Australasia (1828–1971 CE)

Colonial Nationhood, Industrial Growth, and Indigenous Revivals

Geography & Environmental Context

Australasia consists of three fixed subregions:

• Northern Australia: the Northern Territory’s Top End, Queensland north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia.

• Southern Australasia: the southern portions of Australia (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, southern Queensland, southern Western Australia, and Tasmania) together with New Zealand’s South Island, the Cook Strait, and the southwestern tip of the North Island.

• South Polynesia: New Zealand’s North Island (except its southwestern tip), the Chatham Islands, Norfolk Island, and the Kermadec Islands.

This region stretches from the monsoonal tropics to the temperate southern seas, embracing deserts, grasslands, alpine ranges, rainforests, and fertile coasts. Its environments shaped distinct settlement patterns—from pastoral frontiers in the north to industrial cities and ports in the south.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The 19th century brought alternating droughts and floods to the Australian interior and devastating cyclones to the north. The temperate south and New Zealand enjoyed steadier climates suited to farming and livestock. In the 20th century, large-scale irrigation and dam projects—like the Snowy Mountains Scheme (1949–74)—reengineered water systems. Severe bushfires and erosion followed deforestation. In New Zealand, glacial retreat and soil loss accompanied agricultural intensification.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Indigenous peoples: Aboriginal Australians and Māori endured dispossession but sustained knowledge systems tied to land and water.

• Colonial expansion:

  • By mid-19th century, British settlers dominated governance across Australia and New Zealand. Gold rushes in Victoria (1850s) and Otago (1860s) spurred migration and urban growth.

  • Agriculture and pastoralism expanded rapidly: sheep and cattle across the Australian interior; dairy and grain farming in New Zealand’s fertile plains.

  • Urbanization concentrated populations in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Wellington, Christchurch, and Auckland.

• Postwar migration after 1945 diversified populations, bringing Southern Europeans and later Asians into the labor force.

Technology & Material Culture

Railways, ports, and telegraph lines linked inland farms to coastal cities. Refrigerated shipping (from the 1880s) allowed export of meat and dairy to Britain, binding the region to global markets. Industrialization advanced after WWII with car manufacturing, mining, and hydroelectric power. Everyday life modernized through electricity, radio, and television. Indigenous art and craft persisted, later inspiring national cultural renewal.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Maritime networks tied Australian and New Zealand ports to Britain, India, and Asia; by the 20th century, trans-Pacific links expanded.

• Migration corridors: British immigration dominated until postwar diversification. Māori and Pacific Islander movement into cities accelerated after WWII.

• Military routes: Troops departed from Sydney, Melbourne, and Wellington to fight in imperial and world wars. Airfields built for WWII became postwar travel arteries.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Indigenous resilience: Aboriginal songlines, ceremonies, and art remained vital despite suppression; Māori maintained marae, carving, and haka, fueling cultural revival by mid-century.

• Colonial and national cultures:

  • Australia federated in 1901; New Zealand became a dominion in 1907.

  • Literature, art, and sport (rugby, cricket, Australian rules football) forged shared identities.

  • European-derived traditions blended with Indigenous and migrant influences.

• Religion: Predominantly Christian, yet increasingly secular; missions evolved into welfare institutions and later arenas of protest.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Agriculture: Innovations in irrigation, fertilizers, and animal breeding increased yields but damaged ecosystems.

• Water management: Dams and schemes tamed drought-prone rivers; conservation movements began with national parks.

• Urban adaptation: Expanding infrastructure mitigated fires and floods but encouraged suburban sprawl.

• Indigenous adaptation: Aboriginal and Māori communities pursued land rights and cultural renewal, asserting continuity through change.

Political & Military Shocks

• Colonial wars and resistance: Frontier conflicts persisted into the late 19th century; Māori resistance in New Zealand’s Land Wars (1840s–70s) ended with major land loss.

• Nationhood: Australia’s federation (1901) and New Zealand’s dominion status (1907) consolidated self-government.

• World wars: Heavy ANZAC losses at Gallipoli (1915) and elsewhere shaped national mythologies.

• Economic crises: The Great Depression (1930s) brought hardship, followed by postwar recovery.

• Cold War alliances: The ANZUS Treaty (1951) aligned Australia and New Zealand with the U.S.; nuclear testing in the Pacific spurred emerging antinuclear movements.

• Civil rights: The 1967 Australian referendum recognized Aboriginal peoples in the census; Māori activism gained momentum in the 1960s–70s.

Transition

Between 1828 and 1971, Australasia evolved from colonial outposts into industrial democracies and regional powers. British migrants built settler nations tied to imperial trade, yet by mid-century both countries forged independent identities. Indigenous peoples, long marginalized, reasserted presence through cultural revival and political activism. The postwar era saw booming cities, resource exports, and closer Pacific engagement. By 1971, Australia and New Zealand were prosperous, urbanized, and globally connected—modern states still reckoning with colonial legacies and embracing their Pacific and Indigenous dimensions.

The British Government appoints James Busby as British Resident to New Zealand in 1832 following a petition from northern Māori.

In 1835, following an announcement of impending French settlement by Charles de Thierry, the nebulous United Tribes of New Zealand send a Declaration of Independence to King William IV of the United Kingdom asking for protection.

Ongoing unrest, the proposed settlement of New Zealand by the New Zealand Company (which had already sent its first ship of surveyors to buy land from Māori) and the dubious legal standing of the Declaration of Independence prompts the Colonial Office to send Captain William Hobson to claim sovereignty for the United Kingdom and negotiate a treaty with the Māori.

The introduction of the potato and the musket had transformed Māori agriculture and warfare.

Potatoes provided a reliable food surplus, which enabled longer and more sustained military campaigns.

The resulting intertribal Musket Wars encompass over six hundred battles between 1801 and 1840, killing thirty thousand to forth thousand Māori.

Christian missionaries began to settle New Zealand from the early nineteenth century, eventually converting most of the Māori population.

The Māori population will decline to around forty percent of its pre-contact level during the nineteenth century; introduced diseases are the major factor.

The New Zealand Company (the first to bear the name) had formed in London in 1825 and sent out settlers, led by Captain James Herd, to the Hokianga in the far north of New Zealand.

The company's investors hoped for large profits, convinced there were fortunes to be made from New Zealand flax, kauri timber, whaling and sealing, but little of permanence had come of the venture.

In 1837, Edward Gibbon Wakefield had persuaded a group of notable men to join him in the New Zealand Association to promote the settlement of New Zealand.

As early as 1829, while in prison for abducting a fifteen-year-old heiress, he had published a pamphlet promoting the colonizing of Australasia.

Wakefield's plan entailed the company buying land from the indigenous residents very cheaply and then selling it to speculators and "gentleman settlers" for a much higher sum.

The emigrants would provide the labor to break in the gentlemens' lands and cater to their employers' everyday needs.

They would eventually be able to buy their own land, but low rates of pay would ensure they first labored for many years.

However, they had encountered strong opposition in London from the Colonial Minister and from the Church Missionary Society, and the Association had lapsed.

The following year, however, several of the intending colonists had formed a joint stock company.

Former members of the New Zealand Association join them and obtain a charter for the New Zealand Land Colonisation Company in 1839.

Once again, Wakefield provides the driving impetus.

The British, concerned over Wakefield’s dispatch of a survey party to purchase Maori lands and suspicious of increasing French activity on South Island, appoint naval captain William Hobson lieutenant governor of New Zealand, still a part of the New South Wales colony.

Events start to push the politicians towards a declaration of British sovereignty over New Zealand.

The officers of the New Zealand Company know that such a declaration, if that were to happen, would involve a freeze on all land sales pending the establishment of effective British control.

They have other plans, which involve treating New Zealand as a foreign country and buying the land directly from the Maori, knowing they can get a better deal that way.

Permission to colonize New Zealand, and to establish a colonial government under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, is formally requested of the British government by former British statesman Lord Durham, as President of the New Zealand Company, on May 22, 1839.

British naval commander William Hobson, offered the position of Superintendent of the Bombay Marine at a salary of two thousand pounds a year, had taken a liking to Australia and had been a candidate for the governorship of Port Phillip, although the salary was not expected to be more than eight hundred pounds a year.

In 1837, he had sailed to the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in response to a request for help from James Busby, the British Resident, who felt threatened by wars between Maori tribes.

He had arrived on May 26, 1837 and helped to reduce the tensions.

On his return to England in 1838, he had submitted a report on New Zealand to propose a trading system and a treaty with the Maori to obtain land.

At this time, the British government recognizes the sovereignty of the Maori people, as represented in the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand of October 1835, which Busby had organized.

Concerned over Wakefield’s dispatch of a survey party to purchase Maori lands and by suspicious French activity on South Island, the British government appoints Hobson Lieutenant Governor under the Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps (ratified on July 30, 1839) and British consul to New Zealand (confirmed on August 13, 1839).

Lord Norman issues him with detailed instructions on August 14, 1839, giving reasons for intervention in New Zealand and directions for the purchase of land "by fair and equal contracts."

The land will later be resold to settlers at a profit to provide for further operations.

The New Zealand Company had hastily organized a land-buying expedition, which had sailed to New Zealand in the Tory in May 1839, commanded by Edward Gibbon Wakefield's younger brother, Colonel William Wakefield.

A second vessel, the survey ship Cuba, with a team headed by Captain William Mein Smith, R.A., had sailed in August, followed a month later by the first of nine immigrant ships, even before word had reached London of the success of the Tory and Cuba.

The immigrant fleet has instructions to sail to Port Hardy on D'Urville Island where they will be told of their final destination.

With the aid of whaler and trader Dicky Barrett, who has good contacts with Maori and a grasp of their language, William Wakefield had begun negotiating to buy land from the Maori around Petone in the Wellington area as soon as he arrived in New Zealand.

By the end of 1839, he has concluded several purchases that quickly become mired in controversy over their legitimacy.

The settlement is far from what had been planned in England: among the many falsehoods in company prospectuses and advertising about the nature of the country, Wellington had been described as a place of undulating plains suitable for the cultivation of grapevines, olives and wheat.

Plans prepared in England show parallel streets and sections that bear no relation to the physical contours of the area: streets and sections, parks, and cemeteries have been drawn in an area that consists of swampy delta or high hills and steep gullies.

New Zealand, still part of the colony of New South Wales, becomes a separate Colony of New Zealand on July 1, 1841.

Armed conflict begins between the Colonial government and Māori in 1843 with the Wairau Affray over land and disagreements over sovereignty.

These conflicts, mainly in the North Island, see thousands of Imperial troops and the Royal Navy come to New Zealand and become known as the New Zealand Wars.

Following these armed conflicts, large amounts of Māori land are confiscated by the government to meet settler demands.

The Treaty of Waitangi is first signed in the Bay of Islands on February 6, 1840.

In response to the New Zealand Company's attempts to establish an independent settlement in Wellington and French settlers purchasing land in Akaroa, William Hobson declares British sovereignty over all of New Zealand on May 21, 1840, even though copies of the Treaty are still circulating throughout the country for Māori to sign.

With the signing of the Treaty and declaration of sovereignty the number of immigrants, particularly from the United Kingdom, begins to increase.

British colonists reach New Zealand on January 22, 1840, officially founding the settlement of Wellington.