The Botany Bay Medallion

‘This book is book is about the history of Britain…To write about this country without saying something about the West Indies and India, about Australia and Argentina is unreal’. Eric Hobsbawn, Industry and Empire, Vol. 3, 1750 to the Present Day, 1982

Just as unreal would be to write about modern Australian history without saying something about Britain.

1786 – 12 October, London: ‘And you [Phillip] are to observe and follow such orders and directions from time to time as you shall receive from us, or any other your superior officer according to the rules and disciplines of war.

We reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, and experience in military affairs, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be said governor of our territory called New South Wales…from the Northern extremity of the coast called Cape York…to the Southern extremity…South Cape’. Instructions: King George III to Captain Arthur Phillip RN, Historical Records of New South Wales.

‘Amity and kindness’ our nation’s founding myth – benign colonisation – Monty Python’s ‘all things bright and beautiful’ is just that – myth.

GUNS

‘The troops sent to garrison the Australian colonies participated in the great struggle at the heart of the European conquest of this continent…They fought in one of the most prolonged frontier wars in the history of the British Empire and for the first half of their stay were probably more frequently in action than the garrison of any other colony besides that of South Africa’. Dr Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, The British Army in Australia 1788-1870, Sydney, 1986

1787 – May 13, Portsmouth: An armed convoy of eleven (11) ships with a complement of 1500 souls, one half convicted criminals 750 men – 193 women, commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip RN, known in Britain and Australia as the ‘First Fleet’, sailed from Portsmouth England for Botany Bay New Holland, now Australia.

‘In determining the daily ration no distinction was drawn between the marines and [male] convicts…the standard adopted was that of troops serving in the West Indies. Wilfrid Oldham, Britain’s Convicts To The Colonies, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 1993

1788 – January, 18/20 Botany Bay: The fleet arrived at Botany Bay within thirty-six (36) hours between 18-20 January 1788.

1788 – January, 24, Botany Bay: Two (2) French ships – La Boussole – Captain La Perouse and L’Astrolabe – Captain Clonard – appeared in the entrance to Botany Bay.

1788 – 25 January, Port Jackson: Captain Phillip aboard HMS Supply quit Botany Bay and sailed nine (9) miles (14km) north to Sydney Cove a safe anchorage deep within Port Jackson. There Phillip raised the Union Jack from a hastily erected flagstaff thereby claiming Britain had beaten France to the punch. See: Australia – Britain By A Short Half-Head  

1788 – 7 February, Sydney: ‘We have come today to take possession of this fifth great continental division of the earth on behalf of the British people. I do not doubt that this country will prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made’. Governor Arthur Phillip, Historical Records of New South Wales. 

On the 7th of February with all the ‘pomp and circumstance of glorious war’ Governor Arthur Phillip, as per instructions, claimed British sovereignty over ‘our territory called New South Wales…from the Northern extremity of the coast called Cape York…to the Southern extremity…South Cape‘.

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‘The tender [HMS Supply] …may be employed in conveying to the new settlement a further number of women from the Friendly islands, New Caledonia etc…from whence any number may be procured without difficulty; and without a sufficient proportion of that sex it is well known that it would be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders’. 1786 – Heads of a Plan for Botany Bay

1788-1813: While other European nations included convicts in their settler-mix Britain’s occupation of Australia was unique, in so far as, the first generation 1788-1813 was almost exclusively male.

‘The fact itself of causing the existence of a human being is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To bestow a life which may either be a curse or a blessing, unless the being on whom it is bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that being’. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty.

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‘Dear Jack…I value Death nothing but it is in leaving you my dear behind and no one to look after you’. Denis Prendergast, Oxford Book of Australian Letters, ed. Brenda Niall and John Thompson, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998

1788 – 1868: Of 163,000 convicted criminals transported from the British Isles to Australia between 1788 and 1868 only 25,000 were women. Of these 12,500 went directly to Tasmania and none (zero) to West Australia. See: G is for Genocide

‘The tender [Supply] may be employed in conveying to the new settlement a further number of women from the Friendly Islands, New Caledonia etc. from whence any number may be procured without difficulty; and without a sufficient proportion of that sex it is well known that it would be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders’. London, Heads of a Plan for Botany Bay, 1786

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‘The death penalty was brought to Australia with the First Fleet’. Mike Edwards, The Hanged Man, The Life and Death of Ronald Ryan, 2002.

1788 – January, Sydney Cove: About 750 (570 male and 193 female) of England’s convicted criminals disembarked from the ‘First Fleet at Sydney Cove in late January 1788; among them Thomas Barrett, Henry Lavell, Joseph Hall and John Ryan.

1788 – 27 February, Sydney: One (1) month after landing – 27 February – these four (4) young men stood under‘ a large tree fixt as a gallows’. 

Britain’s invasion and colonisation of New Holland brought the First Nations’ Peoples starvation, disease and a racist caste system based on colour. Well practised retribution was meted out when they dared to challenge the predators who stole their land and plundered their resources.

Although the unjust consequences of invasion and dispossession stand in plain sight, because of widespread historical ignorance in mainstream non-Aboriginal Australia, they go largely unrecognised and unacknowledged or, even if acknowledged, the First Australians are ‘blamed’.

‘Imagine if we had suffered the injustices and then were blamed for it’. Paul Keating Redfern Speech, Paul Keating, 10 December 1992.

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