Sydney History
April 23rd 2007 04:52
Category: History
When Captain Arthur Phillip sailed alongside Sydney Harbour also named Port Jackson - in 1788, he was understandably nervous about starting a colony in the newfound land of Australia. His fleet was poorly equipped, and the crew and passengers nervous about tales of warlike natives, murderous reptiles and animals with, unbelievably, pouches to hold their young.
To make matters worse, the proposed colony site, in the present-day Botany Bay and recommended by English navy, was unacceptable for Phillips settlement, as it had little freshwater. It took them over a week to find Port Jackson, and when they landed, Phillip named it New Albion; the land was lush and green, and Phillip was reasonably certain that the settlement could be self-sufficient. Somewhere along the line, the name was lost and changed to Sydney, after the Viscount Sydney, the home secretary in Britain.
Forty thousand years prior to the European landing at Sydney, Aboriginal tribes populated much of Australia, and formed their own distinct culture, with poetic legends and fantastic stories about the land around them. The Eora tribe lived in the Sydney area, and their existence was one of relative harmony, living off the bountiful fruits of the sea, paddling canoes out into deeper water to catch the really big fish.
Before Phillip arrived in Australia, in 1770, Captain James Cook spied the Eora tribes on the Australian shores, and it was commonly believed that they would flee and give up their claim to the land as soon as the powerful English colonists came with their fiery gunpowder and hardened steel. Unfortunately for Governor Phillip, and indeed for the Aboriginal tribes, this would not be the case, and the fighting between the native Australians and the new settlers would be the cause of many deaths, exacerbated among the Eora by the unmitigated spread of European diseases. A truly gruesome picture, with thousands of once-proud Aboriginals dying in the hills from some mysterious disease, the bodies floating in the same Sydney Harbour that would grace many postcards in the future.
With 90% of the Aboriginal Australians decimated by disease, life could have been easy for the settlers. However, the Aboriginals had learned, over thousands of years, how to coexist on this harsh, unforgiving continent a lesson the English were too proud to learn at first. As lush as Sydney appeared, the land was notably infertile to European crops, and the colony suffered from starvation and the relentless Australian sun.
You could imagine the first residents, digging the hard soil in Port Jackson, broiling under the baleful glare of the fierce sun, only to have their crops wither and die. Frustrated, many of those people, some forced to come to Australia, must have dreamt at night of the cool, British air, and the rolling green hills.
The situation in Sydney improved drastically under the militant control of the New South Wales Corps, a military body that enforced strict control in the new colony as well as controlling the liquor supply, giving them the name Rum Corps.
As Sydney gained stability, the rest of Australia was slowly being colonized by the English, and, as most of the immigrants arrived in Sydney first, the city grew in population and area. Farmers were pushing out towards Penrith, where the soil proved to be more hospitable to their efforts.
In 1851, gold was discovered in Australia, drawing a collective gasp around the world from prospectors with dreams of millions carved in gold. A huge wave of immigrants arrived in Sydney, especially from Asia, and by the 1900s, the city had a population in excess of one million. An Australian identity was being molded out of the remnants of a faltering British empire whose last gift to Australia was the rapid industrialization in the early 20th century.
In 1901, Australia became a dominion of the British Empire, a granting of self-governance to Australia, like a parent letting their child drive the family car for the first time. There was heavy rivalry between Melbourne, the largest city in Australia at the time, and Sydney, over which city would be the new capital of the foundling country. A compromise was made, and Canberra was created as the capital, but the rivalry continues between Melbourne and Sydney.
Sydney was hard-hit by the Great Depression and the World Wars, but emerged from those cataclysmic events with a new purpose and identity. The Harbour Bridge finished completion in 1932, and planning for the Sydney Opera House commenced in the late 1940s, two iconic monuments that would represent Sydney and the rest of Australia to the entire world.
The years since then have been very good to Sydney, now recognized as one of the most desirable places in the world to live, with the excellent weather, the casual holiday atmosphere, and the bustling economy. People from Sydney, called Sydneysiders, are frenetically loyal to their city and their region. Now, the city of Sydney has passed the 4 million mark, and has stretched geographically to the Blue Mountains in the west, and Wollongong in the south. The original settlers would never recognize this land as the Port Jackson that they landed in, but, assuredly, theyd be happy to see that they colony started blossomed into an incredibly desirable city.
A drawing of Sydney from 1796 - Augustus Theodore Alt (National Library Archives)
To make matters worse, the proposed colony site, in the present-day Botany Bay and recommended by English navy, was unacceptable for Phillips settlement, as it had little freshwater. It took them over a week to find Port Jackson, and when they landed, Phillip named it New Albion; the land was lush and green, and Phillip was reasonably certain that the settlement could be self-sufficient. Somewhere along the line, the name was lost and changed to Sydney, after the Viscount Sydney, the home secretary in Britain.
Forty thousand years prior to the European landing at Sydney, Aboriginal tribes populated much of Australia, and formed their own distinct culture, with poetic legends and fantastic stories about the land around them. The Eora tribe lived in the Sydney area, and their existence was one of relative harmony, living off the bountiful fruits of the sea, paddling canoes out into deeper water to catch the really big fish.
Before Phillip arrived in Australia, in 1770, Captain James Cook spied the Eora tribes on the Australian shores, and it was commonly believed that they would flee and give up their claim to the land as soon as the powerful English colonists came with their fiery gunpowder and hardened steel. Unfortunately for Governor Phillip, and indeed for the Aboriginal tribes, this would not be the case, and the fighting between the native Australians and the new settlers would be the cause of many deaths, exacerbated among the Eora by the unmitigated spread of European diseases. A truly gruesome picture, with thousands of once-proud Aboriginals dying in the hills from some mysterious disease, the bodies floating in the same Sydney Harbour that would grace many postcards in the future.
With 90% of the Aboriginal Australians decimated by disease, life could have been easy for the settlers. However, the Aboriginals had learned, over thousands of years, how to coexist on this harsh, unforgiving continent a lesson the English were too proud to learn at first. As lush as Sydney appeared, the land was notably infertile to European crops, and the colony suffered from starvation and the relentless Australian sun.
You could imagine the first residents, digging the hard soil in Port Jackson, broiling under the baleful glare of the fierce sun, only to have their crops wither and die. Frustrated, many of those people, some forced to come to Australia, must have dreamt at night of the cool, British air, and the rolling green hills.
The situation in Sydney improved drastically under the militant control of the New South Wales Corps, a military body that enforced strict control in the new colony as well as controlling the liquor supply, giving them the name Rum Corps.
As Sydney gained stability, the rest of Australia was slowly being colonized by the English, and, as most of the immigrants arrived in Sydney first, the city grew in population and area. Farmers were pushing out towards Penrith, where the soil proved to be more hospitable to their efforts.
In 1851, gold was discovered in Australia, drawing a collective gasp around the world from prospectors with dreams of millions carved in gold. A huge wave of immigrants arrived in Sydney, especially from Asia, and by the 1900s, the city had a population in excess of one million. An Australian identity was being molded out of the remnants of a faltering British empire whose last gift to Australia was the rapid industrialization in the early 20th century.
In 1901, Australia became a dominion of the British Empire, a granting of self-governance to Australia, like a parent letting their child drive the family car for the first time. There was heavy rivalry between Melbourne, the largest city in Australia at the time, and Sydney, over which city would be the new capital of the foundling country. A compromise was made, and Canberra was created as the capital, but the rivalry continues between Melbourne and Sydney.
Sydney was hard-hit by the Great Depression and the World Wars, but emerged from those cataclysmic events with a new purpose and identity. The Harbour Bridge finished completion in 1932, and planning for the Sydney Opera House commenced in the late 1940s, two iconic monuments that would represent Sydney and the rest of Australia to the entire world.
The years since then have been very good to Sydney, now recognized as one of the most desirable places in the world to live, with the excellent weather, the casual holiday atmosphere, and the bustling economy. People from Sydney, called Sydneysiders, are frenetically loyal to their city and their region. Now, the city of Sydney has passed the 4 million mark, and has stretched geographically to the Blue Mountains in the west, and Wollongong in the south. The original settlers would never recognize this land as the Port Jackson that they landed in, but, assuredly, theyd be happy to see that they colony started blossomed into an incredibly desirable city.
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