Was Australia settled or invaded by the Europeans?

Australia started as a penal colony for British prisoners. In the sense that they eventually were able set up a fairly egalitarian industrial society based on English legal principles, the country was settled. But in the sense that they pushed back the native peoples, well, I guess you could on a very PC basis claim part of it was an invasion. But that opens up the whole issue of how settlers in North America dealt with its indigenous native populations and I'm not sure I want to go there.

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The debate over this issue is fraught with loaded words like "colonialism" and "invasion" and "imperialism". Even today, historians and scholars are still debating whether countries that wanted to conquer new territories did a good thing or a bad thing-- was America "discovered" or were there native people already living there who were over-run by colonial powers? In some cases, those colonial powers brought updated technology, improved medical treatment, better education, modern conveniences. But in other cases, the native people were turned into a permanent underclass who served their colonial "masters" and could never really gain equality even in their own country. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to your question. The fact remains that most European countries believed they had a right to explore and take over other countries. We live with the results of that today.

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Australia was settled according to british standards. Then it was invaded by the same british as the aboriginals tried to keep there own standard of living. Pretty much what happened in Australia happened in the USA but not with quite the same amount of bloodshed.

First answer by JayKay. Last edit by Frmtrkr. Contributor trust: 658 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 53 [recommend question]