Australia Day

Australia's national seal. The six sections on the shield
represent the five states and one territory that make up the
nation of Australia, and it is flanked by the country's most
well know and represented animals, the kangaroo and emu.

Every 26th of January the Aussies celebrate a holiday known as Australia Day. It was described to me, by one friend, as a day where we celebrate being Australian. It was also described to me by another friend as a day off of work. I know to many Americans you may equate the celebration of Australia Day with maybe the celebration with Independence Day, with fireworks, barbecues, and traditional flag waving hoopla... The truth is that the holiday seems closer to President's Day in forms of celebration. In other words it is a day to sleep late, watch TV, and maybe get a good deal on a matress. My own celebration of Australia day will be covered in a subsequent blog, but for now, I did some digging into the start of this holiday and it has a very interesting story to tell.

Namely the story of the First Fleet. Australia day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet (the first ships carrying soldiers and prisoners) to the continent of Australia at Sydney in the year 1788.  The fleet was commanded by Captain Arthur Philip. Approximately 1,000 people were under his care and more than 700 of them were English prisoners. The rest were sailors and royal marines. They were an assorted and curious lot. According to accounts the original settlers included even a boy of 9 and a woman of 82. It was clear they were in trouble from the moment they set ashore... When Australia was discovered in 1770 by Captain James Cook, he wrote accounts that seemed to describe it as a vibrant and bountiful place to rival any English countryside... What Captain Philip and his crew found was sandy soil, harsh conditions, reversed seasons, and animals they had never before encountered. Even worse, the original colonists had almost none of the skills needed to actually cultivate and settle a remote and inhospitable environment. They had only 1 experienced fisherman and only 5 people experienced in construction and building. No one seemed to know how to grow crops or how to hunt the new and strange creatures they found in this land at the bottom of the world. The "Indians" as the original settlers called them, were even more strange. They seemed generally, friendly but had a bewildering tendency to viciously attack settlers for sometimes no discernible reason. 17 people were lost to attacks in the first year and many more wounded, including Governor Captain Philip, who took a spear to the shoulder while he was talking to a native he met along the banks of the river.

Bill Bryson writes, "Everything was against them. They had no waterproof clothes to keep out the rain, no mortar to make buildings, no plows with which to till the fields and no draft animals to pull the plows they didn't have." Worst yet the ground refused to accept any seed or crop planted in it and at the height of starvation half of the settler's herd of cattle wandered off never to be seen again. For years the prisoners and their captors had to do without even the most basic of necessities, blankets, nails, shoes, etc. Development of the colony was further hindered by the need to rely on prisoners, who, for the most part cared only for their own self interest.

Most prisoners learned that they could lie their way into easier labor and my favorite story is about one particular prisoner named Hutchinson. One day he came across a rather complicated and scientific piece of equipment meant for the mixing and infusing of dye into products such as wool. Lying to his captors his convinced them that he was experienced with dyestuffs and spent the next several months making elaborate experiments with beakers, chemicals, scales, etc... until it eventually became clear to his superiors that he had no idea what he was doing. Most prisoners got by by swindling their fellow prisoners, such as selling them land maps to China or products meant to ward off indigenous predators, neither worked and some prisoners where never seen again.

All in all the story of the first fleet is remarkable in the fact that from these 1,000 or so people the sprawling metropolitan modern country of Australia eventually developed. Walking around the streets of Melbourne or Sydney you cannot picture there having ever been a harsh winter or lost cattle. It seems the biggest problem is a spilled cup of cappuccino or being late to catch the bus.

So that is the story of Australia Day. It was originally called Foundation Day or Anniversary Day, and in celebrating the arrival of those first Australians (even though they were still British), we are celebrating the millions of Australians that have followed after them. The story is quintessentially Aussie in nature. It is funny, honest, incredibly endearing, and even a little amazing. This truly is an incredible country.