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1. Prehistory - Australia prior to white contact

Images of the Great South Land, Cultural baggage and Australian Prehistory.

   

European Expansion and the search for the great south land
   

Initial impressions: The land and its inhabitants
   

Australia’s own prehistory:
   

Aboriginal Society: Culture Religion Community life
   

The land and its people, a relationship of integrity

For Reflection: What were the European cultural trends which influenced perspectives on Australia and its native population? In what ways was this moderated/shaped by European philosophy? 

 

2. First Settlement - Perspective's and Problems

England in the eighteenth century:

   

Social and political background to settlement:
   

Crime and punishment in the Eighteenth Century
   

Economic and political scenarios
   

The choice of Botany Bay:The complexity of the issue
   

Current historiography and competing views of the reasons for settlement:
   

The strengths and weaknesses of the arguments and implications for later development

For Reflection: Did the complex issues behind the settlement of Australia have any implications for the conflicts that would emerge in the first years of settlement?

3. Government to 1810: Phillip to Bligh

The Coming of the first fleet:

   

The convicts of the colony - an overview
   

The difficulties of the first years -
   

Aboriginal and white contact
   

Economic struggle
   

Phillip and the Military
   

The need for free settlers
   

The men of the New South Wales Corps and the monoply of trade
   

Bligh and the Rum Rebellion
   

Macarthur and the search for a staple.

For Reflection: Was transportation achieving the the aims the British government expected, or was this new settlement taking a shape all of its own?

 

4. The Macquarie Decade- 1810-1821

Building a nation.

   

Background history - the man
   

His ideals
   

Macquarie as governor
   

Convict and Emancipist policies
   

Economic developments
   

Conflict and criticisms
   

The Bigge Reports
   

Convict or Free revisited
   

The accomplishments of the period

For Reflection: What were the real issues behind complaints against  Macquarie’s policies? Who were the major protagonists? 

5. Pastoral Expansion - 1821-1850

Squatters and settlers and Overview

   

Exploration under Macquarie
   

The spread of settlement
   

Immigration
   

The life of the squatter
   

Emancipists and settlers
   

The settlements of Port Phillip, Sth. Australia.
   

Transportation revisited
   

Settlement or conquest:

For Reflection: What were the similarities and differences in the settlements of NSW, Port Phillip, South Australia? How did their origins effect their development?

  

6. Conquest or Settlement: Black-White Relations

Is Australia a conquered land or a peacefully settled one?

   

Settlement revisited
   

Aborigines revisited
   

Civilization - a relative concept
   

Terra Nullius an excuse for “settlement”?
   

Patterns of Aboriginal reaction
   

Aboriginal resistance
   

War on the land
   

Racism and ideology
   

Racism in colonial society- an ever increasing pattern?

For Reflection: The first chapter of Manning Clark’s massive history of Australia begins: “Civilization did not begin in Australia until the last quarter of the eighteenth century....” . To what degree does this statement reveal the roots of black-white conflict in Australia? 

7. Moving towards Democracy ∓ The Gold Rushes

Steps to constitutional reform and the gold discoveries: A move towards Democracy

   

The evolution of consitutional reform 1823-1842
   

The discovery of Gold
   

The rush to be rich
   

Immigration
   

Racism and the goldfields
   

The point of Eureka
   

Urban development
   

Social and political changes
   

Unlocking the land - The effect of the Robertson land acts
   

Social and political reforms

For Reflection: What were the major effects of the gold rushes on Australian development? Did the Robertson Land Acts have the desired or expected results?

 

8. The Long Boom

 Growth and the economy 1860-1890

   

 Years of expansion
   

Capital and Labour - crisis and conflicts
   

Growth and Decay -the two-edged sword of plenty 
   

Economic Imbalances - pastoral debt and urban growth
   

Emerging nationalism
   

Social and political changes
   

 Class conflicts
   

The slide into Depression

For Reflection:  What factors created the economic depression of the late 1880’s? How did the depression affect the various classes of Australian Society?

9.  Trade Unionism and the Strikes of 1890

The years of depression and the development of unionism

   

Capital Vs. Labour - the legacy of the years of “Boom”
   

The  emergence of the “new” unions - their function and aims.
   

The beginnings of “the great strikes”
 

Miners and Shearers and militant unionism.

  
   

Women and labour
   

The role of the state in the defeat of the unions
   

The emergence of the Labor Party
   

Recovery

For Reflection:  What were the trade unions trying to achieve? What were the reasons for and the consequences of the great strikes of the 1890’s?

 

 

10. Towards Federation - the Making of a “White Australia”

 Australia’s colonial past and racism - revisiting the myths.

   

Racism - a dominant feature of Australian society - Fact or Fiction?
   

Aboriginals and Settlers revisited
   

Coolie Labour in the 1840’s
   

Reactions to the Chinese on the goldfields
   

The Melanesian labour trade
   

Class responses to coloured immigrants
   

The perception of an economic threat
   

Coloured immigration and emergent nationalism
   

Economic, social and political views revisited
   

Building the “great white walls” - The institutionalising of Australian racism.

For Reflection: What were the key factors contributing to the growing calls for exclusion of coloured immigrants to Australia in the 1880’s 1890’s? What were the expected benefits of a “white Australia” policy?