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Colonial Australia & Penal Settlements. Colonial Australia began in 1788 when the British First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay and established a penal colony at Port Jackson (Sydney). Driven by severe prison overcrowding in Britain following the loss of the American colonies, the British Crown used convict labor to build infrastructure, clear land, and establish agricultural outposts across New South Wales, Tasmania, and Western Australia.
The rapid expansion of pastoral sheep farming and British settlement resulted in widespread violent dispossession and devastation of Indigenous Australian communities through conflict and disease. Free settlers soon outnumbered convicts, driving gold rushes in the 1850s that rapidly accelerated economic growth and democratic reforms. In 1901, six individual self-governing British colonies federated to form the modern Commonwealth of Australia.