European discovery and colonization Captain James Cook did not "discover" Australia in the sense of being the first human to see it. He was the first European to chart and map the eastern coastline of the continent. In 1770, while on his first voyage, he and his crew, including the botanist Joseph Banks, made landfall near Point Hicks and then sailed north, charting the coastline and eventually claiming the eastern portion for Great Britain, which he named New South Wales. After European arrival in Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations experienced a drastic decline due to disease, violence, and the loss of their traditional lands and way of life. European settlement resulted in a population reduction of up to 90% between 1788 and 1900. "...without laying claim to this country by conquest, without even pleading the mockery of cession or the cheatery of sale, we have unhesitantly entered upon, occupied, and dispossed of its lands sprea...