History:  Australia has less "civilized" history than any major populated land area in the world.  The U. S. is considered a young country but when we were fighting the War of Independence in 1776, the only people in Australia were the Aborigines.  The first documented landing in Australia by the outside world was in 1770 by Captain Cook and even then no one else bothered to go there until 1787 and that was only because of ...

England's Convict Dilemma  - England had a problem.  The US War of Independence had deprived England of a place to ship convicts out of the country.  They didn't have a long-term prison system so felons were hanged in great numbers.  The preferred solution for the others was to deport (transport) them to the colonies.  American farmers actually paid to have convicts sent over as indentured servants - until 1776, that is.  What a dilemma!  They stuffed thousands of convicts into derelict ships in the Thames while they tried to figure out what to do.  Then they remembered - didn't Captain Cook say Australia looked like a nice place?  And certainly the convicts would have little chance of escaping back to England from there.

1787: The First Fleet  - Eleven ships carrying about 700 convicts plus the soldiers to guard them arrived near Sydney.   They had sailed 15,000 miles in 252 days to get there and were shocked to find little water and poor soil.  The idea was to use the convicts to work farms and make the penal colony self-sufficient.  They were lucky to survive at all.  The aborigines had been living there for 50,000 or more years in almost complete isolation.  The total absence of cultivatable food crops or animals suitable for domestication meant that the primitive hunter/gatherer/nomad existence was their only option and they were good at it.   This was not considered an option for the Europeans so there was great hardship for many years.  They would have starved except that England kept sending more convict ships with more supplies.

The Fatal Shore  by Robert Hughes is the definitive book covering 1787 to the mid-1800's when England was sending thousands of convicts a year to Australia.  England believed that they could eventually export their entire criminal "class".  Few of the convicts had committed violent crimes.  Nearly all were poor.  Theft was the most common crime plus tens of thousands of troublesome Irish rebels were transported.  Several penal colonies were established for different kinds of prisoners.  The system of martial law invited terrible abuses.  Conditions in each colony depended greatly on the officer in charge of your area.  Some military rulers really tried to humanize the system but the abuses of others became legend.  Thousands of settlers also came to Australia to take advantage of the abundant convict labor.  This is too big a subject to cover in a few paragraphs, but this period left an odd legacy: Whereas Americans look back with pride at  the rebels who fought the War of Independence (and try to forget our Indian atrocities), Australians don't really have the same kind of heroes to look back on.  This period is seldom talked about.

The Aboriginals suffered the fate of the American Indians - continually pushed out of the best lands, harassed, and sometimes massacred.  Like the Indians, they killed quite a few in return but were doomed from the beginning.  My impression is that Australians were neither better nor worse than the Americans.  Looking back today, we're all ashamed of what happened but the fact is that most people at the time thought it was the natural thing to do.  I have a little more to say on this subject on the Aussie People page.

1850: The Gold Rush  - Wait a minute!  Don't you mean the California Gold Rush?  No, but Australia's Gold Rush was started by a miner who had been to California looking for gold and realized he had seen some similar geology in Australia.  He returned and quickly found gold.  Like California, Australia was never the same after that.  Prospectors streamed into Australia from all over the world.  At about the same time, the flow of convicts from England was ending.  Australia had at last transitioned from a penal colony into a vigorous growing country - except it wasn't a country yet.

1901: Nationhood  - Until 1901, each state was an independent member of the British Commonwealth with different laws.  Many issues requiring cooperation between the members, including immigration, eventually forced them to become "Australia".  Today, the states are still more different from each other than US states.  They even have different standards for railroad tracks so that, for example, Queensland trains can't run on New South Wales tracks!  You have to change trains at the border.

World War One  changed the self-image of the country.  People started to think of themselves as "Australians" first and residents of a state, second.  Britain called on Australia for help and they responded in a big way that brought pride and solidarity to the country.  Together with much smaller New Zealand, they formed the Australia/New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).  They fought bravely and with great distinction.  At Gallipoli, in Turkey, they were given an impossible task to land and invade.  In months of fighting, thousands were killed and wounded and eventually defeated, but they never faltered.  ANZAC Day is still the most widely celebrated national holiday and large numbers travel to Gallipoli every year to commemorate the fallen.  When I discovered and spoke with some distant relatives (Kawelmacher's) living in Australia, the first thing I was told - with pride - was that a Kawelmacher was killed at Gallipoli.

World War Two raised the specter of invasion for the first time.  The Japanese moved south with frightening speed, taking over country after country.  Australia was definitely in their plans.  Aussies were very highly regarded as tough resourceful soldiers in WWII and also did amazing things behind the enemy lines in the Pacific Islands.  But they know that it was the arrival of the US fleet in the Battle of the Coral Sea that stopped the Japanese.  They worked very well with the US in WWII and have never forgotten their debt.  Australia is the only country that has fought with the US in every major war since then, including Vietnam and Iraq.  These wars weren't popular in Australia but they did it because the US asked them and they know they might have to ask the US for help again some day.

The 20th Century has seen Australia turn into one of the most prosperous "small" countries in the world.  Their enormous mineral wealth is a constant source of income.  They are modern in every way.  Their economic growth has been much steadier and faster than the US for quite a long time.  Although they're not likely to ever be a dominant world power because of their size, they are the dominant power in the South Pacific.  It wouldn't surprise me if they pass the US in living standards in the 21st Century.