Tag: Sydney

On a Penal Colony

It’s no secret that Australia was started in part as a penal colony. While Captain James Cook first stumbled upon the land in the 1770s, it wasn’t until January, 1788, a group of almost 800 prisoners from Britain arrived in an inlet on the Australia coast called Botany Bay. The majority of these convicts were considered to be “irredeemable” by the society in their home, and sending them away to the largely unsettled Australian colony served several purposes. Obviously and most importantly, it got rid of these people who were considered to be a danger to society. The other and almost equally important consideration was that the prisoners would be able to carve out a niche in the British-controlled continent.

And it was backbreaking work that these prisoners did. They found that the tools given them by their wardens were inadequate to the task. The wood, for example, was much more dense than that of the trees back in England. The native peoples resented their presence. There was sickness. The water was bad. Oh, and they were thousands of miles away from anything they recognized as normal or usual.

The man in charge of this immense task was Admiral Arthur Philip. He was actually a fair man for his time, unusually enlightened, and worked tirelessly despite all the issues concerning discipline, health, and short supplies. And, to exacerbate the situation, two other large shipments of convicts soon arrived and were put under Philip’s care.

Now, Britain wasn’t the only European nation to use another land as a repository for criminals. You’ve probably heard about Devil’s Island off the northeast coast of South America and French Guiana that was started a few decades after Australia had been set up. And there were other penal colonies set up by other nations as well. The idea, again, was that those who committed crimes were somehow “infected” with mental disorders and not fit to be around “normal” people.

But, unlike most of the other penal colonies, the British experiment in Australia worked to move the convicts out of their incarceration and into being productive members of society–even if that society was among other former prisoners. Philip worked to set up a series of benchmarks that would allow the convicts to transition to becoming landowners and farmers as the colony grew. By the time he left to return to Britain several years later, he had set up this system and had proven that it was working. Today, several streets and landmarks and even towns are named in his honor. The work established and overseen by Admiral Philip paved the way for formal settlement of Australia. Today, we can say that about 20% of Australians can trace their ancestry back to one of these early convicts who made the journey from Britain to Botany Bay.

What we often overlook in the settlement of Australia and the first forays into establishing a colony there is that it owes its success in many ways to what happened in America on July 4, 1776. Now, you might be wondering what American independence has to do with the settlement of Australia.

You see, Britain had no choice but to use Australia at that point. Before then, when Britain wanted to send convicts away from the general population, they shipped them to Georgia–the original British penal colony.

On a Rum Rebellion

William had a reputation as a strict disciplinarian. This was the major character trait that won him appointment as the Governor of New South Wales, representing his Majesty, King George, in 1805. The settlement had the reputation of lawlessness, and William was seen as the man to handle the situation. Once he was established in office in the capital city of Sydney, William began implementing his model of what an effectively functioning administration in a royal colony should be.

William immediately made it his goal to bring discipline to soldier, clerk, and administrator alike. He wanted the government to run smoothly, efficiently, and answerable for the choices each person made. This emphasis on responsibility came from his time in the Royal Navy, having captained ships for years before his appointment. He would confront people to their faces, often embarrassingly so, and publicly call out any infraction of law or rule. But, the people of New South Wales, both in the government and the settlers, were not used to this confrontational style of management. As you can imagine, William’s tactics rankled everyone he interacted with.

In addition, William wanted to stop any illegal (that is, not taxed) trade that came to or went out of Sydney. Well, again, things in New South Wales had been done differently for years, and the people there who made a living trading illegally weren’t about to put up with some hot-shot administrator coming in and messing with their livelihoods.

Finally, the government officials, soldiers, and even the settlers of the area had seen enough. In 1808, they all marched on the government house and had William arrested in what became known as the Rum Rebellion (rum being the biggest illegally traded money maker in the area). He was put aboard a boat and sent to Tasmania. There, he attempted to raise British troops to go back to Sydney and re-take the government, but, even there, he managed to rankle the authorities so much that they dismissed his requests.

Poor William! News traveled slowly then from literally the other side of the world. By 1810, word reached him that the British government had declared the rebellion to have been a mutiny since troops were involved. He was assured that the guilty would be punished. He also received word that he had been replaced a governor. William was a broken man by this time; while he received a promotion, he would never get another significant appointment or command for the rest of his career.

Of course, this wasn’t an unusual event in William’s life. No, he had experienced something similar several years earlier. You see, it was in 1789 that a man named Fletcher Christian had led another mutiny against Captain William Bligh of the HMS Bounty.