The Birth of British Australia 1788-1829

Question 1

What were the major issues facing Captain Phillip and the First Fleet when they arrived in Australia?

Answer 1

-Supplies
-Need to establish prison and housing
-Information on Australia based on Captain Cook who visited in 1770
-Need to control prison population
-Native Australians

Question 2

What are the economic reasons for establishing the penal colony at Botany Bay?

Answer 2

It had good soil, a supply of flax and naval timber from Norfolk Island and was a good post for trade with China and Asia.

Question 3

What were the domestic reasons for establishing a penal colony at Botany Bay?

Answer 3

Britain was suffering from a prison crisis by the 1780s. Urbanisation and slum poverty resulted in more and more crime and Britain’s prisons were overflowing. Some felons had been transported to America but after America gained its independence this was no longer possible. The Cook expedition of 1770 showed there was a vast and largely unused land in the Southern Hemisphere and so the government decided to send convicts there instead.

Question 4

What were the foreign policy reasons for establishing a penal colony at Botany Bay?

Answer 4

Britain wanted to colonise New South Wales to protect Cook’s ‘right of possession’ over Botany Bay from the French and Dutch, thus giving them more positional power over the seas and any possible trade.

Question 5

Who made up the First Fleet?

Answer 5

Around 1420 people boarded the First Fleet in Portsmouth, 775 of whom were convicts. They were guarded by nearly 300 non-convicts responsible for guarding them and ensuring the safe transportation of the fleet. The remaining personnel were marines, their wives and families, seamen and their families and civil officers. 732 convicts landed, 2/3 of whom had been sentenced for minor theft.

Question 6

What was convict labour like?

Answer 6

Convicts were forced to provide food for the settlement and the Aborigines refused to help. There was hard labour in cultivating land as there were no ploughs or draft animals. The early harvests failed because of the convicts’ aversion to labour.

Question 7

What was early convict society like?

Answer 7

Society was like a prison although convicts could pay their way to better accommodation, food etc . Respect for family connections meant that convict women had been allowed to bring their children.

Question 8

What did Phillip realise by 1790?

Answer 8

That the settlement wouldn’t progress so long as it depended on convicts working for its wealth. He wanted to attract free settlers to whom convicts could be assigned as workers.

Question 9

How successful were Phillip’s preparations for the journey?

Answer 9

Very successful. The preparations had been thorough and pain staking and he spent 6 months preparing for departure. There was a very high survival rate of those sailing in the First Fleet (death rate of only 3%) and the colony survived until 1790 with the arrival of the Second Fleet.

Question 10

How successful was Phillip’s establishment of a second colony on Norfolk Island?

Answer 10

Somewhat successful. He sent 183 convicts, 28 children and 81 marines to Norfolk Island in 1790. The island became synonymous with extreme hardship and hunger but was still a softer option than Sydney because of the habitation of the mutton bird. Their removal also meant that the rations were enough for the remaining people at Sydney Cove.

Question 11

How successful were Phillip’s control of food stores?

Answer 11

Quite successful. Rations had to be shared equally from 1st April 1790 which was resented by the marines but was a critical part of the community’s survival. There were also no riots over rations.

Question 12

How successful was Phillip’s relocation to better farmland?

Answer 12

Very successful. The colony was settled in Parramatta (Rose Hill) which appeared more fertile and former convicts were granted land. In 1791, former convict James Ruse received a grant of 30 acres in Rose Hill and was able to grow wheat and other crops successfully.

Question 13

What were the issues with the Second Fleet?

Answer 13

The government had chosen to contract the journey to a private company rather than entrusting it to an officer. At least a quarter of those transported died during the voyage and a further 150 died soon after landing from a combination of poor sanitation, starvation, scurvy and louse borne diseases.

Question 14

How did the Second Fleet help the settlement in Australia?

Answer 14

It was the first contact with the Old World for over 2 years and they also brought vital supplies of livestock and crops on the store ship, Justinian.

Question 15

How else did Phillip ensure the survival of the colony?

Answer 15

He dispatched the Atlantic of the Third Fleet to Calcutta to buy rice for the colony and this eked out supplies until London sent further supplies. He managed to execute the establishment of a settlement on Norfolk Island with over 1000 people living there and a further 3000 split between Sydney and Parramatta.

Question 16

What changes were made to ensure the death rate on the Second Fleet never happened again?

Answer 16

Further fleets remained in private hands and the government appointed a Royal Commission into the affair. Regulations for transportation became more and more proscriptive, particularly under the governorship of Macquarie.

Question 17

When was Phillip the governor of Australia?

Answer 17

1788-1792

Question 18

When was Macquarie the governor of Australia?

Answer 18

1809-1821

Question 19

What problems existed when Macquarie became Governor?

Answer 19

-The New South Wales Corps, made up of marines and formed in 1792 were effectively controlling the colony through their access to alcohol. They removed Bligh from office in 1808 and took over the running of the colony in his absence, running it like a cartel.
-High levels of sexual violence and rape against women.
-High consumption of alcohol and the colony had a serious drunkenness problem.

Question 20

How did Macquarie solve the problem of the New South Wales Corps?

Answer 20

He dismantled the corps by sending the majority of them to garrison duty to the Isle of Guernsey. This was necessary for the smooth development of the colony and the soldiers in Sydney came under his control.

Question 21

How did Macquarie deal with emancipists?

Answer 21

He believed that convicts could be transformed into citizens. He personally greeted every new convict and an ex-convict delivered his wife’s baby. There were harsh penalties for convicts who misbehaved but also a system of pardons and land grants for convicts. Most convicts took up these grants and remained in the colony. When they deserved to, some ex-convicts were readmitted into the rank in society which they had forfeited.

Question 22

How did Macquarie deal with violence against women?

Answer 22

Women’s lives improved slightly with the proclamation against cohabitation without marriage. Marriage led to a slight improvement in women’s economic status as they could inherit property and business if their husbands predeceased them e.g. Mary Haydock and Elizabeth Arthur although they were exceptions.

Question 23

How did Macquarie limit the consumption of alcohol?

Answer 23

Public houses were closed during religious services and their number was reduced. The traffic in spirits was reduced and he also attempted to cut down the alcohol consumption among labourers.

Question 24

What new town success did Macquarie achieve?

Answer 24

He founded new towns to the west of Sydney and expanded the settlement. He visited Van Diemen’s Land, Newcastle, Illawarra and founded Port Macquarie.

Question 25

What were Macquarie’s economic successes?

Answer 25

In July 1813, the colony obtained a coinage in place of the notes of hand and barter previously used. At the end of 1816, despite the opposition of the British government, he encouraged the formation of the colony’s first bank.

Question 26

What public work schemes did Macquarie introduce?

Answer 26

-New public departments like the commissariat and Police Fund
-Army barracks finished in 1810
-New hospital built in 1810 and given a monopoly on importing spirits
-Parramatta toll road built in 1811
-Limited the use of corporal punishment
-Reorganised the Sydney Police in 1811

Question 27

How many public works did Macquarie complete in total?

Answer 27

In 1822, he listed 265 works completed under his rule.

Question 28

What were Macquarie’s policies towards Aboriginals?

Answer 28

He organised the Native Institution (a school for Aboriginal children), a village at Elizabeth Bay for the Sydney Tribe, an Aboriginal farm at George’s Head and an annual durbar at Parramatta. Orders of merit and old generals uniforms were bestowed on deserving Chiefs. The results of these policies were not very encouraging and in 1816, when the Aborigines showed signs of ungrateful hostility, he organised a military drive to chasten them.

Question 29

When and why were land grants given in Hawkesbury?

Answer 29

The first land grants were made as early as 1794 because it was easier to transport goods, people and crops by water.

Question 30

What conflict was caused by the expansion of white settlement at Hawkesbury?

Answer 30

The Aboriginals frequently came into conflict with the settlers and were ‘pacified’ by various formal expeditions organised by governors and by a bloody guerrilla conflict fought by the settlers against the Aboriginal people of the area.

Question 31

How did the exclusives feel about Macquarie’s land policies?

Answer 31

They resented the land grants to convicts and wished to see instead much larger land grants being made to themselves to develop sheep stations with the use of convict and ex-convict labour.

Question 32

What sort of work did convicts do until 1810 and how did this change?

Answer 32

They were used by the government to work on government farms, build roads and erect government buildings. Female convicts worked weaving cloth and as domestic servants. However, as the colony became more secure, convicts were increasingly assigned to private masters involved in the growing wool trade.

Question 33

What were working conditions like for convicts?

Answer 33

They worked 9 hours a day for 5 days a week and 5 hours on a Saturday. The convict workforce often worked slowly and badly and stealing was a major problem. Minor transgressions meant 100 lashes and the gallows were used frequently. However, punishments were only carried out after being brought before a magistrate and convicts had the right to food, shelter and a rum ration.

Question 34

What happened to the first female convicts?

Answer 34

Male convicts outnumbered females by 6 to 1 and many of the first female convicts who landed on 6th February 1778 were raped. Those who escaped rape were those who already had relations with seamen or marines.

Question 35

What were convict women’s lives like?

Answer 35

Most convict women had to live under the protection of a man in exchange for a home and food and to secure a future for their children. They worked in ‘domestic service’ which was generally a form of cohabitation with a man.

Question 36

Who were specials?

Answer 36

Skilled labourers who were much in demand in the colony. Painters were set to record the developing colony and literate convicts were heavily in demand as servants and skilled workers. George Crossley was even allowed to practice law and advised Bligh during the Rum Rebellion.

Question 37

Who were the Aboriginal people?

Answer 37

Semi-nomadic hunter gatherers who existed in small bands and moved within a clearly understood and defined area. Originated from southeast Asia and migrated to Australia during the last ice age. Inhabited the Australian continent for around 65,000 years and was the world’s oldest continuous culture. 250 languages spoken at the time of colonisation.

Question 38

How was the Aboriginal view of land similar to Britain’s?

Answer 38

-Land passed down through generations
-Preservation of land for the next generation

Question 39

How was the Aboriginal view of land different to Britain’s?

Answer 39

-Lived on the land as people of the land
-The land owns the people
-No human is older than the land itself
-Have to care for the land
-Ecocentrism (all living beings are equal)

Question 40

Why did Captain Cook declare the land terra nullius in 1770?

Answer 40

He had been ordered to obtain the consent of the natives before claiming land but a misunderstanding about who owned the land (Aboriginals didn’t believe they owned it) meant he believed the land was nobody’s land.

Question 41

How many Aborigines lived in Australia when the first British settlers arrived?

Answer 41

Between 300,000 and 1 million with a population density of around 3 per square mile on the New South Wales coast.

Question 42

What tensions existed between settlers and Aboriginals at New South Wales?

Answer 42

Aborigines stole British goods and the British stole Aboriginal fishing rods as well as their land. This led to violence and on 30th May 1788, 2 convicts were murdered by local Aboriginal people and their bodies were mangled and butchered.

Question 43

What impact did disease have on Aboriginal people?

Answer 43

A smallpox epidemic in 1789, likely brought by the First Fleet wiped out 50% of the coastal Aboriginal population. Viruses and venereal disease was prevalent in Van Diemen’s Land, brought by whalers and the first settlers from 1803.

Question 44

How many Aborigines lived in Van Diemen’s Land when settlement began in 1803?

Answer 44

3000-4000.

Question 45

What early problems existed in Van Diemen’s Land?

Answer 45

Disease and starvation. Survival rested on kangaroo hunting and guns were placed in the hands of convicts. They hunted, starved and killed Aborigines and the free settlers provided no protection for them. Settlers brought sheep farming and the merino sheep was introduced in 1821. However, this destroyed Aboriginal food supplies.

Question 46

What was the result of the Aboriginal retaliatory raids in the late 1820s after their food supplies were destroyed?

Answer 46

Arthur passed a proclamation restricting Aboriginals to settled districts in the northeastern corner of the island. When this failed, he issued martial law on 1st November 1828 to force their relocation. However, this policy of relocation failed and the last Tasmanian Aboriginal died in 1876.

Question 47

What did Britain want after the end of the Black War in Van Diemen’s Land?

Answer 47

An end to the hostilities through communication with the Aboriginal people. Britain wanted a fair system in which violence from either side would be punished to prevent hostilities from breaking out again.

Question 48

What is the black armband debate?

Answer 48

The debate on the portrayal of Aboriginal history as genocide. Historians like Windschuttle argue that factors like disease were a greater cause of Aboriginal deaths and that Aboriginals had shown significant resistance and violence to the settlers. Historians like Reynolds argue that the natives were passive and hunted, starved and poisoned by Europeans.

Question 49

What were Phillip’s policies towards the Aboriginals?

Answer 49

He tried to work with the Aboriginals and showed them leniency. He issued instructions that the convicts should not steal from the Aboriginal population and flogged convicts for stealing Aboriginal fishing gear. Despite this, tensions remained between the settlers and natives.

Question 50

How many convicts were there in the first phase of transportation 1788-1810?

Answer 50

9,300 male convicts and 2,500 female convicts

Question 51

How many convicts were there by 1830?

Answer 51

28,700 male convicts and 4,100 female convicts.

Question 52

How high was free settlement?

Answer 52

Not very high because of the huge distance involved. Free settlement was largely the result of soldiers sent to guard the convicts although the first organised attempt to develop a free settlement in Australia took place in Western Australia in 1829. Despite this, the free population outnumbered the prison population by 1828.

Question 53

What was life like in the Van Diemen’s Land penal colony?

Answer 53

It was a totalitarian style government under Arthur and convicts were made to work through 7 levels of punishment devised by Arthur before gaining their freedom. The most hardened prisoners lived here.

Question 54

How important were whaling and sealing to the early survival of the colony?

Answer 54

Most important source of income until the 1830s. Exports of whalebone, whale oil and seal skins enabled the colonies to buy the goods they needed, including rum. Whaling began in 1791 with the Third Fleet who had an agreement to go whaling after they delivered the convicts and then return to London.

Question 55

When did the whaling and sealing industries really take off?

Answer 55

From 1805, local whaling made serious money for the colony. Robert Campbell broke the East India Company’s monopoly on the trade by sailing direct to England in 1805 with 260 tons of oil from the rendered skins of 13,700 seals. Trade was easy and cheap because Sydney harbour and the estuary in Van Diemen’s Land were teeming with whales.

Question 56

How significant was the sheep industry?

Answer 56

By 1805, the colony grew enough grain to feed itself and agriculture shifted from mere subsistence. Sheep numbers had grown to about 20,000 and great sheep stations were established. The industry boomed after the merino sheep was introduced and exports of wool were valued at £2 million by 1830.

Question 57

When was the first crossing of the Blue Mountains for the expansion of the settlement?

Answer 57

In 1813, it took place after a period of drought and in search of more grasslands and pasture for the burgeoning and wool industry. A road was built across the mountains in 1814, built within less than 6 months with convict labour. Settlers began to populate the area shortly afterwards.

Question 58

Where else did the colony expand in 1818-1819?

Answer 58

Further west and north-east, discovering the Liverpool Plains. Charles Throsby’s expedition in 1819 opened up even more of the land beyond the Blue Mountains to settlement.

Question 59

What shift in British policy took place in New South Wales in 1824?

Answer 59

The Australian Agricultural Company was established and given 1 million acres in New South Wales for agricultural development. This showed a change from a government controlled penal colony to expansion of the settlement by private companies (a more traditional form of colonisation).

Question 60

Why was Western Australia settled in 1826?

Answer 60

To forestall any such move by the French, to provide a useful trading link with India, China and the islands to the North and on the recommendation of Captain James Stirling who knew little about agriculture. As a result, a military outpost was set up in Albany in 1826.

Question 61

What was established in Western Australia in 1828?

Answer 61

The Swan River Company. It undertook to send out 10,000 free settlers in exchange for a large land grant.

Question 62

How successful was settlement in Western Australia?

Answer 62

Not very. The first settlers arrived in 1829 but the colony struggled with famine in its early years. By 1832, it had only 1,500 colonists. However, it showed that Britain wanted to use Australia as a source of wealth and opportunity rather than just as a penal colony and expansion was taking place in private hands.

Question 63

What was the political situation in the early years of the settlement?

Answer 63

The settlement was essentially a vast open prison and the distance from London meant that the early governors had almost unlimited power to run the colony as they saw best. Unless events in the colony got totally out of hand, as in the Rum Rebellion, the British government had little actual involvement in the running of the colony.

Question 64

How did Macquarie develop the political situation?

Answer 64

He is credited with transforming the settlement from a prison camp to a colony. The political powers of the governor remained the same, but the size of the free population in the colony and the increased frequency of communications with London meant there was far more scrutiny of the colony and the governor.

Question 65

What did Bigge’s report 1822 set out?

Answer 65

It came to the conclusion that Macquarie had taken the colony in the wrong direction. He said that convict labour should primarily be assigned to sheep farms, not public works schemes, the early pardons, tickets of leave and land grants to emancipists should cease and positions of responsibility should not be given to emancipists.

Question 66

How did colonial control change after Bigge’s report?

Answer 66

This led to the New South Wales Act 1823 where a legislative council was created (members were not elected but exclusives were asked to serve in the assembly to advise the governors), the justice system became independent of the governor and Van Diemen’s Land was to operate as a separate colony, with a legislative council and supreme court to operate there.

Question 67

How did the powers of the governors change by 1829?

Answer 67

The almost unlimited powers of early governors had been restricted by more frequent communications and interventions from London and by the requirement to formally consult the citizens of the colony. While the assemblies were not elected, the Exclusives exercised considerable power when they needed to by lobbying their connections in London and by their participation in the legislative council.