Colonising Australia (1788-1901)

The Sydney Penal Colony

Transcript

Narrator: On January 18th, 1788, the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, New
South Wales. It was the end of an eight-month journey halfway
around the globe. The crew, soldiers, government officials and
convicts on board the 11 ships were starving and exhausted, some
near death. This was not the end of their struggle to survive. Now
they had to fulfil the purpose of their journey: establish the first British
colony in Australia.

Captain Cook and botanist Joseph Banks had recommended Botany

Bay and the land surrounding it to the British Parliament as a good
location for the colony. On January 20, English officers went ashore
to select a site for the settlement. Lieutenant Philip Gidley King of the
First Fleet writes:

Philip Gidley King: On landing I ascended the hill, and found ye soil an exceeding fine
black mould, with some excellent timber trees and very rich grass...
we perceived a red fox-dog, and soon after discovered a number
of ye natives, who hollered and made signs for us to return to our
boats...
(Journal entry, 20 January, 1788)

Narrator: Despite the protest from members of the Tharawal nation, whose
land it was, the officers proceeded. The dispute over land began
there and then.

Philip Gidley King: Having only three marines with me and Lieutenant Dawes, I
advanced before them unarmed, presenting some beads and
ribbands... They took it up, and bound the baize about their head.
They then in a very vociferous manner desired us to be gone, and
one of them threw a lance wide of us to show how far they could do
execution.
(Journal entry, 20 January, 1788)

Janine Dunleavy: Aboriginal people were quite hostile, initially. And that too became
a much bigger issue a little bit down the track from those very early
days.

Narrator: Botany Bay proved unsuitable because the bay was shallow and not
a safe harbour in storms. On land, there was no reliable source of
fresh water and the soil was poor.

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 Colonisation - The Sydney Penal Colony | Transcript 2

The fleet sailed north to Port Jackson and chose this area for the
penal colony on January 26, 1788. On January 29, John White, Chief
Surgeon of the colony, described the scene.

John White: In the course of the last week, all the marines, their wives and
children, together with all the convicts, male and female were landed.
The laboratory and sick tents were erected, and, I am sorry to say,
was soon filled with patients afflicted with the true camp dysentery
and the scurvy.
(Journal entry, 29 January, 1788)

Janine Dunleavy: Conditions in the Sydney penal colony initially were quite hard,
because the ships were running low on provisions. And there was an
expectation that they would be able to find food here. But because
the landscape was so strange, the flora and fauna so different to
Britain, even though there was plenty of bush tucker and plenty of
kangaroo and those kinds of things, people didn’t recognise them as
food.

John White: His Excellency... ordered a piece of ground to be enclosed for

the purpose of raising vegetables for them. The seeds that were
sown upon this occasion, on first appearing above ground, looked
promising and well, but soon after withered away, which was not
indeed extraordinary, as they were not sown at a proper season of
the year.
(Journal entry, 29 January, 1788)

Janine Dunleavy: In terms of how long it took people to grow food and to establish
agriculture, that actually took quite some time. And in the first,
probably, five years of the colony, famine was always kind of sitting at
the edge of the possibilities.

Narrator: Reverend Thomas Palmer was serving a seven-year sentence for

political activism and he was treated better than most convicts. He
was provided with a house and allowed to start a business. He wrote
in 1794 of a land that, to him, promised so much.

Thomas Palmer: The reports you have had of this country are mostly false. The
soil is capital; the climate delicious... I never saw a place where a
man could soon make a fortune, and that by the fairest means –
agriculture... to a philosophic mind it is a land of wonder and delight.
To him it is a new creation: the beasts, the fish, the birds, the reptiles,
the plants, the trees, the flowers, are all new.
(Letter, 15 December, 1794)

Narrator: Despite his enthusiasm, Palmer’s farm failed to thrive. The new
colony faced many challenges in the following years.

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 Colonisation - The Sydney Penal Colony | Transcript 3

Janine Dunleavy: Establishing the colony was not an easy task and the journals of–
any of the journals, historical journals that are available, talk about
hardship, they talk about famine. The other kinds of things that
created hardship was the fact that the convicts far outnumbered the
military, far outnumbered anybody else. So it very quickly became a
case of keeping the convicts under control. Lawlessness was a really
big problem. And because food was often short, stealing food was a
massive problem as well. Because if somebody stole food, it meant
that other people’s rations were impacted.

Narrator: Law and order was enforced through brutal and harsh punishments.

Janine Dunleavy: Lawlessness was severely punished. Hanging was quite fashionable
in Australia when it had become unfashionable in Britain because
it had to be– law had to be established. So people were flogged,
people were hung.

Narrator: Almost ten years after the First Fleet had landed, David Collins,
Deputy Judge Advocate for the colony, detailed examples of crime
and punishment in the colony.

David Collins: One man was found guilty of uttering a bill knowing it to be forged,
and adjudged to suffer death; and two others, for theft, were ordered
to be transported to Norfolk Island, one for the term of his life, and
another for seven years.
(October, 1797)

Narrator: Three witnesses found guilty of perjury in a trial:

David Collins: ...were sentenced to stand in the pillory, to which as an additional

punishment, their ears were to be nailed.
(October, 1797)

Janine Dunleavy: So when somebody was in the stocks, they were there to be
humiliated. So it was a duty as a citizen to, you know, chuck
something at them, a rock, a piece of fruit, whatever, you know, just
torment them. So that they were ashamed and would be reluctant to
reoffend.

Narrator: Everyday life in the penal colony was incredibly tough for prisoners,
as well as their keepers. Starvation, disease and crime affected
everyone, while harsh punishments often proved fatal for the
convicts. A British, or European, mindset also hampered early
progress.

Janine Dunleavy: I think it would be safe to say that wherever people were trying to
establish European lifestyles, or transplant European lifestyles onto
Australian soil, hardship was a constant companion until such time
as people learned to adjust those cultural preferences to the actual
context that they found themselves in.
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