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The First Fleet comprised the 11 ships that departed from Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787 to New South Wales, the penal colony that became the first European settlement in Australia. The First Fleet consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports, carrying between 1,000 and 1,500 convicts, marines, seamen, civil officers and free people (accounts differ on the numbers), and a large quantity of stores. From England, the Fleet sailed south-west to Rio de Janeiro, then east to Cape Town and via the Great Southern Ocean to Botany Bay (Australia), arriving over the period of 18–20 January 1788, taking 250 to 252 days from departure to final arrival. During the period 25–26 January 1788 the fleet moved from Botany Bay to present-day Sydney.

Legacy

Smallpox

Historians have disagreed over whether those aboard the First Fleet were responsible for introducing smallpox to Australia's indigenous population, and if so, whether this was the consequence of deliberate action.

In 1914, J. H. L. Cumpston, director of the Australian Quarantine Service put forward the hypothesis that smallpox arrived with British settlers. Some researchers have argued that any such release may have been a deliberate attempt to decimate the indigenous population. Hypothetical scenarios for such an action might have included: an act of revenge by an aggrieved individual, a response to attacks by indigenous people, or part of an orchestrated assault by the New South Wales Marine Corps, intended to clear the path for colonial expansion. Seth Carus, a former Deputy Director of the National Defense University in the United States wrote in 2015 that there was a "strong circumstantial case supporting the theory that someone deliberately introduced smallpox in the Aboriginal population."

Other historians have disputed the idea that there was a deliberate release of smallpox virus and/or suggest that it arrived with visitors to Australia other than the First Fleet. It has been suggested that live smallpox virus may have been introduced accidentally when Aboriginal people came into contact with variolous matter brought by the First Fleet for use in anti-smallpox inoculations.

In 2002, historian Judy Campbell offered a further theory, that smallpox had arrived in Australia through contact with fishermen from Makassar in Indonesia, where smallpox was endemic. In 2011, Macknight stated: “The overwhelming probability must be that it was introduced, like the later epidemics, by trepangers ... and spread across the continent to arrive in Sydney quite independently of the new settlement there."

There is a fourth theory, that the 1789 epidemic was not smallpox but chickenpox – to which indigenous Australians also had no inherited resistance – that happened to be affecting, or was carried by, members of the First Fleet. This theory has also been disputed.

Commemoration Garden

After Ray Collins, a stonemason, completed years of research into the First Fleet, he sought approval from about nine councils to construct a commemorative garden in recognition of these immigrants. Liverpool Plains Shire Council was ultimately the only council to accept his offer to supply the materials and construct the garden free of charge. The site chosen was a disused caravan park on the banks of Quirindi Creek at Wallabadah, New South Wales. In September 2002 Collins commenced work on the project. Additional support was later provided by Neil McGarry in the form of some signs and the council contributed $28,000 for pathways and fencing. Collins hand-chiselled the names of all those who came to Australia on the eleven ships in 1788 on stone tablets along the garden pathways. The stories of those who arrived on the ships, their life, and first encounters with the Australian country are presented throughout the garden. On 26 January 2005, the First Fleet Garden was opened as the major memorial to the First Fleet immigrants. Previously the only other specific memorial to the First Fleeters was an obelisk at Brighton-Le-Sands, New South Wales. The surrounding area has a barbecue, tables, and amenities.

See also

• Arthur Bowes Smyth – surgeon on Lady Penrhyn
• Australian frontier wars
• Convicts in Australia
• Convict women in Australia
• European exploration of Australia
• History of Australia (1788–1850)
• History of Indigenous Australians
• Journals of the First Fleet
• Penal transportation
• Prehistory of Australia
• Second Fleet (Australia)
• Terra nullius
• Third Fleet (Australia)

References

1. Cumpston, JHL "The History of Small-Pox in Australia 1788–1908", Government Printer (1914) Melb.
2. Day, David (2001). Claiming a Continent. Harper Collins. p. 42. ISBN 9780732269760.
3. Davis, Jack (1980). Berndt, Ronald M.; Berndt, Catherine H. (eds.). Aborigines of the West: their Past and Their Present. University of Western Australia Press. p. 58.
4. Bennett, MJ, "Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 ...", Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 83(1), Spring 2009, pg 48.
5. Warren, Christopher (2 January 2014). "Smallpox at Sydney Cove – who, when, why?". Journal of Australian Studies. 38 (1): 68–86. doi:10.1080/14443058.2013.849750. S2CID 143644513.
6. Chris Warren (radio transcript) Ockham's Razor (presenter: Robin Williams) (13 April 2014). "Smallpox outbreak of Sydney's past". Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 28 October 2015.
7. Carus, W. Seth (August 2015). "The History of Biological Weapons Use: What We Know and What We Don't". Health Security. 13 (4): 219–255. doi:10.1089/hs.2014.0092. PMID 26221997.
8. Biskup, Peter (1982). "Aboriginal History". In Osborne, G.; Mandle, W.F. (eds.). New History: Studying Australia Today. Allen & Unwin. p. 30.
9. Macknight, C. C. (1986). Macassans and the Aboriginal past in Archaeologia Oceania. Vol. 21. pp. 69–75.
10. ^ Judy Campbell, Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia 1780–1880, Melbourne University Press, 2002, Foreword & pp 55, 61, 73–74, 181
11. Willis, H. A (September 2010). "Poxy history ". Quadrant. 54 (9): 70–73. ISSN 0033-5002.
12. Willis, H.A. (2011). "Bringing Smallpox with the First Fleet". Quadrant. 55 (7–8): 2. ISSN 0033-5002.
13. "Smallpox in Sydney: 1789". 30 April 2009.
14. Warren, C. "Could First Fleet smallpox infect Aborigines? – A note". Aboriginal History (31): 152–164.
15. Mear, C. "The origin of the smallpox in Sydney in 1789". Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. 94 (1): 1–22.
16. During the writing of her book, Campbell consulted Frank Fenner, the head in 1977–1980 of a successful campaign by the World Health Organization to eradicate smallpox internationally.
17. Macknight, Campbell (2011). "The view from Marege': Australian knowledge of Makassar and the impact of the trepang industry across two centuries". Aboriginal History. 3: 121–143.
18. "Chickenpox blamed for Aboriginal deaths". Canberra Times. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
19. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 27 January 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
20. In A. Dirk Moses (ed.)Genocide and Settler Society, Berghahn Books, 2004, p79ff.
21. "United Service" (PDF). 65 (1). March 2014: 7. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
22. Wallabadah – Places to See Archived 6 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 4 May 2009
23. "First Fleet Monument (Bicentennial Monument)". Monuments Australia. Retrieved 20 February 2017.

Bibliography

• Bladen, F. M., ed. (1968). Historical Records of New South Wales. Vol. 2. Grose and Paterson, 1793–1795. Mona Vale: Lansdown Slattery. ISBN 978-0868330037.
• Frost, Alan (2012). The First Fleet: the real story. Collingwood: Black Inc. ISBN 9781863955614.
• Gillen, Mollie (1989). The Founders of Australia: a Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet. Sydney: Library of Australian History. ISBN 978-0908120697.
• Hill, David (2008). 1788: the brutal truth of the First Fleet: the biggest single migration the world had ever seen. North Sydney: Heinemann. ISBN 9781741667974.
• Lewis, Wendy; Balderstone, Simon; Bowan, John (2011). Events That Shaped Australia (2 ed.). Frenchs Forest: New Holland. ISBN 9781742572246.
• Mundle, Rob (2014). The First Fleet. Sydney: Harper Collins. ISBN 9780733332364.
• O'Brien, Eris (1970). The Foundation of Australia (1786–1800) (2 ed.). London: Greenwood P. ISBN 9780837129686.
• Parker, Derek (2009). Arthur Phillip: Australia's First Governor. Warriewood: Woodslane P. ISBN 9781921203992.