The arrival of the First Fleet on Gadigal Country 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 First Nations people. What started as a series of precarious British outposts eventually grew to become 6 self-governing colonies, which claimed the entire continent and Tasmania. 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 750,000 to less than 200,000.

Map of the Port Jackson settlement

The growing markets for wool and meat in the 1820s saw an increasing demand for land by migrants, emancipated convicts and native-born settlers.

Some pastoralists occupied land to run sheep and cattle without the approval of either the colonial government or the land’s Traditional Owners. ‘Squatting’, as it was known, remained a feature of colonial life until the 1860s.