Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
European Settlement
In 1788 the English were back. On 26 January, 11 ships sailed into a harbour just north of
Botany Bay. The First Fleet was under the command of a humane and diligent officer
named Arthur Phillip. Under his leadership, the settlers cut down trees, built shelters and
laid out roadways. They were building a prison settlement in the lands of the Eora people.
Phillip called the place Sydney.
In the early years of the settlement, both the convicts and the free people of Sydney
struggled to survive. Their early attempts to grow crops failed and the settlement relied on
supplies brought by ship. Fortunate or canny prisoners were soon issued with 'tickets of
leave', which gave them the right to live and work as free men and women on the condition
that they did not attempt to return home before their sentences expired.
The convict system could also be savage. Women (who were outnumbered five to one)
lived under constant threat of sexual exploitation. Female convicts who offended their jail-
ers languished in the depressing 'female factories' (women's prisons). Male offenders were
cruelly flogged and could be hanged even for such crimes as stealing. In 1803, English of-
ficers established a settlement to punish reoffenders at Port Arthur, on the wild southeast
coast of Tasmania.
The impact of these settlements on the Aboriginal people was devastating. Multitudes
were killed by unfamiliar diseases such as smallpox and, in the years that followed
European settlement, many others succumbed to alcoholism and despair as they felt their
traditional lands and way of life being wrenched away.
