Some Australian History

2. A penal colony and a colony for whites

When the first fleet finally landed on the 26th of January 1788, 751 convicts disembarked along with 252 marines and their family. It was the beginning of a British pennal colony. Two more convict fleets arrived in 1790 and in 1791. From 1788 to 1823, the colony of New South Wales was officially considered as a penal colony as the territory was declared suitable for this type of colony by Joseph Banks after his return from a journey to Australia in 1770. The convicts and criminals were taken there by ship in very bad conditions. Their voyage lasted about 8 months, 8 months in terrible hygene conditions and 8 months of mistreatment. Mistreatment was most effective on women as some were raped or beaten by officers. Once the convicts arrived in Australia, if they arrived (some of the criminals died during the travel), and if they weren't too sick, they had a hard life of work and labour as most of them were not in jail. The majority of the women convicts(representing about 20% of the criminals)and many other free working women were sent to the "female factories", which were mostly profit-making textile factories; while the men would work mostly as a new kind of slaves in rural labour. The system was even more unfair as they sent on the island a majority of criminals who committed only petty crimes, most of the time because they were too poor to afford any kind of food or clothes for them or for their children, so they woud steal an apple or a pair of shoes without knowing they'll be sent at the opposite side of the world. Indeed, at this time British conditions in England were not as flourishing as they used to be.

'We have to work from 14–18 hours a day, sometimes up to our knees in cold water, 'til we are ready to sink with fatigue... The inhuman driver struck one, John Smith, with a heavy thong.'

Eventually, the last shipment of convicts disembarked in 1868 marking the end of criminals' transportation to Australia. In sum, about 162,000 men and women convicts were transported to this big island thanks to 806 ships. It stopped as by the mid-1800s there were enough people to take on the work needed to be done inside the colonies.

                        Who were the convicts ?

In fact, about 70% of the convicts were English and Welsh, 24% were from Ireland, 5% from Scotland and the rest 1% from  the other British colonies belonging to the British Commonwealth. 

Some of them were soldiers sentenced for crimes such as mutiny, desertation or insubordination.

Australia's firs bushranger was called John Caesar, and sentenced at Maidstone Kent in 1785. He was born in the West Indies.

On January, 1st 1901, when the Constitution of Australia came into force, the different colonies became collectively states of the Commonwealth of Australia. At this time period, Britain was suffering of overpopulation. And after the six seperated British self-governing colonies of Australia agreed to unite and create the Australian Commonwealth, establishing a system of federalism in the country, new policies appeared such as policies of assimilation.

During this century, there was a lot of racial discrimination against the arborigenes. Settlers thought their European culture was better than the arboriginal ones, so they began destroying their culture by making the indegenese dress up and act as Europeans did. 

At the beginning of the 1970s they also started seperating indigenous families by kidnapping the children and leaving behind them lies told to hopeless parents. These kids are part of the Stolen Generation: children stolen from their parents on the basis of lies.

 

    Demonstration for the Stolen Generations

"Rabbit-Proof-Fence" by Doris PILKINGTON, the remarkable true story of three young girls who cross the harsh Australian desert on foot to return home escaping the settlements, part of the Stolen generation's destiny.

In addition to those policies, the settlers created in 1901, the White Australian Policy allowing the government to select the future inhabitants of Australia. Only white-skinned people and preferably, english-speaking man and women were accepted. 

After World War Two, as Britain was overpopulated, and Australia underpopulated, the British government instored the £10 Pom scheme. It allowed the British to settle to Australia for only 10 pounds. And yet the voyage to Australia looked more like a 5-weeks cruise in heaven than like a 8-months trap in hell.

A cruise to Australia

I've actually got all this informations during my trip to Australia by visting different museums and memorials such as the National Museum of Australia, the Immigration Museum, the Australian War Memorial, the Shrine of Remembrance, and the Australian National Maritime Museum and Captain Cook's ship.