Founders of Nations
Founders of Nations
4c. Australia & Arthur Phillip Part 2
The final episode on Australia's founding with Arthur Phillip
Webpage for the episode:
www.lang4life.com/l/australia
Hello and welcome back. Today we are going to finish up the story of Arthur Phillip and the first convict colony in Australia. Last time we were together we saw Arthur Phillip rise from a captain's servant to the captain of a ship in the British Navy and then to being leader of what became known as the "First Fleet" headed to colonize a mysterious place on the other side of the globe.
With that (bilge water) accompanying them on their trip they eventually made it to Botany Bay, and then after looking around and finding little to make a colony with, sailed a bit north to what would be named Sydney Cove where they found, what is even today known as, one of the most best harbors in the world. It was protected from the ravages of wind and waves, very large, and the land had large trees which could be used for timber and a nice source of freshwater. Most of the fleet headed back to England and they were left with one open-sea worthy boat and one transport ship that was better served staying near the coast. The better location of Sydney cove though, did not mean smooth sailing, as you'll remember there had not been but one gardener in the group of convicts and others sent in the First Fleet.
The first of these problems was not with natives or provisions but the marines; who refused to guard the convicts and the marines and convicts all started robbing the food stores. The freemen, especially the marines were very offended at the way in which Phillip treated the prisoners, they were given almost the same level of rations as the free, they were given the same type of punishments, and sometimes less severe punishment than the marines(as Phillip was said to be very perturbed at those who were in authority abusing that). Things got so bad that before long Phillip made a night watch of 12 trustworthy convicts to watch the food stores. This actually worked for a while but before long the marines put up such resistance to the idea that it was abandoned.
As for the native people'sin the area, Phillip showed the desire to make friendly relations with them as well as he could from his 18th Century English colonial mindset. The new colony had come and taken away the local tribes fishing area and chopped down much of the forest around them, but of course the Europeans at the time thought that loss was trivial compared to the civilizing effect they would have on the natives. Of course one of the bad parts of that civilization was the same thing that happened in the New World of the Americas. Smallpox.
Smallpox seems to have killed around half of the local tribes. There is some confusion on how this happened as the English had been there for over a year before the epidemic began and they had not had anyone with smallpox on their almost year-long journey to Australia. It seems too much of a coincidence to think it might not have been from Europeans though so either some other Europeans had visited other parts of the island and introduced it there, or it somehow came out of this colony that didn't have smallpox. However it happened it did happen and over half the tribe was killed during the year 1789. But he did his best to make friends; outlawing anyone from assaulting natives, giving gifts to them, kidnapping a few to try to learn things from him (which seems to have eventually lead to him being speared just under the clavical, I say seems to because it's not clear exactly which of the reasons were available was used to throw it at him). Finally after the spearing and him surviving and not launching an assault on the natives they seemed to open up and things started to get much more friendly between the two groups.
The first two years harvest's amounted to little more than seed for future harvests. They had about 2 years worth of rations when they landed and the first supply ship from England ended up shipwrecked and never making it. Eventually everyone was put down to 1/3 rations of what they had originally been getting and it seemed like the whole colony was teetering on starvation. Phillip dispatched the only open-sea worthy ship to Cape Town and it was able to bring back around 4 months worth of supplies but soon after that ship wrecked and so the colony was fully isolated as it waited and hoped for a supply ship to come to their aid. Hope was falling at an all-time rate in the colony.
Clothing was in tatters and sometimes even sold for food. Convicts were beginning to die of starvation while working. When the first real harvest finally came in a full-third of it disappeared before it could reach the storehouse. The colony was leaning towards chaos. To combat this, Phillip had instituted harsh punishments for theft, especially of food, and also for antagonizing or attacking the aboriginals nearby. He dealt harshly with any criminal activity by free or convict person and this was met with much unhappiness from the free but it seems it was integral for keeping order in the colony as now Phillip was holding his authority in isolation.
I can't imagine what this would have been like, it's like a dystopian book but played out in real life. I'm amazed that Philip was able to keep everything together. Imagine you were in this colony for these first two years? How do you think you would have reacted as a prisoner or guard? I'm interested in your thoughts and I'll put that question up on reddit.
Finally in 1790 a ship came...carrying some supplies but mostly convicts. But it did finally come and hope was restored to the colony. After that 2-year wait finally hope had been restored to the colony and starvation seemed less of a worry. Henry Dodd, a farm worker Phillip had known from his farmer days had come along with Phillip and was put in charge of the harvests and his work with them lead to a good harvest coming in during the same year and eventually this lead to Phillip giving land grants to successful convicts in the hopes they would take freedom and become farmers there.
The first two of these were Richard Phillimore, the first to successfully live as a free farmer and then James Ruse, who would end up being able to feed his family and then begin selling food to the colony's general store. This was the beginning of the upward climb for the colony as more and more land was farmed(with help from convict/forced labor) and crops began to be harvested more steadily.
Phillip though was cursed with what was likely kidney stones, that were unable to be taken care of in Australia. Slowly his health declined and eventually at the very end of 1792, about two year after that first supply ship finally appeared, he would get on a ship and return to England looking for a doctor who could help him. By May of 1793 they landed back in England.
Within a few months he was finally recovering, though still suffering from bouts of his health issue. He retired and was given half-pay again, but this time a governor's half-pay which was a lot of money. Soon after this, he found out that his separated wife had died and eventually he met and married Isabella Whitehead. He lived out his remaining years as a higher class gentleman. Spending some of them consulting with government types on the colony and giving recommendations for who should be assigned what job there.
That lasted until Napolean took over the French Revolution and big war started again on the high seas. Phillip was called up out of retirement into the Navy in 1796. He was in his mid-fifties by now but was placed in charge of 4 different ships in the space of a year and a half, then went on to be the main trainer for the coast guard, and eventually ended up as a naval inspector sent on jobs all over the country during the war to inspect that coast guard and the impress service(how the navy would often draft sailors). It seems he flung himself into these works just like he had to his colonial governorship. He spent almost no time at home during the war and the letters between he and his wife were less than happy.
But finally in 1805 he retired and they spent time together again. For 3 years they seemed to live a happy social life until in 1808 Phillip suffered a stroke and lost the use of the right side of his body. But miraculously 18 months later he seemed to be back to about normal again. He continued on until 1814
He had done a lot, starting from the son of an immigrant German teacher, to spy, to captain and eventually admiral and inspector. For our purposes his leading of the First Fleet trip was instrumental in setting up the colony. Most of the other convict fleets that came into Australia ended up with large majorities of convicts arriving half dead or already dead. Then leading the colony through it's birth and early difficulties set a strong foundation from which what we know as Australia today sprang. The reason he was not the original first founder was because he is not as well known as Cook and this podcast is mainly focused on that; but historically we could definitely say that he had a bigger effect on Australia than Cook did.
That's all for today's extra episode. Thanks again to Sally, the patreon supporter who chose Australia to get a second episode! If you enjoyed this or my other episodes please share with your friends or leave me a rating/review on whatever podcast app you listen to this on. That helps to let other people know this isn't a steaming pile of poo and might be worth trying out! The next interviews will be coming out in the following weeks and the main episode, on Azerbaijan, should be out in 2-3 weeks, I'm leaning more towards 3 as this new house needs some work and I haven't spent much time with my wife since we moved in. I do anticipate things will be more consistent now though, so every 2-3 weeks a new episode should be coming out.
If you all have any questions or thoughts for me please message me at whichever social media you have or go to the website and use the chat feature there. I'll be doing a little "what did I learn" here so if you are all done you can skip to the end and I'll see you next time, otherwise I'll continue right along!
What can we learn from Arthur Phillip? I think the first thing I learned from him was just to see what can happen from a life devoted to training and practicing one thing. From childhood he was on ships and in naval schools and he learned, firstly how to lead and organize men. In America nowadays many of us don't even figure out what we are going to do with ourselves until our late teens, at the earliest, and so gathering expertise and knowledge in that area start then. This is a positive for us in that we get to have more of an adult type choice in thinking about what we want to do but it has that negative effect that we just don't start until much later later and that can be difficult to overcome when competing with other countries that make choices earlier on. If you look at a country like China where they aren't so much into "choose your life", you pretty much get put into your track in middle school or high school and stay there. I often talk about this with my students, Americans are generally more well-rounded as we've taken so many different subjects in school while a regular Chinese student is much more focused in their studies on their subject. I found that collaboration between the more specialized students and students who are more well-rounded often leads to the best results. But I digress.
I think we can also see the ability of Phillip to adapt to different situations. He was naval officer, spy, and governor and these things all required very different attributes. And it seems like Phillip was able to execute all of the offices well so he was able to see and adapt to these new challenges. I have a friend named Chase that always beats all of my other friends, and myself, when we play Settlers of Catan, he always claims the key is to be flexible to adapt to the changing situation on the board; and this is what I see in Phillip's life. Adapting and Overcoming.
Alright that's really it for today, thanks for coming and I hope to see you next time!