Melchisédech Thévenot (1620?–1692): map of New Holland 1664, based on a map by the Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu. This is a typical map from the Golden Age of Dutch cartography. Australasia during the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery (c. 1590s–1720s): including Nova Guinea (New Guinea), Nova Hollandia (mainland Australia), Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), and Nova Zeelandia (New Zealand).
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.[1] 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 1788[2] 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.
Massive areas of land were cleared for agriculture and various other purposes in the first 100 years of European settlement. In addition to the obvious impacts[clarification needed] this early clearing of land and importation of hard-hoofed animals had on the ecology of particular regions, it severely affected indigenous Australians, by reducing the resources they relied on for food, shelter and other essentials. This progressively forced them into smaller areas and reduced their numbers as the majority died of newly introduced diseases and lack of resources. Indigenous resistance against the settlers was widespread, and prolonged fighting between 1788 and the 1920s led to the deaths of at least 20,000 indigenous people and between 2,000 and 2,500 Europeans.[3]
^Brett Hilder (1980) The Voyage of Torres. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland. ISBN 0-7022-1275-X
^Lewis, Balderstone and Bowan (2006) p. 25
^Grey, Jeffrey (2008). A Military History of Australia (Third ed.). Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. pp. 28–40. ISBN 978-0-521-69791-0.
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Questions of Our Time Series; Who Discovered Australia?" The Age, 26 January 1994 McIntyre, K (1982) "Early EuropeanExplorationofAustralia" in Proceedings...
Janszoon, she encountered the Australian mainland. Janszoon is credited with the first authenticated European landing on Australia. In 1608, the ship was damaged...
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is the oldest-known artifact of Europeanexploration in Australia still in existence. A replacement, copying the text of the original plus some new text...
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Australia EuropeanexplorationofAustralia Parts of New South Wales, such as Lord Howe Island, are part of the mostly submerged continent of Zealandia...
continent on the basis of it having dark-skinned inhabitants (Cush's traditional descendants). During the eighteenth century, today's Australia was not conflated...
written history commenced with European maritime exploration. The Dutch were the first known Europeans to reach Australia, in 1606. British colonisation...
feature of the maps. This is because Jave la Grande is thought by some writers to provide clues of a possible Portuguese explorationofAustralia's coasts...
centuries, other European powers sent expeditions to the Pacific, namely the Dutch Republic, England, France, and Russia. Humans reached Australia by at least...
century mappemondes of the School of mapmakers centred at Dieppe, Normandy, which in later times gave rise to the idea that Australia may have been discovered...
in Australia Prehistory ofAustraliaAustralian archaeology EuropeanexplorationofAustralia History ofAustralia (1788–1850) History ofAustralia (1851–1900)...
therefore the first European to make an image of Van Diemen's Land. Gilsemans' chart is responsible for documenting the first European landing in Tasmania...
Djurberg [sv] identified it with Australia, and Ulimaroa briefly became an alternative name for the continent as a result of this. Cook and Banks picked up...
position ofAustralia. This has led to speculation that the Dieppe maps are evidence ofEuropean (possibly Portuguese) explorationofAustralia in the 16th...
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region of Western Australia. Between 1616 and 1644, during the European Age ofExploration, Eendraghtsland was also a name for the entire Australian mainland...
Zealand which he claims pre-date known Europeanexploration, as further evidence of a Portuguese discovery ofAustralia and New Zealand. In the publicity campaign...
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