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Following a disagreement with North America and the resulting American War of Independence, the English were no longer able to transport surplus prisoners who couldn't legally be executed to North America.

British prisons were becoming hugely overcrowded but, luckily, Australia had been declared part of the British Empire and so England now had somewhere to send their prisoners and, in 1788, decided to take advantage of this opportunity.

Further information:

England decided to colonise Australia for the following reasons:

1. To expand the British empire, and prevent the French from gaining a foothold in the Australian continent or in that part of the Pacific.

2. The continent had Natural Resources which England wanted.

3. Primarily, as above, to solve the problem of Britain's overcrowded prisons by establishing a new penal colony in a land which showed promise of eventually becoming self-supporting.

4. Sir Joseph Banks, one of three botanists aboard James Cook's The Endeavour which charted the eastern coast of Australia in 1770, was a passionate advocate of British settlement and colonisation of the Australian continent. Cook claimed the eastern coast of Australia ("New South Wales") for Britain in 1770. It was largely upon his and Banks's recommendation that Australia ultimately was colonised.

Although English pirate and explorer William Dampier, who also landed in the northwest, dismissed the continent as habitable, James Cook came across the eastern side one hundred years later. He saw the promise and the fertility of the land - hence the recommendation for colonisation.

Colonisation was simplified for Britain, which was able to prove to the satisfaction of the judicial system that Australia was terra nullius - a land without ownership - because the English found difficulty in locating any individual(s) able to negotiate a treaty with the indigenous inhabitants; this concept was first tested and found valid in 1827.

The fact that there were local inhabitants all over the continent didn't make much impression on the colonists, except for their nuisance value or as cheap or free labour: they'd no written language that Europeans found comprehensible, didn't wear clothes, and built nothing recognisable as houses; settlers viewed them in much the way they viewed kangaroos and possums.

The terra nullius ruling was eventually overturned by the Australian High Court in 1992 (the Mabo decision) and later reinforced by the Wik decision in 1996.

It is important to note that, although other countries had the opportunity to colonise Australia, they chose not to. Australia was first "officially" discovered by Dutch traders in the East Indies: however, they landed in the west, one of the least forgiving areas of the continent and decided that it was not worth colonising. Likewise the French, hearing of the Dutch discovery, sent an expedition to map more of the coast. This did not, however, lead to any attempts to colonise and the continent was left alone for another hundred years. It was not until James Cook's journey to the fertile east coast that Australia's potential was realised.

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13y ago

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