Brisbane was established when Sydney and the colony of New South Wales needed a better place to store their more recalcitrant convicts. The tropical country further north seemed a good place to put them and, in 1824, a penal settlement was established at Redcliffe Point on Moreton Bay. This location was soon abandoned in favour of the riverside site to the south where Brisbane's business district now stands. The penal settlement was abandoned in 1839 and the area was thrown open to free settlers in 1842. As Queensland's huge agricultural and mineral resources were developed, Brisbane grew into a prosperous city, and in 1859 the state of Queensland separated from the colony of NSW. Brisbane was declared its capital.
Queensland's early white settlers indulged in one of the greatest land grabs of all time and encountered fierce Aboriginal opposition. At the time of white settlement, Queensland was the most densely populated area of Australia, supporting over 100,000 Aboriginal people in around 200 tribal groups - Aboriginal people had probably been in the country for at least 50,000 years before the arrival of Europeans. For much of the 19th century, what amounted to a guerrilla war took place along the frontiers of the white advance. By the turn of the century, the Aboriginal people of Queensland had been comprehensively run off their lands and the white authorities had set up reserves for the survivors. In the 1980s control of the reserves was handed over to the residents, subject to rights of access for prospecting, exploration or mining.
By the 1860s Brisbane had shed its convict background and developed into a handsome provincial centre, although it wasn't until the 1880s that the central business district was transformed by the construction of many fine public and commercial buildings.
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