The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of Australia's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson, and the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales as part of the British Empire. It further covers the European scientific exploration of the continent and the establishment of the other Australian colonies that make up the modern states of Australia.
After several years of privation, the penal colony gradually expanded and developed an economy based on farming, fishing, whaling, trade with incoming ships, and construction using convict labour. By 1820, however, British settlement was largely confined to a radius around Sydney and to the central plain of Van Diemen's land. From 1816, penal transportation to Australia increased rapidly and the number of free settlers grew steadily. Van Diemen's Land became a separate colony in 1825, and free settlements were established at the Swan River Colony in Western Australia (1829), the Province of South Australia (1836), and in the Port Phillip District (1836). The grazing of cattle and sheep expanded inland, leading to increasing conflict with Aboriginal people on their traditional lands.
The growing population of free settlers, former convicts and Australian-born currency lads and lasses led to public demands for representative government. Penal transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840 and a semi-elected Legislative Council was established in 1842. In 1850, Britain granted Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and the newly created colony of Victoria semi-representative Legislative Councils.
British settlement led to a decline in the Aboriginal population and the disruption of their cultures due to introduced diseases, violent conflict and dispossession of their traditional lands. Aboriginal resistance to British encroachment on their land often led to reprisals from settlers including massacres of Aboriginal people. Many Aboriginal people, however, sought an accommodation with the settlers and established viable communities, often on small areas of their traditional lands, where many aspects of their cultures were maintained.
Colonisation
Decision to colonise New South Wales The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) saw Great Britain lose most of its North American colonies and consider establishing replacement territories. Britain had transported about 50,000 convicts to the New World from 1718 to 1775 and was now searching for an alternative. The temporary solution of floating prison hulks had reached capacity and was a public health hazard, while the option of building more jails and workhouses was deemed too expensive.David Hill. (2008) 1788; The Brutal Truth of the First Fleet. pp. 9,11. William Heinemann, Australia
Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent scientist who had accompanied Lieutenant James Cook on his 1770 voyage, recommended Botany Bay, as a suitable site. Banks accepted an offer of assistance from the American Loyalist James Matra in July 1783. Matra had visited Botany Bay with Banks in 1770 as a junior officer on the Endeavour commanded by James Cook. Under Banks's guidance, he rapidly produced "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales" (24 August 1783), with a fully developed set of reasons for a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts).
Following an interview with Secretary of State Lord Sydney in March 1784, Matra amended his proposal to include convicts as settlers.Matra to Fox, 2 April 1784. British Library, Add. Ms 47568. Matra's plan can be seen to have “provided the original blueprint for settlement in New South Wales”. A cabinet memorandum December 1784 shows the Government had Matra's plan in mind when considering the creation of a settlement in New South Wales.‘Memo. of matters to be brought before Cabinet’, State Library of New South Wales, Dixon 12Library Add. MS Q522
The major alternative to Botany Bay was sending convicts to Africa. From 1775 convicts had been sent to garrison British forts in west Africa, but the experiment had proved unsuccessful. In 1783, the Pitt government considered exiling convicts to a small river island in Gambia where they could form a self-governing community, a "colony of thieves", at no expense to the government.Christopher, Emma; Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish (2013). "Convict transportation in global context c. 1700–88". The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I. pp. 75–77
In 1785, a parliamentary select committee chaired by Lord Beauchamp recommended against the Gambia plan, but failed to endorse the alternative of Botany Bay. In a second report, Beauchamp recommended a penal settlement at Das Voltas Bay in modern Namibia. The plan was dropped, however, when an investigation of the site in 1786 found it to be unsuitable. Two weeks later, in August 1786, the Pitt government announced its intention to send convicts to Botany Bay.Christopher, Emma; Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish (2013). "Convict transportation in global context c. 1700–88". The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I. pp. 77–78 The Government incorporated the settlement of Norfolk Island into their plan, with its attractions of timber and flax, proposed by Banks's Royal Society colleagues, Sir John Call and Sir George Young.Robert J. King, "Norfolk Island: Phantasy and Reality, 1770–1814", The Great Circle, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2003, pp. 20–41.
There has been a longstanding debate over whether the key consideration in the decision to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay was the pressing need to find a solution to the penal management problem, or whether broader imperial goals — such as trade, securing new supplies of timber and flax for the navy, and the desirability of strategic ports in the region — were paramount.Christopher, Emma; Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish (2013). "Convict transportation in global context c. 1700–88". The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I. pp. 70, 83–89 Leading historians in the debate have included Sir Ernest Scott,Sir Ernest Scott, Australia, J. Holland Rose et al., The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Volume 7, Part 1, Cambridge University Press, 1933, (reissued 2010), p.58. This view is re-affirmed in Alison Bashford and Stewart Macintyre, The Cambridge History of Australia, Cambridge University Press, 2013, Volume 1, p.83. Geoffrey Blainey,Geoffrey Blainey (1966) The Tyranny of Distance; How Distance shaped Australia's History. Sun Books, Melbourne. Reprinted 1982. and Alan Frost.Alan Frost, Botany Bay: The Real Story, Collingwood, Black Inc, 2011, ; Alan Frost, The First Fleet: The Real Story, Collingwood, Black Inc, 2011, .
The decision to settle was taken when it seemed the outbreak of civil war in the Netherlands might precipitate a war in which Britain would be again confronted with the alliance of the three naval Powers, France, Holland and Spain, which had brought her to defeat in 1783. Under these circumstances a naval base in New South Wales which could facilitate attacks on Dutch and Spanish interests in the region would be attractive.Alan Frost, Convicts & Empire: A Naval Question, 1776–1811, Melbourne, Oxford U.P., 1980, pp.115–116, 129; Robert J. King, "'Ports of Shelter and refreshment...' Botany Bay and Norfolk Island in British Naval Strategy, 1786–1808", [Australian] Historical Studies, Vol.72, No. 87, 1986, pp. 199–213.James Matra, 23 August 1783, National Archives, Kew, Colonial Office, Original Correspondence, CO 201/1, ff. 57, 61; reproduced in Jonathan King, "In the Beginning..." The Story of the Creation of Australia, From the Original Writings, Melbourne, Macmillan, 1985, p. 18. After the intention to found a colony in New South Wales was announced, almost all the English newspapers published this passage from Matra's proposal, and from these it was widely copied in the press of other European countries and in the United States; see The Whitehall Evening Post and The General Advertiser of 12 October 1786; The London Chronicle, The Daily Universal Register, The Morning Chronicle and The Morning Post, of 13 October 1786; The Independent Gazetteer (PA), 2 January 1787; The Massachusetts Spy, 18 January 1787; The New Hampshire Spy, 16 January 1787; The Charleston Morning Post, 22 January 1787. Specific plans for using the colony as a strategic base against Spanish interests were occasionally made after 1788, but never implemented.These plans are discussed in Robert J. King, "Spanish America in 18th Century British Naval Strategy and the visit of Malaspina to New South Wales in 1793", in Actas del II Simposio de Historia Marítima y Naval Iberoamericano, noviembre 1993, Viña del Mar, Universidad Marítima de Chile, 1996, pp. 1–13; Robert J. King, "An Australian Perspective on the English Invasions of the Rio de la Plata in 1806 and 1807", International Journal of Naval History, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 2009 ; and in Alan Frost, "Shaking off the Spanish Yoke: British Schemes to Revolutionise Spanish America, 1739–1807", Margarette Lincoln, Science and Exploration in the Pacific: European Voyages to the Southern Oceans in the Eighteenth Century, Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer, 2001, pp. 19–37.
Macintyre argues that the evidence for a military-strategic motive in establishing the colony is largely circumstantial and hard to reconcile with the strict ban on establishing a shipyard in the colony. Karskens points out that the instructions provided to the first five governors of New South Wales show that the initial plans for the colony were limited. The settlement was to be a self-sufficient penal colony based on subsistence agriculture. Trade, shipping and ship building were banned in order to keep the convicts isolated and so as not to interfere with the trade monopoly of the British East India Company. There was no plan for economic development apart from investigating the possibility of producing raw materials for Britain. Christopher and Maxwell-Stewart argue that whatever the government's original motives were in establishing the colony, by the 1790s it had at least achieved the imperial objective of providing a harbour where vessels could be careened and resupplied.Christopher, Emma; Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish (2013). "Convict transportation in global context c. 1700–88". The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume I. pp. 89
Establishment of colony
On 13 May 1787, the First Fleet of 11 ships and about 1,530 people (736 convicts, 17 convicts' children, 211 marines, 27 marines' wives, 14 marines' children and about 300 officers and others) under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip set sail for Botany Bay. A few days after arrival at Botany Bay the fleet moved to the more suitable Port Jackson where a settlement was established at Sydney Cove, on 26 January 1788.Peter Hill (2008) p.141-150 This date later became Australia's national day, Australia Day. The colony was formally proclaimed by Governor Phillip on 7 February 1788 at Sydney. Sydney Cove offered a fresh water supply and a safe harbour, which Philip famously described as:
Phillip named the settlement after the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney. The only people at the flag raising ceremony and the formal taking of possession of the land in the name of King George III were Phillip and a few dozen marines and officers from the Supply, the rest of the ship's company and the convicts witnessing it from on board ship. The remaining ships of the Fleet were unable to leave Botany Bay until later on 26 January because of a tremendous gale. The new colony was formally proclaimed as the Colony of New South Wales on 7 February.