Nanberry (28 page)

The English also needed somewhere to send the large number of criminals accumulating in their prisons, partly because of poverty after many wars, but also because of the enormous social problems of the day, especially those caused by alcoholism. Gin was cheaper than food and streets of sleeping drunks were common in poor parts of big towns. (The wealthy drunks tended to sleep it off at home or their clubs.) By the standards of today, people then drank an incredible amount of alcohol — and died very young, looking very old.

Of the 1,487 people on the First Fleet, 759 were convicts, thirteen were convicts' kids, and 252 were marines and their wives and children. Two hundred and ten were Royal Navy seamen and 233 were merchant seamen who would leave the colony when their ships sailed away. These numbers are slightly inconsistent as there were births, deaths, discharges and deserters. Often records were inaccurate too.

Nearly all the convicts were thieves — pickpockets, sheep stealers, poachers — with only seven swindlers and four forgers. There were no murderers or rapists — or at least no one who'd been convicted of murder or rape. (There were murderers on the
Second Fleet.) Most were young — but not healthy. They had been starved in filthy, disease-racked prisons and hulks (decommissioned ships floating — barely — on the Thames) before leaving England, and most were in rags until they were given new clothes on board the ships of the First Fleet.

Many had been convicted of stealing small things like a handkerchief, a piece of cheese, a packet of snuff, twelve cucumber plants or a book, like William Francis, who stole
A Summary Account of the Flourishing State of the Island of Tobago
— probably to sell, not read!

But most had really stolen much more. In those days if you stole goods worth more than a guinea you had to be hanged. So if the judge or magistrate thought you had a chance to reform they found you guilty of stealing only a few of the things you'd taken, so you could be sent to the navy — or transported to a new land. The poor wretches transported for stealing a crust of bread make a good story, but those who were transported for stealing small things were probably guilty of much more and had been sentenced by a lenient magistrate to give them a second chance.

Once the First Fleet arrived, however, most of the criminals still didn't want to make an honest living. They preferred to steal instead of work. The marines sent with them sulked because they didn't get the alcohol that was part of their wages. They wouldn't even guard the convicts, police the colony, or act as magistrates. They saw themselves as only being there in case the French or ‘natives' attacked.

And then the
Guardian
, the ship bringing new supplies to the colony, was wrecked.

By the time this book begins, life in the colony was dirty, dangerous and hard.

Many people were also very hungry — unless, of course, they worked their gardens, like the Reverend Johnson, and had
lots of vegetables like corn and potatoes, or went fishing every second night like Surgeon White, or collected oysters or wild spinach.

There was lots of food if you knew where to find it — and members of the Indigenous nations around Sydney Town lived comfortably and were tall, strong and well muscled, unlike the usually puny and starved colonists. But as this book shows, life was soon a nightmare for the Indigenous people following the arrival of the English.

Did the colony starve?

It is important to see the ‘starvation' of the colony in context. The official rations weren't enough to enable anyone to do a full week's hard physical labour. But there was lots of wild food, fish and game (though that wasn't always plentiful), as well as oysters and wild green vegetables, like the warrigal spinach and cress that grew almost faster than it could be picked. (One warrigal spinach plant will cover three metres in two weeks of hot, moist weather. We grow it on our property — or rather, it grows itself.)

Each man in the colony was given tools and land on which to grow vegetables, but not the skills or knowledge to help them do this. Few bothered to try, and even fewer did it properly. The early ‘colonists' were, after all, thieves and criminals, often people who preferred an easy life of crime to working. The marines, too, reared as gentlemen, refused to dirty their hands in the garden, and were furious that they were not given the rations of meat, bread and particularly alcohol that were part of their wages. It is their angry letters home that form so much of our view of the colony's hunger.

The few in the colony who did die of hunger were either mad, like the man who saved three weeks of rations so he could walk to China, or had their rations stolen or cheated from them.

While there are many references to the hungry colony, there are also references to it being a healthy place to live. The wheat crops failed, but the corn/maize crops were excellent. Potato crops were disappointing, especially in dry weather, but fruit and nut trees and vines grew fast, as did vegetables like pumpkins and cabbages. At the most hungry time, the ration of fish was 4.5 kilos a week, more than enough protein even for a hard worker, with enough flour for a bread roll a day — plenty if you combined the rations with fresh corn and other vegetables and fruits.

In addition, most, or even all of the marines and officials, including Governor Phillip, had brought their own stocks of food and animals from the Cape of Good Hope. (This was a good thing as the colonists were sent from England with female sheep but no ram. As lambs were born it seems that one officer, at least, had the sense to buy a male sheep and bring it to the colony.)

There were hens, cows and goats. Most of the cows soon strayed, although the wild herds would be found again years later, but the goats remained — so many that they soon became a nuisance wandering into gardens. So there would have been milk and fresh goat's cheese, although little butter. As for any farming community of that time before fridges, cans and freezers, however, there were periods when certain foods weren't available — the hens didn't lay, the cow dried up, rain or drought spoilt the harvest.

Mostly the colony was hungry for familiar food — bread and potatoes — and the amazing amount of alcohol most people drank back then. Mothers even gave their children gin to stop them crying, and wine was given as a medicine to the sick. The absence of lots of alcohol was seen as an extraordinary deprivation.

The convicts had been given a generous allowance of new clothes on board the ships before leaving England. But as Maria observed, most of them wouldn't have been able to sew, even
though they had been given needles and thread to keep their garments mended. A hundred years later, all girls were taught to sew in village or ‘parochial' schools, to both mend and make their family's clothes. From then up till about 1970, most girls were taught at school how to make simple outfits, as well as how to knit jumpers and baby clothes. However, many of the women of the First, Second and Third Fleets may never have learnt how to use a needle and thread.

Alcoholism

Rum was both the currency and the comfort of the early colony, after Governor Phillip left. Enormous amounts were brewed and distilled illegally, or brought in and sold by the officers. Drunkenness was common back in England; it was even worse here. Crops like wheat and potatoes were often used for making alcohol instead of kept for food; family life in many cases didn't exist. It is difficult, today, to realise quite how much terror and social stagnation were due to alcoholism back then.

What happened next …

The tiny colony clinging to the edge of a great land became a town, then a city. More colonies were founded; new — free — settlers arrived; gold was found and even more people arrived. Then 101 years after Andrew White sailed for England, the land became one nation — Australia.

But that is the subject of some of my other books.

References

This book relies on the English accounts of those who wrote about the happenings at the time. The English almost certainly misunderstood much of what happened. Some were prejudiced; some were liars; at other times their accounts leave tantalising questions. But they were there.

These early accounts may all be hard to read at first, but as you get used to the old-fashioned way of writing, they are fascinating voices from another time.

 

Collins, David,
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, with Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, etc. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country
, Reed in association with the Royal Historical Society, Sydney, 1975 [first published 1798–1802].

Flinders, Matthew,
A Voyage to Terra Australis
, G & W Nicol, London, 1814, vol. 1.

Fowell, Newton,
Letter Received by John Fowell from Newton Fowell, 31 July 1790
, State Library of NSW, Mitchell Library, MLMSS 4895/1/21.

Howe, George (ed.),
The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser
, Sydney, 1803–1842.

Tench, Watkin,
A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales: Including an Accurate Description of the Colony; of the Natives; and of its Natural Productions
, G Nicol and J Sewell, London, 1793.

White, John,
Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales
, J Debrett, London, 1790.

Other great references

Australian Archaeological Survey Consultants Pty. Ltd.,
The Waverley Council Area: an Aboriginal Perspective: a Report to the Waverley Council
, The Council, Sydney, 1995.

Australian Dictionary of Biography
, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996.

Flood, Josephine,
Archaeology of the Dreamtime: the Story of Prehistoric Australia and its People
, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, rev. ed., 1995.

Harris, Alexander,
Settlers and Convicts, or, Recollections of Sixteen Years' Labour in the Australian Backwoods / by an Emigrant Mechanic
, Foreword by Manning Clark, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1964 [first published 1847].

Holden, Robert,
Orphans of History: the Forgotten Children of the First Fleet
, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2000.

Horton, David,
Aboriginal Australia: Wall Map
, Aboriginal Studies Press for AIATSIS, Canberra, rev. ed., 2000.

Horton, David (ed.),
The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History, Society and Culture
, Aboriginal Studies Press for AIATSIS, Canberra, 1994.

Tindale, Norman B.,
Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits and Proper Names
, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1974.

Nanberry: Black Brother White
wasn't an easy, or simple, book to write.

It began as the story of a possum, and the man — Surgeon White — who tried unsuccessfully to tame it. At that stage I had read all the early colonial diaries and letters, and thought I knew all the story to be found.

But as I wrote, more information arrived on my doorstep, a series of coincidences: the discovery of the transcript of Rachel's extraordinary trial, more letters rediscovered, another painting, lists of ship's crew and Charterhouse students. The book changed to a deeper one, with Rachel; and then another, that made Andrew White the hero, as I learned more about his life too. But slowly, gradually, yet another book emerged. It was Nanberry who was at the forefront now, the amazing child who not only survived ‘smallpox' and the death of his family but also the possible death of his entire people. The book changed, layer by layer.

As always, this book has been a team effort. When you are trying to reconstruct the past, working with often contradictory material and place names that have vanished — and in some cases the places vanished too — it is easy to get lost, especially when material comes from so many disparate places. Kate O'Donnell and Kate Burnitt worked with their invariable
meticulousness and insight, keeping every thread together; the vision of Liz Kemp and Lisa Berryman, as usual, helped me find the true heart of the book. Lisa is combination guardian, Godmother, sounding board and concept launcher for every historical novel I write.

I'd also like to give my great thanks to Steve Sheen, for his invaluable material on Andrew Douglass (Douglas) White, researched over many years; and for the unstinting generosity with which he shared it and allowed me to use it in this book. Many thanks as well to Hugh Grogan, for setting me on the right course to find the sappers of Waterloo, and — always — to Noël Pratt and Angela Marshall, not just for helping turn a mess of a manuscript into a book, but for their kindness, their depth and breadth of knowledge, and their dedication and insight, helping keep the balance and accuracy needed when writing about cultures that aren't my own. There are few friends like Angela who, when asked to read a manuscript, have the wide eclectic knowledge to send back a footnote: ‘By the way, Nanberry probably wasn't the one who sailed up the Shoalhaven.'

When you write about the past the problems are often the bits that you don't
know
that you don't know. (That sentence makes sense if you read it twice.) Angela's watchfulness has meant that the obsessive rummaging in the past that leads to these books is done by two, not one, and in this, as so many books, her help is beyond words of gratitude.

Jackie French
is a full-time writer and wombat negotiator. Jackie writes fiction and non-fiction for all ages, and has columns in the print media. Jackie is regarded as one of Australia's most popular children's authors. She writes across all genres — from picture books, humour and history to science fiction.