This course investigates the history of colonial Australia through the lens of the continent’s place within the Indo Pacific region. It therefore aims to introduce students to Australia’s colonial origins in terms of ‘Asian’ rather than ‘British’ migrations. The course will begin with an introduction to the history of pre-colonial trade and travel between Australian Indigenous people and the Makassar from Southeast Asia. It will then examine colonial perspectives and proposals from the first half of the nineteenth century that envisaged Australia within the Indo Pacific region, and that saw future colonial development as taking place through Indo Pacific regional migrations and economic exchange. It will explore Australia’s nineteenth-century histories of Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Pacific Islander migrations, and the important place of Asian migrations in Australia’s social and economic development. Finally, it will consider the historical tensions between Australia’s European and Asian roots and consider Australia’s contemporary place within the Indo Pacific region.