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Pratique du shadowing : Why wasn't there a Scramble for Australia?

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  1. Australia is a pretty big place and one that was entirely colonised by one country, the United Kingdom.0:00
  2. Britain wasn't the first European country to discover Australia, that was the Netherlands.0:05
  3. And in spite of the fact that all of these nations had interests nearby, there was no desperate scramble for this mass of land and no other European state ever0:10
  4. settled it.0:16
  5. Which raises the question, why?0:17
  6. Why wasn't there a scramble for Australia and why was it just left for Britain?0:19
  7. So the first Europeans to discover Australia were the Dutch in 1606 who promptly named it New Holland after Holland back home.0:23
  8. Over the following century Australia was visited by sailors from many countries who mapped most of its coast.0:30
  9. It wasn't long before the Dutch East India Company considered the idea of colonising New Holland but in the end it decided against the venture.0:34
  10. The reason was that there were no known resources to exploit and there weren't very many indigenous people to do it for them.0:41
  11. Eventually in the latter half of the 18th century the British mapped out the eastern coastline of Australia and found several places of interest.0:46
  12. And two decades later the British government agreed to colonise the area of Botany Bay here.0:52
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  1. There were three reasons that Britain said yes to this.0:56
  2. The first was that the people they were sending were convicts and so it didn't really matter if things didn't work out.0:59
  3. Previously Britain had sent convicts to North America but due to an ongoing event of freedom that was no longer possible.1:04
  4. The second reason was that Britain wasn't looking for resources to sell or people to tax.1:09
  5. Australia sat in a convenient place for raiding French, Spanish and especially Dutch shipping which would help Britain in any future wars and mostly they were just looking to get1:13
  6. rid of convicts.1:20
  7. And the third reason was that the British believed that it would be easy.1:21
  8. Because no other major powers were trying and there were barely any natives there to resist.1:24
  9. The British landed in 1788 founding the settlement of Sydney town in what's now New South Wales.1:28
  10. So after this why didn't any other European power try to keep the rest of Australia out of the hands of the British?1:33
  11. Well to begin the Dutch were fine with it because the British initially conceded half of Australia to them if they ever wanted it.1:39
  12. Well it wasn't long in Europe until the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars changed the balance of power on the continent.1:44
  13. The French did send some ships to investigate potential sites for settlement.1:49
  14. But the British were quick to build small settlements anywhere a valley that the French had shown interest in.1:53
  15. France's previous aggression in the Britain wouldn't allow them to colonise Australia without a war.1:57
  16. The Dutch had lost a lot of prestige in some overseas territories to Britain and were just happy to get Indonesia back.2:02
  17. Spain and Portugal were bankrupt and largely on the decline.2:06
  18. Later on the newly founded Germany would go sniffing around the area.2:10
  19. But the fear of German colonial expansion in the region was one of the main drivers of Australian unification.2:13
  20. At which point no other country would ever get a look in and Australia would be shaped by the British until its independence in the 20th century.2:18
  21. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons James Bisannette, Kelly Moneymaker, Korsho Wolf, Kartowicka, Alec Schwinn, Andy Magee, Jerry Lamden, Roddy Martin, AF Firefly,2:24
  22. Marcus Hasner, Wyon Hockey, Spencer Lightfoot, Marvin Casal, Captain Seidel, Camus Nune, Winston K.2:34
  23. Wood, Miss Iset, Boogaloo Woogaloo, Maggie Paskowski, The McWopper, Gustav Swan, Calling Dr Howard, Dr Fine, Dr Howard, Copper Tone, Shuenin, Spinning Three Plates, Words About Books Podcast, Jim Struhmberg,2:39
  24. Words About Books Podcast and Charles I.2:50

Mesuré dans ce clip

Débit
239 mots par minute — plus rapide que 90% du catalogue
Niveau CECRL
B2
Mots à connaître
conceded, unification, mapped, raiding, settlements, coastline
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