7 Lessons From Australian History

7 Lessons from Australian History

Andrew Botros – January 2005

Why Australian History?

• Because we live here

• Because it’s fascinating

• Because it’s poorly understood

• Because it reveals some important lessons

The 7 Lessons Up Front(in case you get bored)

1. Always give others their correct reward

2. Overcome crime at its environment

3. Uphold equality regardless of circumstance

4. Always be wary of conservatism

5. Motivate by achievement, not by fear

6. People are more than their history

7. Appreciate your home – it was hard to build

The Australian Aborigines

• Well adapted to their harsh environment

• In 1788, 300,000 in Australia, 1,500 in Sydney

• Tribal and territorial, yet nomadic

• Would even kill children to stay mobile

• No concept of private property or building

• Often set fire to bush to hunt animals

• Extremely skilled with primitive tools

European Exploration: Abel Tasman

• Until the 17th century, sketchy details of landings in Australia existed

• Anthony van Diemen, G-G of the Dutch East India Company, sends an expedition in 1642 to map the southern continent

European Exploration: Abel Tasman

• Tasman misses the mainland completely, sailing underneath it from the west, but maps Tasmania and New Zealand

• A second expedition in 1644 maps the northern coast, but the land offers nothing of value

European Exploration: Captain Cook

• Captain James Cook, a naval explorer without equal

• Aboard the Endeavour in 1769, observes the transit of Venus in Tahiti before heading to the Southern Continent

• Aboard the Resolution in 1772, explores the Antarctic ocean, the furthest south any human had been


• Upon heading west from Tahiti, reaches New Zealand

• Decides to retrace Tasman’s route in reverse, and then sail north from Van Diemens Land to see if it’s part of the mainland

• Rough seas drive him north to Victoria, thereafter mapping the entire east coast


• Lands at Botany Bay in 1770, named after the unique fauna, examining the land and the natives

• Declares the east of the continent New South Wales, a new British colony

• In England, reports that the land is bountiful and uninhabited

Property and Poverty:18th Century Britain

• Class is defined by property: Abuse of property is a capital crime and votes are weighted by property owned

• Most lived in filthy poverty and worked in extremely unhealthy conditions (if lucky)

• Workers were often encouraged to take payment in alcohol, deepening the problem

• Always give others their correct reward

British Crime

• By the 1780s, the numbers in London prisons exploded, due to:

– Increased crime

– Decreased executions

– A halt in transportation to America (the slave trade)

British Crime

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Capital Convictions Executions Percentage

London Hulks

Transportation to Botany Bay

• Under the British government of William Pitt (reign of George III), transportation begins in 1786:

– To relieve pressure on prisons

– To deter would-be criminals

– To remove the “criminal class”

– To establish a colony in the Pacific with the hope of strategic advantage

– To do the right thing politically

Transportation to Botany Bay

• Botany Bay proved to be a failure in deterring crime in Britain

• Overcome crime at its environment

The First Fleet

• The first fleet consisted of 11 ships, all small and overcrowded, taking 4 months to load

• A total crew of 1,500, with 736 convicts in total, all of them transported for crimes against property

The First Fleet

Captain Arthur Phillip

The First Fleet

• Prisoners’ quarters had no light, headway was 4 or 5 feet, 4 people had the area of a king size bed, and prisoners were caged

• 3 pit-stops, 8 months, 25,000km in the world’s roughest seas

• Not a single ship was lost and only 40 convicts died(5% - compared to the 27% of the Second Fleet)

The First Fleet

• Arrives at Botany Bay on January 18, 1788

• Finds the area completely unsuitable

• Encounters two French ships a few days later – the exploration of La Perouse

• Makes a dash for Port Jackson, landing at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788

Australia Day Plastic

The First Few Years

• The inventory: 2 bulls, 5 cows, 29 sheep, 19 goats, 74 pigs, 18 turkeys, 35 ducks, 35 geese, 209 chickens, enough rations for 2 years, no plough, hopeless tools

• Only a third of the convicts were really fit to work (with only one gardner and one fisherman!!!)

• Convicts worked towards survival: crops and shacks

• The plantation at Farm Cove was a complete failure, all hope turned to Parramatta

The First Few Years

• By 1790, the situation was desperate:– No ship had appeared since arrival

– Rations were cut to such a degree that some starved to death, whilst some were naked; only 4 months supply remained

– Military men were greatly depressed

– Phillip’s gamble of sending some convicts to Norfolk Island ended in shipwreck disaster

• Despite the situation, marines and convicts were given the same ration, avoiding a fatal class struggle

• Uphold equality regardless of circumstance

The Aboriginal Problem

• Contrary to popular perception, Aborigines were not officially abused by the British: Phillip gave them the same rights as colonists and won their respect

• Trouble came from two directions:– Convicts resented the rights of Aborigines and sought to

abuse them, leading to tit-for-tat incidents

– Aborigines were no match for the endless diseases and addictions brought by the British

• Soon enough convict racism found its way to the free settlers, and lawmakers did not know how to handle the propertyless blacks

Colonial Survival

• In June 1790 the Second Fleet entered Sydney Harbour, bringing food, letters, gravely sick convicts and a new force: the New South Wales Corps

• In 1791 James Ruse, a convict, successfully started a wheat farm at Parramatta, receiving in reward the first land grant in Australia from Phillip

• In 1792 Phillip sailed out of Sydney Harbour, home sick, leaving a growing colony which had barely survived its beginnings

The Rum Corps

• After the departure of Phillip, the colony was run by the New South Wales Corps for three years, a ruthless and corrupt collection of British military rejects

• To the New South Wales Corps, convicts were trash

The Rum Corps

• The Corps cancelled Phillip’s policy of equal rations, granted free land to its members, and always chose the best convicts for its own businesses

• The Corps always had an economic advantage on civillians because of their monopoly on imports – the chief of these being, of course, rum – thus creating the first elite class

The Convict “System”

• Australia: endless work, no workers

• Convict life was a lottery: some worked for the government, but most were assigned to free settlers

• Not quite slavery: convicts were not the property of settlers and convicts had the right to complain and earn something in their free time

• Free labour was the only way to attract free immigrants – noteworthy people often had the first pick of convicts

The Women

• Women were also assigned to masters, and no doubt many became mistresses or discards

• The rest would mainly work at filthy female factories

• Marriage would give them a probationary pardon

• Most were labelled as prostitutes by free settlers, although prostitution was not a transportable offense

• 1 in 7 convicts were female, leading to a great imbalance in Australian society

Punishment

• For men: the lash, irons, chains

• For women: the lash, shaven heads

• The lash (cat-o’-nine-tails) was so common that children would pretend to stage floggings for play

• The ultimate punishment was relocation

The Lash

Norfolk Island and Van Diemens Land

• A settlement on Norfolk Island began in 1788, to cut pine trees for ship masts

• Work was difficult and unsuccessful – Norfolk Island became a place of banishment for re-offenders in New South Wales

• Its history of horror began in 1800 under Major Joseph Foveaux, a butcher who loved flogging and humiliating cruelty

Norfolk Island and Van Diemens Land

• Van Diemens Land, the second colony in Australia, was settled in 1803

• Van Diemens Land succeeded Norfolk Island as the main place for second offenders

• It suffered the same starvation as New South Wales in its early years, with less patience – convicts were even given guns to hunt kangaroos, giving birth to the bushranger

Bushranging & Great Escapes

The Merinos

The Merinos

• John Macarthur, as paymaster of the Rum Corps, had no problem starting Australia’s sheep industry with unlimited land and labour

• Australian conservatism and elitism began with the Macarthurs, and they always sought to secure their wealth and “respectability”, crippling free convicts

• When Governor Bligh (of the Bounty) tried to remove the Rum Corps’ monopoly on goods in 1808, Macarthur led the only coup in Australia’s history

• Always be wary of conservatism

“The Father of Australia”:Lachlan Macquarie

“Terra Australis”: Building a Nation

• When Macquarie replaced Bligh in 1810, he was shocked to see the shacks, mud streets, alcoholism and filth of Sydney

• Assessing the social makeup of the colony, he realised that most were ex-convicts struggling to make their living. Hence, his policies were:

– To reform convicts effectively

– To weaken the choking influence of conservatives

– To build a permanent nation, not just a prison


• It was Macquarie who cleaned up the system:– He removed the remnants of the Rum Corps

– He abandoned Norfolk Island

– Whenever a convict ship arrived, he met it at the docks

– He set the grid of streets in Sydney

– He designed Sydney Hospital himself and hand-picked a convict, Francis Greenway, as government architect


• Macquarie’s most defining work: a road through the Blue Mountains, motivating convicts with their freedom, not the lash

• Motivate by achievement, not by fear

Instructions from England

• England was not interested in flat Sydney streets; it only wanted a prison of horror in the south

• Under the influence of conservatives, Macquarie (and his liberalism) was recalled in 1821

• Succeeding governors reintroduced distant hell settlements: Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Brisbane, Norfolk Island, Macquarie Harbour, Port Arthur – the “Botany Bays of Botany Bay”

The Ultimate Colonial Terror:Norfolk Island (Mark II)

• Convicts were not expected to leave Norfolk Island: 10 years minimum with a perfect record in the last 5, an impossibility with the system of informers

• Convicts were so desperate that groups would draw lots to murder each other – death was better than brutal work and endless punishment

• An unsuccessful rebellion was staged in 1834: 14 were hanged in public

Ahead of his Time:Alexander Maconochie

• Maconochie shifted from punishment to reform, replacing fixed length prison terms with “marks”

• In 1840 he began his post with a public holiday, paid from his own pocket, causing an uproar in Sydney

• Ignoring his orders, Maconochie proceeded to dismantle gallows, remove flogging, build a library and educate convicts, with stunning success

• Predictably, Maconochie was removed in 1843

• People are more than their history

The End of the System

• As convicts serving time became a minority, calls for an end to the “stain” of transportation grew louder

• The gold rush put an end to the debate: Australia was flooded with immigrants and class lines disappeared with newfound wealth

• Transportation to NSW ended in 1840 (WA in 1868), a grand total of 160,000 convicts

The End of the System

• The end result of the System:– Crime in Britain did not decrease

– The assignment system was successful for convicts

– It facilitated the biggest experiment in penal history

– Realistically, Australia would not have been built for many years without free labour

• Appreciate your home – it was hard to build

Further Reading

• The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes (1987)

• Leviathan, John Birmingham (1999)

• For these slides and supplementary material:http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~abotros/australia

Documents

7 Lessons From Australian History