Australia Gains Independence
The descendants of the British prisoners began to want independence in their new land in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Previously, after the British stopped sending convicts to Australia, the six colonies were mostly self-governed and handled their own affairs, but they were still considered part of the British Empire. The British did not benefit from keeping power over the Australian colonies anymore because they were no longer allowed to send convicts there due to a campaign by the settlers of New South Wales. Additionally, it became increasingly troublesome for the British to deal with complexities of the Australian settlers because of the enormous distance between the two lands. The British Parliament passed a legislation to both unify the six colonies together and to allow them to self-govern on January 1 of 1901, and the nation became the Commonwealth of Australia. The British still held power over the colonies and the land still operated under British laws, but the British did not interfere with Australian issues any longer. In 1986, the Australia Act, which declared Australia independent from the British monarch and the British legal system, became official and Australia was free from British influence. There was no violence in gaining independence for Australia.