Colony of Queensland

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Queensland Colony
Colony
of the United Kingdom
1859–1901

Light green: Queensland

Green: Territory of Papua (annexed by Queensland in 1883)

Dark grey: Other
Anthem
"God Save the Queen"
CapitalBrisbane
Government
 • TypeSelf-governing colony
Monarch 
• 1859–1901
Victoria
Governor 
• 1859–1868
George Bowen first
• 1896–1901
Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington last
LegislatureParliament of Queensland
History 
• Independence from the New South Wales colony
6 June 1859
1 January 1901
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Colony of New South Wales
Queensland
Territory of Papua
Today part of

The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day State of Queensland, the Territory of Papua and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.

History

Main article: History of Queensland

Nineteenth century

In 1823,

portmanteau of the Scottish towns Edinburgh and Glasgow.[citation needed
]

Major Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825.[1]

In 1839, transportation of convicts ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842, the free settlement was permitted.[citation needed] In the same year Andrew Petrie reported favourable grazing conditions and decent forests to the north of Brisbane, which led shortly to the arrival of settlers to Fraser Island and the Cooloola coast region.[2]

Immigrants aboard the Artemisia arrived at the colony of Moreton Bay in 1848.

In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port.[3]

The first immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay was the Artemisia in 1848.[citation needed]

In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton.[citation needed]

Frontier war

Main article: Australian frontier wars

Fighting between Aboriginal people and settlers in colonial Queensland was more bloody than in any other colonial state in Australia, perhaps partly due to Queensland having a larger pre-contact indigenous population than any other colony in Australia, accounting for over one third, and in some estimates close to forty percent, of the entire pre-contact population of the continent.[citation needed] It is estimated that some 1,500 European settlers, including women and children – and their Chinese, Aboriginal, and Melanesian allies – died in frontier skirmishes with Aboriginals in Queensland during the nineteenth century. The casualties among the Aboriginal fighters suffered in these battles with settlers and native police (frequently described by contemporary political leaders and newspapers as "warfare", "a kind of warfare", "guerrilla-like warfare", and at times as a "war of extermination") is estimated to have exceeded 30,000.[4][5][6][7] Others have suggested there were more Aboriginal casualties.[8] The "Native Police Force" (sometimes "Native Mounted Police Force"), recruited and deployed by the Queensland government, was a key unit in the war between the new arrivals and the aboriginal fighters.[9]

The three largest battles between new arrivals and Aborigines in Australian colonial history all took place in Queensland. On 27 October 1857 Martha Fraser's

Cullin-La-Ringo near Springsure was attacked by Aborigines on 17 October 1861, killing 19 people including the grazier Horatio Wills.[11] Following the wreck of the brig Maria at Bramble Reef near the Whitsunday Islands, on 26 February a total of 14 European survivors were massacred by local Aborigines.[12] The Battle of One Tree Hill also took place in the 1840s.[citation needed
]

Colony of Queensland

In 1851, a public meeting was held to consider

Premier of Queensland
.

Queensland was the only Australian colony that commenced immediately with its own parliament, instead of first spending time as a

Crown Colony (i.e. having a Governor appointed by The Crown). By this time, Western Australia was the only Australian colony without a responsible government. Ipswich and Rockhampton became towns in 1860, with Maryborough and Warwick
becoming towns the following year.

In 1861, rescue parties for

Frederick Walker who originally worked for the native police.[14] Brisbane was linked by electric telegraph to Sydney in 1861; however, the first operating telegraph line in Queensland was from Brisbane to Ipswich in the same year.[15]

Gold rush

Early gold miners were prepared to live rough to strike it rich.

Although smaller than the gold rushes of Victoria and New South Wales, Queensland had its own series of gold rushes in the later half of the nineteenth century. In 1858, gold was discovered at

Palmer River, southwest of Cooktown. Chinese
settlers began to arrive in the goldfields, by 1877 there were 17,000 Chinese on Queensland gold fields. In that year restrictions on Chinese immigration were passed.

Other events

Mary River residence, 1870
Pioneer Sugar Mill at Mackay in the 1880s

1862 saw Queensland's western boundary changed from longitude 141° E to 138°E. In 1863, the first

Chief Justice, Sir James Cockle was appointed. 1864 was an annus horribilis for Queensland. In March of that year, major flooding of the Brisbane River inundated the centre of town, in April, fires devastated the west side of Queen Street, which was the main shopping district and in December, another fire, which was Brisbane's worst ever, wiped out the rest of Queen Street and adjoining streets.[citation needed
]

1865 saw the first steam trains in Queensland, travelling (from

Arthur Edward Kennedy became the Governor of Queensland. The first meat processed in the state occurred at Queensport along the Brisbane River in 1881.[18]

In 1883, Queensland Premier Sir

Papua (later repudiated by British government). On 2 June the decision to form a rugby union association was made at the Exchange hotel in Brisbane.[19] The same year Queensland's population passed the 250,000 mark. In 1887, the Brisbane-Wallangarra railway line was opened, and in 1888 there was a 483-mile (777 km) line opened between Brisbane and Charleville. There were other lines that were nearly complete from Rockhampton to Longreach
, and others being constructed around Maryborough, Mackay, and Townsville. By 1888, there were more than 5 million cattle in Queensland.

South Brisbane during the 1893 Brisbane flood

1891 saw the

Brisbane Cricket Ground
now sits was first used as a cricket ground in 1895, with the first cricket match played there in December 1896. In 1897, Native (Aboriginal) Police force disbanded.

Coal mine in Ipswich, 1898

In 1899, the world's first Labor Party Government, with Premier

Mahina Cyclone of 1899 strikes Cape York Peninsula, destroying a pearling fleet in Princess Charlotte Bay
. The cyclone claimed the lives of around 400 people, making it Queensland's worst maritime disaster.

Immigration

During the 1890s many workers known as the

Kanakas were brought to Queensland from neighbouring Pacific Island nations to work in the sugar cane fields. Some of whom had been kidnapped under a process known as Blackbirding. When Australia was federated in 1901, the White Australia policy came into effect, whereby all foreign workers in Australia were deported under the Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901.[22]
At this time between 7,000 and 10,000 Pacific Islanders were living in Queensland. Most of them had been deported by 1908, by which time there were only 1500–2500 remaining.

Exploration

In 1606, the Dutch navigator

Weipa on the western shore of Cape York. His arrival was the first recorded encounter between European and Australian Aboriginal people.[23]

In 1614,

Luis Váez de Torres, a Spanish explorer may have sighted the Queensland coast at the tip of Cape York. In that year, he had sailed the Torres Strait
, the body of water now named after him.

In 1768, the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville sailed west from the New Hebrides islands, getting to within a hundred miles of the Queensland coast. He did not reach the coast because he did not find a passage through the coral reefs, and turned back.

Cooktown now lies, on the Endeavour River, both places named after the incident. On 22 August the Endeavour reached the northern tip of Queensland, which Cook named the Cape York Peninsula after the Duke of York
.

In 1799, in the Norfolk,

cutter
, at a distance of 750 miles (1,210 km), where the Governor sent ships back to rescue the crew from Wreck Reef.

See also

References

  1. ^ "History". New Hope Coal. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
  2. ^ "Cooloola Recreation Area, Great Sandy National Park: Nature, culture and history". Department of National Parks, Sport and Racing. 15 January 2015. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  3. ^ Kidd, David (2002). "Port of Maryborough". Archived from the original on 7 February 2005. Retrieved 27 March 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. ^ Ørsted-Jensen, Robert: Frontier History Revisited: – Colonial Queensland and the 'History War, Brisbane 2011
  5. ^ Evans, Raymond: The country has another past: Queensland and the History Wars, in ‘Passionate Histories: Myth, memory and Indigenous Australia’ Aboriginal History Monograph 21, September 2010 (Edited by Frances Peters-Little, Ann Curthoys and John Docker).
  6. ^ Queenslander 1 May 1880 & Brisbane Courier, 8 May 1880, p.2e-f, editorial; The Way We Civilise; Black and White; The Native Police: – A series of articles and letters Reprinted from the ‘Queenslander’ (Brisbane, December 1880)
  7. ^ Rusden: History of Australia Vol 3 pp.146–56 & 235
  8. SSRN 2467836
    .
  9. ^ "Welcome to Frontier". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 18 July 2006. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
  10. ^ Australia. "Stories of the Dreaming – Australian Museum". Dreamtime.net.au. Archived from the original on 8 February 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2010.; NSWV&P re 26 October 1857; MBC 14 November 1857. Book: Reid, Gordon: A Nest of Hornets: The Massacre of the Fraser family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and related events, Melbourne 1982.
  11. ^ Queensland State Archive re 11 November 1861 – COL/R2/61/893; 12 November 1861 – COL/R2/61/894; 30 October 1861 – COL/A22/61/2790; Rockhampton Bulletin 29 October 1861; Brisbane Courier 5 November 1861, p2d. Brisbane Courier 9 November 1861, p2c-d; Brisbane Courier 11 November 1861, p2g-3a; Brisbane Courier 9 December 1861, p3c-d Book: Reid, Gordon: A Nest of Hornets: The Massacre of the Fraser family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and related events, Melbourne 1982.
  12. ^ Sydney Morning Herald 7 March 1872; Sydney Morning Herald 11 March 1872; Port Denison Times 28 Mar 1872; Brisbane Courier 4/4/72; Queensland State Archive COL/A172/72/1812; Queenslander 6 April 1872, p9; Sydney Morning Herald 2 February 1874, p3e-f.
  13. ^ "Q150 Timeline". Queensland Treasury. Archived from the original on 3 September 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
  14. ^ "Central Queensland History Wiki – People – FrederickWalker". Cqhistory.com. 2 July 2006. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
  15. ISBN 0-9589229-0-X
    .
  16. ^ "Central Queensland History Wiki – Places – CanoonaGoldFields". Cqhistory.com. 16 July 2006. Archived from the original on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
  17. ^ G. C. Bolton, 'Daintree, Richard (1832–1878) Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine'. Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 1972. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  18. ^ P. Fynes-Clinton. "The Beef Industry in Queensland" (PDF). Retrieved 20 June 2014.
  19. ^ [1] Archived 18 October 2005 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ "World History". Charters Towers Regional Council. Archived from the original on 6 April 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
  21. ISBN 978-1-906975-08-1
    .
  22. ^ "Documenting Democracy". Foundingdocs.gov.au. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
  23. ^ "Willem Janszoon". Archived from the original on 10 February 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2019.
  24. ^ European discovery and the colonisation of Australia culture.gov.au http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/australianhistory/ Archived 16 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colony_of_Queensland&oldid=1192421288"