We know that a lot of people visited Western Australia for hundreds of years prior to the First Fleet dropping anchor in January, 1788, in Sydney.
The Chinese, Indonesians, Portuguese, Spanish and the Dutch...In fact WA & NT Aboriginal tribes actually have elements of their DNA to this day. Which does more than just suggest sailing ships crashed on the reefs, survivors swam ashore, and found new girlfriends and boyfriends in that part of the world!
It is just that that anyone who actually had a choice to stay or go, all decided West Australia and the NT was too big, ugly, unpleasant, dangerous, dry and useless to want to stay there!
Visiting does not mean settlement and doing the hard yards to create a country and economy from literally out of the dirt. Europeans did that, at enormous cost in effort, money, blood and lives.
In 1786, King George III, PM William Pitt and his cabinet gave orders to Captain Arthur Phillip and the First fleet to take possession of New Holland, before France did. Who were borrowing heavily from the Dutch at the time, and building their navy up in preparation for war - again...! (Britain and France had been fighting major costly wars every twenty to forty years, for hundreds of years, at that time, regularly cycling between cold and hot wars.)
France had just publicly announced they were seeking colonial possessions in the Indian and Pacific areas. Based on their announcements, they were expected to take up possession of New Holland, build Naval bases, and operate warships to very likely choke off Pacific and Indian ocean trade routes of the British East India Company.
Which for the UK then, would be the same thing as closing the Straits of Hormuz would be to the world economy today - a total economic disaster.
The whole " England was filling up with too many prisoners, so we needed somewhere to send the scum" line about the first fleet, that is then repeatedly used as a punchline to denigrate Australia, is completely insane, and a blatant lie, for a lot of very common sense reasons.
Long voyages in the 18th century were inherently risky. Ships could be lost due to storms, structural failure, or navigation errors, and the consequences of losing a ship—and all aboard—were significant, making it a known and feared outcome. Between 1 in 10, to 1 in 5 ships are statistically expected not to make it on trips that distance, depending on where and when they were going.
On top of that, on long sea voyages, the death rates for passengers and crew, even if the ship did reach its destination, could be as high as 30% or more, particularly if an infectious disease spread on ship, that were hardly antiseptically clean by today's standards , if you catch my drift. On the second fleet there were 1038 convicts, 273 died on the voyage, 486 landed in Australia sick, and another 150 plus died soon after arrival from their illnesses. Which was quite rightly criticised as a shit show at the time, but was not considered particularly out of the ordinary in terms of common outcomes.
When you consider that the expense at that time, to send people to Australia, an eight month sea voyage, within the context of 1786 - 1787, it would be like taking the overflow from Belmarsh Prison in London today, where Julian Assange was kept, ( only you are taking the first time only, minor offence, community service sentence offenders, NOT serious offenders ) and getting them up to the International space station. On incredibly expensive rockets, that are known to blow up. Then having to pay extortionately to keep them supplied with more of those rockets, losing more money and people to do so in the process.
Governments don't spend huge amounts of money, ( as in the current Ukrainian quarterly defence budget amounts) , on anything, without much, much more important reasons than "prison overcrowding"!
For the UK's possession to be recognised under international law, not only did New Holland have to be militarily occupied with troops and military bases - the land had to be "actively improved" - which means under agriculture. William Pitt needed to create an entire economy from scratch, on a continent roughly 31 times the land size of the UK .... No pressure, right?
To do that he sent boatloads of mostly young, first offenders, whom had they remained in the UK would never been allowed to be redeemed into respectable society after a criminal conviction, as a labour force. These people, had they stayed in England, would have been in a permanent poverty cycle - so getting them out of England was second chance at a fresh start. Older convicts who were sent usually had a much needed trade such as blacksmith or a stonemason. They were being sent to Australia as a mobile labour force.
In order to get English entrepreneurs to come and start new business enterprises, the UK government would supply labour and conditional land grants, and some seed money. English Banks and private investors however were increasingly keen on the Australian Colonies when they saw first seal and whale products like oil, skin and bone, then wool starting to arrive from the 1790's onwards
However, you need to remember that at this time, land ownership IS social status - and a land grant could be the equivalent in size to an entire county in England.
That would in England have had a multi-generational, ancestral local Earl, Squire or Viscount who owned the equivalent of multiple local government areas in Australia, where everybody living on their land was paying rent... There was little to no chance at wealth or social mobility whatsoever, as people who owned land rarely sold an asset that had rivers of rent money going into their pocket. The Landed Gentry was something of an intentionally created closed shop, left over from feudal times.
At this time, to even be allowed to vote, you had to own land first. Which meant something like 85%-90% of Englishmen ( Women did not get the vote until much later) were not eligible to vote.
When someone came to Australia as an indentured servant ( "convict") - meaning they were not prisoners per se, were not kept in chains, and not locked up, but were people who owed a work debt, much like community service orders today. When someone in this situation knuckled down and did a good job, not only were their sentences drastically reduced - on completing their reduced sentence, they were given small land grants of their own, given tools and seeds, and a small amount of getting started money, to start a small farm of their own.
By the standards of the time, this was an enormous lift of not only personal wealth, but a dramatic change in social status. Hardly the actions of a malevolent government intent on making your life poor, short and miserable forever!!!!
Within a generation this transformed Australia into a booming economy where the wealthiest people were - you guessed it - "emancipists" - people who had taken their second chance and worked their way to wealth through their own considerable efforts and smarts.
Unfortunately, a large part of why the " dumping ground for criminals" lie still exists is that a lot of later free migrants " 10 pound Poms" carried "once a criminal, always a criminal" bigotry with them from England. When they arrived, they also resented the considerable wealth that the " emancipists" had created through their own blood and sweat. So they resorted to repeated lies and insult to shame them.
Australia is not only the land of second chances - it is by far and away the United Kingdom's biggest ever foreign investment. More money came here, government and private, than nearly every other Commonwealth country plus the USA put together. The amounts boggle the mind, and it is not even close in amount of money to second place. Australia is also by far and away the most profitable investment England has ever made. Particularly after the discovery of Gold, where a third of the world's gold supply was produced here by the end of the 19th century.
Where words are often used to tell lies, account books and ledgers of where, when and how the money came and went, almost always tell the truth. It is long overdue somebody told the truth based on following the money....
o edit.
The Chinese, Indonesians, Portuguese, Spanish and the Dutch...In fact WA & NT Aboriginal tribes actually have elements of their DNA to this day. Which does more than just suggest sailing ships crashed on the reefs, survivors swam ashore, and found new girlfriends and boyfriends in that part of the world!
It is just that that anyone who actually had a choice to stay or go, all decided West Australia and the NT was too big, ugly, unpleasant, dangerous, dry and useless to want to stay there!
Visiting does not mean settlement and doing the hard yards to create a country and economy from literally out of the dirt. Europeans did that, at enormous cost in effort, money, blood and lives.
In 1786, King George III, PM William Pitt and his cabinet gave orders to Captain Arthur Phillip and the First fleet to take possession of New Holland, before France did. Who were borrowing heavily from the Dutch at the time, and building their navy up in preparation for war - again...! (Britain and France had been fighting major costly wars every twenty to forty years, for hundreds of years, at that time, regularly cycling between cold and hot wars.)
France had just publicly announced they were seeking colonial possessions in the Indian and Pacific areas. Based on their announcements, they were expected to take up possession of New Holland, build Naval bases, and operate warships to very likely choke off Pacific and Indian ocean trade routes of the British East India Company.
Which for the UK then, would be the same thing as closing the Straits of Hormuz would be to the world economy today - a total economic disaster.
The whole " England was filling up with too many prisoners, so we needed somewhere to send the scum" line about the first fleet, that is then repeatedly used as a punchline to denigrate Australia, is completely insane, and a blatant lie, for a lot of very common sense reasons.
Long voyages in the 18th century were inherently risky. Ships could be lost due to storms, structural failure, or navigation errors, and the consequences of losing a ship—and all aboard—were significant, making it a known and feared outcome. Between 1 in 10, to 1 in 5 ships are statistically expected not to make it on trips that distance, depending on where and when they were going.
On top of that, on long sea voyages, the death rates for passengers and crew, even if the ship did reach its destination, could be as high as 30% or more, particularly if an infectious disease spread on ship, that were hardly antiseptically clean by today's standards , if you catch my drift. On the second fleet there were 1038 convicts, 273 died on the voyage, 486 landed in Australia sick, and another 150 plus died soon after arrival from their illnesses. Which was quite rightly criticised as a shit show at the time, but was not considered particularly out of the ordinary in terms of common outcomes.
When you consider that the expense at that time, to send people to Australia, an eight month sea voyage, within the context of 1786 - 1787, it would be like taking the overflow from Belmarsh Prison in London today, where Julian Assange was kept, ( only you are taking the first time only, minor offence, community service sentence offenders, NOT serious offenders ) and getting them up to the International space station. On incredibly expensive rockets, that are known to blow up. Then having to pay extortionately to keep them supplied with more of those rockets, losing more money and people to do so in the process.
Governments don't spend huge amounts of money, ( as in the current Ukrainian quarterly defence budget amounts) , on anything, without much, much more important reasons than "prison overcrowding"!
For the UK's possession to be recognised under international law, not only did New Holland have to be militarily occupied with troops and military bases - the land had to be "actively improved" - which means under agriculture. William Pitt needed to create an entire economy from scratch, on a continent roughly 31 times the land size of the UK .... No pressure, right?
To do that he sent boatloads of mostly young, first offenders, whom had they remained in the UK would never been allowed to be redeemed into respectable society after a criminal conviction, as a labour force. These people, had they stayed in England, would have been in a permanent poverty cycle - so getting them out of England was second chance at a fresh start. Older convicts who were sent usually had a much needed trade such as blacksmith or a stonemason. They were being sent to Australia as a mobile labour force.
In order to get English entrepreneurs to come and start new business enterprises, the UK government would supply labour and conditional land grants, and some seed money. English Banks and private investors however were increasingly keen on the Australian Colonies when they saw first seal and whale products like oil, skin and bone, then wool starting to arrive from the 1790's onwards
However, you need to remember that at this time, land ownership IS social status - and a land grant could be the equivalent in size to an entire county in England.
That would in England have had a multi-generational, ancestral local Earl, Squire or Viscount who owned the equivalent of multiple local government areas in Australia, where everybody living on their land was paying rent... There was little to no chance at wealth or social mobility whatsoever, as people who owned land rarely sold an asset that had rivers of rent money going into their pocket. The Landed Gentry was something of an intentionally created closed shop, left over from feudal times.
At this time, to even be allowed to vote, you had to own land first. Which meant something like 85%-90% of Englishmen ( Women did not get the vote until much later) were not eligible to vote.
When someone came to Australia as an indentured servant ( "convict") - meaning they were not prisoners per se, were not kept in chains, and not locked up, but were people who owed a work debt, much like community service orders today. When someone in this situation knuckled down and did a good job, not only were their sentences drastically reduced - on completing their reduced sentence, they were given small land grants of their own, given tools and seeds, and a small amount of getting started money, to start a small farm of their own.
By the standards of the time, this was an enormous lift of not only personal wealth, but a dramatic change in social status. Hardly the actions of a malevolent government intent on making your life poor, short and miserable forever!!!!
Within a generation this transformed Australia into a booming economy where the wealthiest people were - you guessed it - "emancipists" - people who had taken their second chance and worked their way to wealth through their own considerable efforts and smarts.
Unfortunately, a large part of why the " dumping ground for criminals" lie still exists is that a lot of later free migrants " 10 pound Poms" carried "once a criminal, always a criminal" bigotry with them from England. When they arrived, they also resented the considerable wealth that the " emancipists" had created through their own blood and sweat. So they resorted to repeated lies and insult to shame them.
Australia is not only the land of second chances - it is by far and away the United Kingdom's biggest ever foreign investment. More money came here, government and private, than nearly every other Commonwealth country plus the USA put together. The amounts boggle the mind, and it is not even close in amount of money to second place. Australia is also by far and away the most profitable investment England has ever made. Particularly after the discovery of Gold, where a third of the world's gold supply was produced here by the end of the 19th century.
Where words are often used to tell lies, account books and ledgers of where, when and how the money came and went, almost always tell the truth. It is long overdue somebody told the truth based on following the money....
o edit.
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