World History: Australia and New Zealand

Australian Gold Diggers

Throughout the nineteenth century, and last time when we looked at colonialism, new forms of states emerged, including the new settler colonies of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia. Coming after the older settler colonies in the Americas new settler colonies emerged in Oceania, and Kenya and Zimbabwe. Despite being colonised by Britain around the same time we will see the major differences which emerged in these colonies. This occurred through various reasons ranging from geography to the conditions of the pre-colonial regions. A hint at a possible World History 2 I aim to look at these pre-colonial societies, but that is another discussion for a long time in the future. Instead we'll go over a basic summary here.

Australia and Aotearoa before Europe

The landmass which we now call Australia has been inhabited by people for over 30,000 years, and possibly as far back as 65,000 years - we discussed this all the way back in my first year of university with our first World History post. The site of Lake Mungo, from around 40,000 years ago, exhibits burials and some of the oldest cremations indicating that prehistoric indigenous Australians had by then developed religious rituals. It is difficult to write a history of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians in just this short section, as it is impossible to understand the complexity and diversity of life over such a large period of time, and over a geographic area. There are over 900 ethnic groups, and just before European colonisation they were organised in over 250 'nations', which were then divided into smaller and localised units, speaking over 250 languages. Unfortunately, through genocide only 50 of these languages remain. Through oral tradition, and outdated ethnographies, we can piece together life and culture just before European colonisation - Nancy Williams and Lesley Jolly have discussed how Arrernte men and women lived in 'separate but intersecting spheres' of activity.

Meanwhile, it is easier to understand the pre-colonial history of Aotearoa/New Zealand. For one, Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand, and in this post I will refer to the islands as 'Aotearoa' until European colonisation became 'complete' which is when that I'll switch to 'New Zealand'. Despite theories that alleged that before the Maori there were Egyptian, Indo-Aryans, Celtic, or Phoenician colonisation of Aotearoa, it was Polynesians (the ancestors of the Maori) who first settled on the islands. Aotearoa is one of the most isolated regions in the world, so it would make sense that the Polynesian linguistic group - who are one of the most geographically diverse peoples - were the ones to settle there. Unlike Australia, having tens of thousands of years of inhabitation, the first people to permanently settle on Aotearoa only arrived in the thirteenth century. As a result, Maori and Moriori religion, language, and culture contains similarities with other Polynesian groups. Due to the recent nature of their settlement, and the smaller geographic area, the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa have a more homogenous set of beliefs and cultures compared to Australian Aboriginals. Society was organised into various competing networks of alliances or rivalries called iwi, and this was further divided into a smaller, intimate unit called hapu. Of course, these models were often changing and various events could change the structure of the iwi and hapu. There was a further hierarchical system among these units with the rangatira (often seen as aristocrats) and tutua (commoners). Rangatira based their prestige on mana - power and influence which derived from your genealogy and your physical resources.

Contact and Invasion

A depiction of Captain Cook

It should be noted that Australian Aboriginals, Maori, and Moriori did not live in 'isolation' from the rest of the world - after initial settlement of Aotearoa there were other waves of settlement, and Aboriginals in the north traded for centuries with the Makassans in modern Indonesia. In fact, through this trade some Aboriginal groups had access to European goods before they even made 'contact' with Europeans! Oceania became known to Europe during the so-called 'Age of Discovery' - which you can read about here - but its existence had been theorised for centuries. Since the time of the ancient Greeks a Terra Australis Incognito (Unknown Land of the South) had been theorised, and in the 1540s 'Java La Grande' first appeared on French maps. While Portugal was likely the first European state to spot Australia, it was the Dutch who first landed in 1616 when Dirk Hartog arrived by accident. The Dutch would continue mapping the region, eventually calling it New Holland, and in 1642 Dutch East Indian Company governor-general Anthoine Van Diemen got Abel Tasman to map a route to the Spanish colonies in Latin America. During this time he mapped what is now Tasmania and eventually Aotearoa. These islands got their name from the explorations - Tasmania came from Tasman, but it was originally called Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand is named after Zeeland in the Netherlands. No settlements were formed until the voyages of Captain James Cook in the late-1700s. Originally sent to help improve navigation, and using Venus as his guide to do so, his ship, the Endeavour, travelled across the Pacific - from Tahiti to Australia to Aotearoa to Hawai'i. Motivated by both capital accumulation and Enlightenment scientific inquiry Cook carefully documented and even met the inhabitants of the places he explored using Tahtian aid. His description of Aboriginals is loaded with the stereotypical 'Noble Savage' tropes, saying they were in 'a pure state of nature', but he does acknowledge that they had adapted to a land where European-style farming could not exist. This was in Botany Bay, an area which Cook would call initially Stingray Bay because of its stingrays. While some encounters were peaceful, others were not. At Botany Bay Aboriginals tried to scare them off, and Cook himself would later get into a fight with Hawaiians leading to his death on Valentine's Day in 1779.

A depiction of the First Fleet

Thanks to the cartographic mapping and diaries left by Cook and other explorers Britain started to have the Pacific in mind. Why Australia, then renamed New South Wales, was first chosen for colonisation is still up for debate. The first answer is obvious - penal colonies. Britain had been using the Americas as penal colonies, but the American Revolution had closed that off so they needed a new place for prisoners. However, only a third of the population of the 'First Fleet' which ended up founding Sydney were convicts. In 1952 Ken Dallas first challenged this idea and the debate continues to rage on. He, and later historians, argued that although Botany Bay was always intended as a penal colony, it was not the only, or possibly even primary, reason. The creation of Sydney could open a way to challenge the Spanish and French, as well as economic ventures. When the First Fleet was dropped off the ships made their way to Indonesia and China hoping to trade, and the Second Fleet were converted into whaling ships. Regardless, on 18 January 1788, now known as Australia Day or Invasion Day, the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay with naval officer Arthur Phillip as the first governor of the new colony. There was an issue for the new settlers. Despite being rich in life the climate was not good for European style farming, and the fact that people already lived there, so other colonies were made to supply goods to the newly emerging Sydney. Timber was especially needed, something plentiful in Aotearoa, so Phillips ordered it to be collected from Aotearoa. This would pave the way for the colonisation of Aotearoa. The first settlers, called Pakeha by the Maori, were actually seamen and convicts escaping despotic captains and poor conditions on ships becoming the 'Pakeha Maori'. It would be sealing, not timber, which would create the first Pakeha settlement in 1792. Constructing European-houses at Dusky Sound in 1792 they returned to Sydney with 4500 seal skins. 

Trade and Conflict along the Frontier

In both Australia and Aotearoa initial contacts between settlers and indigenous peoples can be considered a mixture of cooperation and conflict. As was the case with all the other European empires, the settlers were initially reliant on the local peoples - for trade and so they wouldn't attack them. In 1828, for example, one entrepreneur called John Rodolphus Kent married Tiria, the daughter of the first 'Maori King' and chief Te Wherowhero, to secure access to resources and labour. Not mentioned till now was the devastating impact disease had on both Maori and Aboriginal populations - smallpox especially wiped out many communities. Christian missions were opened in both colonies to convert the local peoples, and also to make sure the settlers did not sin too much. This had a devastating impact on indigenous culture as Christianity was forced onto them. From religion to identity was changed by colonial evangelising - the Maori had a third gender concept called wakawahine which missionaries tried to cast as sinful and to be cast out. Most famously, however, guns and potatoes were traded to the Maori which revolutionised their society. Potato, being such an easy to grow crop, became a staple in their diet, but muskets radicalised warfare. The Musket Wars waged from 1807 to 1837 in something which Michael King describes as a time of 'Guns and God'. As muskets gave iwi an advantage over their opponents this caused a boom in trade as Pakeha exploited the growing need for iwi to defend themselves. A genocide also occurred. The Moriori on Chatham Island had long abandoned violence; when Europeans had shot one the community blamed themselves showing this aversion to violence. Due to displacement caused by the Musket Wars the Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama invaded in 1835 and commit a genocide. Many Moriori were killed, the rest were enslaved, their language forbidden, and holy sites destroyed. From around 2,000 individuals in 1835 by the time they were freed only around 101 remained. 

Meanwhile, similar actions were taking place in Australia. The initial years were hard due to the land - while it created allowed for a diversity of life it was not suited for European style farming. In a standard ironic twist in history Governor Phillips viewed the Aboriginals as being squatters on the land with no actual ties to it, but the land which proved to be most fertile happened to be the areas which had seen Aboriginal farming techniques being used. Instead, animal farming was more prosperous - within fifteen years the sheep population rose from 29 to 20,000. Experiments in selective breeding allowed sheep and cattle to become adapted to the Australian climate, and soon enough Australia became known for its lamb and beef. Landowners started emerging due to close connections with the governor, 'British democracy' did not exist in Australia for many decades to come. Close allies to governors allowed them to have large holdings, with over 80,000 acres, which opened the door for them to prosper through pastoralism. Not only did this push out smaller farmers it also created conflict with Aboriginal peoples. Not only around Sydney - other settlements started emerging across the eastern half of Australia including Newcastle, Adelaide, and Melbourne. The British government, not wanting to be drawn into costly colonial wars, called for the settlers to not disturb the Aboriginals, but this was easier said than done. For one, Aboriginal communities were not happy that their land was being taken from them - it is widely believed that John Batman's 1835 treaty with the Kulin, which founded Melbourne, was only a 'treaty' as the Kulin did not understand that they were permanently giving up their land. Different concepts of land ownership meant that they thought that they would be sharing the land. It was also not uncommon for settlers to initiate violence in order to move into Aboriginal land. In May 1804 panicking soldiers in Van Diemen's Land shot 40 people on a kangaroo hunt thinking they were a war party. This would be a standard throughout the 1800s.

Life and Culture in the 'Frontier'

An Australian bush hut used by settlers

A wide range of people came to Australia and Aotearoa for various reasons, ranging from convicts to farmers wanting a new life. The farms were ran by forced convict labour, and many of the newly emerging economies relied on convicts. A significant percentage of those on the whaling ships which arrived with the Second Fleet happened to be convicts. Economic pressures meant that many convicts were soon declared free, especially coming towards the 1850s, so they could fully partake in the new economies. As described by David Day, although the land of New South Wales was not fertile, 'the women certainly were'. Of the convicts which arrived with the First Fleet 188 were women, and as they were settler colonies there were no bars on women coming to the colonies. Australia and New Zealand gave women the vote a long time before they did in Europe, and this is a similar trend as seen in the US West. To 'tame' the land women were given a lot more agency compared to those in the metropole which allowed an easier fight for rights. However, there was an expectation to be a model of the virtuous housewife. As argued by Ann Stoler, there was colonial anxiety over white women and non-white men having sex and 'transgressing the colour line'. Transposing their own ideas of gender onto indigenous peoples white men argued that Aboriginal men exploited and made women their slaves. As argued by Mary Anne Jacobs and Anna Haebich, 'White men stole Aboriginal women's labour and sexuality much as they usurped their land and resources.' In rural areas white settlers fathered mixed-race children, whether they accepted their children was another matter. Syphilis became endemic thanks to Europeans introducing the disease. Cultural changes deeply impacted indigenous peoples, colonialism created a cultural genocide as missionary activity tried to enforce Christianity and European culture. Some were caught in the middle. Bennelong was captured by Arthur Philips, used as an interpreter, and even went to Britain. Due to him being indigenous meant that he was rejected by the settlers, while his adoption of European cultural practices made him a pariah among indigenous peoples.

Colonial Wars 

A depiction of the Flagstaff War

Land expropriation and clashes meant that wars broke out. In 1840 Pakeha hoped to avoid further conflict with the Maori, but this decision would prove contentious and problematic. The Treaty of Waitangi, written in both English and Maori, was forged between iwi and New South Wales Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson, Aotearoa was then still seen as being part of New South Wales. There were three articles: first, 'Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand...cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty...over their respective Territories'; second, guarantees that chiefs and tribes had access to land; and third, that all Maori would become British citizens. There were naturally issues - these words and concepts emerged through British thought which did not map onto Maori thought. For one, sovereignty was translated as kawanatanga which in Maori implied that they still had some form of governorship. Similarly, the translation over land had a wider meaning, this also included cultural resources, not just material. Furthermore, not all iwi accepted the Treaty, and it did not take long for Pakeha to directly ignore it themselves. A 1846 Native Land Purchase Act which tightened government hold over Maori land. From the 1840s to the 1870s was a period known as the 'Maori' or 'New Zealand Wars'. These were a series of wars between Pakeha and their allies, and iwi over the Treaty. One such one, the Flagstaff War, sparked when Maori in 1845 cut down a British flag seeing it as encroaching on their sovereignty. The Maori managed to fight so well, incidentally, because of the British selling them muskets decades earlier - the Musket Wars had changed Maori community structures to better resist attack. However, they could not resist entirely, and by the 1870s the Pakeha had broke the back of the Maori resistance.

Australia similarly saw a colonial war against Aboriginal peoples. Before we discuss this we need to quickly go over the 'History Wars'. From the 1960s historians started having a look again at colonial Australia, and began writing histories of colonial Australia and the genocidal wars. However, from the 1990s conservative historians, under the guise of objectivity, that 'leftists' were re-writing Australian history. In particular, the 'Black War' was singled out, largely as it has been seen as leading to the near-extinction of the Tasmanians. However, this debate was not about 'objectivity', but really about trying to make Australia's colonial history less drenched in blood. Evidence speaks otherwise. As argued by Lyndall Ryan, the Black War emerged as a way to solidify settler rule by massacring communities. The 'Black Line' was even formed as a way to systematically corner communities - Batman got into his position to form 'Batmania', later Melbourne, through his participation in the Black War. Estimations have put that for every settler killed, five Aboriginals were killed - due to a small population this seemingly drove them to extinction. The 'Frontier Wars' across Australia were not as genocidal as the Black War, but the mixture of violence and disease 'subdued the frontier'.

Mining and Migration

Bushrangers

The economies of Australia and New Zealand stagnated until the discovery of gold and minerals in the 1850s. Thus started the Australian and Otago Gold Rush. A big reason why the Maori Wars took place was due to the discovery of gold in Maori lands. Suddenly, Australia, in particular, went from a farming colony to an industrial one. Emigration to Australia rose from 20,000 a year to 90,000 a year in just a year! People came from Britain, Germany, the US, and China looking to make a fortune in the new gold mines, and the mine owners replaced the landowners as the wealthiest in society. The gold mines, naturally, were far from the cities, and with colonial power weaker there it allowed crime to proliferate. Missionaries decried the 'depravity' of the mining settlements where prostitution, alcoholism, and violence seemed to rule. In reality, each community formed their own structures and cooperated with each other, but with it being excluded from traditional power structures, and what it looked like, it was demonised. That does not mean that crime did not exist. Weak crime enforcement allowed the rise of the 'bushrangers'. Why mine when you can just steal the profits others made? While demonised at the time, in later years they became a point of pride for Australian national identity. Ned Kelly became the most famous for his raids and wearing of metal, knight-like armour earned him fame, and his execution in 1880 led him to become a folk hero like Billy the Kid. The bushrangers eventually vanished when the periphery of the nation became closer to the metropole. Cities expanded and to create a congruent nation railways and telegraphs made Australia more connected. This allowed both Australia and New Zealand to start developing their own identities.

The Rise of Democracy and National Identity

A depiction of the Eureka Rebellion

Australia and New Zealand have become famous for more progressive politics, for years Australia has been known as 'the Working Man's Nation'. This was largely thanks to the industrialisation and migration. Britain was still sending convicts well into the late-nineteenth century, including many political radicals. Similarly, European and American migrants brought new ideas like socialism and liberalism to the colonies very quickly. A spark for Australian democracy emerged in the gold mines with the 1854 Eureka Rebellion. Wanting a more democratic nation with workers' rights miners took control of the fields of Eureka, and, despite it being crushed, it proved to be a radical alternative for Australians. Mark Twain in 1890 described it as one of the most important events in the history of the colony, and left-wing activists even suggested using the Eureka flag flown by the rebels as an alternate flag of Australia. It is unsurprising that feminist and trade union movements quickly emerged in this context, and at times they were the same movement. In the early-1900s women engaged in unions in order to pressure the government into bringing equal pay for women. In 1884 Henrietta Dugdale formed the first suffrage society, and in 1897 the 'Grandmother of Australia' Catherine Helen Spence became the first woman to run for parliament. 

This surge in political activity allowed the two colonies to move towards becoming quasi-independent from Britain. How they would look as dominions was an alternate question. Originally, it was decided that they would form one big state, Australia's constitution still claims New Zealand showing this. Although New Zealand is as close to Sydney as Sydney is to Western Australia to divide by sea made them appear as two very separate states - while Western Australia reluctantly became part of the Federation of Australia, New Zealand solidly held fast. Instead New Zealand tried to build on different aspects to differentiate itself from Australia - ironically using its indigenous populace. The Treaty of Waitangi and Maori resistance to complete cultural domination gave New Zealand a false sense that it treats its native populace well. It is true that Australia had certainly treated its indigenous peoples badly - the looting of Aboriginal art and boom in anthropological accounts about them in the 1890s occurred as there was a belief that Aboriginals would soon go extinct. Furthermore, shortly after independence Australia began the 'Lost Generation' where Aboriginal children were taken from their families and placed into schools to 'civilise' them, a destructive policy which lasted well into the 1900s and solidified a cultural genocide. This gave New Zealand an easy difference to exaggerate - becoming part of the Australian Federation would infringe the rights of Maori. A cartoon from 1900 in the New Zealand Graphic shows a personified New Zealand, hand-in-hand with a Maori, rejecting the Australian ogre with its arms in chains, a likely reference to the convict past which could 'stain' New Zealand. However, both states positioned themselves as being 'white'. With the exception of the IWW, which emerged from anarco-syndicalist politics, trade unions were horrifically racist, and shortly after independence Australia passed the 'White Australia Policy' barring emigration from Asia and Melanesia. 

Conclusion

New Zealand and Australian troops at Gallipoli

As we have seen New Zealand and Australia had very similar but also very different histories. Through the legacies of settler colonialism and working-class agitation the modern states which we now know emerged. However, upon independence in 1901 (Australia) and 1907 (New Zealand) there were still debates about what they would look like; merging the two colonies was still not an unlikely scenario. Although a radical movement wanted to bring about a republic there was still an urge to remain part of the British Empire - both states immediately jumped into the First World War. As we will soon see it was this war which firmly set out their own national identity. The baptism of fire at Gallipoli would firmly set out their own identities. These shifts we have discussed today would shape the two countries up until now, and likely will continue to do so.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, (London: 2003)

-David Day, Claiming a Continent: A New History of Australia, (Sydney: 1997)

-Denis McLean, The Prickly Pair: Making Nationalism in Australia and New Zealand, (Dunedin: 2003)

-Kay Saunders and Raymond Evans, (eds.), Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation, (Sydney: 1992)

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, (London: 1975)

-Vincent O'Malley, Bruce Stirling, and Wally Penetito, (eds.), The Treaty of Waitangi Companion: Maori and Pakeha from Tasman to Today, (Auckland: 2010)

-Lyndall Ryan, 'Massacre in the Black War in Tasmania 1823-34: A Case Study of the Meander River Region, June 1827', Journal of Genocide Research, 10:4, (2008), 479-499

Thank you for reading, and next time we will be looking at the First World War. For other World History posts please see our list. For other blog posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.