Australia Expedition

A land of almost 3 million square miles has lain since time immemorial on the southern flank of the planet, so isolated that it remained entirely outside of European knowledge until 1770. However, the first human footprints on this vast territory were felt 70,000 years earlier. The history of the indigenous inhabitants of Australia is a complex. For generations after the arrival of whites in Australia, the Aboriginal people were disregarded and marginalized, largely because they offered little in the way of a labor resource, and they occupied land required for European settlement.

Robert O'Hara Burke (1821-1861) was one of the great Victorian explorers. In 1860 he was appointed to lead the Victorian Exploring Expedition, which aimed to cross the Australian continent from south to north. The expedition left Melbourne on Monday, 20 August 1860 with a total of 19 men, 27 (rum fuelled) camels, and 23 horses. The expedition was dogged by disputes and poor leadership decisions from the start. Even at the first staging post the second in command and the medical officer resigned.