gatherers and traveled from place to place in search of new game. Thousands of years after these drifters arrived; the glaciers thawed and raised the seas once again, which kept the people of Australia permanently there. The people that inhabited Australia before the English settlers were know as Aborigines or the Australian Aboriginals. Aborigines occupied most of Southeast part of the continent along the shoreline but inhabited all parts of the continent.

The convicts aboard were scared not knowing what is to come of them; they didn’t know they were the first to give birth to a new nation that has been silenced for thousands of years. The inmates are unskilled laborers; most of them were petty criminals of the urban population that lack farming and construction skills. Building these new colonies is going to be a struggle in the years to come. For the first few years it seemed almost impossible to establish a self producing colony with incompetent convicts that lack trade. One man would change it all, Captain Arthur Phillip, a regular naval officer that became the first governor of the new nation. For 2 years Phillip desperately asks for new tools that can help produce more corps and free men that were competent enough to help build the nation. After two years England would send the proper tools and men he needed but they would also send more convicts to add to his problems. Governor Phillip began giving land grants in 1787 to convicts who were given conditional pardon for good behavior and those whose time had expired. Gradually more and more land came under cultivation and the country became entirely self-supporting on their food supplies. Governor Phillip would use the source of labor from convicts to develop everything that a self supporting colony would need. The convict built a colony within the first few years with isolated settlements, rich farmland, stores, taverns hospitals and much more. In 1813 explorers would cross the Blue Mountains to the west and return to New South Wales with tales of endless goods and grazing lands as far as the eye can see. By 1829 when word of this got back to England they decided to extend British colonies to the west before other European rivals would take interest on the land. In the mid 1800’s the population of Australia reached 1 million, the convicts were no longer