Indigenous Australians
British colonisation of Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet in Botany Bay, New South Wales, in 1788. Settlements were subsequently established in Tasmania (1803), Victoria (1803), Queensland (1824), the Northern Territory (1824), Western Australia (1826), and South Australia (1836). Australia was the exception to British imperial colonization practices, in that no treaty was drawn up setting out terms of agreement between the settlers and native proprietors, as was the case in North America, and New Zealand. Many of the men on the First Fleet had had military experience among Indian tribes in North America, and tended to attribute to the aborigines alien and misleading systems or concepts like chieftainship and tribe with which they had become acquainted in the northern hemisphere.
Tasmania
The next European to enter the strait was Captain James Cook in the "Endeavour" in April 1770. A talented and diligent hydrographer, Cook quickly identified the strait, but knew he had to conceal it. The Admiralty had issued its usual instructions to hide strategically important discoveries that could become security risks, such as off-shore islands from which operations could be mounted by a hostile power, at a time of intense Anglo-French rivalry.