On the 13th of May 1787 the first Fleet set sail with 11 tall ships, carrying 759 convicts (568 men and 191 women) from Portsmouth, England bound for Botany Bay. The Fleet was captained by Arthur Phillip, who was a semi- retired naval officer (working as a farmer). Phillip had orders to establish a penal colony in New South Wales, Australia and become the first governor of Australia.

Convicts On Board

• On board the Scarborough were 205 men.
• On board the Alexander were 198 men.
• The Lady Penryhn had 1 man, 104 women, 2 boys, and 1 girl on board.
• On the Charlotte were 83 men, 30 women, 1 boy and 1 girl.
• The Friendship had on board 75 men, 39 women and 3 girls.
• On board the Prince of Wales were 13 women and 1 girl.

A total of 568 males and 191 females were on board the listed vessels.

There were eleven ships in the fleet consisting of; two Royal Navy ships, Sirius and Supply, six transports; Alexander, Lady Penrhyn, Charlotte, Scarborough, Friendship, and Prince of Wales, and three store vessels, Fishburn, Golden Grove, and Borrowdale.

The ships, supplies, crews, and other requisites began assembling during the winter of 1786-1787 but the operation fell quickly into disarray until taken over by Arthur Phillip. His discipline continued to be influential after embarkation. An extremely dangerous 24,000 kilometre voyage via Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town in the relatively small tall ships was accomplished in about 250 days with the loss of only 32 passengers out of 1,475. More than 1,000 people safely arrived at Botany Bay on January 18, 1788 to begin the new settlement.

Britain had been transporting convicts to its colonies in North America since 1716 but that was no longer an option because of the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1783. Transportation eased overcrowding of prisons in Britain and provided free settlers in colonies with cheap labour.  When the colonies won their independence from Britain they would no longer accept convicts. Britain looked at other colonies such as Canada, Southern regions of South America and northern regions of Europe and Asia, Africa and India but they all were ether too cold or too hot. So therefore Britain had nowhere to transport their convicts to and the local prisons were becoming full. Then Britain discovered Terra Australis (or Australia) and decided it would be suitable for a prison colony and officials started to plan the voyage.

During the first four years of the New South Wales Penal Colony, the community almost starved to death. At the same moment in time the Colony had to learn to cope with the isolation, pests, diseases, limited medical supplies, a harsh environment and climate. There was also a lack of proper shelter and transport facilities. Aggressive convicts and increasingly hostile Indigenous people also posed threats.

While everyone was trying to cope with that, three things confronted Phillip and other early governors; providing a sufficient supply of food, developing an internal economic system, and producing exports to pay for the colony’s imports from Great Britain.

Phillip established farms on the more fertile banks of the River Hawkesbury, a few kilometers north-west of Sydney. The Sandy Soil around Sydney was unsuitable for the farming. The land around River Hawkesbury was often flooded and also used by Aboriginals. The lack of cooperation with the Aborigines also meant the colonists were unable to discover any indigenous food sources beyond fish and kangaroo.

When the Aboriginal people first saw the white people they didn’t know what to think. The thought they might have been ghost or evil spirits. Some thought they might have been women as they had no beards and long hair.

It became clear that the Europeans planned to stay. They were clearing land near sacred sites, fencing off properties which cut access to waterholes and hunting grounds, and fishing without permission of the indigenous elders. The Indigenous people were getting increasingly worried.

Many lives of Indigenous people were cut short in the years following European settlement. Introduced diseases (measles, smallpox, influenza, and whooping cough) accounted for many deaths. Others died lonely deaths poisoned by alcohol and many were slaughtered by the new colonists. Historians suggest that about 20,000 Indigenous people may have been killed during raids and frontier battles.

I think it was good that the English came to Australia because we have developed into our own independent nation. We wouldn’t have wanted the French here but it may have been better for the aboriginals. I don’t think there were many negatives for the Europeans. The Main Negative was that the Europeans killed off most of the Aboriginals. I believe the Indigenous Australians had most of the negatives; they lost most of their land and most of their culture and identity. It is only in the last 30 or so years that the Indigenous Australians are getting back some of what they lost. The Aborigines were here in Australia as far back as 50,000 BC and had kept the land looking untouched and we have been here since 1787 (Just 219 years) and there is almost no land that looks untouched by humans.

Bibliography

Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2003. © 1993-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Http://www.warofarts/firstfleet-0931/rd.com.au

Http://www.jazinfo-3g/Firfle.com.au

L. Jackson, C. Bedson, W. Grogan, C. Reid, M. Saldais, SOSE Alive History 2, 33 Park Road Milton, Qld 4064, Jacaranda, 2005