State Library of New South Wales FL3268277
Use the following additional activities and discussion questions to encourage students (in small groups or as a whole class) to think more deeply about this defining moment.
1. What, if any, have been the long-term effects of convict transportation on Australian society?
2. Do you agree with the National Museum of Australia that the arrival of the First Fleet is a defining moment in Australian history? Explain your answer.
1. Look carefully at all the images for this defining moment. Tell this story in pictures by placing them in whatever order you think works best. Write a short caption under each image.
2. Which three images do you think are the most important for telling this story? Why?
3. If you could pick only one image to represent this story, which one would you choose? Why?
1. What else would you like to know about this defining moment? Write a list of questions and then share these with your classmates. As a group create a final list of three questions and conduct some research to find the answers.
1. Who were Australia’s first convicts? Why were they transported to Australia?
2. How did Governor Arthur Phillip manage the colony of New South Wales?
3. What were the main ways Aboriginal people were affected by the arrival of Phillip and the First Fleet?
Britain used transportation to distant lands as a way of getting rid of prisoners. After Britain lost its American colonies in 1783 the jails of England were full. The British decided to begin transporting prisoners to Australia, which had recently been claimed for the British Crown by Lieutenant James Cook.
Prisoners (also known as convicts) were transported for many reasons but mainly for crimes that we might consider to be minor today, such as stealing. Convicts who were transported were usually poor, often from the large industrial cities and were mostly from England (with a large minority from Ireland and Scotland).
The First Fleet of 11 ships, commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip, set up a convict settlement at Sydney Cove (now Circular Quay) on 26 January 1788. This was the beginning of convict settlement in Australia.
National Museum of Australia
Captain Arthur Phillip was an experienced naval officer who became first governor of the colony of New South Wales. He faced many challenges in the early years of settlement. He was prepared to punish people who broke the rules, but also rewarded convicts and free settlers who behaved well.
Almost straight away, the new colony faced starvation. The first crops failed because of the lack of skilled farmers, spoilt seed brought from England, poor local soils, an unfamiliar climate and bad tools. Phillip insisted that food be shared between convicts and free settlers. The British Officers didn’t like this, nor the fact that Phillip gave land to trustworthy convicts. But both actions meant that the colony survived, and they began an attitude of fairness that is still prized in Australia today.
The arrival of the First Fleet immediately affected the Eora nation, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the Sydney area. Violence between settlers and the Eora people started as soon as the colony was set up. The Eora people, particularly the warrior Pemulwuy, fought the colonisers. This conflict was mainly over land and food.
Phillip was speared during a meeting with Eora at Manly in 1790, but he recovered and continued as the colony’s first governor for two more years. He returned to England in 1792 with two Indigenous men: Bennelong, who later returned to Australia, and Yemmerrawannie, who died in England.
Thousands of Eora people died as a result of European diseases like smallpox.
The First Fleet was the beginning of convict transportation to Australia and was followed by many other fleets of convict ships. When this ended in 1868, over 150,000 convicts had been transported to New South Wales and other Australian colonies. Most convicts stayed in Australia after serving their sentences, and some became well-known, important people within the Australian colonies.
Convict settlement continued to have devastating effects on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the decades after 1788. Thousands died in conflicts with settlers and from diseases, and many more suffered from the loss of cultural traditions and languages.
Read a longer version of this Defining Moment on the National Museum of Australia’s website.
1. Who were Australia’s first convicts? Why were they transported to Australia?
2. How did Governor Arthur Phillip manage the colony of New South Wales?
3. What were the main ways Aboriginal people were affected by the arrival of Phillip and the First Fleet?