Map of Australia with detail regarding British settlements in New South Wales and bays around the coast

John Gellatly, Map of Australia, with inset maps of the British settlements of New South Wales, Van Diemens Land, and Swan River, 1843, nla.obj-3028382243

Watercolour of a clearing in a forest with military standing in rows on the left and a large fight between convicts and more military on the right

[Convict uprising at Castle Hill, 1804], nla.obj-135226428

Detail of the title page of an old book reading 'Galtjintana-Pepa Kristianirberaka Mbontala'

Adolf Hermann Kempe and Missionshandlung, Galtjintana-pepa : kristianirberaka mbontala (detail), 1891, nla.cat-vn1782452

Street lined with small buildings, with a cows pulling a wagon of hay stopped at the end, with a man and woman standing nearby. Chickens and birds are eating seeds from the ground and there is a goat further down the street.

James William Giles, George French Angas and Thomas McLean, Klemsic [i.e. Klemzig] a village of German settlers near Adelaide, 1847, nla.obj-135640821

The arrival of the First Fleet on Gadigal land at Sydney Cove in 1788 brought around 1,400 convicts, sailors, soldiers and administrators to Australia. Over the next 100 years the British occupied more land, establishing settlements and dispossessing Traditional Owners. What started as a series of precarious British outposts eventually grew to become six self-governing colonies which claimed the entire continent. These colonies competed for migrants from across the British Empire.  

Migrants also came from Europe, the United States, China, South Asia and the Pacific. By the 1880s Australia’s population exceeded 2.25 million people. Over the same period, it is estimated that the Indigenous population fell from approximately half a million to less than 200,000.

The National Library of Australia acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Cultural Notification

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website contains a range of material which may be considered culturally sensitive including the records of people who have passed away.

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