Year 4 · History · 3 minutes
The First Fleet
Whose Country is your school on?
Key terms
- First Fleet
- The eleven ships that carried convicts and others from Britain to Australia, leaving in seventeen eighty seven.
- Convict
- A prisoner sent to the far side of the world to start a new colony.
- Colony
- A new settlement started far from home by a government, like the one at Sydney Cove.
- Captain Arthur Phillip
- The man in charge of the First Fleet who chose Sydney Cove as the place to anchor.
- Gadigal
- The Aboriginal people of Sydney Cove, who fished the harbour from bark canoes and are still here today.
Transcript
Imagine a trip that takes eight months, on a crowded wooden ship, to a land you have never seen. In seventeen eighty seven, more than a thousand people set off on that trip. About half of them were prisoners, who had no choice.
Back then, Britain's prisons were overflowing. Many prisoners had stolen things, sometimes just clothes or food. So the government made a plan. Send the prisoners, called convicts, to the far side of the world, to start a new colony.
Eleven ships made up the First Fleet. Two navy ships, three supply ships, and six ships carrying convicts. The man in charge was Captain Arthur Phillip.
In May, the fleet left England. Following the ocean winds, it sailed south to an island near Africa, across the Atlantic to Rio in South America, then back across to Cape Town. There, they loaded cows, sheep, pigs and horses. The ships had become a floating farm!
Then came the hardest part, weeks of wild seas in the Southern Ocean. Below deck it was dark, crowded and smelly. After about two hundred and fifty days, and twenty four thousand kilometres, every single ship made it. Sadly, forty eight people died on the way.
In January seventeen eighty eight, the fleet reached Botany Bay. But there was not enough fresh water, and the soil was poor. So Phillip explored a little further north, and chose a deep, sheltered harbour. By the twenty sixth of January, all eleven ships had anchored in Sydney Cove.
But this land was not empty. Aboriginal peoples have lived on this continent for at least sixty thousand years. Sydney Cove is Gadigal Country. Gadigal people fished the harbour from bark canoes. For them, the arrival of the ships brought great loss. Land was taken, and many people died from new diseases. But Gadigal people and culture are still here today.
So remember. Eleven ships carried convicts from Britain. They sailed for eight months to reach Sydney Cove. And they arrived in a land that was, and still is, home to Aboriginal peoples.
Sources
Every fact in the video, and where it comes from.
- 1dictionaryofsydney.org/artefact/first_fleet
- The First Fleet was eleven ships: two Royal Navy vessels (HMS Sirius, HMS Supply), three store ships and six convict transports. It left England in 1787 to found a penal colony.
- The ships reached Botany Bay between 18 and 20 January 1788. Botany Bay was judged unsuitable: open and unprotected, little fresh water, poor soil.
- Phillip chose Sydney Cove in Port Jackson (deep water close to shore, shelter, fresh water). HMS Supply anchored there on 25 January 1788 and the rest of the fleet on 26 January.
- 2www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/history_nation/te…
- The fleet left Portsmouth, England, on 13 May 1787 under Captain Arthur Phillip.
- Convicts were about half of those on board (775 of about 1,420); the State Library of NSW says 'almost half'.
- 3en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet
- 1,420 people have been identified as embarking (sources vary from 'well over 1000' to 'over 1500'); about 775 were convicts (582 men, 193 women). The rest were mostly marines, sailors, officials and some of their families.
- The fleet called at Tenerife (3 June 1787), Rio de Janeiro (5 August, for a month) and Cape Town (13 October) before crossing the Southern Ocean.
- At the Cape the fleet loaded livestock for the colony: cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and goats, plus poultry.
- The voyage took 250 to 252 days (just over eight months) and covered more than 24,000 km; no ship was lost. Forty-eight people died on the journey.
- Sailing ships followed the prevailing winds and currents, which is why the fleet crossed the Atlantic to Rio before turning back east to the Cape.
- 4mhnsw.au/stories/general/why-were-convicts-transported-…
- After Britain lost its American colonies it could no longer send convicts there; prisons and prison hulks were overcrowded. In 1786 the government decided to found a convict colony in New South Wales.
- 5sl.nsw.gov.au/learning/transportation-new-colony/why-new-sou…
- Most First Fleet convicts had been convicted of theft and similar crimes; minor offences could bring a sentence of transportation.
- 6nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/evidence-of-first-p…
- Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years (AIATSIS: upwards of 60,000 years).
- 7botanicgardens.org.au/discover-and-learn/horticulture-and-history/yo…
- Sydney Cove (Warrane) is on the land of the Gadigal, a clan of the Eora Nation. The Gadigal depended on the harbour for most of their food; Warrane was a gathering place and canoe route.
- 8cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/history/aboriginal-histories
- The British occupation took land. Despite the destructive impact of first contact, Gadigal culture survived.
- 9en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_in_Australia
- An epidemic in 1789, generally identified as smallpox, killed a large share of Sydney's Aboriginal people; its origin is debated by historians.
- 10dictionaryofsydney.org/blog/eora_fisherwomen
- Eora women, including Gadigal women, fished the harbour with hook and line from bark canoes (nawi).
- 11en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_convicts_on_the_First_Fleet
- Examples of First Fleet convicts' crimes: Samuel Mobbs stole a handkerchief; others stole clothing or food.
Image and sound credits
- Ship and animal drawings: AI-generated (GPT Image)
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